I Didn’t Mean It THAT Way! Intent, Denial and Sensitivity to Racism in Language

Two weeks ago, Congressman and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, introducing Maryland U.S. Senate hopeful Ben Cardin at a rally, claimed that African American candidate Michael Steele “slavishly support[ed] the Republican Party.” He was quickly attacked by Republicans for using racist language. In his apology statement, Hoyer noted that he “should not have used that word” and that no offense was intended. Intent is an often-cited excuse for insensitive language or behavior: “I didn’t mean to sexually harass her by saying she looked good in that skirt”; “He took that the wrong way; I thought he’d be flattered by my saying he’s probably a good dancer because he’s black”; “Is it bad to suggest that gay men dress well? I didn’t mean anything by it.” As President George W. Bush likes to say, it’s important to “know someone’s heart.” But communication inherently contains two elements, and the receiver is no less important than the source.

Claiming no intent to offend as a way to shrug off responsibility of dealing with racism is not new. The politics of denial and the politics of race are writ large and inseparably intertwined, for instance, on the pages of former Senator Jesse Helms’s memoir Here’s Where I Stand and Senator Trent Lott’s Herding Cats. The two books were largely unscrutinized by scholars and critics when they were published last year, but they provide remarkable, if not unparalleled, first-person insight into the kinds of recently unparalleled conversations and questions about race in America.

The constant denials expressed by Helms and Lott, help us to better understand some of the underlying thought processes by our national political elite, despite their stated positions on race and racial issues. First, Both Helms and Lott use their books to deny what they see as an undeserved label – “racists” – frequently attached to each of them and dispel the myth that racism and bigotry has influenced any of their thinking and dealings with or on behalf of people of color, especially blacks; not then, not now, not ever.

Lott, Helms and Hoyer don’t seem to understand that racists aren’t only those who use racial slurs. They don’t seem to understand rapper Chuck D’s early Public Enemy lyric that “Now the KKK wear three-piece suits”; refraining from or refusing to utter the “n-word” is not a badge of honor, but a sign of insidious denial when used to defend oneself against racist claims or the realization that the most visible racists are usually not the most dangerous. But perhaps most importantly, they don’t seem to understand the subtle but all-too-real distinctions that race scholars and critics have made for years—that there is a very real difference between being a bigot and being a racist. Of course Jesse Helms is racist. And so is Trent Lott. And so is Steny Hoyer. And so are we.

The term racist refers to the cultural and institutional system that perpetuates negative attitudes about and behaviors toward people of color. Anyone (of any color) who is raised in the United States is at least tacitly trained in racism, but racism only works against people of color. Bigotry, on the other hand, is what most folks colloquially refer to as racism: the overt belief in the superiority or inferiority of individuals based on race. Unlike racism, this can work in any direction. A person of color could hate and/or discriminate against white people, but since that person lacks access to cultural power (which differs from individual power) it is impossible for him or her to be racist. Keeping these differences in mind helps us to understand why both Lott and Helms – though they may be bigots – are also racist like the rest of us. Racism is not attitudinal; it is cultural. We can recognize and work to counter our socialization, but none of us can claim to be free of that latent psychological constraint. It is often those who most loudly proclaim their lack of racism who have yet to deal with it honestly.

Both Helms and Lott further express their naïve denials of the racist label by asserting what amounts to the now colloquial phrase, “some of my best friends are black.” It’s another sign that they both, while perhaps wishing to be seen as stalwarts of racial goodwill (and maybe even legitimately wishing that they could be such stalwarts), still don’t quite seem to get it.

The “I’m not a racist because I have black friends” claim is made in different ways by Helms and Lott, though they both communicate the same message. Helms has nothing but revering words for the Reverend Leon Sullivan, a black man who gained the friendship and honor of Helms (expressed over three full pages of his book) because, according to Helms, he correctly recognized “that the path to a better life was tied to being part of the establishment.” Helms once expressed such sentiment for a young man named Harvey Gantt who, as the first black student admitted to Clemson University, had the good sense to simply smile and say “thank you” to the gesture of goodwill, without open protest. The diminution of Gantt (Helms’s two-time unsuccessful Democratic opponent for his Senate seat in the 1990s) in the eyes of Helms came later, of course, when Gantt would begin to be more vociferous about black inequality and champion policies such as affirmative action to challenge that inequality.

