Teach Your Children Well

While the vast majority of the country is looking forward with hope and anticipation to the start of Barack Obama’s presidency, a small minority of bigots are not only still licking their wounds, but refusing to accept the reality of America with a Black president.

While many bigots were concerned that Obama would win, many of them have apparently decided that his election was the end of the battle. For others, however, the concern that Obama will actually be successful is apparently more pressing. Some of the post-election hatred is coming from self-proclaimed Christians (something tells us Jesus might not approve) – and not just folks sitting around their homes. Here is the marquee from a church in Wichita, KS. Click to watch the video (below) of CNN’s Rick Sanchez’s story that includes the church’s pastor explaining (or trying to explain) the sign.

And, lest TWIR readers think the suggestions of Obama as anti-Christ were mere campaign ploys, see this Newsweek story about folks who seriously believe that he is.

The great wish that America’s racial tensions will lessen with subsequent generations is jeopardized by the resentment that some White Americans are passing down to their children. What was once implicit racial bias has, as we predicted, become explicit in the weeks since Obama was elected.

Among the most prominent in the news THIS WEEK is the incident in Rexburg, Idaho where children on a school bus chanted “assassinate Obama.” Mayor Shawn Larson issued an apology that is worthy of our analytical attention:

"I am extremely sorry that this incident occurred, and I do not believe that it reflects the values which make our community a great place to live and raise a family," Larsen wrote. "Parents must realize that things said in anger or even in jest can have lasting repercussions not only damaging young hearts and minds, but a city's reputation."

Whether purposeful or not, Larsen correctly uses language that differentiates between layers of consciousness. “Values” reside at the deepest layer under consideration here – the aspect of our thought process that is least likely to be effectively challenged. Most Americans share values and, indeed, most humans share a deep commitment to ideas of justice, equality, fairness, honesty, etc. Two layers toward (into) consciousness reside “attitudes.” These are the most likely to be challenged and changed. Adults who are open and honest about their distaste for an African American president have bigotry that resides at the attitudinal level. Most Americans do not. So when Larsen says that he does not believe that it reflects the “values which make [their] community a great place to live and raise a family,” he is technically correct.

What he misses, however, is what most of us fail to consider – the level of thought that exists between values and attitudes: beliefs. This is the place where stereotypes reside. If you have ever wondered how two Christians, for instance, can have such different political attitudes, this is the answer. While the values are identical, the degree to which and the ways in which values correspond to beliefs drive the degree to which and the ways in which beliefs are manifested in conscious attitudes. What Larsen does not identify (or perhaps even recognize) is that the collective beliefs in his community, like so many other American communities, are deeply racist. In other words, his note about the community’s values is beside the point; the values of which he is so proud have not been reconciled with resentful beliefs, which is difficult to detect under normal circumstances between at the attitudinal level, folks do not wish to be racist and know that they “should” not be (and even think that they are not), so we are skillful at hiding those beliefs – sometimes from ourselves.

But at times of high stress, fear, excitement, etc., our defenses come down, and our attitudes begin to more accurately reflect our beliefs. When this happens, we are surprised (remember how shocked Michael Richards was when he went on a racist tirade against Black hecklers at his comedy show?) because we are not used to seeing this side of ourselves. That doesn’t mean that the hatred is new; it means that the filters that we use to hide the uglier aspects of our nature fall, and we get a glimpse into who we really are.

We encourage readers to take a look at Idahoan Jeff Brady’s thoughtful op-ed regarding this incident.

In Maryland, at least one school official is working to battle the bigotry that is being reflected through children by designing a curriculum that targets racial hatred in the context of backlash against Obama’s election.

But in other places, the school officials, rather than serving as a calming force against parents’ racial hatred, are attacking minority students in the wake of Obama’s election.

In Allison Park, PA (Western PA – you know, the area that criticized Congressman John Murtha for calling them racist), a teacher’s aide went on a tirade after overhearing a Black student talking with enthusiasm about Obama’s win:

"He started laughing and went over to another student, in front of another teacher, and said that 'Oh, guess what they're going to change the flag to? The KFC flag. And they're going to change our national anthem to 'Moving On Up.’''

