"Truce" Instead of "True": Democrats Attempt to Downplay Race

Many people applauded the so-called “truce” agreed upon last week between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the culmination of a week-long argument battle royal over who played the race card. The presidential candidates pledged to shy away from injecting race into their campaigns, from making race (and gender) a platform upon which to make claims about who is better fit to hold the office of president. But this pledge is as misguided and misplaced as some of the comments flying around over the past few weeks (e.g., BET founder Bob Johnson’s winking nod toward Barack’s drug use, Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge it for what it was, or Obama’s mis-characterization of Clinton’s comments about Marin Luther King, Jr.).

The pledge, however, simply denies the realities of racial appeals and discourse in the presidential campaign specifically and race-related public policy issues more broadly.

Let’s begin first with the most glaring reality in the Democratic nomination contest. We have an African American man running for president who claims to be black enough to appeal to the interests of African Americans, while at the same time not too black to represent the interests of white voters, whose support he needs to be successful. On the other hand, we have a white woman whose electoral success in Party primaries depends in large part on garnering black votes, using her husband’s affinity with the black community as leverage to gain the support of high-powered, black political leaders to endorse the reality – as former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young put it – that Hillary and Bill Clinton are just as black as Obama…if not more.

And we’re supposed to believe that there’s any way that race can and will not be a predominant focus in this election?

Assertions to the contrary by the candidates and others who espouse this all-race-card-barred rhetoric are victimized by two logical flaws regarding the realities of race, racial appeals, and political campaigns. One flaw is based on the errors of scholars of race and politics who have historically approached the topic of racial appeals in such a myopic way that it has clouded our judgment about just these kinds of circumstances in the news over the last week or so. That is, we’ve long used the term “race card” to refer to white candidates who use it to appeal to the racial antipathies that white voters have about blacks and other racial minorities in order to disenfranchise racial minorities and their interests.

Such a view has led many to two substantial errors – that a message constitutes a racial appeal only if one intends it as such, and only if the basis of the appeal is a negative trait of the target of that appeal. In our myopia – certainly those of the candidates – these are the only kinds of appeals that count, the only kinds that need be repudiated, because they are the only appeals have any real effect.

For instance, no one makes a fuss when Hillary Clinton or her surrogates make the claim that she deserves the votes of African Americans because she – as a white woman – is more qualified than her black opponent to represent the interests of African Americans. But this is a very powerful racial appeal that undercuts the racial heritage of her opponent by suggesting that one’s racial background has little or nothing to do with one’s ability to represent others that look like oneself. In fact, it is such powerful claim that it flies in the face of the very premise underlying the Civil Rights Act, which initiated the idea that minority communities should be represented by members of that community because such representation constitutes the essence of equal rights.

Additionally, the kind of after-the-fact repudiations of racial appeals made by several of Clinton’s surrogates disregards the reality that to the degree that such appeals work in tarnishing the image of Obama [i.e., he is unelectable], Clinton is the beneficiary. So, in fact, it is not enough to simply say that she will wag a finger at people who make such claims on her behalf. Their racial appeal is her racial appeal because she ultimately benefits, and so long as she doesn’t run out of high profile supporters, she can afford to play this game all election season long, expecting that the American public should not hold her responsible or accountable for playing the race card.

The second flaw with the candidate’s ephemeral pledge to stay away from race is that it is based on the post-Civil Rights ideology about colorblindness – that somehow and for some reason Dr. King’s message was that we should no longer see color (as opposed to not allowing color to affect our evaluations of one another). What this has meant for many Americans – liberals and conservatives alike – is that people have a newfound ability to ostensibly see straight past people’s skin color right into their hearts and souls. They disregard the color of one’s skin, claim that they no longer see color, then declare that racism no longer exists.

In that context, of course, we shouldn’t talk about race at all.

When the presidential candidates express this point of view, what they ultimately mean is that they – like the rest of us – are off the hook from talking specifically about how race really does matter in almost every facet of America social and political life. As we have noted time and time again in this space, we are once again missing an important opportunity to talk about race honestly in America. It is possible that the candidates know that such frank talk about such an uncomfortable and, indeed, taboo subject among whites would amount to political suicide. It is possible that, if elected, either of them would push forth a directed national conversation about racial inequality of opportunity. It is possible that when the nomination is secured, both senators will join together to push for real change with respect to the conditions that plague the have-nots and have-too-littles in America (who are disproportionately of color). But it is more likely that neither of them has or will have the power to change the national discourse on race. It is more likely that either (both?) will continue to play along with the consensus that race is a subject that is off limits. It is more likely that we will continue to have material for analysis and discussion for this blog no matter who secures the Democratic nomination, and no matter who wins the election in November.

Race will be front and center this week as we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Democrats focus their attention on South Carolina. The Congressional Black Caucus will host a debate before Saturday’s election, and we can expect some pushing on the margins of the “truce” this week, as either the candidates or their surrogates (keep a careful eye on the former president’s comments) do their best to use language in a way that simultaneously courts black and white votes.