Helms’s claims mirror the comical distinctions made my comedian Chris Rock when he said, “there’s black people, then there’s Niggaz…and Niggaz have got to go.” In essence, Helms insinuates that the charge of racism against him are erroneous because he’s befriended and revered blacks, but only those “good” ones like Reverend Sullivan and the young Harvey Gantt who agree to work within the system.

Lott, on the other hand, is more explicit in playing his hand, one filled with blacks he could point to as a defense against racist accusations. He rather cavalierly describes his friendship with two black students while he was in high school, even going as far as admitting that he flirted with and kissed one of their girlfriends. A similar defense was mounted against charges of racism later in his career when he is quick to bring to our attention that, “I have had African American staff members since 1975, and not just in low-level positions,” adding, “…So how could they accuse me of being callous to inequality?”

Though Hoyer has not belabored the issue to date, both Helms and Lott go through great pains to deny being racists, to deny acts of racism, and to even deny some sense of bigotry. But of course it’s not enough to avoid using the “n-word,” either publicly or privately. Having black friends does not give us a pass from having been socialized with deep racial resentment and negative predispositions. Further, denying this part of ourselves does not make it go away. Jesse Helms implies that blacks and “liberals” are really the bigots in our culture (a claim echoed by Alfie Two Buckets) in last week’s Conservative’s Forum entry about Hoyer). Trent Lott, on the other hand, wishes to bury his head in the sand and treat people “equally” who are not on equal social ground.

Herein lies the problem with such denials. If not being racist simply means refraining from using racial epithets, if it only means that we are willing to treat people fairly on a personal basis, then not only are Helms and Lott not racists, but almost no one is. And if this is the case, then racism certainly does not exist. And if one thinks racism doesn’t exist, or not to the extent that it really matters, then it is quite easy to abandon those who are most often the unfortunate objects of racism. Further, when we imply, as both Helms and Lott do, that the heart of racial healing rests with simply treating everyone with kindness and respect, then it’s quite easy to deny any systematic, institutional or governmental responsibility for continued racial discrimination.

How this denial of institutional responsibility can happen in this day and age can be even more plainly seen in the other most prominent form of denial that Helms and Lott express in their memoirs. For both, prejudicial attitudes systematically embedded in government institutions don’t cause discrimination; racial rabble-rousers, big government interventionists, social engineers and outside agitators do. Both of these men, when they do manage to admit that discrimination even exists (in the past, of course) state with conviction the sentiment expressed by Bruce Hornsby’s antihero—“That’s just the way it is.”

“Integration was steamrolling through the South. Its time had come,” Lott remembers about his days at Ole Miss. After federal troops were called in to secure the campus during Meredith’s first days, Lott writes, “[I] felt anger in my heart over the way the federal government had invaded Ole Miss to accomplish something that could have been handled peacefully and administratively”[emphasis added].

When law professors came to (invaded?) Ole Miss from Yale to teach about new civil rights legislation, they were met with expected hostility. Even forty years later, and in the context of what for many would have been a consciousness-raising experience, Lott still chastises the professors for what he views as anti-South sentiment. “They . . . were liberal and had an attitude problem,” he writes. “They were at Ole Miss, they thought, to lead these poor, barefoot Southern boys out of the wilderness. And they were not sympathetic to countervailing points of view.” As he continues, Lott’s words take a more personal tone as he relays a story about how this affected those close to him. He writes, “I had a friend who argued with these professors in his written work, and he got lousy grades. I decided not to provoke them and got decent grades.”

What was the overall impact of these steamrolling integrationist invaders trying to root out racial discrimination in these institutions of higher learning? Lott explains: “What these young professors did was create a backlash. Instead of making us more liberal, they helped to create a generation of thoughtful, issue-oriented conservatives who grew up to run Mississippi politics.”

Lott believes, even today, that there was a legitimate position that was supportive of Jim Crow. The term “issue-oriented” is used to suggest that race was not the motivation for their segregationist positions. It never is anymore. Issues are coded for racial content because it is socially unacceptable to let race be a visible driving factor in American politics. Lott did not understand that in the 1960s, and he still does not understand it today.

