Opening the Flood-"Gates" to Increased Animosity

As expected, we are weighing in with our analysis of the arrest of Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. in his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts THIS WEEK. If you have been monitoring the RaceProject Facebook page, you will be up to speed on all the happenings. If so, jump past the next paragraph; if not, read on.

In short, Professor Gates was having trouble getting into his home upon his return from an overseas trip. He and his driver managed to get into the home, but as they were doing so, a neighbor called the police. While Gates was on the phone making arrangements for the door to be fixed, the police arrived. At this point, there is some disagreement about what happened, but we do know that the police asked to see Gates's identification (Gates says he produced it, the police say he did not do so immediately), Gates verbally berated the police (including making comments regarding to the way Black men are treated by police in America) and demanded the officer's badge number and name, and ultimately, Gates was arrested. The charges have been dropped, but the incident sparked a debate within and between several communities (the press, academics, activists, etc.). Dr. Gates is really upset, and President Obama weighed in during the last question of his health care press conference by saying that he believed that the police "acted stupidly," even though he admitted to not knowing all the facts. He has since talked to both the arresting officer and Professor Gates and is planning to have them to the White House for beers.

There has been no shortage of thoughtful commentary throughout the week. And, perhaps as we might expect, there has been no shortage of thoughtless commentary, as well.

On the thoughtful side, we encourage folks to read the excellent posts by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Dawn Turner Trice (here and here), Katherine T. Wallace, Liza Sabater, George Mitrovich, Harry Allen, Stanley Fish, Charles Blow and Sam Somers.

On the less-than-thoughtful side, (surprise) Rush Limbaugh played explicitly on the "angry Black man" stereotype (video here; for more on this, check out this MSNBC panel where Limbaugh's comments are discussed), and the angry White guys at The Free Republic were typically repulsive.

As is the trend in contemporary racial politics, there are basically three populations about which we are concerned. The first is the group who has been honest about how this incident is illustrative of the relationship between police and Black men in America. The second group is comprised of those (like Limbaugh) who are explicitly opposed to any attempt to bring about racial equality, either because they are overt bigots who believe Whites are a superior people or because they believe that America is a meritocracy where those who have succeeded are those who have worked the hardest -- and who just so happen to be disproportionately White and male. The third group is comprised of (mostly White) folks who are not particularly sensitive to the ways that systemic racism function; these folks sincerely want to have racial equality, understand that by most indicators, it is not here yet, but have a difficult time viewing the world through the lens of "others."

The last group was out in full force THIS WEEK, trying to make sense of the situation by analyzing the events through what they believe to be a race-neutral lens. These are the folks who were moved by the notion that the arresting officer, Sgt. Crowley, gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the late Celtics basketball player Reggie Lewis (our favorite tweet on this came from @mattbastard (Matthew Elliot): "There's a new one 'I'm not racist--I french-kissed a negro [not that there's anything wrong with that].'") and then found "confirmation" that the officer was not "to blame" because he cannot possibly be "racist" when they learned that he was hand-picked by a Black superior officer to teach diversity classes that include information about how to avoid racial profiling and that a Black officer on the scene the night of the Gates arrest publicly claimed that Crowley acted appropriately.

Here's why these interpretations fall short of the type of sophistication we encourage in this space.

Whether the arresting officer is a bigot or not is completely beside the point. He tried to save the life of a Black man and he has been recognized about being thoughtful about racial profiling. That is impressive and certainly suggests that he is not a bigot, but it does not get him off the hook of systemic racism. He is a White man in America -- and a police officer at that -- and thus has a distinct way to view the world that he (like all of us) is unable to escape. He can be thoughtful about that bias that he carries, but as was so nicely demonstrated in Paul Haggis's film Crash, under stressful conditions, it is harder to activate those filters. In short, this is a familiar refrain: "I can't be racist; I have Black friends"; it is a casualty of the continual conflation of racism with bigotry.

Further, under what circumstances would a fellow officer -- of any race or ethnicity -- publicly state that his colleague (particularly one who is facing public scrutiny) acted inappropriately? Seriously: how would that go? "Yeah, he was way out of line. That is not what he should have done at all. I'm embarrassed to be on the same force with this guy." Please. Who can blame a fellow officer for 1) seeing the situation more closely to the way his colleague saw it, and 2) supporting him publicly under these circumstances.

But this is shaping up to be similar to the OJ Simpson verdict with respect to the way Whites and Blacks see the situation. Most Whites see themselves (or wish to see themselves) in Sgt. Crowley (no visible prejudices, history of friendship with Blacks) and worry that they, too, might be accused of racism if they ever do something to a Black person that the person does not like. Since Whites as a group do not have a history of animosity with police, they view the situation outside of that larger context and simply focus on "the facts." But those events took place in a broader context, and that must be considered.

And it is within this context that President Obama spoke. While many (most?) Black folk cheered when he publicly called the officer's actions "stupid" (but see Bill Cosby's response), they recoiled a bit when he backpedaled on the language later in the week (see Melissa Harris-Lacewell's commentary on that issue on The Rachel Maddow Show).

To elaborate on that point, we reprint what Charlton wrote to a friend on his Facebook page about the issue:

My guess is that Obama's first comments were the most honest. I think that his reaction that the Cambridge cop acted stupidly probably came from the visceral feeling of knowing what it feels like not only to be profiled, but to be someone who has done everything society says you have to do to be great, and succeed, etc. and then still get treated like a common criminal -- in your own home no less. Malcolm X use to say: What do you call a Black man with a Ph.D? "N*****." I think that kind of feeling is what Gates had when the incident happened and what Obama was reacting to when he was first asked about his response. His latest response and apologies, etc. are of course politically motivated, though probably the right thing to do to try to help mend fences and use turn it into a "teachable moment."

Even without all the details, I do believe that Gates reacted exactly as the officer said. I believe he said the things he did and in the tone the officer said he did. But I think that to say that Gates "overreacted" is very subjective. As a person who has been harassed by cops for absolutely nothing other than the color of my skin (like the Shawnee [OK] cops who would routinely pull me over when driving in some of the nice neighborhoods, but never give me a reason why they stopped me, and including on two occasions having the cops called because I was "breaking in" to my own apartment, then doing searches of my apartment for no reason), I think Gates's reaction was somewhat mild -- hardly an overreaction. Was it a reasonable reaction? Probably not, but we're not talking about the realm of reason here. It's the emotional feeling one gets at this kind of personal injustice.

Here's the issue with the officer: it's all about the handcuffs. Gates is a short, scrawny, Ivy league nerd who raised his voice at a cop who had a gun, handcuffs and the power and authorization to use force if necessary to exercise his will. The officer had broad discretion. You don't immediately bust out the cuffs because someone gives you a little lip, especially when you know those words are not at all threatening. Putting Gates in cuffs for "disturbing the peace" is a symbolic act, one that says, "get and stay in your place, boy." But few people have been saying that the cop overreacted. And maybe he didn't. Like Gates acted out of his experience and the experience of other Blacks being profiled, the cop acted out of his experience and feeling of having an uppity Black professor talk to him the way he did: not just as a cop, but as a White person. To him, that was Gates's real offense.

Politically speaking, Obama shouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole. But I respect the fact that he he allowed himself to react as a human being who is Black, who has experienced the good and bad of living Black in America and was there to get someone's back who he saw as someone who was a slight victim of injustice (there are plenty of people of color who are profiled and victimized much more harshly).

