So, the campaign quotes a poll and states that it would make it hard for her to win, Then provides recent examples of things that might be perceived by people as dishonest or untrustworthy.

So I suppose you can call it harsh and negative, but it does not meet the definition of negativity based upon the bar set by the Clinton campaign.

There is not false or untrue, there is nothing that says she is unqualified for the job, there is nothing that says that she is dishonest or untrustworthy.

They talk about somebody who is perceived by the public to be that way. Which just happens to be true.

Kevin,
I'm not sure I agree with you about the right thinking that racism (at least against blacks) is still a problem. Generally when you listen to the right on this issue, it's mostly talking about reverse racism resulting from affirmative action and the media's refusal to critique African American candidates.

On a slightly different note, I was wondering whether you've had a change of heart with your Obama vote in the primary. I remember you writing that it was a tough, close decision for you, and now it seems that the tenor of your recent posts have been a bit harsher on Obama and defensive for Clinton. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, as current circumstances could lead you to that, but thought it would be interesting for you to discuss any change of heart if you've had one.

Yes there is such a story, Kevin. GOPers tell it all the time, whenever they quote for their own ends Martin Luther King's comments about character vs. color of skin.

Could have an entry here for worst post of the week, non-Amy Sullivan division.

Huh? This is astonishingly misinformed and naive. Conservatives go on all the time saying that racism is a thing of the past. I've heard/read Bennett and Buchanan and Sowell say it. That's one of their arguments against affirmative action, that because there are no more official bans on African-Americans using public facilities, there is no more racism, just blacks who rationalize their own failures as somehow due to the Man.

And Obama attacks Hillary! Why, after she had dropped out and conceded already? The nerve of the man!

As for the media focusing back in on the campaign, well, there is a big campaign going on right now.

Since Barack has already won, why do we keep talking about it? We should talk about something more important than the old politics of partisanship and instead should refocus our energy on more positive things like ending the scourge of racism which persists throughout this country. I don't expect you, as a typical white man, to understand how African Americans feel in this country, but I hope you can at least support a thoughtful discussion on race. Barack's speech on race was the MLK speech of our generation and we should spend time pondering its importance rather than spend more time endlessly bickering like Hillary wants us to.

Obama is a nice guy and very smart who, if he had not been for the past 20 years an ambitious politician trapped in the liberal cacoon and "black liberation" theology, might have made a great president.

On the "speech," he fumbled an opportunity to really change the race issue in our country. He should have admitted that his love and appreciation of Wright caused him to be blind to the profoundly misguided rhetoric of Wright, that he made a mistake, and that it was time for blacks, however difficult it might be in view of a history of injustice, to accept that the vast majority of whites have good hearts and are not biased against blacks.

Unfortunately, he refused to accept any responsibility for supporting Wright's profoundly misguided message and criticized white people in a way that appealled to liberals. The speech was not all bad, but it was misguided in his refusal to admit a mistake and his replaying past grievances and arguments instead of looking to the future. Obama probably could have made himself the next president with a great speech calling for blacks to abandon the hatred expressed by Wright; he could not do so. Instead, he made a [mis]calculated campaign speech. I realize it must be hard for candidates obsessed with electoral success to look beyond the calculations, but it was a rare opportunity where doing so would have produced fantastic results for the country.

In 1688, in Germantown, Philadelphia, the first formal declaration against slavery was documented (original at Haverford).

That's 320 years ago.

But now we claim it isn't really a racial problem that we have now, just an economical one (haves... have nots).

Then why do some still consider it a joke to show mousetraps with buckets of fried chicken with the caption ------ trap?

The "N" word is a vicious poison, still in use by far too many people, decent or otherwise.

Even the most hardcore conservatives don't generally pretend that racism is a thing of the past . . . .

Actually, if there's a real media myth about race, I'd say it's this peculiar suggestion that everyone thinks we've put race behind us. But no one thinks that.

Maybe the conservatives in Orange County are different than they are everywhere else, but I hear a pretty consistent strain from that segment of the population that race and racism are solely historical issues, not present issues.

I'm going to disagree mildly with Kevin, but first I have to point out that Brian at 1:11 is really full of shit. I didn't hear Obama "criticizing white people."

Alas, there are a number of people who think racism is safely in the past. I suspect a number of them are people who aren't particularly racist themselves and tend to be in denial.

Some years ago we had an ugly episode with a neighbor, which involved the word "n****r" being shouted, loudly, in the middle of the night. Other neighbors were sympathetic and supportive of Mrs. T and myself. Some time after that, Mrs. T experienced another, less blatant manifestation of racism. The same sympathetic neighbor who'd been a witness to the first episode said with a straight face, "Oh, come on. this is the 90's. We don't have racism anymore."

There are a lot of people out here who want to imagine that racism is history. But clearly, it isn't.

Kevin: You've made interesting points here but I think Ezra is in the right. I think there is a myth in this country that we've gotten beyond race. Bill O'Riley and other pundits talk about the need to be colorblind...how we are all the same. Of course, it's very easy for white people to talk like that. It's one of the most convenient outs that there is. I don't know if I'm departing with Ezra by saying this or not, but the fact is that if the US were a casino, White America is the House. White is considered normal. Everything else is considered other. 88% of the people on tv news are white men while 66% of the nation are made up of women, ethnic and racial minorities. 33% of the country is made up of minorities yet they own about 3% of commercial tv. The prison industrial complex is a term that has not only not been accepted in most American circles, but it hasn't even been talked about. And as E.J. Dionne points out in his most recent article, King has been unjustly and inaccurately santitized as part of a myth of the Civil Rights movement, ignoring the King that made connections between racism and classism and the existence of a system of American economic inequality so severe that it could be compared to a subtle Apartheid. I think you're right that people know there's something wrong with race in this country and don't know what to do about it. But where I don't agree with you is that people, white people that is, continue to act on it by putting themselves in denial. Better to do this than face the paralysis of guilt that comes with acknowledging undeserved privilege over other people based on skin color and culture. Any way, Ezra I think is right. The myth I learned in my elementary school is that King had a Dream and he won. The only part of that statement that in actuality is true is that King had a Dream. And there is no national conversation about making that Dream a reality. It only exists in mostly urban community theater projects and anti-racist workshops...but on the national level it does not exist. Katrina was an invitation for the conversation to take place and so was Obama's speech. So far the mainstream media has denied the invitation. There are of course creative solutions we should come up with on how to more maturely accept this invitation. But it should not be ignored that one of those solutions would be bravery on the part of reporters. Actual bravery.