Helms’s sentiments on such matters are a bit more vociferous, tainted with a keen sense of visceral contempt for those who would seek to change the system using the means necessary to bring about deep, systemic change. On virtually every page of his chapter on race relations, Helms vehemently asserts that the real responsibility for continued racial discrimination lay with those who sought to change it. “I did not advocate segregation and I did not advocate aggravation,” Helms claims as a prelude to his soliloquy on the subject. The many statements that follow certainly support the latter part of his assertion, even while other evidence makes the first part questionable.

About the civil rights era struggles, Helms remarks, “…people from outside the South totally misunderstood the nature and intent of many Southerners.” He continues, saying that many Southerners like himself “believed forced social engineering was hazardous to the freedoms we all deserve.” He justified his contempt for the “heavy-handed involvement of the government in shaping social policy” because he believed that “those things slow true progress rather than help it.”

Helms holds himself as a champion of the principle of integration, all the while denying its benefits in helping to ameliorate problems of equal opportunity, saying, “We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators.” If we read between the lines, the message is clear: if people had been left to their own devices, in time, the overwhelming goodwill blacks and whites had for each other would have naturally accomplished the kind of integration and creation of equal opportunity everyone had been seeking all along. If people (blacks and white liberals) “would merely take the time to look around them,” Helms claims, “they might just be amazed at the good faith and opportunity that abound everywhere. They need to stop knocking the system and try it.”

What began as a simple denial of responsibility turns, by only the middle of this chapter in Helms’s book, into a denial that a problem even exists at all. Opportunity is (and was) everywhere. The system is fine. It’s individual attitudes that need to be changed, and that can happen within the existing system.

Both Helms’s and Lott’s polemics on the perils of race are tinged with a blaming-the-victim mentality, and nowhere is this more clear than in Helms’s justification for opposing a national holiday for that most vociferous of racial rabble-rousers—Martin Luther King Jr. Notwithstanding the many claims Helms makes about King’s misguided motivations and strategies to advocate racial equality, Helms contends that “this country” “…would have done well to expend their [sic] energies in providing more education, more job training, and more cooperation in building understanding instead of establishing a day off that costs the country many millions in lost productivity each year.” For those white lawmakers who pushed passage of the holiday legislation, Helms adds that many seem to “…have trouble imagining that people of goodwill can establish friendships outside their races or creeds or nationalities…without the artifice of a public program or a legal mandate.”

When we look back at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, insofar as the issue of race and poverty is concerned, the kind of racial reasoning exhibited by Lott and Helms clearly explains a lot. When simple goodwill is seen as the answer to the problem of inequality and unequal opportunity, what one gets is the status quo. And, when that status quo is a group of poor blacks who lack equal access to the kinds of resources necessary to live, much less escape the kind of disaster that Katrina was, then it’s easy to understand why so many are looking back now asking how such a division between white and black, rich and poor played out in these dire circumstances. In addition, it’s easier to understand the multidirectional blame game that’s taken place since. That is, when those in power are of the mind of Lott and Helms, who believe, if only passively and implicitly, that these things should have worked themselves out on their own without the barriers posed by “outside agitators,” all of this begins to make a lot more sense.

Racial “goodwill” is certainly that—good. Steny Hoyer’s intent is certainly relevant and mitigates his comment (though it doesn’t excuse it). But Katrina is just one reminder of how softly the winds of goodwill blow, how slow its wheels turn, and how hollow and ineffectual its consequences often are. It’s a reminder that sometimes National Guard troops, federal law, or another form of public policy may be needed to augment goodwill with good action. And it’s a reminder that the kind of racial goodwill advocated by Helms, Lott and likeminded others in power most often peers at the black and poor through the rose-colored glasses of white privilege, simply maintaining the status quo by rendering the least fortunate among us invisible. Using a word like “slavish” to describe a descendant of slaves is, as Hoyer acknowledged, inappropriate, and, as Steele spokesperson Doug Heye claimed, “insensitive and pretty stupid.” But shrugging it off because he “meant no offense” is essentially most damaging because it perpetuates the myth that racism and bigotry are the same, and that so long as a person’s heart is good, he or she does not have to work to dismantle the former. In an interview with The Sun of Baltimore, Michael Steele is quoted as saying, “It goes to just the sheer craziness of some in the Democratic Party who think they can use racist terms and infer things about me just because I’m an African American Republican.” If only one of this nation’s major political parties did that, we would be halfway home.