This is a perspective that Stephen, for instance, would not have had. No matter how sensitive White folks are to systemic racism, no matter how long they study it and try to understand its implications, there is no substitute for experience, particularly with respect to the mixture of cognitive and emotional responses that come into play in a stressful situation such as this. Witness, for instance, MSNBC's Mika Brezezinsky's struggle to understand this element of the situation here (or below) in a discussion with Eugene Robinson and Carlos Watson.

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Finally, here's a bit of bitter humor to bring this full circle: Dave Chappelle "predicted" these events a number of years ago in one of his routines.

Before we let you go, though, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the other big racial story THIS WEEK. The "birthers" (those who believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and, thus, is not legitimately the president) gained a strange sort of momentum as national conservative spokespersons such as Lou Dobbs and some Republican members of Congress continued to attempt to legitimize the claims. CNN's Rick Sanchez tore into these folks, and Jon Stewart made them look like complete nut jobs in his comic send up of their activities. Roland Martin did a nice job in a discussion with Dobbs (see here or below), and the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a formal letter to CNN asking for Dobbs to be removed due to his irresponsible journalistic activity with respect to this matter.



Make no mistake: this issue has everything to do with race. It is a perpetuation of the "otherness" frame that characterized Obama's opponents in the primaries and general election, and it is very much a function of White folks who remain horrified that the nation is being led by a Black man. At the town hall meeting that got so much attention THIS WEEK, a woman screamed "I want my country back!" This language is reflective of a group of people (it's impossible to tell how large of a group) who cannot stomach the fact that a Black man is in charge. Obama, they implicitly argue, is not really American. He's not "one of us." He's quintessentially "other," and he has stolen the country.

When he sided with the "lippy," "uppity" African American studies professor, it was simply additional evidence for the fact that "his kind" stick together; they will protect one another, but they hate Whites. He is a "reverse racist" (as Rush Limbaugh has called him), and he has disdain for (at least parts of) America.

We see some very scary trends emerging THIS WEEK. The White supremacists will always be stoking racial animosity and attacking Obama on racial grounds, but when otherwise thoughtful Whites (whom we put in "group three" above) start to be attentive to and perpetuate these notions, there is a real danger for the racial divide to widen. The backlash we (and many others) predicted at inauguration time is in full effect. What remains to be seen is how deep and how widespread it will become.

Republicans Battle Over and About Sonia Sotomayor's "Racism"

It's been one of those weeks.

First of all, there are a number of important issues that deserve our attention. The only African American U.S. Senator, Roland Burris, finds himself in trouble. (BTW: We believe he should step aside; we called for him not to be seated in the first place amidst dubious charges of racism in the face of which Senate Democratic leaders caved). A White woman in Pennsylvania took off with her kids and used the familiar claim, "a Black guy abducted us." And Ursula Burns (left) became the first ever Black woman to head up a Fortune 500 company (Xerox).

But, of course, the story that captured most of our attention this week was the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court.


As has been widely reported, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic American to sit on the high court, and she has not been particularly skillful in hiding the fact that 1) she is, in fact, Latina, 2) is aware of her own gender and ethnicity, and 3) has a sophisticated understanding of the way group identity matters in the lives of Americans. Unfortunately, some on the right either sincerely believe that people can be neutral (as opposed to objective) or are acting as if they believe it to try to convince less thoughtful folks that this is an accurate depiction of the human psyche.

The immediate controversy stems from a lecture Sotomayor gave in California in 2001, where she was talking about how her "story" affected her worldview. In the context of this, she said:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

It is this last sentence (hereafter "the sentence") that has attracted the ire of the usual cast of angry Whites (mostly male + Ann Coulter) who populate the airwaves of overtly conservative media outlets. The refrain is similar and predictable: minorities are stealing their America from them, and someone needs to stand up and say something about it. (For his part, President Obama has unfortunately claimed that "the sentence" constitutes a poor choice of words. Whatever.)

So here is just a partial list of what we saw unfold over the course of the week (for a more comprehensive look, see here and/or see the video that follows):

• Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter called "the sentence" "a racist statement." Carlson added that it was racist "by any calculation." (Hmm. Not by ours.)
  
• Glenn Beck called "the sentence" "one of the most outrageous racist remarks he has heard." (Really? One of the most outrageous he has heard? Maybe he should take a look at some of these reactions to a Drudge Report posting about Sotomayor.)
  
• Pat Buchanan called her "an affirmative action pick" and said that it "appears" that she "believes in reverse discrimination against White males."
• Rush Limbaugh called her, at various points during his five broadcasts this week, "a racist," a "bigot," and a "reverse racist."

Limbaugh, ever the thoughtful contributor to meaningful dialogue about the hegemonic order, was more accurate in his reflection of what is bubbling under the surface. At its root, this is not about Sonia Sotomayor. Some on the left are very concerned with her record on issues like abortion, so it's not like she is an ideological extremist (a leftist Robert Bork, for instance), and it's not like she's not going to be confirmed. It seems clear that more than 60 senators will be willing to vote for cloture if a filibuster is attempted, and clear-headed Republicans understand that not only is opposing the first Hispanic Supreme Court appointment political suicide, but it will not result in Obama naming someone more to their liking anyway (see Senator Mel Martinez's carefully worded press release on the nomination). There is a strong undercurrent of White resentment and the ongoing fear that Obama is out to oppress White people.

Think we're exaggerating? Limbaugh said THIS WEEK that Obama "is the greatest living example of a reverse racist," and Lou Dobbs said that the appointment was "pandering to the Hispanics."

Former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (never afraid to criticize racial minorities) told Ed Schultz that Sotomayor "appears to be a racist," and, when asked if he subscribed to Limbaugh's assertion that the way to "get appointed to the Obama Administration" is by "hatin' White people," Tancredo told David Shuster "I don't know. . . I have no idea if they hate White people or not."

See the exchange here. Limbaugh's rant (which is shown in the video) is so ridiculous that it almost doesn't deserve our attention. He claims that Obama wants to make Whites "the new oppressed minority" and that Republicans are going along with it by "moving to the back of the bus" and obliging by drinking only out of designated water fountains. The metaphor is silly and offensive, and making such a parallel reveals his utter lack of understanding of the suffering of generations of people of color. Tancredo goes on to express his frustration of "the suggestion" that because he is White, he cannot comment on the situation. (Recall the similar outrage by Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson that we blogged about last year.)

So here is where we are. The truth is that very little of this matters right now because such discourse is firmly on the margins of mainstream political thought, even though the voices espousing the claims are loud and popular in the narrow universe they serve. We still have members of the Ku Klux Klan and there are still neo-Nazi skinheads. Those are the most hateful, bigoted members of our society. There are bigoted people of color who are hateful and resentful of Whites in a way that is similar to the White supremacists in some ways. Just to this side of empathy from these folks are the so-called "wing nuts," who either legitimately do not understand the way power works because they are too blinded by their own racism to wrestle with the difficult questions, or are being intentionally dishonest to stir resentment among Whites in an attempt to gain political advantage. This is most often manifested in the "if the shoe were on the other foot" comparisons that fall apart in the face of historical context.

