Ferraro, Wright, Paterson. . .(sigh): Big Week in Race

The delay in this week’s blog is inexcusable in some ways, but predictable, as well. You would think that by our 81st blog we would realize that no matter how much racial news is pouring in, we need to cut off the “week” at some point and write. With all of the rapidly unfolding developments this week, we just didn’t know when to stop watching and start writing. So we decided to write immediately after Barack Obama’s watershed speech on race today.

Before we get to that, though, here are the other two issues that were relevant this week:
1) Geraldine Ferraro claimed not to be a “racist” after saying that Obama has only done as well as he has because he is black. We had a lot to say about this (original title of the blog: “This Week’s Non-Racist: Geraldine Ferraro”), but since we write weekly and it happened early in the week, others beat us to the punch. We recommend a careful read of Orlando Lima’s excellent piece on The Huffington Post. In short, though, Ferraro argued that since she has fought for rights of racial minorities that being called “racist” was out of bounds. Her anger toward the media and the Obama campaign appears to be grounded in the assumption that black folks are always looking for a reason to call a white person “racist.” Actually, many black folks would say that they feel quite stifled in talking about race – a notion that is directly relevant to the comments made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright that were so ubiquitous this week.

To Ferraro, we repeat our familiar refrain: We’re all racist. Few would argue that Ferraro is a bigot (at least not until these recent comments), but the argument was both racist and insane. Obama addressed the ridiculousness of the comment best when he appeared on Good Morning America. He noted that the best way to become president was clearly not to be black and have a name like his. But many white citizens, forever convinced that racial quotas are keeping hard working whites out of jobs and colleges, certainly would disagree. From this vantage point, it took 220 years to have the first black candidate who has a legitimate chance of being elected president because there were not any African Americans who were smart enough or who worked hard enough to take advantage of the disproportionate opportunities they have had over whites.

In a related issue, the Clinton campaign was far from emphatic with respect to its denunciation of Ferraro’s remarks. Obama commented on it, as did some left-leaning commentators. In the end, Ferraro reluctantly resigned her symbolic post on the Clinton campaign.

2) It is certainly worthy of note that David Paterson became only the third black governor in American history (and New York’s first) after he assumed the role in the wake of Eliot Spitzer’s sex scandal. If this momentous occasion were not sandwiched between Ferraro and Rev. Wright, it would easily be the top race story of the week.

But as it happens, the most relevant story this week by far has been the attempts to attach Barack Obama to some snippets of sermons by his long-time (now former) minister, Jeremiah Wright. This issue first surfaced in the last presidential debate when Tim Russert tried to insinuate that Obama was supportive of former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan because Farrakhan had endorsed Obama’s campaign. When that didn’t work, Russert turned to comments that Wright made about Farrakhan to try to make the link that way. Since then, Wright’s sermons have come under scrutiny, forcing Obama to give what will likely become seen as an historic speech today.

Obama took great risks to talk about the realities of race in America in the speech. He began with the founding documents’ promises and the contrast with the decisions made by our nation’s founders. He said that they “chose” to continue to permit our nation’s “original sin of slavery.” This is important because he is developing a narrative that most whites reject: that slavery is a direct cause of racial inequality today. He noted that the answer to the slavery question was embedded in the Constitution. That is, by allowing inequality to be built into the Constitution, our founders set us off on this path that would be difficult to alter.

He went on to note that it took a war and civil disobedience to “to narrow the gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time,” and he continually noted that we need to move toward a more perfect union, echoing the language of the Constitution’s preamble.

Then he told his own story, noting that “in no other country on earth is my story even possible.” Transitioning to the current controversy, he claimed that Wright has used “incendiary language” and language that served to “denigrate the greatness and the goodness of our nation.” Said Obama, Wright, “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country.” Obama claimed that the comments were both wrong and divisive at a time when we need to come together.

