Race, Patriotism, and Obama

Dan Larison presents an analysis, inspired in part by a thoughtful bloggingheads piece, on the racial issues implicated by Obama's church, pastor and speech.

Meanwhile, middle- and working-class white (and probably other) audiences heard this, remembered the anti-racist catechisms they had been taught for as long as they could remember and understood that the proper, approved reaction was to shake their heads and boo. McWhorter makes a similar observation. Now that anti-racism has captured the minds of so many of these people, now that the conditioning has had its intended effect, observers sympathetic to Obama are dismayed that Obama’s nuanced effort to explain (or, as the critics have it, explain away) racially-charged and potentially racialist rhetoric fell on deaf ears. Yet this shouldn’t surprise anyone–if the speech fell on deaf ears, it was the elites who deafened them years before with a single, simple imperative: “Don’t pay attention to race, except when we tell you to!”

I believe Larison misses the mark here, not so much because there aren't "elites" of the type he mentions, but because those "elites" don't have the ear of the "middle- and working-class white (and probably other) audiences" he describes. If it did, those audiences would have voted down anti-gay marriage, anti-domestic partnership ballot initiatives. They would have rejected ballot initiatives ending affirmative action. Etc. That audience is responding to other factors, discussed in the bloggingheads piece, not the least of which are their own concerns about job security and the future, and their own experiences with the effects of poverty.

Larison is correct that society has largely learned that it is not acceptable to make public, racist announcements, and that the response that our popular culture now dictates is to boo. He's even correct that this culture change has been a top-down phenomenon, driven by "elites" of various types. But I think that he's overlooking the fundamental reason why Rev. Wright's statements resonate in a bad way - and this is discussed in the bloggingheads piece - it's because people are not willing to accept blame for historic wrongs, nor are they willing to absorb a penalty (real or perceived) to correct those wrongs when they see similar problems within their own communities for which no similar remedy is offered.

Obama could address these issues in a post-racial way, and maybe he still will. If you were to ask them what causes patterns of poverty and crime within their communities, may may demonstrate and external locus of responsibility (i.e., "blame others") similar to that of Rev. Wright. But few are going to go into a diatribe about how they're being held back by their race, or by affirmative action, and even that group (perhaps especially that group) is not receptive to the notion that there is something special about race that necessitates race-based remedies to social ills.

What is perhaps more interesting is that the willing tools of the Republican attack machine aren't focusing on race. They're focusing on patriotism. This isn't a first - recall the earlier attacks to besmirch Obama's patriotism through comments made by his wife. Then it was the false claim that he didn't have his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and even that he wouldn't say the Pledge. And let's not forget the flag pin smear, which was even propagated by tools who don't even wear flag pins.

Perhaps it remains too hard, as suggested by Peggy Noonan, to attack Obama directly on issues of race? Noonan, as I read the piece, was trying to drive a wedge between the Obama's and working class whites - but she still chose to couch her attack in terms of patriotism ("Some of them were raised by a TV and a microwave and love our country anyway, every day.") In the present context, see, e.g., Gerson ("Obama's excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor"); Kristol ("This doesn’t mean that Obama agrees with Wright’s thoroughgoing and conspiracy-heavy anti-Americanism"); Chris LaCivita (of Swift Boat fame), ("'You don’t have to say that he’s unpatriotic, you don’t question his patriotism,' he added. 'Because I guaran-damn-tee you that with that footage you don’t have to say it.'")

It's also interesting to me how Wright is deemed unpatriotic ("God damn America"), but a John Hagee ("America is under the curse of God" - i.e., we're damned) is not - they're both arguing that America deserves to be damned by God, but Hagee is adding that we are damned - should Wright have used the passive voice? Or how a conspiracy theory that blames the government for spreading AIDS or drugs is unacceptable, but a conspiracy theory blaming the government for the JFK assassination can be raised in pretty much any context (although you can expect to get disagreement and inspire some eyerolls). Or how other nutty theories about the spread of AIDS (e.g., Falwell's "AIDS is God's punishment", or Hagee's "AIDS began in African prisons, where thousands of men ... turned to perverted sex") do not trigger condemnation, apparently because they omit mention of the U.S. government. Or how conspiracy theories can swirl about the government's role in Waco, Ruby Ridge, and 9/11 even in the same circles that deem Wright's "our policies brought it on us" philosophy to be unacceptable. Or why it is acceptable to blame 9/11 on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way", while remaining in the warm embrace of the Republican Party. But sometimes we have to accept the world the way it is.