If everyone started out equally, then it would always be inappropriate to take race, gender, class or sexual orientation into account. Those pining for the "objective," non-activist jurist who "does not see" categories of humanity either honestly believe that all Americans start life equally and are subsequently judged by the content of their character rather than social groupings or understand that making such claims will contribute to the ongoing oppression of minorities. Newt Gingrich invoked the reciprocity fallacy when he stated (immediately after the nomination was made), "Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘[M]y experience as a white man makes me better than a [L]atina woman.’ [N]ew racism is no better than old racism.”

Of course, there is no such thing as "new racism." Such a phrase suggests that racism is an historical artifact -- something that ended with the Civil War or perhaps the dismantling of Jim Crow.

Perhaps Gingrich is referring to prejudice, bigotry, or maybe, as Limbaugh put it, "reverse racism." On those grounds, we agree: it is improper for people to be judged on such characteristics. However, pretending that we are not judged by our race, gender and sexual orientation is foolish at best and malicious at worst. We may strive for such a day, but it is not upon us (sorry, electing a Black president did not end racism either), and arguing that those who are attentive to the way difference matters in America are somehow getting the upper hand in our society is reflective of either intellectual dishonesty or flat out ignorance.

Mainstream Republicans worked to distance themselves from these sorts of statements THIS WEEK, though few that we have heard directly criticized Limbaugh or the other de facto leaders of the conservative movement (if not the Party itself). Consider, for example, Jon Kyle's language from CBS's Face the Nation.

Senator John Cornyn came the closest to a full-on rebuke on ABC's This Week, but fed host George Stephanopoulos the "justice is blind" line, as well:

Well, of course, George, the concern is that above the Supreme Court it says "Equal justice under law." And it's doesn't -- shouldn't make any difference what your ethnicity is, what your sex is, or the like.

We would also hope that judges would be, you know, umpires, impartial umpires. And, you know, the focus shouldn't be on the umpire and what their sex or gender is, or their ethnicity.

Maybe it shouldn't, Senator Cornyn, but it does. It matters a lot. It is wonderful for the good senator to wish that it did not (that means he is not a bigot). Martin Luther King wished that (dreamed that), as well.

But wishing something doesn't magically make it come true. This is particularly hard for Whites (and more so for White males) to understand because they have been socialized to believe that the American values of fairness, justice and equality are rooted in empirical reality -- after all, Whites have been successful in every element of society, a fact that is readily apparent to even the most casual observer. If the disproportionate levels of success in the White community are not rooted in hard work and merit, then what could possibly account for the discrepancy? The answer, of course, is systemic imbalance and a fundamental lack of justice, which, naturally, is difficult for Whites to embrace, since it calls into question their privilege.

So calling attention to difference is uncomfortable for anyone who is not attentive to the way power structures a society. In that same broadcast of This Week, George Will noted that Sotomayor:

. . . seems to have affirmed what's called identity politics, which is a main proposition and a subproposition. The main proposition is, that an American is or should be thought of as his or her race, ethnicity, sex, sexual preference, that that should define their political identity. And the subproposition is, called categorical representation. You can only be represented by someone of the same sexual, ethnic, racial group as you are, because only they can understand or empathize with you. That is of no relevance whatever to the court, however, because it's not a representative institution.

Will's use of "should" here, is instructive. He uses it to mean that, in the abstract, those of us who subscribe to identity politics believe it to be preferable. That is simply incorrect. It is necessary in this context to take such characteristics into account because they are were consciously taken into account by those who built the system and are subconsciously taken into account by all who are socialized within it.

The subproposition argument is interesting, as well, but Will fails to factor in a fundamental principle of American democracy, articulated most clearly by James Madison in Federalist #10: Democracy is about respecting minority will while also protecting minority rights. The Framers understood that the branches closest to the people will be more likely to support the majority (since they rely on their support for election) and constructed a judiciary that was insulated from direct public pressure so that it could be attentive to minority rights without being punished for it. In fact, that is precisely what has happened. The courts have often been out in front of public opinion and electd officials (ending segregation, gay marriage) in advocating for the rights of those who are in the numerical and power minority.

So while Will is correct that the notion of identity representation is most applicable in the so-called "political" branches, he is mistaken that there is no place for such representation in the judiciary. Further, his suggestion that categorical representation is improper rests on the premise that those who do not possess certain categories can be representative of those who do. We agree with that, but guess what? To do so requires something that conservatives have argued is improper in this very situation: empathy.

Gwen Ifill responded to Will's assertion:

I guess I see it differently. I mean, I've spent the past year talking to a lot of people, who got elected, elected -- black elected officials for a book, and all of them talked about identity politics and defined it differently. They defined it as being -- that being part of what you are, but not all of what you are. And I think that's what the defenders of Sonia Sotomayor are trying to say, which is that her point was, yes, what she is and what we all are shapes us, but it's not all that shapes you.

I always take arguments like this and try to turn them on their heads. And I never hear people say that for a white male, that it's identity politics if he is shaped by his white maleness and by the things that affected his life, and whether privilege affected his life. That's never considered to be a negative. It's only considered to be a negative when ethnicity is involved or race is involved or gender is involved.

This is an interesting idea, and one readers might suspect we oppose given our refusal to allow Whites to use the reciprocity fallacy. But this is a very different proposition because of the unidirectional nature of power (pro-White, pro-male, pro-heterosexual) in our culture. In other words, while it is inappropriate to criticize taking minority interest into account on the grounds that it wouldn't be tolerated the other way around, it is essential to do what Ifill suggests because it is revealing of the belief that Whites often have that they are "without race" or "racially objective." Her assertion is illustrated by Senator Inhoffe's comments THIS WEEK that there needs to be evidence that Sotomayor can "rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences." Since we do not recall similar calls made about previous justices, the implication is that there needs not be a similar test for White males in this regard -- it's understood that they would act "properly." As the folks at Media Matters and Huffington Post point out, there has been hypocrisy on this point, as no one questioned Justice Alito on his similar statements.

Finally, Ed Gillespie followed Ifill by noting that:

We are all shaped by who we are. We all bring that to the table. I do think, though, the -- you know, the conscious injection that you see, in a lot of her comments, of gender and race is what is causing for concern. And not only -- a little different with politicians, I think, our identity, than with a judge, and with a Supreme Court justice for a lifetime appointment.

Conscious injection? Is that the problem? So long as we inject our biases without knowing that we're doing that, it's fine? Consciousness is what is objectionable? Again, it reminds us of the inability of folks to distinguish racism (which resides largely in the subconscious) and bigotry (which is, by definition, conscious). And that, dear friends, is the crux of the problem.

We fear that we have missed yet another opportunity to talk meaningfully about the role of race (and, in this case, gender) in America. As is typical, we have allowed the debate to be reduced to individuals, personalities, and political posturing, when there was an opportunity for real work to be done.

For now, we can simply sit by and watch while some conservatives play on racial resentments as others try to get them to stop without offending these leaders of "the base" (i.e., Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Gingrich). When presented with an opportunity to distance himself clearly from Limbaugh's statements on Meet the Press, Senator Jeff Sessions was very careful:

SESSIONS: I don't think I'm going to use any such words as that. I read her speech. I'm troubled by her speech. I think she has an opportunity to explain that. And I don't think we--that I'm going to use such loaded words. People on the outside can say what they choose to say.

MR. [David] GREGORY: But wait, but do you make a judgment about that? Do you think they're appropriate?

