O'Reilly Grants Michelle Obama a Pardon, Declares Moratorium on Lynching Party

This week, Fox News commentator and radio show host Bill O’Reilly came to Michelle Obama’s defense. . . sort of. When a caller chastised Obama over her comments regarding her pride in America, O’Reilly interjected that, without evidence, he is not willing to allow such character attacks on Obama on his station.

That’s commendable enough, but what O’Reilly said is more important than the reason he said it. Here is O’Reilly’s statement, as reprinted by Media Matters for America (the entire exchange with the caller can be read there, as well):

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they're thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don't agree on a lot of things, and I think I've made that clear over the years, but he's trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there's another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they're rooting for Obama. That's wrong. And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.

While the word “lynch” has broad denotative meaning, it is most often used in the American context to refer to vigilante mob murders of African Americans. O’Reilly has stood by his comments (through his producer) and has not claimed that he was unaware of this history. (Racism-deniers such as Brian Maloney at the “Radio Equalizer” ran to O’Reilly’s defense.)

Given the scattering of nooses around the country and last month’s fiasco with Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman’s comments about lynching Tiger Woods (and the subsequent Golfweek magazine cover depicting a noose, at right), it would not be credible for O’Reilly to claim ignorance anyway.



But, as we repeatedly note here, we are much less interested in intent than we are in effect. The word “lynch” is highly offensive to millions of Americans, and O’Reilly’s insensitivity to that is striking. Whether his comment rises to the level of Don Imus’s racist reference to the Rutgers women’s basketball team is debatable, but Imus was fired (and later rehired) as a result of his comments, and O’Reilly has not been held accountable for his at all (so far as we can tell). His apology mentioned that he was mimicking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s claim that he was subjected to a “high-tech lynching” by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination hearings in 1991. In the end, however, O'Reilly gave the standard “I didn’t mean it THAT way” excuse.

Professor Boyce Watkins puts forth an excellent analysis of the situation. While we differ with Professor Watkins in the sense that we advocate for the term “racism” to refer to the (often-subconscious) beliefs in white supremacy that reside in all who were socialized in America (and, thus, while O’Reilly is certainly a racist, we wouldn’t use it as a term to distinguish him from the rest of us), we agree with his main point:

I am sure Bill doesn’t truly want to physically lynch Michelle Obama, but there are many ways he could have expressed his frustration. Mrs. Obama could have been challenged on her remarks, criticized for them, and even taken to task on O’Reilly’s show. But the fact that Bill O’Reilly, a man whose racism exceeds both Don Imus and David Duke, would choose the word “lynch” to describe Michelle Obama is not only disturbing, it’s downright revealing. What’s more revealing is the fact that Fox News has not felt the need to punish O’Reilly for his remarks, implying that it is ok to talk about lynching a woman who might be the First Lady of the United States. I am not sure he would have gotten away with offering to send a prominent Jewish woman to “the concentration camp”, no matter what she had to say.

It’s quite possible that Bill O’Reilly is a bigot. We do not venture to make such an accusation, but we are disturbed by how relatively invisible this has been over the past few days.

Our ultimate concern is that after period of heightened attention to bigoted remarks and activities around the country, we may be seeing the beginning of a sort of “racism fatigue” where offensive language such as this begins to melt back into the landscape, thus acquiring a sort of normalcy that provides cover for those who actively wish to avoid racial equality and an excuse for those of us who continue to be uncomfortable with our own racism to revert back to our ignorance-is-bliss state of “colorblindness” (e.g., “I have a black friend, so racism is someone else’s problem.”).

Week in and week out in this space, we bemoan the lost opportunities for this nation to engage in an honest, meaningful discussion about race. We will continue to do so, but we are concerned that our posts will become “news” as opposed to analysis. It is a huge difference: logging on to TWIR each week to get a scholarly perspective on the important happenings with respect to race and language in the past seven days is much different than logging on to find out what is happening.

At times, we see movement forward in our collective quest (which we neither invented, started nor claim to lead) to see more racial dialogue, such as the forum that took place at Columbia University this week. Our best hope is that O’Reilly got a pass for some reason other than racism fatigue. As loyal readers of TWIR, you should hope so, too.

Ain’t Too “Proud” to Beg: Candidate Spouses Exchange Over Patriotism

At a campaign stop this week, Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama, quipped, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” Conservatives in particular jumped all over the comment as an indication of her lack of patriotism. Noel Sheppard of “Newsbusters,” an online site that professes to combat the alleged “liberal bias” in the media, introduced his condemnation by noting that “Mrs. Barack Obama” made the comment. Conservative talk show host Mark Levin ripped into Michelle Obama on his program. Later in the week, Cindy McCain, wife of presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain, noted that she is “very proud of [her] country,” in a clear response to Obama.