As Kaiser Soze would say, "The greatest trick the devil has ever pulled

"First off, is there really a storybook version of civil rights that says we've overcome all our race problems in America?"

Yes.

"If there is, I haven't heard it."

Then you haven't been listening.

"Even the most hardcore conservatives don't generally pretend that racism is a thing of the past"

Yes, actually they do.

Come on, Kevin, you should know better than this.

If you've never heard it, then you haven't seen Larry Elder on CNN. Immediately after Obama's speech talking about how Tiger Woods is celebrated around the world and somehow that proves it's all good.

conservatives don't know shit about race. look at how many of them are saying Obama should've had a pastor more like MLK, instead of that firebrand Wright. they don't have a clue about the kinds of things MLK actually said - things that would make Wright look tame - and instead think of him as some kind of patient, non-threatening, it'll-all-work-out preacher man. they have this fairy-tale image of MLK and his words and think people today love the MLK of their imaginations. i guess that's easier to handle than knowing that people actually know and love the real MLK: a man who had no problem excoriating America when it failed to live up to its professed ideals.

"First off, is there really a storybook version of civil rights that says we've overcome all our race problems in America?"

"Even the most hardcore conservatives don't generally pretend that racism is a thing of the past"

http://www.amazon.com/End-Racism-Dinesh-DSouza/dp/0684825244

Brian: Other than Thersites' well-deserved comment back at you, your original comment had some good points.

Actually, if there's a real media myth about race, I'd say it's this peculiar suggestion that everyone thinks we've put race behind us. But no one thinks that.
Wow. From where I sit, the notion that legitimate racial injustice has by and large been addressed, and should be put behind us, is alive and thriving. This is, in fact, not only a pillar of conservative ideology, but of post Great Society white resentment in general. It is this sentiment, in other words, that drives the argument that further complaints and tensions regarding racial injustice are unwarranted, illegitimate, and really just a way of lobbying for "free ride". I agree that people don't think we've put race behind us, but they do think that the reason for this is that racial minorities are generally unreasonable about their current demands (and not because those demands reflect a reality still in need of further racial dialogue). Thus, we arrive at the curious notion that racism could be put behind us, if it weren't for those rabble rousing racial minorities....

Storytime with Tony Snow!

"Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory."

Storytime with the Wall Street Journal!

There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant.

Now we've all heard it.

brian: Unfortunately, he refused to accept any responsibility for supporting Wright's profoundly misguided message

“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy.”

“Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country –…”

“Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive,…”

“Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not.”

This word support, I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Conservatives are shocked and sometimes outraged that there are still angry black people in this country. Yet they seem to take the existence of angry old white men as natural and justified.

The noted Lutheran theologian Martin Marty pointed out on NPR that Wright's preaching is main stream black liberation theology, and is not hateful but fundamentally constructive in telling blacks and society at large to oppose racism by nonviolent means. Marty, who lives in Chicago, suggested anyone who felt Wright's out of context sound bytes are anti-American should take the opportunity to attend services at Trinity United and see for themselves.

C'mon Kevin. Did you check out the WSJ ed page and Limbaugh after the BO race speech? They greatly resented his implication that not all our Problems are Solved. For background, read the WSJ ed any Thanksgiving. Pure American Exceptionalism.

Kevin, I usually like your stuff. But you're a bit off base here. Having lived for 45 years out in the real heartland of America, I can testify that there are still plenty of folks who want to push the fiction that racism is almost completely a relic of history -- that the real problem now is reverse racism, ie blacks getting a free ride at the expense of whites.
Pointing out that The Race Beat won the Pulitzer doesn't help your argument; it was a history of the civil rights reporting, with a narrative that ends in the late 1960s.
And the New York Times' How Race is Lived series isn't quite the shining example of media concern about present-day racism that you suggest. It was mostly an exercise in reframing the issue. Read this piece below for an interesting take on the series:

How Race Is Lived in the Media
By Makani Themba-Nixon, AlterNet
Posted on July 25, 2000, Printed on March 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/9499/
When The New York Times launched its yearlong project, How Race Is Lived in America, there was great fanfare. There was so much hope and for some, dread. After all, how often does the country's "paper of record" take on the thorny, complex subject of race? Six weeks and more than a dozen front-page articles later, the series ended this month as a major disappointment. Abandoning investigative journalism for storytelling, the Times' race coverage was only skin deep. And as a result, it often trivialized racism as nothing more than personal relations.

Once The Times defined the terrain as personal and not political (as if we haven't learned anything from the women's movement), they missed an opportunity to become reporters on race and instead became ethnographers. By ignoring institutions, laws and systems that provide the context for race relations, they let these structures off the hook and relegated any evidence of racism to the subjective space between quotation marks.