SEN. SESSIONS: I don't think those are words...

MR. GREGORY: You think that's fair?

SEN. SESSIONS: ...that I would use. And I don't think--I don't--they would not be words that I would use.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

SEN. SESSIONS: But we need to focus on what...

MR. GREGORY: Do you think she's a racist?

SEN. SESSIONS: ...she would say.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think she's a racist?

SEN. SESSIONS: I think that she is a person who believes that her background can influence her decision. That's what troubles me.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Right.

SEN. SESSIONS: I would not use those words.

MR. GREGORY: You would not use those words because you don't believe them?

SEN. SESSIONS: I don't think that's an appropriate description of her.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Do you think that conservatives should stop using those words to describe her?

SEN. SESSIONS: I would prefer that they not, but people have a free right to speak and say what they want and make the analogies that they want. This is an important thing. We should not demagogue race. It's an important issue in our culture and our country. We need to handle it with respect that it deserves and the care that it deserves.

Wow. That's some nifty tightrope walking. He acknowledges that "we" need to handle race carefully in our culture, but is anxious that Sotomayor will do so on the bench. Why? Why is it possible (advisable) for "us" to be thoughtful about race but a Latina woman cannot? The implicit fairness of Whites makes the point (for anyone attentive enough to notice): There are (often unstated) assumptions about race in America that serve to advantage Whites. If we are uncomfortable with that, we need to fix it -- not by pretending that it is not happening, but by addressing it head on, honestly, with energy, empathy and thoughtfulness.

Unfortunately, we may be missing yet another opportunity to do so. Here's hoping that the confirmation hearings spark a more honest discussion about race in America than what we witnessed this week.

The Future of the GOP: Are the Smart Guys Poised to Take Over?

Conservatives and Republicans have not demonstrated a genuine commitment to understanding (let alone bettering) the lives of racial minorities since the days of Jack Kemp's creative, if controversial, "enterprise zones" idea (though see our exchanges with Dr. William Voegeli). This doesn't mean that conservatives do not care about racial minorities; they very well might. It's just that it's difficult to tell because the underlying philosophy is that individuals are responsible for their own success (irrespective of where the individual begins or the systemic barriers that are in place). Just as meaningful racial progress requires the support of Whites and minorities, it requires the support, in America's two-party system, of Republicans and Democrats. Sure, Democrats can get laws passed and enact policies without the help of GOP lawmakers, but the sort of change we envision is bigger than individual policies and government programs. To really turn the corner, Republicans and conservatives need to be involved.

That's why we are cautiously optimistic about the future of the Republican Party. THIS WEEK presented conflicting evidence, however, as the GOP continued it's "look, ma, no White guys" show with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal reciting a curious response to Obama's "not-State-of-the-Union Address." To be fair, speaking after Barack Obama is like batting behind Barry Bonds. The speech was solid, but that's about the most kind analysis we can offer. He delivered very stale (and overwhelmingly rejected) distortions about tax-and-spend liberals and how much we all love America and need to work together behind a nervous grin that was curious given the dire state of an economy that is suffering from years of the very ideas he espoused. In short, while he is still a rising star in the Party, he didn't gain too many new supporters, and he certainly didn't help to cut into the Obama Administration's strong support amongst the public.

But something is bubbling in GOP circles. While the annual CPAC meeting featured such speakers as Rush Limbaugh (who Tom Schaller argued THIS WEEK in Slate.com is the current leader of the GOP) and Joe the Plumber (seriously), the New York Times ran a feature on the last intellectual to head up the party: Newt Gingrich.

It is important to differentiate between being "intelligent" and being "an intellectual." If we can remove the bias of perspective, most of our national leaders are and have been quite intelligent. Not all of them have been intellectuals, though. An intellectual is a person for whom the world is complicated and who has the curiousity to continually work to make sense of that complexity. There is no inherent claim to the value of such persons, but as professors ourselves, we see it this way: We want the person who is best able to work with car engines to fix our cars, we want the person who is most adept at legal proceedings to represent us in court, and we want the folks who are best equipped to deal with ideas to be running the country.

Newt Gingrich is an idea man. We disagree with him on almost everything, and we think that he would be well served to be more reflective of his ethnocentrism (as we all would), but he's bright, articulate, creative and is committed to ideas.

Karl Rove is a partisan hack. So was George W. Bush. So is Rahm Emanual, who, is tacticly trying to paint Limbaugh as the "intellectual" voice of the Party). So is John Kerry. The lists (in both parties) goes on. All these folks are smart -- some say that Rove is a genius. If so, he is a genius at strategy, not at ideas. That's not an insult; most of us are not geniuses in anything. But with an increasingly educated public and a dying off of the segregationist-era generations, the slash-and-burn politics of divisiveness is much harder to sell in America. Gingrich understands this. He believes that his ideas will win out. We hope he is wrong because we see no plans for addressing social injustice in them, but the message here is that at least we can get back to discussing ideas again.

As the GOP licks its wounds after two crushing defeats in national elections, they will have a choice to make. They can turn inward, toward the bigoted right, toward the sensationalist, flag-waving, "remember the old days" crowd of Sean Hannity, or they can look forward to a multicultural world in which their ideas have a fair chance of gaining hold. It is not clear yet whether their candidates will reflect such a clear choice. Those that are in the forefront are not easy to categorize.

Take Jindal, for instance. He appears to be reasonably bright. He has certainly built a nice coalition of supporters in Louisiana. But if he's hoping to win progressives and moderates with a continued revisionist history that does not acknowledge that record national deficits were tallied under Reagan and W. Bush and that ignores the systemic imbalance of our social, political and ecnomic systems, he will take his place alongside those with the dunce caps (see Sarah Palin). If he embraces ideas, rather than politics -- see George Will, for instance -- he has a legitimate chance of posing a real challenge to Barack Obama in 2012.

And why, we ask, are all the Republican "smart guys" just that: guys? Pragmatism and intellectualism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, ideology is not always as complicated as it might appear. John Boehner is an ideologue, but has not demonstrated much intellectualism. Ideologues can use heuristics (intellectual shortcuts) to seem as if they are understanding the complexities of the world. Rachel Maddow may be a good example from the left. She's very smart, and clearly consistently progressive, but that does not mean that she is an intellectual. Senator Susan Collins very well may be an intellectual, but in a system that rewards loyalty (rather than smarts) with high-profile positions and opportunities, it's not likely that she'll get a chance to lead. Where is Susan Molinari?

And while we're on the topic of dunce caps, we offer a big one to Senator Roland Burris and the small group of supporters who are trying to tie race to the pressures that the senator is facing to resign. We called Congressman Bobby Rush and others out on this pitiful attempt at generating support back when Burris was first nominated to fill Obama's seat by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Spineless D.C. Democrats like Harry Reid, who intially said that any nominee by Blagojevich would not be seated, relented when the race card was inappropriately played.