Alas, however, there’s still plenty of racism to go around, and plenty of goodwill to disguise it.

"Illegals": The New Face of Willie Horton

The current election season has played host to a number of ads from candidates perhaps hoping to capitalize on whites’ negative associations with Latinos. As the now most infamously racist political ad – the 1988 “Willie Horton” spot – demonstrated, such images effectively bring to the forefront racial attitudes in white voters, allowing them to associate a program that facilitated a heinous crime with a black face. But as Tali Mendelberg points out in The Race Card, such a message can only work until it is recognized as being racist, otherwise whites distance themselves from the message; a backlash may even result.

The issue of illegal immigration has provided a platform for appeals to xenophobia and racial stereotypes in a number of elections around the country. For example, in the race for the Illinois sixth district (suburban Chicago), which is being vacated by retiring Republican Henry Hyde, the National Republican Congressional Committee has launched two ads that feature video footage of Latinos climbing over a fence, wading through water, and being arrested. There is a picture of two smiling Latinos in front of a social security check, as the narrator explains that the Democrat, Tammy Duckworth, supports handouts for “illegals.” In one of the spots, that image is juxtaposed with a picture of a white family as the narrator says “even though Illinois families would have to foot the bill.”

Though the images here implicitly tap into racial prejudices about Latinos, the language is actually softer than that employed by Duckworth’s opponent, Peter Roskam’s, own ad. Roskam uses similar imagery of individuals climbing fences, but rather than “illegals,” uses the more dehumanizing “illegal aliens.” His ad similarly shows a white family when the narrator claims that Duckworth promises to raise taxes “for us.” The “us” is clearly white Americans, not just those who are in the country legally.

Spots by first-term Republican House member Geoff Davis (KY-4) and Republican Randy Graf (running for the AZ-7 seat being vacated by Jim Kolbe) link immigration issues with drugs, terrorism, crime and 9/11.

Democrat John Cranley’s immigration ads that contrast his policy with incumbent Republican Steve Chabot’s are no less tough-sounding, but Cranley uses the phrase “illegal immigrants” instead of “aliens,” and his images are limited to a simulated road sign indicating a family running, and some half-screen footage of border crossers.

Republican challenger Scott Tipton (CO-3) has an ad that is much less likely to prime racial stereotypes. While he includes one obscure image of a person running in slow motion, the majority of the spot features pictures of Tipton and an explanation of his policy on “illegal immigration.”

In Republican Van Taylor’s (TX-17) “Liberal Double-Talk” spot, he uses images of Latinos to bolster his argument that his opponent, incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards, has flip-flopped on this issue.

But in his “Borders” ad, he makes no mention or provides no images of Latinos at all,but rather keeps the focus on securing borders to stop terrorists and drugs from entering the country. Such an appeal does not rely on racial stereotypes.

Only time will tell whether these message will be accepted or rejected, as well as the candidates who espouse them.

White Conspiracy: The New Republican Strategy to Court Black Votes

Increased competition for the black vote amongst Democrats and Republicans is undoubtedly constructive, and in past years Republicans have made modest headway in attracting black voters. However, if the recently unveiled ads by America’s PAC targeting African American voters in the upcoming election are any indication, Republicans are headed in a completely wrong (and frankly, a little scary) direction.

When conservative Human Events blogger Ivy Sellers (Values Ads Target Black Americans) says that these ads differ in their tone from previous such ads aimed at encouraging blacks to break ranks with Democrats, she couldn’t be more right. But when she says they are aimed at “values” issues and “concepts,” rather than candidates, she couldn’t be more wrong in her interpretation and assessment. The ads – a total of 24 of them produced by America’s PAC and are airing in Ohio and a handful of other states – turn a dangerous corner, mixing talk of policy issues with persuasive suggestions of white (Democrat) conspiracy, and even hints of the hope for black superiority.

Take their ad called “Black Choice,” which wraps the issue of school choice in with the charge that it’s not just a party issue, but a racial (white) one. The ad begins with the statement, “Every year some white Democrat politician (we’ll ignore the fact of the party/racial slur in using Democrat instead of Democratic, for now)…and ends with, “I’ve got one question for these white Democrat politicians,” after which the narrator suggests that white Democrats have a problem with black people (not all people who presumably are effected by being against school choice, despite racial identification) making decisions about black children.