To some, that was the most powerful aspect of the series: the way it afforded people of color to speak for themselves. An entire Sunday Magazine of personal memoirs. Editorial pages open to some of the "best and brightest" people of color in the nation. Black media mogul Robert L. Johnson got to wax poetic about being mistaken for a working class black man, one time as a stable hand on his own ranch and another time as a chauffeur at a Four Seasons Hotel. Beverly Daniel Tatum and Loretta Sanchez did, in a rare opportunity, bring out important points on institutional racism and its impact and, of course, corporate media's favorite race man, Ward Connerly, got to assert the right to claim his Irishness. (Of course, there are large numbers of African Americans who would gladly relinquish all claims to Mr. Connerly in favor of any that the Irish might stake, but I digress.)

Yet, the most powerful aspects of the series were those it didn't cover. The Times did not turn up much on white privilege, very little on hate crimes, and even less on historical factors that contribute to present day race relations. In fact, in 11 of 14 articles (not counting the memoir pieces in The New York Times Magazine), whites were portrayed as victims of racism. And by "portrayed" I mean the story took place outside the quotation marks. It was relayed as fact.

And whites weren't just portrayed as victims of personal bias but of rules, policies or practices implemented by people of color in bureaucratic roles. A story on advancement in the armed services (June 7, 2000), a Houston mayoral race (July 13, 2000), a white quarterback at a historically black university (July 2, 2000), and conflict over the legacy of a Louisiana plantation (June 22, 2000) were among the articles that portrayed whites having to overcome challenges due to unfair or insensitive practices on the part of African Americans in power.

Racism directed at people of color was, by contrast, cast as problems of personal attitudes and bias. In more than a dozen vignettes on race relations and their impact, little attention was paid to the larger factors that shaped the lives of people of color as they "lived race." The July 16th edition of The New York Times Sunday Magazine that ended the series was chock full of personal memoirs, touching stories and moving testimonies from friends who maintain their love "across the divide." In nearly every piece, racism was a mere obstacle, an inconvenience to be transcended by the colored strong and good. Those who paid attention to race were "racists," stuck in a dysfunctional past. Those who claimed to ignore race were cast as high minded, colorblind. It all fit neatly within The Times "race is personal" framework.

In this odd Times' parallel world, only African Americans hurt others because of their race; and a white man, Werner Sollors, is considered racially "outnumbered" as a professor at Harvard (he teaches in the Afro-American Studies Department). A gawking, wide-eyed q&a with former Urban League President Vernon Jordan found fourteen ways to ask 'how does it feel to be black and hang out with a bunch of rich white guys?' Perhaps this, the most telling piece of the series, speaks volumes about how race and class are conceptualized -- at least at The Times.

The focus on individual stories also meant that not a single advocacy organization, independent piece of data, or researcher was quoted in the series. As it has been the trend with the Times and other mainstream media outlets, those that have studied and tracked these issues for decades were simply ignored. As a result, How Race Is Lived In America managed, in some cases, to reinforce some old racial stereotypes and avoid presenting anything new. A particularly disturbing piece, Why Harlem Drug Cops Don't Discuss Race (July 9, 2000), featured plenty of Dominican bashing. One lone Dominican-born officer was quoted fending for his country of birth. Another article on the racial dynamics of a southern slaughterhouse played up fears of immigration in a vignette of a white man losing out on a roofing job when a contractor chose to hire "cheaper" Mexican immigrants instead. In each case, The Times missed the opportunity to provide a deeper analysis of the real trends unfolding, analysis a paper with its considerable research and data resources could've certainly mustered.

"In the very tangle of experiences, rendered in these individual voices -- lies the most naked picture of ourselves," writes the series editors in its closing segment. How Race Is Lived In America was indeed both a tangled and poignant portrait of race; one that left us little hope and even less understanding. That may be because race can not be captured as series of portraits. It must be painted as a landscape so we can begin to understand how we fit within it.

Now the series is over and folk are already betting on it for a Pulitzer Prize. Given the Pulitzer's bias toward big papers and sappy, emotional reporting, the bet is (unfortunately) likely to pay off. For all those reporters at ethnic papers, alternative papers and a few mainstream ones that really cover race -- the papers that the Pulitzer committees almost never see -- it must seem like a real slap in the face.

And it will likely get worse. If the prestigious New York Times perched in the multicultural Big Apple missed the story, what can we expect from the dozens of copycat pieces sure to follow? We can only hope they find their own way. That they drop the typical approach to race as opinion and personal testimony and be reporters. Really reporting on race requires that we ask questions, step out of the white box of privilege and dig beyond the obvious.

Perhaps our best hope for now is that The Times series will inspire others -- to show them how it's done.

Makani Themba writes on issues of race, media and policy at the Applied Research Center. Her latest book is Making Policy Making Change.

I don't think curiosity is a great excuse- what's meant to be private should remain private, no matter what dipshit or undisciplined inividual infortuitiously gets sat down in front of the wrong computer monitor.

Send those guys back to working at Chucky Cheese, where they belong.

There is a myth with many people that this problem is over. Its not. And its not over on both sides of the racial divide. Thats how the Clintons get accused of racism for even daring to mention the name of Jesse Jackson in the same sentence with Obama. Thats how Obama himself gets into trouble with the "typical white person" comment he made. Its not easy for EITHER race to talk about this without some idiot stopping the whole discussion with accusations of racism, be that person black or white. I hope the trouble Obama got into with his comment makes people realize that maybe the accusations against the Clintons that they are racist is also BS?