It's disheartening on one level, but on another level, it is very important that we recognize that these beliefs exist (and have existed) despite all of the attempts to cover it up and despite Obama's election.

Three Mexicans Walk Into a Bar. . .

Ok, that’s not the sort of racial humor we’re into, but we did decide to keep the blog super light THIS WEEK. After months and months of bringing you disturbing examples of American bigotry and racism, we offer some fun.

It’s important that we understand exactly why the items we include below are funny and why we are comfortable putting them forth in this space. First, while we are quite far from achieving racial equality or eliminating racial prejudice in America, there is certainly cause for celebration after white voters did not succumb to deep-seated resentment at the level that we expected on Election Day. So we’re giving ourselves permission to chill out a bit. A second (related) point is that we laugh with full knowledge that the ugly reality that undergirds each of these pieces is waiting for all of us on the other side of the joke. Barack Obama’s presidency will have a gigantic net favorable impact on race relations in America over the long term. But in the short term, there will be a level of psychological divisiveness with respect to race that we have not seen in decades.

Consider, for instance, this quote by Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, who sought reelection this year. Because Georgia (wisely, we feel) requires a majority of votes for electoral victory (as opposed to a mere plurality), Chambliss will face Democrat Jim Martin in a runoff election next month. When asked on Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes (watch the clip below) why he wasn’t able to secure an outright majority on Election Day, Chambliss had this to say:

There was a high percentage of minority vote, and I am tickled to death that as many Georgians as did examined their right to vote. That’s what make our election process the envy of the whole free world, but we weren’t able to get enough of our folks out on Election Day.

All-righty then.

Chambliss could certainly have been referring to Republicans or simply to his own supporters when he referenced “our folks,” but given the proximity to his acknowledgement about the high number of minority voters in Georgia, it is clear that he was distinguishing “our folks” from minorities. We will certainly see much more of this “us versus them” mindset rise to the surface over the coming months. For our part, we will be examining the extent to which Whites strive to avoid or combat that tendency publicly. (Thanks to loyal TWIR reader Dr. Kevan Yenerall for forwarding this story to us.)




Daily Dose of Humor

Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart has not been afraid of highlighting race as an issue in the aftermath of Obama’s victory anymore than he was during the campaign. In the days since the election, The Daily Show crew has offered a number of hilarious takes on what it means to have the first Black president.

Black Liberal Guilt
The Daily Show’s Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore is deadpan in his admission that not only are Whites and Blacks are “square,” but that the real lesson to be learned from Obama’s win is that interracial relationships benefit everyone. But when he turns his attention to the ways so many White progressives have allowed their concern for racial inequality to be manifest in condescension, he hits the proverbial nail quite uncomfortably on the head. Take a look:



Takin’ It to the Streets
Race Project research assistant Sidra Hamidi alerted us to this Daily Show tidbit from earlier in the week. Here, Stewart points out the unfortunate comparison made by CNN’s affable correspondent Jeanne Moos as she reported on Obama’s motorcade’s trip to Washington, DC. If McCain would have won the election, her reference to O.J. Simpson as the helicopter cameras followed the SUVs would not have caught our (or Stewart’s) attention. As it happens, however. . .
(The relevant section begins at about the 4:45 mark of this video.)



“But It’s Different”
If The Daily Show writers were quick to point their mocking little fingers at patronizing Whites through Larry Wilmore’s commentary (above), they were even more hostile (appropriately so, in our view) toward African Americans who voted to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples in California. The dynamic of “oppressee becoming oppressor” is not new, of course: ethnic minorities from Western Europe were among the most openly bigoted against Blacks in the first half of the 20th century as the former began to assimilate into the mainstream of American social and economic (if not yet political) life. After being granted suffrage, White women did not uniformly turn their attention toward rectifying the ills of racial oppression, and Black churches have long featured some of the most homophobic attitudes in America. The cruel reality of anti-gay bigotry is highlighted, though, by the suggestion that one of the reasons Proposition 8 passed was because of the increased turnout of African Americans to the polls so that they could signal a defeat of one form of oppression (electing the first Black president), only to participate in another. Watch here to see Stewart’s comic outrage:




Fear of a Black President (1980s version)

Finally, the folks at Gawker.com cleverly posted this video of Eddie Murphy from 1983 (you remember Delirious, right – the red leather suit?) joking about the first Black president (after he referred to Chicago’s first and still only Black mayor, Harold Washington, as “that boy”). Murphy joked (watch below) that Jesse Jackson could win because White people (who might even get drunk before heading to the polls) like to vote for the “wrong” person as a “goof.” Of course, as the folks at Gawker point out, a good piece of the “humor”in this bit is the reality of how many people would be interested in assassinating the first Black president. It’s a sobering thought, of course, but as is the case with all great comics (and Murphy in his prime was certainly among the greatest), we are encouraged to soothe our fears with a good laugh now and again.



Consider, also, this Richard Pryor skit about the first Black president. In it, he notes that one of his priorities is to have more Black quarterbacks in the NFL, as well as more Black coaches and team owners. While there has been a proliferation of Black NFL quarterbacks in the past decade and the number of Black head coaches has risen slowly (the 10th Black head coach in NFL history assumed control of his team last month), there are still no Black owners. Further, a report released THIS WEEK shows that the number of African American head coaches in Division I-A college football is at its lowest point in 15 years (only four of the 119 schools have a Black head coach; nearly half of the players are Black).



Perhaps the most prescient element in Pryor’s routine, though, is the suggestion that the first Black president will use that position to “court White women.” Not only does this humor strike hard against the now-unspoken concern, which runs back to the arrival of the first slave ships, that Black men are looking to “violate” White women (perhaps Chambliss would refer to them as “our White women?”), but it brings us full circle from the first comedic piece we posted (above), where Larry Wilmore joked that Obama’s victory was partly the result of Obama’s Black father having “hooked up” with a White woman. It also reminds us about how the Republican National Committee played on resentments of Black men being intimate with White women in its discraceful 2006 attack ad against Harold Ford, Jr. in his bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Tennessee. Click the photo below to view the ad.


Of course, at the end of Pryor’s piece, the president attacks a reporter for talking about his mama. We’re going to go out on a limb and advise you not hold your breath waiting for that to happen in Barack Obama’s White House.


Major Overhaul of RaceProject.org

Many of you have already heard via Facebook or a direct email from one of us (or both of us – sorry if that was you!), but we want to be sure that everyone is aware of the massive revisions that have been made to the website home of The Project on Race in Political Communication. The full list of updates is too lengthy to print here, but it includes:

• a greatly expanded “resources” page
• detailed information about booking one or both of us for an appearance
• an updated “press room” with links to our print and broadcast appearances and an updated “studies and data” page with links to our publications and scholarly presentations
• more biographical information than you can imagine (or want) for each of us
• a video archive of some classic and contemporary clips relating to race and politics
• some nifty bells and whistles like the addition of a RaceProject “favicon” so that when you bookmark or navigate to RaceProject.org or TWIR, you’ll see the RaceProject logo in the navigation tab and address bar of your browser. (Look up now – is it there? If not, you may have to clear your cache and restart your browser to get the full effect.)

Please be sure to bookmark or favorite RaceProject.org so that you remember to check back for updates. As always, the best way to stay updated is to join our Facebook Group and maintain your email subscription or RSS feed to TWIR.

Bradley Effect: Dead or Dormant?

While it will still take some time to comb through all the entire exit polling data from the presidential election, one thing is clear: there was no net Bradley effect. Barack Obama won the states he was projected to win, within the margin of error that the last polls projected him to win. This does not mean, of course, that there was no Bradley effect. It is possible that Whites who indicated support for Obama in the polls chose McCain in the voting booth, but if so, they were offset by Whites who indicated support for McCain in the polls but voted for Obama.
This is especially possible in parts of the Deep South, where the “norm of racial equality” is weaker – where White folks might have actually been driven to conceal their support for Obama.