Perhaps the focus on patriotism over race boils down to this: It's also a hard sell to argue to blue collar America that racism doesn't exist, even if many believe its effects are minor or are more than counter-balanced by "reverse discrimination", because they know better.

Michael Gerson's Open Hypocrisy

Let's take a look at some Gerson quotes from a Fox News interview by Megyn Kelly.

But the reality is that Wright is not a representative of the African-American community, he's an extremist. He's talked about AIDS being, you know, a plot by the American government to destroy people of color, you know, blamed America for 9/11. These things are not the mainstream of the African-American tradition. He's not a symbol of these things, he's an extremist.

Now let's take a look at some of the Republican ministers who, in Gerson's mind, are free to endorse and embrace Republican candidates - and who Republican candidates need not repudiate. On God punishing us for our sins:

• Pat Robertson: "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those [gay pride] flags in God's face if I were you. This is not a message of hate - this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs. It'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor."
• John Hagee: "All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are - were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."
• Jerry Falwell: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this [9/11] happen.'"
• John Hagee: "As a nation, America is under the curse of God."

On AIDS:

• Jerry Falwell: "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."
• John Hagee: "AIDS began in African prisons, where thousands of men, deprived of normal sex, turned to perverted sex. From the infection created by this perverted sex came the infection that birthed AIDS."

On natural disasters and terrorist acts, the distinction between Wright and the extremists Gerson deems acceptable appears to be that it is unacceptable to suggest that government policy is sinful and might inspire vengeful response, but it is acceptable to argue that God will smite people en masse because some of their neighbors engage in acts the minister (and probably Gerson) regard as sinful.

And for AIDS, it's not acceptable to say that the U.S. Government created AIDS, but it is acceptable to say that it was created by God as a plague on homosexuals and those who tolerate them. To me, you know, the former position sounds silly and ill-informed, and the latter sounds like... blasphemy. And it is apparently acceptable to assert that AIDS arose out of "perverted sex" in "African prisons", so Gerson appears to have no problem with ministers taking positions that are scientifically ludicrous and arguably racist... against Africans.

Well, uh, I guess I would say that somebody who believes the United States government is guilty of genocide is not a fierce critic. He's a dangerous man.

A dangerous man....

• Pat Robertson (to Joel Mowbray): "I read your book. When you get through, you say, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer." I mean, you get through this, and you say, "We've got to blow that thing up."
• Pat Robertson: "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

So it's acceptable to speak of committing a terrorist act to blow up the State Department, or to suggest that the U.S. Government is engaged in a worse genocide than the Holocaust, but... I'm having trouble finding even a farcical point of distinction.

Um, and this is a, I think a genuine problem going forward. It undermines Obama's appeal to conservatives. It undermines his appeal to Jews because of this relationship with, of his Pastor's with Farrakan.

Ah yes, lest we forget the warm feelings emanating toward Jews from Gerson's acceptable extremists (and one who is considered not so extremist)....

• John Hagee: "No one could see the horror of the Holocaust coming, but the force and fear of Hitler's Nazis drove the Jewish people back to the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have - Israel."
• Jerry Falwell: "The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."
• Billy Graham: " I go and I keep friends with [Abe] Rosenthal at the New York Times and people of that sort, you know. And all -- I mean, not all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I'm friendly with Israel. But they don't know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country. And I have no power, no way to handle them, but I would stand up if under proper circumstances."
• John Hagee: "How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for His chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings He had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.... it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people."

I know I'm supposed to buy into the notion that ministers who believe in the "End of Days", and support a vision whereby all of the world's Jews move to Israel where they ultimately either convert to Christianity or perish in the sea of fire, are somehow Jew-friendly. But....

And it really does undermine his basic message that words of healing matter. Because these are words of hatred that he has been, you know, associated with now.

In excusing every Republican affiliation with religious extremism, Gerson makes plain that he has no genuine problem with mere "words of hatred". His goal here is not to merely depict Wright's statements as "words of hatred", but as "words of hatred" from a "scary black man". Gerson knows that to achieve his goals, that last part is all that matters.

Running An Effective Smear Campaign

With factions of the Republican Party giddy with the idea of smearing Barack Obama on race issues, I thought I should remind them how to run an effective smear campaign.

"It's Different When We Do It"

"Michael Gerson is not a man who is stupid - but he chose to walk with a man who is."

No, wait, I got that first part wrong.