There is another issue. The Obama campaign itself has not known how to handle this issue except to try and trip up the Clintons. At times, his supporters are adamant that his success is unrelated to race, and even though it would be wonderful to have the first black president we dont want to mention he is maybe going to be the first black president, just mention that he is smart and articulate. Then people like John Kerry and others widely talk about how wonderful it is to have a serious black candidate who can help heal our wounds and as a black man he can do that. Regardless of the merits of the argument it is a weird time indeed where we are stepping all over ourselves on this issue and getting nowhere except to accuse each other of being racist. If that doesnt reveal that the problem is not in any way shape or form over or solved....

Whoops, I meant that comment for the above post. Sorry.

lampwick: Conservatives go on all the time saying that racism is a thing of the past. I've heard/read Bennett and Buchanan and Sowell say it.

Sowell ought to know. My own experience as a manager 35 years ago is that I was expected to keep an underqualified black person on my staff. Fifteen years ago I was chewed out by my boss for failing to hire a black person for an opening I had. (In fact, there were no black applicants.) OTOH no oemployer has ever suggested that I should treat people of color worse on account of their race.

It's possible that many white people may have racist feelings, but the number of racist actions is way down, at least in the areas where I have lived and worked.

The question is how do we define racism. Very few middle class and elite whites are going to even whisper the kind of ugly racist comments I often encountered in my youth. Most whites genuinely believe they are beyond racism.

The problem is that modern conservative theory allows conservatives to selfishly disregard the needs of their fellow Americans regardless of race, color or creed. That has lead to policies intended to help the elite at the deliberate expense of the folk in the lower and middle classes. The effect of these modern American elite centered policies is indistinguishable from kind of overt racism most whites now deny. What modern American conservatives are engaged in is really class warfare, and they are winning. Since many of their "enemy" are poor blacks they think they are experiencing old time racism. What they don't understand is that the conservative American elite are perfectly willing to exploit poor whites with just as much gusto as they exploit poor blacks and Hispanics. They do it every day.

It's back to the campaign, which today features "one of its harshest, most negative attacks yet" on Hillary Clinton
-----------------

Ah, that new style of CHANGE and HOPE politics that Obama represents. So refreshing.

Agreed Dood. The noise coming from the Obama campaign and the great orange is enough to think you were at Junkanoo.

I am thinking that the youngsters have broken into their Easter baskets early and are all on a special sugar high today. Now all we have to do is wait until this afternoon when their ADHD meds wear off.

Ron Byers, your argument isn't without merit. But when people come up and say "n****r-lover" to your face, or walk up to Asians at the mall and slant their eyes and go "ching-chong me love you long time," that sort of demonstrates that the ugly old-time racism isn't all in the past, either.

e henry

When I said "Unfortunately, he refused to accept any responsibility for supporting Wright's profoundly misguided message," I did not mean that he had affirmatively supported specific statements by Wright, but that he obviously had been a big supporter of Wright and the church and he had been blind to the misguided message (supposedly Oprah left the church due to concern about it). But more specifically, I guess that I should have stated that Obama should have accepted responsibility for not objecting to the misguided "controversial" statements and implicitly supporting them by financial contributions and church membership. It is hard to understand how he did not object to some of the "controversial" statements he heard and/or knew about. Obama has not been forthcoming on what he actually heard or why he originally said he did not consider the church particularly controversial - I assume because he did hear bad stuff.

thersites,

I thought that Obama criticized white people with his comments about the Reagan coalition and also his comment about his grandmother, which implicitly criticized whites for being concerned if they come upon blacks on the street. I suppose it is his business if he wants to criticize his own grandmother, although a tactical mistake and apparently a mischaracterization of what actually happened - in his book, he said that she was upset after being accosted by a black guy at a bus stop. I think there were other other specifics of his speech that could be considered criticism of white people, but I don't remember them; it certainly focused on the historical bad treatment of blacks by whites (which, of course, is true, but the issue is what he should have talked about). Also, he drew some moral equivalence between Wright's public hate speech and his grandmother's private modest statements, which was not warrented.

Anyway, I think an approach of calling for blacks to let go of their justified feelings of victimhood and trust the good hearts of whites would have been a much more important and helpful speech.

So Klein says:

"And it's a tremendous indictment of our media that, given an opportunity, to push forward on that discussion, they made an affirmative decision to focus back in on the campaign."

The only reason the reason Obama even brought it up in the first place was because Obama's campaign was in trouble. It wasn't a speech about race. It was a speech to save his campaign.

Did you actually say, Obama is keeping the focus on race. That could be the stupidest line since, we will be greeted as liberators.

Hillary talked up race. And the media is now trying to anger the great white masses. Obama did nothing but give a great speech. Which the media ignored to fire up the angry white mobs.

Be careful, you are close to jumping the shark.

NYT yesterday:

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a mostly white evangelical church of about 12,000 in Central Florida, described Mr. Obama’s speech, in which the Democratic presidential candidate discussed his relationship with the former pastor of his home church in Chicago, as a kind of “Rorschach inkblot test” for the nation.

“It calls out of you what is already in you,” Dr. Hunter said.

One last point about the lost opportunity aspect of the speech. Rassmussen has a poll that indicates only 45% of whites thought it was a good or execellent speech and even only 67% of all democrats (with 86% of blacks included).

Overall, only 51% of people thought the speech was good or excllent and only 30% thought it was a racially unifying speech.

The liberal MSM swooned over the speech, but it appears that it did not similarly resonate with people in general and, as time passes, I assume the view of it is likely to go down. Fair or unfair, the "threw grandma under the bus" assessment is taking hold and it was compounded by Obama calling his grandma a "typical white" yesterday.

And Barack Obama, the guy at the center of that campaign, can easily keep race front and center if he chooses to. If he does, the media will follow.

