Keeping It Real: McKinney Goes Green, Sharpton Goes Red and Oprah Goes Black(er)

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has agreed to be the Green Party's presidential candidate in 2008. Claiming that the Democratic Party (her former party) has "left so many of its base supporters behind," McKinney said that she accepted the Party's invitation this year after being wooed by them in both 2000 and 2004. Her announcement was greeted with very little fanfare from the national press, and leading Democratic presidential candidates did not even blink. Her candidacy has the potential, of course, of drawing votes away from the Democratic nominee in key states -- something that Green Party presidential candidate (2000) and independent presidential candidate (2004) was accused of doing. It is widely believed that both of Nader's candidacies helped George W. Bush win the Electoral College vote by siphoning off would-be Democratic votes in key states. So why is McKinney's candidacy not a source of concern?

Frankly, she is not being taken seriously. McKinney is a straight-talking progressive with a controversial record. She was able to win in Georgia's 4th (previously 11th) Congressional district (which was once majority-minority and always majority-Democratic), but she faced a surprising and rare defeat in her own party's primary in 2002 and again in 2006 after she won the seat back in 2004. Unlike Ralph Nader, who had widespread appeal (including many whites, who make up the majority of the electorate), McKinney will have a difficult time carving off much of the Democratic vote, irrespective of which candidate secures the nomination. Particuarly in a post-Nader world, progressives who vote in 2008 will stay loyal to the Democratic candidate. Any votes McKinney gets will likley be voters who would not have voted otherwise. Thus, there is little danger of her "spoiling" the election for the Democrats. (They'll have to goof it up all by themselves this time.)

Also in the news this week was the Rev. Al Sharpton, who ran for president (but as a Democrat) in 2004. We find the current controversy to be an outrage. While Shapton is certaily a controversial figure and has made mistakes in the past (see his involvement in the Tawana Brawley fiasco), this latest allegation is ridiculous. Sharpton is caught on an FBI hidden camera agreeing to help a potential fundraiser win a business contract if the businessman agrees to raise money for Sharpton's presidential campaign. Far from being a bribe (Shapton is not as was not an elected official), the deal was a typical political exchange. There was no blackmail, no threats, and no deception. The fact that Sharpton is black makes the narrative of corruption easier to believe given American predispositions to equate African Americans with lack of honesty, shady dealings, and inability to play by the rules. (We are reminded of a ten-second campaign commercial against Harvey Gantt, an African American former mayor of Charltotte, North Carolina who challenged incumbent Senator Jesse Helms in 1990 and 1996. In this spot, Gantt is shown in slow motion exchanging an envelope with Jesse Jackson. It very well may have been a birthday card, but the visual of two black men exchanging an envelope in slow motion conveyed a powerful racist message that bolstered Helms's contention that Gantt was not fit for office.) It's not the first time Sharpton has been accused of making shady deals. As he began to embark on his presidential run in 2002, HBO aired a program about corruption in boxing where Sharpton is caught on tape discussing a boxing promotion deal with an undercover FBI agent who changed the conversation to a cocaine deal midway through. Sharpton claimed that he did not know the man and was scared, so he did not immediately refuse to participate in the deal. Just how much race is a part of these stories cannot be known. To what extent was the FBI targeting boxing as a sport and promoter Don King because of his race? To what extent was HBO willing to include the tape of Sharpton because of his race? To what extent are we all (white and black) more likely to believe the story because Sharpton is black?

It is impossible to say for certain, but with these current and former African American presidential hopefuls in the news this week, it is significant to consider that Barack Obama is polling strong in many of the polls in some of the early decision states (such as Iowa and New Hampshire). The lighter-skinned (half-white) candidate who, in the words of Joe Biden, is clean and articulate, is holding his own. Biden's remarks were made as a compliment about Obama back in February of this year, but received scrutiny because of the suggestion that those characteristics separated him from other African Americans, or at least other African American presidential candidates (such as Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson). In last week's NPR Democratic presidential candidate debate, Biden was asked about his comments about Obama, as well as those caught on tape a couple of years back where he noted that (Asian) Indians in Deleware tended to own Dunkin' Donuts and 7-11 franchises. Biden responded that he had a solid record on racial issues and that he largely got into politics as a result of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Obama chimed in with his support for Biden's work with respect to racial equality. Alas, we watched yet another opportunity to discuss race in a more sophisticated manner slip away, as the moderator, Biden and Obama all left the discussion at the individual level and failed to mention anything about systemic racism. We can see a pattern: people who do address racial issues in a more complete way (i.e., differentiating between individual-level bigotry and systemic racism) are shunned at best and pathologized at worst by the mainstream (white) media, while those who feed into overly simplistic ideas about "knowing people's hearts" are embraced.

At the end of Sharpton's radio broadcast each day, he implores his listeners to tell somebody that Rev. Al told them personally to "keep it real; keep it real; keep it real." Whether Obama is being "real" or not has been the topic of much discussion in both white and black communities for years. It spun to a different level after Oprah Winfrey's endorsement this week, as the media mogul was criticized by Air America leftist host Randi Rhodes for "acting black" during her speech. Winfrey's cadence in that speech certainly departed from her speech pattern on her television program, though the context was completely different. At the rally, Winfrey was intending to fire up an audience of mostly Democratic Obama supporters for seventeen minutes to energize their devotion to a presidential candidate in whom she believes strongly. On her program, she is attempting to engage for an hour with guests about a substantive (or not-so-substantive) issue of importance or concern to her vast and diverse audience. So it is possible to perceive the shift as pandering; it is also possible to perceive it as a skillful orator adjusting to her audience and context. Is the white media's tendency to jump to the former a result of anti-black bias? As we note above, it is difficult to know for sure, but it is something that we need to consider. What is most disturbing is this "progressive" host's lack of understanding of systemic racism. She referred to "reverse racism," saying, "there's some black racism too, against white people." While we understand that most folks do not differentiate between bigotry (what Rhodes is referring to here) and racism (which can only privilege whites because it refers to a system of white supremacy), we should be able to expect more from someone with a progressive radio program.

In actuality, Rhodes's ignorance is an illustration that achieving racial equality in this country is not about changing the hearts and minds of those who hate because of the color of someone's skin; it is about educating all Americans to understand how racism works in subtle and powerful ways, even through those who firmly and genuinely believe themselves to not be racist.