The better analogy is this: What if a Republican presidential candidate spent years in the pew of a theonomist church - a fanatical fragment of Protestantism that teaches the modern political validity of ancient Hebrew law?

No, that wouldn't be it, because we know the church Obama attended. Perhaps Gerson has never heard of the United Church of Christ?

I realize why Gerson wants to distinguish this from McCain's embrace of Hagee (or Huckabee's attendance of Hagee's services), or the various other ways Republican candidates and Presidents have sucked up to offensive religious extremists. Why he wants to argue, "They were only making kissy-face with the leaders, not attending their services. They were lying about their religious convictions to get votes - and it's morally superior to lie about your belief in extreme religious doctrine than it is to attend a church where the minister sometimes says hateful things, even though you disagree with the minister." As with Gerson's defense of infidelity, we're entering the theater of the absurd.

When Gerson tries to argue that Republicans should be excused excused for lying about their religious beliefs in order to suck up to religious extremists, he also states,

Yes, but they didn't financially support his ministry and sit directly under his teaching for decades.

Can he truly believe that religious extremists embraced by Republican politicians do not profit from the association? That the open embrace of their theology and person doesn't augment their fame, their power, their authority, and ultimately their fortune? That Bob Jones University only wants Presidents and politicians to speak on its premises because it thinks it has the nicest auditorium in the country? That Hagee and similar religious leaders have no self-interest in injecting themselves into national politics?

How charmingly naive.

What Does "Inferior" Mean?

John Derbyshire reacts to Obama's speech:

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students."

What on earth does this mean? It's true that there is widespread school segregation today. In my state, 60 percent of black students attend schools that are at least 90-percent black. From what I can see, the main reason for this is the great reluctance of nonblack parents to send their kids to schools with too many black students, which they assume are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools. Do you think that they — actually we, as my wife and I share this reluctance — are wrong to think like this? How will you persuade us to think otherwise? Or will you depend on judicially-imposed forced integration of the schools?

Okay... So where Derbyshire comes from, parents assume that majority-black schools are not suitable for their children because "they assume [the schools] are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools", yet he feigns confusion over Obama's use of the word "inferior"?

What does Derbyshire see as the difference between "poorly run public schools" and the public schools to which he would happily send his kids? If he measures school quality by racial composition, the only benchmark for distinction he cites, how is he not reinforcing Obama's point?

And It's All Up To The Media Now....

With the mainstream media (encouraged by the Obama campaign) having set the bar, Barack Obama has given his "make or break" speech distancing himself from Rev. Wright. Does it matter what he said? Only to a degree. What really matters now is whether or not the mainstream media deems him to have passed the test.

If he is deemed to have "passed", as it seems unlikely that Pastor Wright has said anything more inflammatory than what has already been dredged out of his decades of sermons, the presentation of more quotes becomes "more of the same" - an attempt to reopen a closed issue.

If he is deemed not to have "passed", this will continue to hound him as a candidate. It will be used to taint him as "the other", somebody "not like us" who "can't be trusted" with the presidency. (Some tar will stick - some will now think of him as "the other" no matter what else happens in this campaign.)

But doesn't it seem a bit odd that the determination of whether this will remain news, or whether it will be treated as a dead issue, falls upon whatever consensus is quickly formed by the mainstream media?

Pay No Attention To The Race-Baiter Behind The Curtain

Robert Novak writes,

In such a prolonged contest, Obama will enjoy overwhelming African American support. The question is whether the Clinton campaign can resist pointing this out in an effort to mobilize white backing. It certainly has not resisted so far, demonstrated by feckless Gerry Ferraro's mimicking what she heard from Bill and Hillary.

As Novak suggests, why would Clinton need to point that out when they have people like Gerry Ferraro Robert Novak making the argument for them?

Is It About Race, Or About Getting Noticed

It's tough to be a white man who wants to run for President. To be taken seriously you need an impressive résumé. Unless you're wealthy. Or your dad was President (and you're a wealthy heir). Or you're really wealthy. Or you're filthy stinkin' rich. Or your name is Kennedy. Or to have played the President on the teevee. There's also something about "being in the right place at the right time" - something that could never happen to a white guy.

So let's look at the remark that got Geraldine Ferraro into so much trouble.

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.

"I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he's going to be able to put an end to partisanship," Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. "Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that's the way our country is."