Rather than move past the so-called “race issue,” Obama claimed that “race is an issue that . . . this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” He warned against distorting reality by amplifying stereotypes, and admirably stated that “we’ve never really worked through these issues.” Tracing the causes back to slavery, we can see the legacy manifested in segregated schools, economic inequality and the breakdown of the black nuclear family. This is far from an accepted truism for many white Americans, so his forcefulness in this regard is notable.

Obama then explained that Rev. Wright was socialized during a time when segregation was legal and prejudice was much more blatant and hostile than it is now. This, Obama argued, informed Wright’s ideas and passions. Worldviews from Rev. Wright’s generation are distinct. Anger and bitterness have not gone away. They find their voice in the barbershop, beauty shop or around the kitchen tables, if not in front of white coworkers. They also find their voice in the church on Sunday mornings. He noted the oft-quoted Martin Luther King observation that the most segregated hour in America is 11:00 on Sunday morning.

What Obama implied but did not articulate is that those resentments had a chance to shape the political landscape in a way that black hostility has not because of the legacy of white supremacy dating back to the founding. But he tried to make the point clearly that it was improper to dismiss anger or resentment as anecdotal and irrelevant. At one point in the speech, Obama noted that black anger is real and powerful and to wish it away only serves to widen the chasm between the races. He said that the legacy of discrimination is real and that it is not just in the mind’s of black people.

A similar anger exists within segments of white America. This refers to what social scientists have referred to as “racial resentment” in the white community. Obama acknowledged that descendants of immigrants often proclaim that they worked their way up, so black folks should not be complaining. He claimed that too often opportunity is seen as a zero-sum game. As a consequence, resentment builds over time. Such white resentments – like black anger – are not always expressed in polite company, but they have helped shape the political landscape. In sum, Obama offered that just as black anger has proven counterproductive, white resentments have distracted attention from the “middle-class squeeze.”

The political brilliance of the speech was the linkage to existing themes in Obama’s campaign. He noted several times that people would have to work together, that black struggles should be linked with wider struggles, and that the problem with Rev. Wright’s comments was that he spoke as if the nation was static, failing to recognize the progress that has been made and believe in the progress that can be made: “American can change. That is the true genius of this nation.”

The most emotionally powerful parts of the speech were when Obama talked about his grandmother’s bigotry and racism, and when he told the story of the white girl and the elderly black man who both were supporting his campaign. Again, this has been a consistent theme in the campaign since the beginning – people of all types coming together for a common purpose.

Obama’s speech has the potential to allow him at once to “transcend race” (as he has clearly attempted to do from the start) while acknowledging the racial problems that exist in America. Further, he put forth a vision of progress. What is left to be determined is whether white folks will be willing to join in the conversation rather than just put their hands over their eyes like a baby who believes that this will make her invisible and make that which is in front of her disappear.

The reality in America today is that black preachers can talk about racial inequality in America in a way that black folks are not invited to do in a multi-racial setting. The conversations about race that take place around kitchen tables in black households is markedly different than those that take place in white households, largely because such conversations rarely take place in white households.

Most would agree that there are still many issues with racism in America. But if that’s true, why are white priests, rabbis, and ministers not talking about it in their sermons? Will they begin to do so this week? For Christians, for instance, Easter may be an opportune time to have a symbolic new beginning to approaches to doing God’s work on earth.

In short, Obama’s speech today was critical far beyond the Rev. Wright controversy or even the 2008 presidential campaign. If we are to make more progress toward racial equality, white folks must come to the realization that by pretending that we are all have equal opportunities, we are only prolonging the potential reality of true equality. The risk in the speech was that whites (particularly white men) who have been so instrumental in Obama’s victories thus far will reject the message as too uncomfortable for them to hear. Is this a preview of what would happen in an Obama administration? Will we be forced to talk honestly about race?

America may be ready for a black president in theory, but whether we are ready for such honest discussion of the legacy of our national embarrassment is quite another matter.