There are a lot of language issues to consider here, and some of them revolve around race.

First, though, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the inherent sexism on Sheppard’s part. Referring to Michelle Obama as “Mrs. Barack Obama” is to use antiquated phrasing that reduces Michelle Obama to a legal appendage of her husband. This language was developed at a time when women were considered to be legal property, passed from father to husband (as is still symbolized in the traditional American wedding ceremony). In those times, a woman’s identity was defined by her husband. While this language is still used occasionally, educated writers know to avoid it as gendered and, therefore, unacceptable. Sheppard is either ignorant of the sexism inherent in that phrasing or being intentionally insulting.

With respect to race, there are a lot of implicit issues at work. As a black woman, it is not surprising that Michelle Obama, in her 44 years on the planet, has not been “really” proud of America. Despite the positive developments during her adult years (roughly since Ronald Reagan took office), that are floating all around cyberspace this week in an attempt to embarrass her, it is understandable that those events would be filtered, in the mind of a black woman, through the lens of racist and sexist oppression. Whites who continually have seen their dreams realized by people who look like they do are slow to empathize with such a position.

Such egocentrism is evident in the words of conservative radio talk host Mark Levin, who angrily inquired and declared the following on his show (directed toward Michelle Obama, who was not on the show):

Have you suffered? Have you suffered, ma'am? I'm tired of people putting down this country. I'm tired of people pretending that this is still pre-slavery, pre-segregation, pre-internment.

For Levin and others, black folks need to simply “get over” slavery. Of course, black folks today are less concerned about slavery as they are about the legacy that slavery has left behind – a legacy that has just this year allowed a black man to have a legitimate chance to be elected president. From this perspective, it is not surprising that Michelle Obama is “really” proud of her country for the first time in her adult lifetime.

The word “really” in the quote is important and interesting in the context of the Los Angeles Times’s blog site, who omitted it when they first reported the story. A reader wrote in to note that different inferences could be made without that word included. That is, one might argue that it is one thing to never be “proud” and yet another to never be “really proud.” As a lawyer, we might suspect that Michelle Obama is thoughtful about language and chooses her words carefully. To ascribe a broader meaning to what she said is irresponsible at best.

The response from the Obama campaign was, in our view, lame and consistent with the campaigns unwillingness (likely for strategic purposes) to engage in more fundamental discussions of race:

Of course Michelle is proud of her country, which is why she and Barack talk constantly about how their story wouldn’t be possible in any other nation on Earth. What she meant is that she’s really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who’ve never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grassroots movement for change.

Maybe she meant that (she’s proud of increased involvement), but she probably also meant what she’s accused by detractors of meaning: that she is finally proud because two people who look more like her than any other presidential candidates (with respect to race and gender) are positioning themselves to occupy the White House. Predictably, though, the campaign attempted to diffuse the statement with a more benign interpretation.

And, we might add, returning to the issue of sexism, Michelle Obama may also be referring to Hillary Clinton’s run (though she has not claimed to have done so, and the context suggests otherwise). As a woman who grew up not seeing equality in the public sphere, it would not be surprising that even though she is clearly in preference of her husband’s nomination, she is proud that America has finally progressed to the point where a woman could have a legitimate chance at being elected president, as well.

This leads us to our final thought for this week: Former National Organization for Women president Patricia Ireland once noted that progress is not equality. For those who have not been systemically disadvantaged, pointing to how much better things are than they were during slave times, during Jim Crow, or during times of legalized gender oppression is to suggest that marginalized groups accept what they’ve been given and not push too hard. Such a paternalistic suggestion simply reinforces what the Levins and Sheppards of the world argue against – that racism and sexism is alive and well in America. It’s not “as bad” as it used to be in a lot of ways, but so long as it exists, those committed to equality will argue that it must be combated. When major milestones are reached, those democrats (small “d”) will certainly express their pride.

Tolerating Intolerance? La Raza's Move to Chicago and the Minuteman Response

This week, La Raza, America’s largest Latino civil rights group, announced that it was moving its 2009 convention from Kansas City to Chicago. The move is in protest of the appointment of a Minuteman member to the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board. While much discussion of the move has centered on the economic effect of the move (La Raza attracts some 20,000 participants to its convention), we thought there was a need for some discussion about the discourse surrounding the controversy and, in particular, how that relates to the nebulous concept of tolerance.

We get a glimpse into the complexity of the notion of tolerance from an interview with a member of the Chicago Minuteman group, who said of La Raza: “They refuse to go to Kansas City because of someone on some board whose viewpoints they don’t approve of. This organization is probably one of the least tolerant organizations you’ll ever find. And if they come here I think it’s quite likely that we would set up some kind of a protest.”