THIS WEEK, the senior senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, acknowledged that race was a factor in seating Burris. It shouldn't have been -- at least not in this way. We believe that the appointment should have gone to an African American given the way that the seat was vacated and the tremendous number of qualified Black lawmakers available. But no one nominated by Blagojevich should have been seated, and arguing that Burris deserved it because he is Black feeds into the stereotypes that conservatives have about racial progressives. So not only was the tactic inappropriate, it has been counterproductive to genuine moves toward racial justice.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House, we breathed a collective sigh of relief because even when we disagree with him (like when he invited an openly homophobic preacher to pray at his inauguration), we know that ideas are at the center of his thought process. Obama will be pragmatic (which involves making progressives angry at times), which is consistent with intellectualism. He understands that the world is complex, and he has a vision for a better America. There are Republicans who feel the same way and who have their own visions. We look forward to future battles of ideas by the smart kids.

Obama Needs to Watch His "Self": Reflections of Class in the President's Language

Two years ago, Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, stirred up controversy when he referred to Barack Obama as "articulate," among other ostensibly complimentary comments like "clean." As we argued at the time, the comment was reflective of racist beliefs because

[b]lack dialect is considered to be non-standard English – not merely “different” such as a Boston accent or a Minnesota accent, but normatively less desirable.

Even though compared to his immediate predecessor Obama's rhetoric features stellar grammar and mechanics, like most of us, he does not speak perfect English. His errors are reflective of the social class of his upbringing, if not his race.

The non-standard grammar that stands out most prominently is his improper use of pronouns in certain situations. Specifically, he is prone to using "I" when he ought to use "me," as well as placing the reflexive pronoun "myself" in places in a sentence where it is not warranted. These mistakes tend to surface during his extemporaneous remarks rather than in scripted addresses.

Here is an example where he actually makes both mistakes in the span of a few seconds:

Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to -- to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation. I'm sure that, in addition to taking a tour of the White House, there's going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president.(Press conference, November 7, 2008, Chicago)

These are very common errors amongst American English speakers, particularly working class Americans. Using "I" in place of "me" is likely a result of the widespread backlash against using "me" in the subject of a sentence (e.g., "Me and my brother are going to the game" or "My brother and me are going to the game."). If one does not understand why it is improper to use "me" in that situation, however, the word "me" in and of itself might be seen as a problem word (alongside "ain't," for instance). But when used in the predicate, the correct first person singular pronoun is, of course, "me."

Similarly, the use of the reflexive first person pronoun "myself" is likely a remnant of the same heuristic; if "me" is bad, it's bad, so it should be avoided. Accordingly, rather than saying "She gave advice to Sally and me," a substitute occurs that, in theory, makes the speaker sound as if he or she is more intelligent: "She gave advice to Sally and myself." But reflexive pronouns are only appropriate when the subject and the object are the same person: "I gave a present to myself"; "They had to second guess themselves."

This does not necessarily fit with characteristics of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), sometimes called "Ebonics," though the close interrelationship between race and class in America is important to keep in mind as we analyze this issue. Working class parents often try to instill in their children characteristics (such as grammatical speech) that will make advancement and acceptance into the middle class more likely. As children, we develop our speech patterns in accordance with our environment, in addition to the formal instruction we get in school. When we carry errors into adulthood, it is the result of not learning to correct the mistakes we are socialized into from childhood.

A common characteristic of folks who have moved up to a higher social class is the fear (conscious or otherwise) of being "found out," of not really belonging. Obama's mistakes are likely remnant subconscious efforts from childhood to sound more intelligent. For folks who aspire to a higher social status (or wish to "pass" as being middle class), the language patterns often take the shape of longer-than-necessary sentences and inappropriately complex verb tenses.

For example, a click through daytime television programs that feature (exploit) the troubles and conflicts of working class Americans will quickly reveal evidence to support this claim. A common error, for instance, is the inappropriate use of the pluperfect tense. In response to a question about why he was carrying on an affair, a guy on the hot seat on one of these programs might start by explaining, "What had happened was, I met her at work. . ." when the simpler "I met her at work" would suffice. "I went to the store" becomes "I had gone to the store." Because we equate short sentences with younger, less proficient speakers, it is sometimes assumed that longer, more complex sentences are signifiers of intelligence.

Since "myself" is both longer than "me" and, well, not "me," it is often used as a substitute anytime "me" would otherwise be used. On the other hand, like most speakers who make this mistake, Obama does not always uses these pronouns incorrectly. Here is an example of his appropriate use of the reflexive:

Right now I want to say hello and introduce myself. (Visit with White House press corps, January 22, 2009, Washington, DC)

That is, the words "me" and "myself" are not interchangeable for speakers who use them improperly; "myself" is substituted for "me," but not the other way around. Further, it is likely that Obama knows when it is appropriate to use which pronoun. In times when he does not have a lot of time to think about his phrasing, though, he is more likely to make the mistake. Similar to the way we can learn about ourselves in those times when we do not have a chance to let our conscious catch up to our subconscious (see the Implicit Associations work for ways in which this is manifested in stereotypes), these slips allow us to have a glimpse into the authentic Obama -- not who he necessarily wants to project to us, but who he really is.

How, though, can we explain away Obama's errors as merely endearing reflections of his connection to the working class when we refuse to do so for his predecessor? Isn't this simply a case of "Black privilege" or "Bush bashing" by liberals?

Regular TWIR readers understand that blanket claims of reciprocity are fallacies in logic. Context matters. It is acceptable, for instance, for African Americans to use the n-word even though Whites cannot because African Americans do not have a history of using it to oppress, and Whites do. Gay men can refer to each other with a derogatory word, but straight men should not call each other such a name (as an insult) or refer to gay men that way because of the heterosexist power dynamic that is inherent in our culture. On and on. It is not hypocritical to criticize one group for doing something while allowing another to do it if context is taken into consideration. Fairness (justice) is not predicated on equality when there is not equality of power (or opportunity) at work.

President Bush's speaking mistakes are not a reflection of his environment during socialization. He grew up with tremendous privilege in an environment of wealth. There is no question that some of his language choices are a function of the Southern influence (which is unfairly evaluated as unintelligent), but his mispronunciations and confused syntax are not characteristics of the language of his youth. Further, President Bush exhibited no other characteristics that would alert us that he was a working class guy at heart. His public policies and behavior aided the wealthiest Americans (tax cuts) and ignored the suffering of the most vulnerable (Katrina). In short, the only characteristic he exhibits of a working class person is fractured speech.

Obama, on the other hand, is the inverse of Bush: he is working class at his core, but has had to learn to assimilate into the upper class. Ivy League education certainly helps, but old habits are hard to break, particularly at times when there is no opportunity to think through the rules.

As far as we are aware, there is no widespread criticism of Obama on these characteristics -- no attempts to make the errors about his race. Obama's few critics in the first week are more focused on their concern that his policies will be successful and the status quo will be unsettled (which is precisely what Obama has promised). For instance, Rush Limbaugh made news THIS WEEK when he openly wished for Obama to "fail." Lost in some of that discussion with Sean Hannity is a continuation of the "racism is a myth" language from the campaign.

I'll tell you, you know, a lot of people right now just — they're absorbed in the historical nature of this, first black president and so forth. Well, that is wonderful. That's great. But I got over that months ago after he won the election.

I mean, Sean, he is our president now. And he's not black, he's not from Mars, he's not — he's our president, he's a human being. We're a country comprised of human beings that the Democrat Party and the left have attempted to arrange into groups of victims, and that's who he appeals to, and the victims are the people waiting around for some grievance to be resolved.

They're waiting around for something to happen for them, and he is parlaying that. I think the fact that he's African-American, his father was black, to me it's irrelevant. This is the greatest country on earth. We want to keep it that way. It is that way for specific reasons.

