Political Animal
Blog
I’ve just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ remarkable, sweeping, eloquent article in the Atlantic about Barack Obama and American race relations. I need to read it again, and maybe a third time, to fully absorb it. But suffice it to say that Coates has firmly identified the central dilemma of Barack Obama’s political career from the perspective of virtually all Americans of every background: he cannot escape being the First Black President, and for that reason, is imprisoned by racial perspectives which, ironically, inhibit him from doing much of anything to address the continuing racial tensions that afflict us.
That Obama is being held to a higher standard of “color-blindness” than any past president becomes obvious through Coates’ eyes as he examines the constant pressures he has endured to avoid any word or deed that would undermine his legitimacy as president of “all the people.” It certainly hasn’t taken much for Obama to occasionally fail that test in the eyes of his detractors, as Coates amply illustrates in his account of how Obama’s purely human reaction to Trayvon Martin’s death inadvertently politicized the incident and was used to excuse the expression of raw and primitive racial stereotypes of the kind his election had supposedly made obsolete.
I’ll probably have more to say about Coates’ essay down the road, but for the moment, I’d like to draw attention to Jamelle Bouie’s comment on it at TAP, expressing his incredulity that it’s a bit risky to suggest that perhaps some critics of Obama are motivated by or are trying to benefit from racial hostility to Obama and the people he inherently represents:
I’m honestly amazed that—for many people—it’s beyond the pale to accuse a political party of exploiting racism for political gain. We’re only 47 years removed from the official end of Jim Crow and the routine assassination of black political leaders. This year’s college graduates are the children of men and women who remember—or experienced—the race riots of the late 1960s and 70s. The baby boomers—including the large majority of our lawmakers—were children when Emmett Till was murdered, teenagers when George Wallace promised to defend segregation in perpetuity, and adults when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed for his belief in the humanity of black people….
Interracial marriage was illegal in large swaths of the country when Barack Obama Sr. married Ann Dunham.
Mitt Romney was 31 when the Church of Latter Day Saints allowed African American priests, and repudiated early leader Brigham Young’s pronouncement that “The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood.”
Nancy Pelosi grew up in segregated Baltimore.
Mitch McConnell was sixteen when his high school admitted its first black students.
Of course there are politicians and political parties that capitalize on racism. Why wouldn’t they? The end of our state-sanctioned racial caste system is a recent event in our history; more recent than Medicare or Medicaid, more recent than the advent of computers, more recent than the interstate highway system, and more recent than Social Security. Taken in the broad terms of a nation’s life, we’re only a few weeks removed from the widespread acceptance of white supremacy.
No question about that. As a Baby Boomer who grew up in Jim Crow Georgia, I remember with equal shame the official segregation that accompanied my childhood; the vicious, violent attitude towards the civil rights movement that I heard constantly from extended family (never once, thank you Jesus, from my parents) and friends during adolescence; and the constant stream of racial “jokes” I still hear back home about Obama when I stray outside my immediate family.
The kindling is still there for racial conflict—and obviously, not just in the Deep South, where white folks have had to co-exist with African-Americans much more intimately than in many parts of the country—and as Coates shows, Obama has gone far out of his way to avoid providing a spark for its ignition.
And that is why, like Bouie, I find it so outrageous that the Romney/Ryan campaign—which should, as a matter of patriotism and civic solidarity, go far out of its way to avoid fanning the racial flames—has chosen instead to make up a racial grievance against the incumbent, one so ancient that George Wallace is probably cackling in his grave. And the wealthy, cosmopolitan cynics that are running the GOP campaign are counting on the conservative chattering classes to shout down any objection to this tactic with cries of “Obama is playing the race card!” You know, like he would, being one of those people himself.
As a white southerner of a certain age, I find this tactic, to which the Romney campaign has devoted vast resources, both shocking and depressingly familiar. I hope Bill Clinton—from a very similar background to mine—feels exactly the same way, and gives some extra attention to rebutting this particularly shameful line of attack on the First Black President that adds insult to injury by using Clinton’s own image as fuel for the intended fire.
Facebook
Twitter
kevo on August 23, 2012 5:25 PM:
Like rust, racists never go away, unless intervention is pursued, knowing much of the original afflected area may need to be buffed out, sanded down, or possibly, simply removed so the rest of the structure can survive into the future!
I can see a better future here in America if American voters punish the Republican rust at the polls in November! If not, the corrosive effects of Republican rust will cause our nation to suffer immeasureably for years to come!-Kevo
ComradeAnon on August 23, 2012 5:27 PM:
Oh come on Ed. I remember Haley Barbour saying it wasn't that big a deal in Mississippi.
Now that's everybody has had a good laugh... The Dixiecrats are alive and well. Racists don't die. They just become republican.
howard on August 23, 2012 5:34 PM:
i'm once again reminded that, lacking the will to enforce real reconstruction and the humanity to provide 40 acres and a mule as a reparations to the slaves, we should never have let the confederate states back in at all.
i have no doubt that race relations here in the united states, while still far from perfect, would be much better if we didn't have the confederates fouling the nest at every opportunity.
jheartney on August 23, 2012 5:41 PM:
I'm long past being shocked by any enormity committed by the Republicans. At this point I'd be astonished by even a small act of decency from their quarter, if one ever appears.