Bullshit. The media has a very strong interest in making this about all about race -- and gender. They are not going to let go of it. They have a strong interest in seeing Obama go down at the hands of white racists in Ohio and Pennsylvania, watch Hillary steal the nomination, and then watch her go down to a senile, angry, lying old man.

The MSM think far less of Americans than Obama does. They are way out in front of this so-called race backlash. They are pushing the story, not covering it.

Sure, there are lots of folks who oppose Obama for sound reasons. But, there are lots of white (and latino) racists out there also -- both men and women -- who will not vote for him regardless what he says or does. But there is absolutely no interest in the MSM in differentiating between the two groups.

Thanks for pointing out that Barack could tell us our next steps towards a real discussion on race, but didn't. My main complaint regarding Obama's campaign is just this sort of action - give a speech that sounds good, but offer little in substance on how we get to the point he is discussing. Of course, if he did bring discussions on race to the forefront - it would overshadow his campaign or bring it to a standstill.

On the Diane Rehm Show this morning, I heard the "racist" Clarence Page say that:

a) at the beginning of the campaign it was the African American's who were skeptical of Clinton
b) there are many white americans absolutely eager to vote for Obama to help convince themselves they are post-racial.

Regarding, a) it doesn't seem to be such a sin to address issues of Obama's "authenticity", unless you are not an African American.

Regarding b) it almost seems as though Obama is lucky to be an African American in this particular 2008 race for the President.

We currently hear that Obama is going to launch some sort of character gap negative campaign against Hillary. Surely it is true that a post-politics, positive campaigning only Messiah would never do that.

Kevin, the civil rights as historical fairytale idea is certainly alive and well. I've taught an intro American Studies class on and off over the past 5 years that deals with race in American culture, and getting students past the idea that the 1963 March on Washington magically fixed everything is always a huge, huge effort.

Part of the problem is that people have a kind of "Afterschool special" idea of racism as simply bad feelings that bad people have, the kind of thing that gets fixed at the end of the show when the token nice black character finds the missing shoes that the angry white character only thought had been stolen, or saves his life, or whatever.

There's alot that contributes to this: the idea that progress is something that just happens in America, the success of a few high profile African American entertainers and other celebrities, the end of legal segregation and the relative success in making outright racist sentiment no longer a public virtue. these are all, to some degree, success of a civil rights movement which most students think just quietly disbanded because everything it set out to do had been accomplished.

Because much of the racism that still exists in our society is structural, is written into the landscapes of our cities and our school funding formulas, it's invisible to people, especially people who have been raised on the mythic power of "personal responsibility" which the right has been pushing forward for the last 3 decades as a code for dismantling the federal public sphere.

In this atmosphere, anyone who raises these kinds of issues is easily filed as cranks or whiners or opportunists or stuck in the past. and, given the fact that white folks have problems too, it's easy for many well meaning and well intentioned people to resent any attmpts to redress these structural problems and the generational and economic networks that they travel through.

As you say, there have been high profile newspaper stories regarding continued racism and racial problems in the US, but to paraphrase Patricia Yaeger, people can easily refuse to "think what they know," and fall back on the ideology of progress and personal responsibility.*

this has been part of the line that Obama's had to walk. he has to some extent benefited from a desire to undo this cognitive dissonance, to work towards a racially unified future without having to face up to uncomfortable feelings about the past and present. He's been, up until now, the black candidate who didn't make anyone feel bad about being white, enough so that it's made it harder for me to work up too much enthusiasm for him.

His speech on race helped convince me that he's offering medicine, even if it's cherry flavored, and not just Kool Aid. Having the courage to remind us that there are still structural racial inequalities in the US, (which hurt both white and black folks, tho in different ways) and the intelligence to deliver that message in such a way that anyone willing to embrace it can, that's a rare thing in a political speech. It's much larger than the horse race that the pundits have conveniently moved back to, and i'm convinced that whatever happens on this campaign, that speech will be taught in university classrooms in the next decade.

*I'M NOT SAYING THAT YOU DON'T NEED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY-JUST SAYING THAT FOR MANY PEOPLE IN MANY SITUAITONS IN AMERICA IT'S NOT ENOUGH. sorry to shout.

brian: trust the good hearts of whites
See my post of 3:11. Lots of "whites" have good hearts. Lots don't. I don't trust "the good hearts of" any group as a whole.

But here's the problem. Obama talks about some peoples' actions, and you say "he's criticizing whites." Now if I complain about the black people that have given me shit, (and, yes, that's happened) are you going to say "he's criticizing blacks?" Or are you going to say "he's complaining about these few people. BTW, they were black." There's a difference. You need to notice that.

Urk: *I'M NOT SAYING THAT YOU DON'T NEED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY-JUST SAYING THAT FOR MANY PEOPLE IN MANY SITUATIONS IN AMERICA IT'S NOT ENOUGH.
Very well said. (Removing fingers from ears.) ;)

that was me at 4:34. Why doesn't this site protect me from my own stupidity anymore?

Thersites,
Its friday afternoon, you can take your meds now. Might want to double dose, considering all the brain issues you've had this week.
Hope the easter bunny brings you lots of chocolate.

Optical Weenie, are you seriously going to suggest that people don't behave in the manner Thersites is describing?

Fucking. Moron.

Soullite, Thersites and Optical Weenie are friends. That was playful banter, not hateful invective.

There's something wrong with Obama's campaign "going negative?" Aren't the Clinton's trying to persuade superdelegates that she is more electable than Obama? He should just play nice about that? I don't think so. The Clintons need to show they can handle some of their own medicine. They've certainly been handing it out.

Soullite, what Blue Girl said is true. Weenie's just having fun.

Jeepers, I can't look away one minute, can I? Now gimme my damn meds!

Now gimme my damn meds!