Ferraro is sticking to her words, while the Clinton campaign "disagrees". Maureen Dowd (of all people) provides some additional context:

Geraldine Ferraro, who helped Walter Mondale lose 49 states in 1984, was clearly stung at what she considered Obama’s easy rise to celebrity and electoral success. Last Friday, Ms. Ferraro, who is on Hillary’s national finance committee, told The Daily Breeze, a small newspaper in Torrance, Calif.: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Obama acknowledged when he arrived in the Senate that he got more attention, his big book deal and his celebrity, because he is not white. He was only the third black senator elected since Reconstruction.

But as he campaigned here Tuesday, he was outraged at Ferraro’s comments. “They are divisive,” he said. “I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd.”

Here's the deal. Getting noticed, for the most part, isn't enough to get you taken seriously. The insulting part of Ferraro's comment is not so much that Obama's race helped him get noticed; it's the implication that it's the only reason he was noticed, and that it's the only reason he remains a serious contender in the race. Beyond that, as Josh Marshall asks, "Can anyone seriously claim that it's an asset to be an African-American in a US presidential race?"

The same can be asked of gender - look at the media coverage of Clinton. And I suspect that Ferraro is correct that were Obama a female of any race, with all else being equal, he would not have been taken seriously as a Presidential contender. Within the right context, being African American or being female can help you "get noticed", but it's no free pass.

Putting political beliefs aside for the moment, were he to have tried to run as a Democrat this time around how many days do you think G.W. Bush's campaign would have lasted? Both Clinton and Obama are far superior candidates as compared to our sitting President. Stripped of his family name and fortune, a candidate as mediocre as Bush wouldn't have lasted a day.

Michelle Obama's Pride

The right-wingers have been having fun with Michelle Obama's statement, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change." Brit Hume decided to pretend that the statement excluded the possibility that she was proud of certain things the country has done (such as pushing back the invasion of Kuwait). Today Michelle Obama has issued a clarification of her remarks,

“What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process,” according to the Associated Press. “For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out - and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about.”

I believe that Michelle Obama was speaking to the feeling among many minority groups that the are marginalized and "don't really count". Under this interpretation it is a statement about race, and pride in a nation that is moving past the idea that "America is not ready for a black President." It's a bit like G.W.'s talking in code to the religious right - I suspect that her words were intended to resonate with a lot of people she hopes will vote for her husband over Clinton.

Why have Michelle Obama say the words? Because there is a recognition that any mention of race can inspire this sort of thing - "Maybe Democrats won't see it as a big deal, but the Republicans will. If Obama wins the nomination, they'll find some creative ways to spin it. I can just see the attack ads now - fear mongering commercials blasting that 'unapologetic Muslim' and his 'unpatriotic wife' who want to lead this nation in a 'time of war.'". Yeah, and in 1992 Hillary Clinton was depicted as a promiscuous lesbian who couldn't bake cookies - but it didn't cause her husband to lose the election. We voters barely care who the VP is, let alone the First Lady.

This is the sort of thing that can cause a right-wing nutter to make a poor choice of words or even curl up in a ball and suck his thumb. "Racialists"? Why shy away from the word "racist"? Must everybody speak in code?

A Seat At The Table

Is a seat at the big table enough? David Bernstein seems to think so:

Oh, and there's an EXCELLENT reason for a black conservative, especially a political activist, to be a Republican: if you want the GOP to pay attention to the interests of African Americans, it's very helpful if there are some blacks in the party who are in the room when important decisions are made.

Eugene Robinson suggests otherwise:

You could rationalize working for someone like Helms by telling yourself that you could do more good for the African American community from the inside, next to the seat of power, than from the outside. You could tell yourself you were advancing the interests of black people, even if most black people disagreed. You could ignore racism or pretend it was something else. You could tell yourself that you were making compromises and sacrifices for the greater good.

Finally, you could arrive at the White House, with a big job and regular access to the president. But it might be a White House where all the big decisions were made by just a few people, and you weren't one of them.

Then what?

But really, how often does this actually happen in any context. Somebody who wants to be political active and be a force for change in the world, who (strategically) never joins the political parties or organizations with which he agrees, who goes under deep cover in the opposing party where he rises to a position where he has access to its leaders, and who then tries to influence the party's decision-makers to take the positions he has hidden throughout his life (and to at least some degree must continue to hide in order to protect his position)?

Even if such covert work were effective, how often would your time and energy have been better spent working for the causes in which you believe?

Both the Bernstein and Robinson positions seem to assume a compromise of ideals.