Another ad, “Martin Luther King,” reeks of the same stench of tone, adding the suggestion of a day of hope when blacks will not just “have a seat” or the equal opportunity to excel in the workplace, but that black sons (we’ll ignore too, the patriarchal reference here) will one day be “kicking butt and taking names”; the earlier parts of the ad suggest these are white butts and names.

And then there is the ad titled “Abortion”: it alleges that Democrats are not only responsible for killing babies through their pro-choice stance on abortion, but that there is, and has been since its inception, a Democratic conspiracy of genocide targeting black babies. The same message is echoed in their ad, “Eugenics.”

In “Truth Hurts,” the narrator compares the shift of black loyalty from the Republican Party when Democrats championed slavery, to the Democrats when they “proved MIA on our issues.” Again, rather than talking about the ways that the Democratic Party may not meet the interests of African Americans, the highpoint of the ad is the exclamation that “Our old friends (the Democrats) have gone off on us.” In the vernacular, the ad again charges a Democratic Party-led conspiracy aimed at the violent, personal destruction of black people.

These examples are by no means exhaustive; the same connotations, insinuations, and assassinations are found in virtually each of the 24 ads.

There was a time when Republican attempts to court African American votes were based on citing the issue differences between the parties and their consistency or inconsistency with black interests. There was a time when their efforts were fueled by deeds (like actually appointing more blacks and minorities to positions of high authority than had Democratic-led administrations). But now their appeals sidestep rational consideration of the issues, and their rhetoric sounds more like that of Louis Farrakhan – quite odd when coupled with a political party and institution that hardly believes racial inequality even exists, much less that it is a legitimate issue for political consideration.

"Keith" Ellison Gets a Pass?

It may be the hope Keith Ellison holds out for the Muslim American community that propels him into Congress in November as the first Muslim to do ever do so in American history. But his name – or lack of a particular kind – will likely give him and fellow Muslims counting on his success an advantage perhaps not enjoyed by too many others.

Sometimes a name is enough. A recent ABC News report confirms once again something known in the academic world for at least a couple of years: that racial discrimination does not require a visual inspection of skin color. While ABC's work was decidedly (and predictably) less scholarly than studies by Bertrand & Mullainathan in 2003 or Fryer & Levitt in 2005, it confirms those results.

The name "Keith" didn't make ABCs list of most popular white, black or Latino names, but the fact that it would likely appear somewhere on the white list – even the black list for that matter (but certainly not on an Arab list), will save him a world of perceptive hurt in the upcoming election. This is especially so among Minnesota voters for whom the issue of terrorism is most salient. And, according to The Bush Drag, a recent opinion study by U. of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics & Governance, this number is significant.

Ellison, who converted to Islam while he was an undergraduate, is running as the Democratic candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 5th District (Minneapolis). He has been clear about how his faith is a guiding force for his politics. And it seems Muslim Americans from across the country are eager to pony up campaign cash knowing only that he's a fellow Muslim.

In post-9/11 America, while it is unlikely that even the most progressive district would elect someone named Mohammed, let alone Osama, Ellison will most likely win. (Though it won't be without scrapes: his opponents and critics are interested in linking him with Louis Farrakhan and Hamas, as well as well as trying to "Arabize" his name. The headline of a recent post at Lake Minnetonka is an example).

All of this has a lot to do with the fact that language powerful, and names are perceived as indicators of character. The work by Bertrand & Mullainathan shows that when names that "sound" white and names that "sound" black are randomly assigned to identical resumes and sent to real job openings, the fake white candidates get 50% more callbacks than the fake black candidates do. They note that a white name is the equivalent of eight additional years of experience. Fryer & Levitt found that this phenomenon was related more toward the employers' perception of socioeconomic status than race. In either case, it is clear that racism is not a relic of the past, but rather is firmly entrenched into our belief systems (even if they are not reflected in our conscious attitudes). As a result, our behavior is affected, often without us even realizing it. Take a few of the tests offered by Banaji and colleagues at Harvard for confirmation of your own biases (NOTE: We've both taken some of them, and we're not particularly proud of our results either.)

So what's in a name? For Keith Ellison, quite possibly the difference between fifty percent and fifty percent plus one of the votes come election day.