Here is a second dose of kitties.

aaahhhh
Just a spoonful of kitties helps the medicine go down...

This whole thing is not about race anyway--it's about Obama, who the country still does not know.

As for history/story and race--a majority of white people think it is something in the past, according to lots of studies-- the country doesn't want to talk about it--and neither does Obama.

Sign your comments and let "by:on"s be bygones.

(1) Obama says nothing about how to address the frustrations of white people about race that he mentioned in his speech; (2) his measures focused on crime are included among his measures to address race; (3) there is nothing with respect to current controversies over affirmative action and declining numbers of minority youth at the college level, especially males. Mary

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the three issues Obama overlooked. Without mentioning either candidate, what say you? How do we deal with the frustrations of white people? How do deal with the fact that blacks are imprisoned in inordinate numbers? How do you address the controversies over affirmative action and declining numbers of minority males (as well as white males) in college?

I have always liked your ideas, but you lose me when you invariably vier off to trash Obama. Frankly, I am bored with the campaign right now. I really want to talk about this most serious of issues.

Sign your comments and let "by:on"s be bygones.

Excellent! I love that one.

Clinton earned the right to run this year but Obama apparently decided that experience is irrelevant and heck, she's only a girl, so why not give it a shot. That stinks.

And that one was almost as funny as jerry's! Y'all are on fire today.

Tom Nicholson:
The "N" word is a vicious poison, still in use by far too many people, decent or otherwise.

I hear it used far more by blacks, at least in public.

Urk:
Because much of the racism that still exists in our society is structural, is written into the landscapes of our cities and our school funding formulas, it's invisible to people, especially people who have been raised on the mythic power of "personal responsibility"

Care to give specific examples? What the heck is the "landscape of our cities?"

What the heck is the "landscape of our cities?"

In my city it is pretty easy to discern. The dividing-line in KC is Troost Avenue. White people don't live east of Troost. Driving down Troost, there are diametrically opposed landscapes, depending on if you look to the east or the west.

"However, Obama nevertheless has problems accepting responsibility for his own actions"

Really? Which actions are those? And what is your evidence that Obama has refused to accept responsibility for them?

"He also wishes to evade personal responsibility for his choices"

Really? Which choices are those? And what is your evidence that Obama has refused to accept responsibility for them?

"something I believe happens too frequently when whites lean over backwards to avoid blaming black people for anything they do wrong."

Really? Which white and black people are you referring to? And, in Obama's case, what has he done wrong?

"It is ALL the legacy of slavery and never personal failure."

Really? When did Obama say this? Use his specific words, please, not your "interpretation".

"I can understand how Obama might have arrived at such a place"

Dear heart, since you have totally made up this "place" that Obama has supposed to have "arrived at," forgive us if we ignore this latest silliness from you.

By the way, do you realize just how revealing those above comments are about yourself? I suggest you read them again and look in the mirror. I doubt you'll like what you see.

"but I am tired of having a president who does not accept responsibility for what he does."

Really? What has Obama failed to accept responsibility for?

"Obama can blame Clinton or racism or whatever he wants for his place in the polls"

Dear heart, he's winning. Deal with it.

"but he is simply not ready to be president because he lacks experience"

a) There is no correlation, none, between "experience" and performance as President. One of our most "experienced" presidents was Richard Nixon. One of our least "experienced" presidents was Bill Clinton.

b) He's as experienced as Hillary in all the ways that matter.

c) I take it you'll be voting for McCain in the fall, since he's the most "experienced"?

"Clinton earned the right to run this year"

No, dear, she didn't. Nobody ever has to "earn" the right to run for President. In any case, Hillary is where she is because of who she married. Deal with it. That, of course, does not make her an unqualified candidate, but it sure shows the silliness of your view.

"but Obama apparently decided that experience is irrelevant"

With good reason, since the only "experience" that counts when it comes to being President of the United States is ... being President of the United States. Hillary is no more "experienced" than is Obama and it's pretty damn silly of you to pretend otherwise. Hell, if "experience" were the criteria, we'd be celebrating the nomination of Richardson.

"and heck, she's only a girl, so why not give it a shot. That stinks."

ROFLMAO.... Dear heart, not only are you making shit up again, but:

a) Obama was not the only one who decided to run against Hillary.

b) There are few rules, written or otherwise, about who gets to run for President. Pretty much just age and citizenship.

c) The voters decide, dear, not you, not the Clintons, not the powers-that-be. Hillary has failed to persuade the voters that she is the best choice. You have a problem? Take it up with the voters, not Obama. Even for you, this was a pathetic post.

For the love of God. I have to listen at work to people talking all day about how blacks have it so much easier than white people because of affirmative action. That everything is handed to black people while those poor working class white kids hardly have a fighting chance anymore. I hear this EVERY DAY. And, yes, I argue back about the subtle effects of discrimination, the negative cultural influences that reduce expectations, etc. etc. etc.. But I'm the wide eyed liberal so whatever. The clear assumption is that blacks just "can't get it together" and everyone else is being punished for it.

And yet you think society is still concerned about black people? Sure some people are, but many many many americans think the "racial problem" in our country is that there are a bunch of black people here who by nature are violent and dumb and are a weight on our society. I'm sure in your enclave of California everyone is very concerned rectifying racial injustices, and that's great, but out here (in my case, North Carolina) it's rough.

Lee

You are half right. The truth is poor kids, hell, middle class kids, of every color don't have much of a chance anymore. Selfish and shortsighted Republican policies are sucking the opportunity out of this country. The tragedy is that they seem able to convince the blacks that the problem is white racism and to convince whites that the problem is black affirmative action. If more lower class and middle class whites realized that they have more in common with lower class and middle class blacks and Hispanics than they have been told by the mighty Wurlitzer and their allies in the mainstream media Republicans would never win another election.