We want to make three quick points about this before we wrap up.

1. How did Limbaugh "get over" the fact that Obama is the first Black president? That suggests that he was happy about it for some period of time. It is certainly the case that many Republicans and McCain supporters were happy that the color line of the White House was broken, but those folks are all sophisticated enough to understand that it was a significant accomplishment. For Limbaugh and Hannity (who have not displayed such sophistication), race never matters at all. Racism is a myth, slavery ended generations ago, and everyone has an equal chance at success in America. If Limbaugh spent any time at all appreciating the achievement, it would indicate that he recognizes that race is still a barrier to success in America.

2. The equation of being Black with being from Mars typically undervalues the importance of racial barriers to equal participation in American politics. It is a version of "I don't care if they are black, purple or green, I don't see color." There are not purple or green people, and to make such a statement reflects a fundamental insensitivity to the struggle of people of color.

3. Limbaugh blames progressives for attempting to categorize people. Slaveholders characterized people. Segregationists characterized people. As a result, we now all characterize people. If we ignore those characterizations, we cannot do the work that is necessary to reverse the legacy of those powerful Whites who created systems that continue to oppress. Progressives do not make victims (though they may contribute to a mentality of victimization if the focus is on individuals rather than systems); they work to unmake victims.
   

This sort of Orwellian double speak is what Americans rejected as they propelled the plain spoken yet eloquent Obama into the White House. Conservatives like John McCain and Lindsey Graham recognize this and have acted accordingly over the past five days. John McCain chastised his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate for holding up the confirmation of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State saying, "I remind all my colleagues: We had an election. I think the message the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together, and get to work.

To which Rush Limbaugh replied, "Well, what had happened was . . ."

How Many “Individual Acts” Before It’s a Pattern?

Those of you who rely on the email distribution of TWIR probably wondered why you didn’t get last week’s issue. We wonder, too. There was a glitch with the email subscriptions that we think is fixed now. Please do take a moment to read last week’s offering, if you haven’t already. Sorry for the inconvenience.

For the third week in a row, we present a selection of blatant acts of bigotry related to Barack Obama’s candidacy. To be frank, the level and scope of these instances is surprising to us. From the start, we expected that there would be implicit racist attacks (and there have been). Scattered explicit bigotry is to be expected in any race where one of the candidates is a person of color. This current trend is exceeding our expectations, though, which is notable for two guys who are always "looking for racism" as our critics often note.

John McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates have worked hard to drum up anti-Obama sentiment surrounding his status as “other” in American culture. But, thankfully, they did it wrong. They were too obvious, which led to them being called out on their hate mongering, which in turn led simultaneously to rejection of that message by most Americans and an embracing of it by the most hate-filled among us. Here are this week’s examples with our analysis and Stephen’s annotation of a racist parable that is making its way around the Internet.

. . . To Promote the General Welfare . . .
One of the contributions to American racism from the Reagan years is the image of the “welfare queen” – the ubiquitous African American woman who lives off the hard work of White taxpayers, has more children so that she can have more money for drugs and alcohol, and raises her children to cheat “the system” so that they, too, can live work-free off the backs of “real Americans.” Despite the fact that there are and have been far more white Americans who receive public assistance, when the word “welfare” is mentioned to Whites, a Black face – often a Black female face – comes to mind. Like “extremely liberal,” “urban” or “city,” and “dangerous,” “welfare” is a code for “Black.”

It is no surprise, then, that McCain supporters have taken up the “welfare” call, even though Barack Obama has no plans to make any meaningful changes to the public assistance system that the “liberal” Bill Clinton greatly contracted. No matter, of course: Obama’s plan to change the tax structure (so that, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, 80% of Americans would be better off than under McCain’s) looks like “welfare” to the 20% of Americans who would pay more taxes under Obama’s plan.

But most of those 20% are already voting for McCain. So how can this help the ticket?

It helps because McCain and his surrogates refuse to ever publicly acknowledge that his plan differs from Obama’s primarily by way of McCain’s tax breaks for the wealthiest 20% of Americans. So, rather than acknowledge that 80% of Americans would be better under Obama’s plan, McCain and his surrogates attempt to convince the whites in that group that Obama’s break would go primarily or exclusively to lazy Black folks.


Both of the ads in question – one by a group called Right Change and another by McCain (watch below) himself, use the word “welfare” in the text, as well as prominently displayed on the screen, always with a picture of the (obviously) Black Obama. There is great potential for tapping into latent (or not-so-latent) predispositions equating African Americans with laziness, cheating and desiring that which they do not deserve.




Colin All Turncoats
Remember the Black Republican that conservatives most enjoyed pointing to as “evidence” that 1) racism was a myth, and 2) African Americans are attracted to the Republican Party?

Yeah, well, they hate that guy now.

The biggest campaign news THIS WEEK was also (surprise!) the biggest race-related news. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama on NBC's Meet the Press, bringing calls of “racism” from former Powell fawners. Despite the fact that Powell was very clear about the bases upon which he based his endorsement, conservatives reduced his thoughtful decision to race, suggesting that he, like most Blacks, is a liar.

Immediate response from George Will on ABC’s This Week was subtle but direct.

Subtlety and attempts to hide raw resentment of and animosity toward Black Americans was nowhere to be found when Rush Limbaugh weighed in first thing Monday.
Rush Limbaugh



It is not just Limbaugh’s policy preferences that reveal his racism. He resigned from a short stint as a sports commentator in 2003 after saying that African American quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media was hoping for a Black quarterback to succeed. (Five years and a Super Bowl appearance later, McNabb has proven not only that Limbaugh is a bigot, but that he knows as little about sports as he does about politics.)

Good Old American Values
Last week in this space, we noted Congresswoman Michele Buchmann’s call for an investigation (watch below) into which of her colleagues were “pro-America” and which were “anti-America.” We’re not the only ones who noticed this. Buchmann’s opponent, the unfortunately-named Elwyn Tinklenberg raised $1 million over the weekend, doubling the amount he raised throughout the entire campaign. At the same time, Sarah Palin was blatantly lying (again) through a half-apology for her comments about "real Americans."



By now, most of you have seen the footage of this crowd gathered outside a Sarah Palin event in Johnstown, Pennsylvania – a town smack in the heart of the rural “T” that the McCain campaign has been targeting in their efforts to win that state.



Loose lipped (and increasingly eyebrow-raising in his inability to filter his thoughts) Congressman John Murtha, who represents that part of west-central PA, was frank about the level of anti-Black bigotry in his district. Oops. Dude, you’re totally not supposed to say that stuff out loud. It’s like talking about a no-hitter in the sixth inning.

It was a matter of hours until Murtha’s opponent produced an ad feigning shock at the proposition that there were racists in the district.



Oh, did we mention that a fun-loving bigot in Ohio has hanged Obama in effigy, and, while too cowardly to show his face on camera, was happy to provide quotes to the local media stating that the gesture is not to be dismissed as political – it is racial.


McCain supporters dismiss this sort of activity as the actions of a zealous few, but if one looks back just to the examples we have pointed out THIS WEEK, last week and the week before, we need to start to question when these ostensibly anomalous actions are part of a larger pattern. Even if these were the only incidents (we know of more, and we certainly can’t assume that all have been captured on tape), is there really no concern? This YouTube video nicely reminds us about the ways marginalization and dehumanization have been used to oppress members of out-groups throughout our history.