Embedded into the American collective idealism is the notion of freedom of expression. It’s long been understood that being tolerant of expression is an important, if sometimes difficult, part of American culture. It’s quite easy to be tolerant of expressions of ideas with which we agree, but it might be argued that it is most important to be tolerant of that with which we disagree – even vehemently.

Scholars much smarter than us have weighed in on this topic recently (see the post-9/11 musings by philosophers Jaques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas). In simplistic terms, though, we might boil it down to this fundamental question: Must we be tolerant of intolerance? Writing about the concept of forgiveness, Derrida wrote, “. . .there is the unforgivable. Is this not, in truth, the only thing to forgive? The only thing that calls for forgiveness? If one is only prepared to forgive what appears forgivable. . .then the very idea of forgiveness would disappear.” To extend this line of thought, we might ask whether anything needs to be tolerated other than that which is intolerable.

The debate over immigration is stuffed with important language issues. Do we refer to “undocumented workers,” “illegal immigrants,” or “illegal aliens,” for example? A glance through the message boards (e.g., Minuteman, Americans for Legal Immigration) or websites of any of these groups (e.g., La Raza, League of United Latino American Citizens) demonstrates numerous examples.

“Tolerance” is overwhelmingly considered to be a benevolent characteristic in the current political climate. Groups opposed to “illegal aliens” do not see themselves as being intolerant or bigoted in any way. They see themselves as following the “law.” The possibility of laws written from the perspective of those who did not consider the “other” is beyond their imagination. Similarly, progressives tout “tolerance” as if it is their domain, but they also should wrestle with the notion of whether or not they are obliged to tolerate ideas that they view to be intolerant (and, thus, intolerable?). So if “tolerance,” like beauty, is only in the eye of the beholder – relative – then we must consider who, if anyone, has a rightful claim to this overwhelmingly positive, powerful and popular concept.

If the notion of tolerance ultimately falls in on itself, it is not useful. In that case, it is a political football, used to persuade but not to enlighten. And if tolerance cannot enlighten, what is its purpose? Where Habermas sees some universality in tolerance, Derrida sees it as patriarchal (which is why he prefers “hospitality”). So, if the idea of tolerance relies on one’s presupposed position of (relative) power, it might be argued that to “tolerate” is really to indicate (reinforce, perpetuate?) one’s position of privilege (or one’s idea’s position of privilege) over that which is being tolerated.

That power difference will continue to be at work in the debate about immigration narrowly and diversity broadly. It will continue to creep into elected politics, as it did in 2006. La Raza’s very public moving of its 2009 conference to Chicago will likely draw more attention and protest (as promised by the Minuteman cited above). The war of words will involve “tolerance.” Whether you decide to tolerate the banter is, well, up to you.

Super Duper Party Poopers: Nothing Clear in Democratic Race

This week’s blog comes to you late. It’s late because we wanted to include some discussion of the Super Tuesday results. The problem is that we still do not have too much to say. It is a very close race (as it was before yesterday’s contests), and there is no end in immediate sight.

The racial discourse was refreshingly absent from the last week of campaigning, but pundits were largely on point with their analysis of exit poll results indicating that Obama was making headway with white voters generally and white women particularly. In Georgia, evidence showed that he took almost all of the female African-American vote.

The bottom line, of course, is that Hillary Clinton can afford to lose 100% of the black vote if she is able to secure a disproportionate amount of the white vote. Every state is majority white, so those numbers would work out just fine for her. Her problem is that Obama is showing an ability to motivate white supporters to vote for and caucus for him. Idaho? North Dakota? Are you serious? Any suspicion that Obama’s white support in Iowa was a fluke must be put aside after yesterday’s contests. To that extent, it shows that, at least in the context of this race (which is unique because of voters’ predispositions about Hillary Clinton), white folks are willing to vote for a black candidate – at least THIS black candidate. This signals a marked departure from the extant social science research and electoral results throughout American history.

And oh what fun to speculate on a brokered convention or a “dream ticket” with both Democratic candidates on it! We’ll leave that to the mainstream media and bloggers. Our interest remains in the way that race will be used as a leveraging device – most likely implicitly – throughout the remainder of the primary process. If Obama secures the nomination, our little fingers will be quite busy the whole way through November; if he is elected president, we may have to quit our jobs to keep up with the material relevant to this blog.

But all of that is worlds away at this point in February. While the Republican contest is nearing a conclusion, the Democrats look as far away as ever in deciding between the two candidates who have been frontrunners all along. What will become more interesting in the coming months is whether John McCain turns his attention to the Democrats, and if so, if he begins to use language that will disadvantage Obama based on his race.

But for today, there’s just not much we can do but wait.