The Ways Republicans Talk About Race: ‘The scandal surrounding Trent Lott is not about a poor choice of words at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond. It’s about the political choices Republicans made in the 1960’s to “go hunting where the ducks are”— code language for winning over white segregationists who abandoned the Democratic Party in the South. It’s about continuing to benefit from racial prejudice through subtle and not-so-subtle sound bites that play to the Republican Party’s far-right base. It’s about the choice today to deny that the party is as much the party of Thurmond as it is the party of Lincoln.’ NY Times op-ed