Further, it is inappropriate to declare the death of the Bradley effect as a result of one election. It is possible that the Bradley effect did not apply to Barack Obama's presidency, but the salience of the campaign, the fact that Obama is half White, the fact that McCain's campaign was so poorly run, or the fact Obama is a "first" might have mitigated the effect in this election (though it is also possible that this would have contriubuted to a Bradley effect). So we're not sure we can sign the death certificate for the Bradley effect just yet, but we are certainly happy to sing it a bedtime story (and slip it some Ambien) at the very least.

By the way, was John McCain advocating a Bradley effect vote the night before the election when he was interviewed on Monday Night Football? We wouldn't speculate on his intent, but we wonder if the fact that he knew that a Bradley effect was his only chance at that point didn't affect his answer to the question. Watch (below) and see what you think.



In any case, Obama did not simply win the election – he dominated. A six-point popular vote lead may not sound like a lot, but when one considers that there have been only five Black candidates who have won high-profile statewide office (U.S. Senate or governor) since Reconstruction, Obama’s victory was impressive. Further, in many states where he ultimately lost, he was competitive up until to the end. The Electoral College tends to exacerbate a popular vote victory (when it doesn’t reverse it), so that trouncing of McCain paints an exaggerated picture of Obama’s support. And it is true that winning a third term for the Republicans was a long shot in the current political climate, but it is wise for us to revisit – as we did after Obama secured the nomination – our prediction nearly two years ago that Obama would not win.
Before noting that Obama would not win the Democratic Party nomination, here is what we said about the general election in December 2006:

Let's begin with the general election, where Republicans and other conservative types will of course be part of the electorate. It seems an almost foregone conclusion at this point that Republicans, especially in the South, have mastered and continue to refine the art of race-baiting; they know such messages will always find fertile ground to influence voting decisions at the least, and develop into vociferous anti-black/minority opposition, even hysteria, at most (especially in a Presidential race). Of course there is always convenient cover for such insidious messages; for Republicans, it is ideology.

And you can already see it coming in this week's evangelical rancor over Rick Warren's invitation of Obama to speak at his megachurch AIDS summit. Should Obama win the nomination, he is certain to face vigorous opposition from Republicans who believe Obama's real sin is his skin. This sentiment will be denied of course, with claims that it is his stance on abortion, stem cell research, homosexuals, etc. - not race - that is the reason for opposition.

Unlike our incorrect prediction about Obama’s inability to secure the Party nomination, we were fairly accurate in our prediction of what Obama’s opponents would do.

Republicans absolutely used ideology as a cover for their racist rhetoric. Rather than attacking Obama for being “too Black,” they called him “radical,” “risky,” and labeled his policies “socialist” and “Marxist.” Rather than using Jeremiah Wright to suggest that Obama was too empathetic to the cause of Black liberation, McCain supporters suggested that their concern was Wright’s “anti-American” positions. Nothing about Jeremiah Wright’s sermons are anti-American per se; they were anti-White supremacy, and to the extent that White supremacy is an inherent part of America, the point could be made. We’re pretty sure that’s not what the McCain supporters meant, though.

Perhaps because of the primacy of the economic crisis, there was little substitution of progressive social policy positions for race. We were, for the most part, mistaken about that.

At the end of the day, we underestimated the American public with respect to the likelihood of using Obama’s race against him. Our final sentence in that blog reads as follows: “Obama certainly has the qualifications to be President, yet the barriers of race make us quite skeptical about the possibility of the nation electing the first black President.”

But if there is any doubt about the role race played amongst McCain supporters, consider this map from The New York Times, which shows the handful of counties where McCain got more support than George W. Bush got in 2004. Progressive blogger Yglesias astutely notes that given the level of poverty in those areas, it is unlikely that McCain’s call for tax relief for the wealthiest Americans can account for this increase of support for the Republican candidate this year. As our good friend Rush Limbaugh might say, “It is totally about race!” (Thanks to loyal TWIR reader Matt Zanon for passing along this link.)
