Maybe that is where any serious discussion on race in America should start?

Kevin, I love the blog, but I think that its odd that you critique Obama for not stating "what we ought to do about [race]." Obama explicitly called for Americans to change the way they think about race issues, and to rise above pettiness and victimhood. This a huge step, and a change in the national mindset must preclude any specific legislative fixes. You ask for the "next steps," but he gave them to us already. I'm not sure what more you could want for a candidate at this stage in process.

How is he lagging behind Clinton or the Republicans in this area? Can you point to her list of "next steps?"

I don't mean to sound harsh, and I value your blog as a sensible check on my Obamamania, but I think you missed the mark here.

Kevin, I love the blog, but I think that its odd that you critique Obama for not stating "what we ought to do about [race]." Obama explicitly called for Americans to change the way they think about race issues, and to rise above pettiness and victimhood. This a huge step, and a change in the national mindset must preclude any specific legislative fixes. You ask for the "next steps," but he gave them to us already. I'm not sure what more you could want for a candidate at this stage in process.

How is he lagging behind Clinton or the Republicans in this area? Can you point to her list of "next steps?"

I don't mean to sound harsh, and I value your blog as a sensible check on my Obamamania, but I think you missed the mark here.

I am so glad to hear everybody jumping Kevin's shit on this! I have lived in 5 states in the southwest, west, and midwest so my exposure is broad.

In my misguided youth I was an active member of Teenage Republicans -- a party I could only belong to because I believed that civil rights had been all taken care of. Right to vote? Check! Civil Rights Act? Check! So everybody's cool now, right?

I lived in Goldwater territory then (except this was the 80s) and it was definitely asserted that not only was racism dead, but now white people/men were being actively discriminated against. This idea wasn't one I came up with on my own -- it was taught to me through my family, schools, and political environment.

How do we deal with the….declining numbers of minority males (as well as white males) in college? - Ron Byers at 7:46 pm

Good point! Lots of young men of all races are hurting in this country right now.

When Obama said that his grandmother was a typical white person who worried about blacks she met on the street, I thought about my own experiences. I am a retired white woman who walks by myself a lot in my neighborhood. I am always uneasy when I meet young men of any race. My neighborhood has become gentrified in the last few years, but it still attracts panhandlers and young men on meth. So, I have to size up every young man I meet walking on the streets during regular school and work hours. Just this week, I met a young man with a bandana pulled up over his face. (I later saw on the news that the Anarchists had disrupted an anti-war march. They always wear bandanas and that is probably where that young man came from.)

But, my point is that there lots of young men who are lost in our society right now and the issue is not being addressed by anyone.

PBS had a wonderful documentary about the plight of boys in our country called, Raising Cain. One statistic that I remembered is that 40% of boys live in constant fear of being hurt by bullies, gangs, abusive parents, etc.

There are some wonderful comments about this program at Aamazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Exploring-Inner-Americas/dp/B000CPHAB0

On March 21, 2008 at 2:03 PM, ex-liberal wrote:

Sowell ought to know. My own experience as a manager 35 years ago is that I was expected to keep an underqualified black person on my staff. Fifteen years ago I was chewed out by my boss for failing to hire a black person for an opening I had. (In fact, there were no black applicants.) OTOH no oemployer has ever suggested that I should treat people of color worse on account of their race.

It's possible that many white people may have racist feelings, but the number of racist actions is way down, at least in the areas where I have lived and worked.

and on March 21, 2008 at 9:07 PM, Lee wrote:

For the love of God. I have to listen at work to people talking all day about how blacks have it so much easier than white people because of affirmative action. That everything is handed to black people while those poor working class white kids hardly have a fighting chance anymore. I hear this EVERY DAY. And, yes, I argue back about the subtle effects of discrimination, the negative cultural influences that reduce expectations, etc. etc. etc.. But I'm the wide eyed liberal so whatever. The clear assumption is that blacks just "can't get it together" and everyone else is being punished for it.

And yet you think society is still concerned about black people? Sure some people are, but many many many americans think the "racial problem" in our country is that there are a bunch of black people here who by nature are violent and dumb and are a weight on our society. I'm sure in your enclave of California everyone is very concerned rectifying racial injustices, and that's great, but out here (in my case, North Carolina) it's rough.

A couple of points.

ex-liberal: I've also had to deal with several underqualified people on my staff who happened to be black. Your second paragraph seems to imply that that experience supports your conclusion that racism has declined in your area (which perhaps it has--I'm in no position to know about that, obviously). While I can't speak for your situation, I can tell you that in the cases I observed, the retention of unqualified people seems (in at least one case I know well) to arise from timidity on the part of management. The source of that timidity seems to be uncertainty on the part of upper level management as to the nature of the social and legal landscape now that societal rules regarding race have changed.

At the risk of seeming self-righteous, I have to say that I've long found this managerial uncertainty peculiar because I don't feel it myself. I've never felt defensive about or apologetic for my feelings, thoughts and actions in re race because I was raised by parents who were fierce in their opposition to racism and their support for civil rights. I've had a lot of conflict with racists over the years because I've always been totally intolerant of their intolerance. But I know that my upbringing was definitely not the norm. I've certainly had a number of experiences like those described by Lee (at 9:07PM, above). I've also heard some upper level managers and coworkers express attitudes about other social groups (women, for one) and fondness for such fonts of negativity as Howard Stern, which suggests to me that perhaps their mean-spirited attitudes extend toward black people as well. Perhaps that's the source (or at least one important source) for the timidity I see.