Good Apples Begin to Surface
McCain supporters – some of whom are Muslim – strongly challenged a fellow supporter who was spreading unfounded lies and promoting anti-Muslim hatred at a McCain rally. Good to see you, folks! Nicely done!

This just goes to remind us that there are legitimate reasons to oppose Obama’s candidacy that have nothing to do with his race or religion. Those reasons are not convincing to enough Americans this year to win an election, of course, so appeals to racism have been the primary focus of the campaign since the end of the Republican National Convention in early September.

Coming Up Next?
Another week has gone by, and we have still not seen or heard much about Jeremiah Wright, even though Sarah Palin has argued that we should. Will we see him in the last 11 days? It appears as if the man in the running for worst campaign manager in history, Rick Davis, is leaving the previously-closed door open. Stay tuned.


Ant & Grasshopper

Here is a version of an old Internet-distributed piece of conservative propaganda that has been adapted for the current electoral context. When Stephen received it earlier this week, he posted it on his Facebook page with annotations that correspond with his unpacking of the racist assumptions implicit in the tale.

The Ant & the Grasshopper
This one is a little different...Two Different Versions. Two Different Morals.

CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, laughs, and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION: (1)

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, laughs, and dances and plays the summer away. (2)
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. (3)
CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? (4)
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." (5)
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We Shall Overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". (6)
Finally, the EOC drafts the "Economic Equity and= Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. (7)
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. (8)
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of multi-generation welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. (9)
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. (10)
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood. (11)
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008.

(1) It is clear that the ant represents white people and the grasshopper people of color, most likely African Americans. If you think I'm reading into this, hold your criticism until the end when color (literally) comes into play, and Jesse Jackson shows up.

(2) Irrespective of race, people who are not working do not scoff at those who work as foolish. There is no dignity in not working. Most of the poor are, in fact, working very hard and working very long hours. Many of those who are not have primary child care responsibilities where enrolling the child or children in day care would be more expensive than money that could be made outside the home. The belief that the unemployed are lazy is merely a myth that middle-class folks use to make themselves feel better about not advocating for policies to help everyone get and maintain meaningful employment.

(3) This would be a horrible shirking of responsibility if, in fact, the "grasshopper" fit the description as put forth. Given that the grasshopper is actually working three times as hard as the ant but for far inferior pay, the question raised at the press conference is a fair one in a society that claims to be morally-grounded. Further, bringing it to the public's attention is the responsible thing to do, as many ants believe that everyone has had the same chance to gather winter supplies.

(4) Here is a misrepresentation of America that is as stunning as any other myth herein: Americans are very rarely collectively outraged at such inequality and injustice. If we were, there would be much less of it.

(5) Here comes the racism part! Both Oprah AND an animal of the same color as the grasshopper, lamenting that it is his color that is keeping him down.

(6) In this story, the hard working ant gathered his winter supplies all alone, so the claim that he got rich off the back of the grasshopper is unwarranted. In real life, almost no one makes it on his or her own. There are always people who make others' success possible by keeping the streets clear of snow so we can get to work, keeping the buildings clean, keeping the sewage treatment plants operating so we don't have to worry about that, keeping the electricity running, mining the coal to produce the electricity, loading the trains and driving the trucks that carry the coal to the plant, stitching the clothing that allows us to make a good impression at the meeting, and on and on and on.

(7) The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (I presume these brainiacs meant EEOC, not EOC) does not pass laws designed to be a detriment to one race. In fact, they don't pass laws at all; they enforce laws regarding equal employment opportunities passed by Congress. The work they do is designed to maintain equality of opportunity because the ants's ancestors have designed a system that has allowed ants to maintain superior education to the grasshopper, which has allowed ants better opportunities to get better jobs, which has resulted in ants living in better neighborhoods so the little ant kids can get better education to go to better colleges to get better jobs and to further perpetuate the cycle. Because a grasshopper here or there breaks the cycle, ants are comfortable believing that the trends they either see or ignore are a result of grasshoppers being lazy. Ants begin to develop Internet parables to push this theory.

(8) White people do not get fired for failing to provide equal employment opportunities. If anything, the company is sued on behalf of discriminated workers and forced to pay fines. If that fine did result in a layoff, the ant would still have a much better chance of finding gainful employment than a grasshopper due to his experience at the offending firm.

(9) This is so offensive it almost doesn't even warrant comment. We are to believe that progressives are walking around handing people who have no experience positions of power (it wasn't progressives that advanced the careers of Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin, for goodness sake!). And I guess that the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate approved these Clinton appointees, right? Finally, the suggestion that "welfare recipients" (wonder if they're "green?") are not objective enough to fairly interpret information put before them is presumptuous.

(10) Here we see the same old fear mongering that conservatives have been putting forward to scare whites (of all social classes) for generations. Lazy "green" folks will take the homes of ants, and because of their genetically or culturally flawed character, they will not even take care of it when they do.

(11) Of course grasshoppers are all drug users. And are we back in the 1940s now? "There goes the neighborhood" when the grasshoppers (or spiders) move in (it's impossible to tell if "once peaceful" refers to the time when the grasshoppers lived there or way back when the ants lived there). As I have said in other spaces, dismissing this crap as acts of a fringe of folks is dangerous. Certainly there are thoughtful conservatives who care very much about racial and economic inequality but have different ideas of how to bring it about. But a lot of people buy into these convenient myths so that we can believe in the fundamental goodness of the American political and economic system and preserve it in the false hope that we, like Plummer Joe, can fantasize about someday taking advantage of our relative "ant" privilege -- a fantasy that does not include reaching out a helping hand or even giving an empathetic thought to grasshoppers who struggle each day to give their children a chance at breaking the cycle. Missing from the story: the millions of us ants who aren't so gullible and calloused.


If you have not yet set an RSS feed or subscribed to This GUEST on Race via email, please take a moment to do so now. Dr. Kevan Yenerall has a critique of the "Joe the Plumber" argument in the latest installment.

In related news, Dr. Yenerall and his home institution, Clarion University, will host Stephen as he delivers a lecture entitled "Fairytales, Radicals and Crooks: The Role of Race in the 2008 Presidential Election" in Hart Chapel at 8:00 p.m. this Tuesday, October 28. The event is free and open to the public.

Inside the “Echo Chamber” of Conservatives and Civil Rights

THIS WEEK, we seek to situate Professor William Voegeli’s excellent article (“Civil Rights and the Conservative Movement”) from The Wall Street Journal’s website in the context of Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella’s new book Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment (Oxford University Press).

Echo Chamber provides a thorough, theoretically-grounded and empirically supported (with a variety of social science methods and data) look into the interaction and effects of conservative media. Jamieson and Cappella specifically examine The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, conservative talk radio (Rush Limbaugh) and Fox News to reveal a pattern of (seemingly) organized messages that seek to undermine “mainstream” media and further conservative policy and electoral agendas. We strongly recommend the book (it’s on sale in hardback for $17 at Amazon.com!), which doe not focus solely or even primarily on race. But given the relevance of Voegeli’s article (which was published the same week as Echo Chamber) to race relations in America, we could not resist to discuss them together.