“Wright” Up Until the End

While John McCain technically kept his promise to not invoke Jeremiah Wright during the campaign, the last two days (Sunday and Monday) saw a flurry of ads featuring the out-of-context statements by Obama’s former preacher. The Pennsylvania Republican Party (PAGOP) ran one, as did the National Republican Trust (NRT) political action committee, the friendly bigots at Freedom’s Defense Fund (FDF), and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). Click each of the four images below to enjoy the full video.









The National Republican Trust (NRT), Freedom’s Defense Fund (FDF) and the Pennsylvania Republican Party (PAGOP) released a flurry of ads that used implicit racist messages. For the PAGOP, there was an ad called “Bitter” that brought forth a flurry of White folks (and one Black man with his child) that were supposedly the target of Obama’s “elitist” comment about his inability to win over rural White Democrats during the primaries and one that altered photos of U.S. leaders meeting with leaders of rogue nations to suggest that Obama’s believe in diplomacy with enemies of the U.S. was naïve. The spot includes an image of Obama shaking hands with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



NRT ran an ad about Obama’s tolerance for terrorists, one criticizing Obama’s opposition to denying driver’s licenses to undocumented workers, and one linking his "redistributive" economic plan to illegals and terrorists.

TWIR readers will recall that FDF is the group who made the “Willie Horton 2008” spot linking Obama with former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. This group also ran an ad using Jeremiah Wright (above), and one linking Obama to a Kenyan leader (another scary Black man!).

While not a legitimate ad that ran in any states, it is interesting to note the attempted satire in this YouTube ad that targets voters who would only vote for Obama because of his race. Please be sure to note the last frame, where the person who made the ad declares that its not racist. Thanks for the heads-up, pal.

Racists for Obama


Of course, for Obama to win, he had to put together a coalition. Surprisingly, Salon reports that some of Obama’s supporters were espoused bigots. (Thanks to psychologists and loyal TWIR readers Dr. Jon Mueller and Dr. Steve Davis for passing this along.)


Strange bedfellows indeed!



Uncle Ralph

Ralph Nader, apparently not satisfied with the degree of offensiveness of his remark about Obama “talking White” this summer, had the following to say about Obama’s win: “[Obama’s] choice, basically, is whether he is going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

Fox News had Nader on to discuss the comment (see below), and Nader explained that Obama wasn’t Black enough in his policy preferences. What is so remarkable about Nader’s remarks here and back in the summer is that he feels so comfortable telling Obama how to be Black.

As a rule, when Fox News calls you out on your racism, you’re in bad shape. If Fox would have been as diligent in calling out conservatives on their racism as they were with lefty Nader, we would be more impressed.




Not Taking This Well

Our colleague, historian and loyal TWIR reader Dr. Alex Kindell, learned of some text messages that were going around Northwestern Indiana after Obama’s victory. Here’s some examples (spelling errors in the original):

1. Free bbq chicken, chitlins', watermelon, and 40's at the white house tomorrow be there & bring your own blunts. We runnin this shit now!
2. The Statue of Liberty is coming down today. Aunt Jemima is going up holdn a chicken leg!
3. ALL WHITE PEOPLE MUST REPORT 2 THE COTTON FIELDS TOMORROW MORNING AT 7 AM FOR ORIENTATION!!
4. Washington is on the dollar. Lincoln is on the 5. I heard Obama will be on food stamps. (Reminds us of the Republican women’s club email that came out of California a few weeks back).

The truth is, however, that many McCain supporters will be supportive of Obama's presidency at the beginning (during his "honeymoon" period). Many of these folks shed tears with the rest of us on election night as the historical importance of the moment became apparent. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh will continue to have their coalition of the under-educated and the ultra wealthy, but there is little question that as a nation, we move forward together to try to address the most pressing issues of our day.


This GUEST

Be sure to check out Dr. David Worth's GUEST blog this week, where he discusses the work yet to be done with respect to race relations in America.





These ANALYSTS

Stephen and Charlton were busy this week providing analysis of the election. In addition to the spots embedded below, Stephen did an interview for TVN of Poland and had a live appearance on Al Jazeera English. If those clips become available, Stephen will post them on his YouTube page.










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