My overall point is this: the presence or absence of underqualified black people on the job may be indicative of the managerial timidity I've described above. It may, in the manner that I've briefly sketched, be due to uncertainty among managers about their own racial attitudes. (Then again, it may not--after all, I'm engaging in an exercise in long-distance psychologizing using a methodology that might be �ahem� somewhat open to question.) But it seems to me that one thing your example does NOT do is support the conclusion that racism has declined. (And again, it may have--I just don't see how your example strengthens or weakens that claim.)

Lee: The situation and arguments you describe are very familiar to me--although happily, I can say I haven�t encountered them for a while. And I have to admit that having been exposed to that sort of thing repeatedly, I always expect to find those kinds of attitudes poking out from under the bed whenever conservative claims that racism no longer exists (something I've also encountered a number of times) are subjected to serious scrutiny.

Kevin: I love your blog & read it often. However, because of the sorts of things I (and obviously, others) have experienced in re racism, I have to say that I'm disappointed by your claims in this thread. I'm with Urk (March 21, 2008 at 4:10 PM) on this one.

All you have to do is read the liberal blogs and you can smell how desperate things have become. The politics of hope just went into the sewer of desperation...attack..attack...attack

I just wanted to throw in one more thing.

My father was born in 1907 and, like many white people of his generation internalized a lot of racist attitudes that I'm not sure he ever got over entirely. But at the same time:
- when a black family bought a house our middle-class neighborhood, he refused to join up with the "committee" of neighbors that tried to keep them out
- when he became hiring manager at the factory where he worked (in a town with a substantial black population) he aggressively recruited black employees, long before it was mandated by law
- he would not tolerate the word n****r, at home or in the workplace
- when I married a woman one of whose parents was black, he accepted her entirely and without reservation.

The point (besides my being damn proud of him) is that we humans are capable of overcoming our innate prejudices. But as in a 12-step program, the first step toward healing is to acknowledge that the problem exists.

"Urk:
Because much of the racism that still exists in our society is structural, is written into the landscapes of our cities and our school funding formulas, it's invisible to people, especially people who have been raised on the mythic power of "personal responsibility"

Care to give specific examples? What the heck is the "landscape of our cities?"

Well, I have to ask: where the heck do you live? What BGRS said about KC is a good example, although what i mean by structural is that the segregated landscapes in most American cities didn't just happen like that. In the south they were shaped by the return of landholdings to wealthy ex-confederates after reconstruction & the move to the sharecropping economy that kept the black workforce in debt to the planters. Jim Crow laws allowed political and economic elites to literally decide where the black and white neighborhoods were going to be. Schools were separate and unequal, black voters were systematically disenfranchised, and social control was enforced by the threat of lynching. I assume you know some of this at least.

The De Facto segregated cities in the North were shaped by public (city/state and federal) policy, banking and real estate policy (redlining, restricted covenants) and their borders were often enforced by violence and domestic terrorism.

In Chicgao for instance, where over the ocurse of the early to mid 20th century a bunch of black folks moved to get away form the south, the city housing authority didn't build any public housing outside of what were already black neighborhoods from 1937 until 1966 when a lawsuit forced the federal government (which had originally enforced segregtion due to a "neighborhood composition rule" took over the agency. The Robert Taylor Homes, (ironically named for a local activist who quit the board in 1950 over the issue of segregated public housing) were built to hold 11,000 people & at one time held 27,000. Black families who could afford to move into the white sections of town were sometimes driven out by violence.

there's alot of history here that i don't have the time to do justice too, but suffice to say: it's no accident that most modern urban landscapes in the US are highly segregated & that the historically "black" sections are also the poor historically sections. Look up "redlining" and "restricted covenants" if you want to understand more of the policies that built these environments. the fact that these policies (mostly) don't exist today is largely immaterial: The environments that they shaped are still with us & they set the conditions that several generations of people have been and are still being born into. Here's a couple of links:
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/253.html

It's funny that some of us on this thread seem to be interested in the general problems of race and the media's perception of race, and others just can't seem to get past bashing one candidate or the other. Sad. I said niced things about Obama earlier, so let me say that i do think, based on their overall lives and not jsut this campaign, and especially their reputations in Arkansas, that Bill and Hillary do knwo and care about race in America.

but the problems are much bigger than any candidate, even given the grasp of the situation that i think Obama manage to tie up in his speech.

anyway, someone earlier really siad it simply and beautifully:

"I agree that people don't think we've put race behind us, but they do think that the reason for this is that racial minorities are generally unreasonable about their current demands (and not because those demands reflect a reality still in need of further racial dialogue). Thus, we arrive at the curious notion that racism could be put behind us, if it weren't for those rabble rousing racial minorities...."
Posted by: Simplicissimus on March 21, 2008 at 1:29 PM

I wish I agreed with you. But I have too many 55-70year old acquaintances who say with a completely straight face that racism is over in america. And they mean it. They're not hyper-religious, they don't think Bush is the 2nd coming, they don't have any excuse I can think of to think this, other than they're middle-class white repubs, and they want to believe that racism is over. So they do.

Racism is merely a subset of groupism such as is exhibited by sports fans, for ex., or families.

We should tabooize loyalties to sports teams and insist that all sports be non-competitive and that fans cheer equally for all "cooperators" participating, such as is done in PC schools to maintain self-esteems among all the cooperators in a sports event.

Kevin, read Bill Kristol today. Someone, at least, thinks that race isn't really an issue.

Ok, ok...so maybe he thinks that it will help the Republican Party's electoral prospects to say that race isn't an issue anymore, but I don't see a big difference between the two.

Earth to Luther.
Even here in Boston, we don't like Yankees fans. But nobody ever lynched one.

Race is not a sports team.

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