Ron Byers on August 23, 2012 5:49 PM:
Why don't we prove Romney wrong and reelect the President despite his blackness?
Doug on August 23, 2012 5:51 PM:
What else do Republicans HAVE to campaign on?
Tax cuts for billionaires? A very limited subset of voters. "Drill baby, drill!"? Well, that'll get them all the Hummer owners. Gutting SS/Medicare/Medicaid? We've seen what THAT does for Republican numbers. And now that Akin's blown their cover on abortion it'll be even harder to narrow the gender gap between Democrats and Republicans. Racism, overt or covert, is all R&R have left.
And, being the classy, civic-minded duo that they are, they'll use it.
golack on August 23, 2012 6:06 PM:
Jackie Robinson
Robert on August 23, 2012 6:12 PM:
Thanks, I've got to read this Coates fellow. As a white son of the south myself a week doesn't go by that I don't say, "Our President can't take on that fight" about one or another overt act of racist disrespect. Like when that South Carolina peckerwood shouted "you lie" to the POTUS. Or Arizona's governor poked a finger in the President's face. We know it -Black Americans continue to have limited options to combat discrimination. Nobody knows it like a white southerner. So this is my fight, OUR fight, American moves forward if we move it. There is no going back.
Nancy Cadet on August 23, 2012 6:18 PM:
If it's wrong to call the GOP "racist," as I've been told, can we at least call them the party of white supremacy?
jpeckjr on August 23, 2012 7:43 PM:
@Robert. As another white son of the South, a tear came to my eye when I read your comment.
I first left the South for grad school, then again when I was 32. I've lived as an adult in five parts of the country, four time zones, north, south, east, and west. I have learned that racism is an American malady.
Northern whites take far too much comfort in Southern racism, for it allows Northern whites to avoid examining themselves, their history, their complicity with racism. Much of the population growth in the South in the last 20 years has been transplanted Northerners.
If they were free of racism, why haven't they diluted its impact in the South? Now there's a PhD dissertation in Sociology just waiting to be written.
Jim Treacher on August 23, 2012 8:14 PM:
Looks like Bouie's story is gone. Weird.
Jim, Foolish Literalist on August 23, 2012 8:21 PM:
And the wealthy, cosmopolitan cynics that are running the GOP campaign are counting on the conservative chattering classes to shout down any objection to this tactic with cries of “Obama is playing the race card!”
Would that were only those pundits traditionally viewed as "conservative" who will/would/are doing the bidding of the loathesome Romney and his campaigners. The silence of the Washington Post/Politico types (Broderists) is as despicable as the ploy itself
T2 on August 23, 2012 9:12 PM:
If Obama loses, it will be because he is black ( or half black). It's about time we faced up to that.
Steve P on August 23, 2012 10:14 PM:
Is it cynical to note that Rmoney is probably the whitest presidential candidate the GOP could find? Generations of cultural inbreeding among a sequestered white population since the 1850`s have resulted in that All-American waxwork visage so prevalent around the Great Salt Lake.
CharlieM on August 24, 2012 7:19 AM:
This tactic is "shocking"? Why?
What is shocking is to expect RomneyRyan to do anything differently.
Left to their own devices, the right will lose no opportunity to indulge in bigotry. It's what they do. It's what they are.
bill mcintyre on August 24, 2012 8:13 AM:
Any party willing to sink the U.S. economy in order to destroy Obama will stop at nothing to win
boatboy_srq on August 24, 2012 8:49 AM:
@Steve P: not only is Romney the whitest candidate the GOP could find, he's also the most model 3rd (5th) generation wealthy entitled white candidate, whose faith has in its scriptures (still not entirely refuted) that blacks are damned unless/until they convert - not just to Xtianity but to their own little flavor of it.
If there is such a thing as the anti-Obama, Romney is either that or the best simulacrum possible in this universe. The GOP couldn't possibly have found a better candidate to oppose not only everything Obama has done, but everything he is - and do that as a matter of faith not just political philosophy.
Steve on August 24, 2012 9:21 AM:
I am a white male that grew up in Connecticut, born in the early 50's. My mother was very involved with the NAACP during the 60's and 70's, and it was routine for some of my parents black friends to come over for dinner, and to bring their children, who I became friends with (they were also my classmates in grade school).
During my teenage years, after moving to a different neighborhood and making new friends (all white), it was not unusual to hear my friends use the "n word" and make jokes about blacks.
A couple of years ago, I became friends with guy whose views are very conservative (he listens to Rush everyday). He is a decent guy, but he grew up in a town, in Connecticut, that has a well deserved reputation for racism, including serious problems within the police department. This friend and I have had political discussions, including one in which he claimed that affirmative action was totally unnecessary. A number of his friends own their own small businesses, and I asked him how many of his friends would hire blacks, he had to admit that none of them would.
I cried when Obama was elected President. I cried because I could not believe that our country had reached the point where a black man could be elected President. They were tears of hope and joy for our country.
I have been utterly disgusted, despite my personal knowledge of the degree of racism that still exists in our country, at the hatred directed at Obama since his election, much of it obviously racially motivated or, at least, using racially charged messaging and codes. Perhaps I am naive, though I think not, but I had hoped that we were a bit beyond that, that it would not be so prevalent.
If Obama loses this election, I will cry again, I am sure. This time the tears will be for our country and for the minorities that no doubt, despite the hatred they still experience, will feel that the hope they drew from Obama's election in 2008, was not founded in reality, that we still have much farther to go in America than they believed in 2008. The tears will also be for the less fortunate among us that will lose so much to Republican policies. The tears will especially be for the children; the minority children who will face a much bleaker future, with far fewer opportunities, for the children who continue to be raised in a climate of hatred and intolerance, and for my children.
I pray that the majority of the electorate renews the hope I felt in 2008, by seeing past the lies and racism being directed against Obama and doing the right thing on election day, not because he is black, but because his vision of our future is inclusive, and addresses the real problems we face as a country, and not regressive and dismissive of the real concerns of the poor and disadvantaged and the middle class, as is the Romney/Ryan ticket's plans for our country.
Paul Dirks on August 24, 2012 10:10 AM:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
— Max Planck
Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (1950), 33.
Sgt. Gym Bunny on August 24, 2012 10:52 AM:
I often wonder what America would be like had not someone, or somebodies, in the Colonial Americas (or else where) decided that Africans were less than human. It was (and still is) a notion that was as ridiculous as deciding that people with green eyes--or red hair or outie-navels--were lesser beings. And it's very sad that an entire social, political and economic culture was built on this misguided notion, and the effects of it can still be seen and felt 400 years later.
Which is why I find it enraging that the GOopers want to blame Obama and various other blacks and browns for the sorry state of race relations in America today. Damn it!! Black people didn't vote to become slaves and later second-class citizens just to collect welfare and make nice little white people feel guilty in the 21st century.
The GOP/Tealiban might pay the compulsory lip-service that racism is bad (especially in how they accuse Obama, liberals and everybody else of being racists), but they have no intention to abandon the benefits that racism has afforded them: the all-purpose rallying cry against the convenient scapegoats of "the other" (i.e. the blacks, browns, Muslims, etc.). Not to mention a cultural and economic structure that favors their own.
Robert on August 24, 2012 11:31 AM:
"Any party willing to sink the U.S. economy in order to destroy Obama will stop at nothing to win" Exactly, Thank you Bill.
The threat could not be more clear, the stakes could not be higher. We, We "have our hands on the arc of history and(must)bend it once more toward the hope of a better day." In the future, people will look back at this inflection point, let them judge us worthy.
Welfare Queen on August 24, 2012 12:41 PM:
We have over 100 million people on welfare. I don't see why that isn't a legitimate campaign issue.
I looked at our budget, and we spend more than we take in. Our national debt has increased every year since 1960. It is now around 15 or 16 trillion. A trillion here, a trillion there, and at some point you are talking about real money.
I don't think we can afford the welfare state. I am a racist.
~ With Love,
~ Snipe
KarenY on August 24, 2012 2:08 PM:
I was in Laos in 2010. In one of the most poignant moments of that adventure I was approached by a police officer who asked if I was American. He used his few words of English and hand gestures to say 'Obama. Black. White. Together. Hope for world too.' I have not given up on that moment yet.
Robert on August 24, 2012 2:52 PM:
No, you are stupid (an important element of racism).
There are about 30 million Americans on Welfare, white people make up the largest demographic.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_people_in_US_are_on_welfare
Total Federal, State, and local spending is less than 50% of our Gross Domestic Product (our national income)
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Thanks for playing sport! Study harder.
yellowdog on August 24, 2012 11:01 PM:
How sad that Mitt Romney is proving to be more like George Wallace than George Romney.
George Romney, the industrialist, GOP Governor of Michigan, and housing secretary under Richard Nixon, was a leading voice in the--gasp--liberal wing of the Republican Party. He looked askance at Barry Goldwater's right-wing fever dreaming, at George Wallace's race-baiting and, ultimately, at Richard Nixon's cynicism and selfishness. What would George Romney think now -- now that the GOP is an ugly combination of those strains--catalyzed by a fervent evangelical rhetoric? And what would George Romney think of the purported leader of that party--his son Mitt?
Mercy me -- I don't think he would like it one little bit. He would not recognize what his party has become.
the DeMBA on August 25, 2012 11:03 AM:
Romney, Ryan, etc. probably are racists. But they know that racists vote, and that borderline racism motivates their base, and are 100% comfortable exploiting that if needed.
IMHO, give me an honest George Wallace any day; at least he had principals.