Voegeli presents a thoughtful, well-constructed article (that we also recommend highly) that was apparently stimulated by the death of William F. Buckley (and the subsequent commentary on his work) earlier in the year. The author puts forth a host of claims about how the conservative movement has made mistakes with respect to its positions and strategies with respect to civil rights in America. It’s difficult to disagree with many of the points, but we feel that he, like many others, misses a crucial aspect of the struggle for equal rights in America: the system is fundamentally stacked against people of color and those who are impoverished.

Central to conservatism in America has been two interrelated elements: states’ rights and keeping government out of individuals’ lives. The focus on states’ rights was, of course, a primary point of contention in both the Civil War (which revolved in a large part around the issue of slavery) and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s (which largely revolved around state-based Jim Crow segregation laws). Likewise, as Voegeli points out, non-bigoted conservatives opposed much of the civil rights platforms of the mid-20th century because of their reliance on governmental (often federal-level) involvement. As Voegeli notes,
integration and black progress were welcomed [in the pages of Buckley’s National Review] when they were the result of private actions like the boycotts of segregated buses or lunch counters. . .
But the conservative movement “opposed the civil rights agenda when it called for or depended on ‘Big Government.’” Voegeli notes that the National Review spoke out in strong opposition to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) because it was an act of judicial activism (which offended their view of what the Framers intended for what Alexander Hamilton referred to as the “least dangerous branch” of government). Voegeli argues that conservatives in the early years of the Movement were not the only ones who did not jump whole-heartedly aboard the struggle:

One difference between Eisenhower-era liberals and conservatives is that the former kept their distance from the civil rights movement for practical reasons while the latter did so for principled ones. Democrats would imperil their chances for a majority in the Electoral College and Congress without the Solid South, a reality that constrained both FDR and JFK.

The accuracy of the electoral reality cannot be questioned, but trying to rehabilitate the image of some no-shows and not others is dubious and unwarranted. But it gets worse. Voegeli continues to explain that well-meaning conservatives’ hands were tied by their own commitment to ideological purism:

Conservatives opposed to racial discrimination, however, had few obvious ways to act on that belief without abandoning their long, twilight struggle to reconfine the federal government within its historically defined riverbanks after the New Deal had demolished the levees.

Besides the insensitivity of using a “broken levee” reference in an argument defending (in some aspects) those who sought to maintain a system that contributed to Hurrican Katrina’s wrath being centered heavily in poor, black neighborhoods in New Orleans, Voegeli tacitly accepts (but does not advocate) the privileging of 18th century decisions over 20th century values of equal rights. Political scientist John Zaller and colleagues have written about “ambivalence” in American citizens’ attitudes that occurs when core socialized values come into conflict with one another. When that happens, individuals need to resolve their cognitive dissonance in some way, privileging one value over the other (at least temporarily). We have argued in this space that conservatives have become comfortable privileging the values of individualism and states’ rights over values of equality and (social) justice by buying into myths and stereotypes about people of color. We do not argue, of course, that this process takes place consciously – in most cases, it does not.

In Echo Chamber, Jamieson and Cappella tackle this very issue. Using Trent Lott’s remarks at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party (Lott told Thurmond that the country would be better off if Thurmond, with his segregationist platform, would have been elected president in 1948), the authors explain how conservative media defend conservatism. First, they distanced themselves and the GOP from Lott’s comments. (24). After Lott apologized, the conservative media commented that the comments were indefensible (25). But after dismissing Lott as not indicative of conservative sentiment, Rush Limbaugh turned the tables to criticize the mainstream media who were criticizing Lott. Then, Fox News commentators began alleging that liberal leaders were hypocrites for not chastising their own when insensitive remarks were made. This led into an assault on the Democratic Party historically, and the championing of Republicans who advocated for civil rights.

As we see it, this is an example of conservatives wanting to have it both ways. Segregation WAS the conservative position in 1948. Conservatives HAVE perceived “all these problems” (Lott’s words) as being related to progressive programs designed to address racial inequality. Lott WAS a leader in the conservative movement, and therefore presumably was an authentic conservative. But when he spoke from his heart and violated the “norm of equality” (Mendelberg 2001), conservatives were unwilling to take the heat and stand by their man. If that’s not political opportunism, we’re not sure what is. So much for principled opposition.

Voegeli also directly addresses the Lott issue in his article. After noting that 99% of conservatives in the 21st century “would never praise segregation” and, in fact, largely would not “even realize that there is another 1% (emphasis in original),” Voegeli noted that the vast majority of modern conservatives “quietly abandoned the old complacency about racial discrimination, but never really repudiated it.” He notes that Buckley joined liberals in criticizing Lott’s attitudes of “nostalgia,” not just his comments. But Voegeli goes on to cite other conservatives and Buckley as they argued that Jim Crow was about states’ rights, not segregation:

The troubling incongruity [between conservatism and the triumph of the civil rights movement] is not conservatives’ initial tolerance of segregation for the sake of limited government, but the later, tacit admission that America did well to expand the purview of the federal government in order to end Jim Crow. Trent Lott had only to suggest lightly that relying on those means to secure that end was still regrettable to set off a stampede of conservatives to denounce him.

And so Voegeli puts his finger on the very problem with conservatism and racial equality: advocating a system that is inherently biased against some Americans while advantaging others can only result in sustained inequality, no matter how much lip service or sincere intent to end it is offered. As much as conservatives rail against “judicial activism” in the cases of gay marriage, few if any are open enough (or consistent enough) to denounce the Brown decision, for example. That decision, as we’ve noted recently, has not brought about equality in schools or elsewhere on the whole, but it did serve as a symbolic spark to a movement that needed access to power to achieve its goals.

On the contrary, however, Voegeli argues that

[t]he soundest reading of Buckley’s insistence on “organic” progress was that the only safe and legitimate path to those markedly difference sentiments was through incremental changes in attitudes in response to social rather than political pressures.

Voegeli notes that Buckley himself admitted that he was wrong about this when asked about it in 2004. Buckley said, “federal intervention was necessary.” Buckley’s original sentiments were in line with Justice Brown in the original Plessy decision that condoned “separate but equal,” as well as Booker T. Washington’s conciliatory strategy in the earliest years of the 20th century.

Finally, Voegeli takes a swipe at the social science that was an important part of the decision in the original Brown case. Specifically, he calls Kenneth Clark’s black and white dolls experiment (recently replicated) “problematic.” There is legitimate criticism about whether black children preferring white dolls was a result of segregation. In a very interesting exchange in the Harvard Law Review in 1987 (volume 100, No. 8), Philip Elman and Randall Kennedy spar over the history of the NAACP and school segregation cases. Addressing Professor Clark’s work in his reply to Kennedy, Elman reminds careful readers of footnote 11 in the Brown decision, which referenced social science research (including that of Clark). That note later became the topic of much discussion, as it was added by a clerk and not paid much attention to by the justices (including Earl Warren, who authored the decision).

But this is precisely the point we are making here. One can always find weaknesses in social science research. By its nature (involving humans), it will never be as definitive (even in the positivist tradition) as natural science research is widely (but not exclusively) perceived to be. Looking for airtight social science research on which to base results is yet another rationalization for not moving forward with policies to rectify social inequality. We are anxiously awaiting conservative criticism of Echo Chamber. Two of the most prominent and gifted social scientists of a generation will not escape the hole-poking criticism of those who are concerned that a systematic study documents the effects of a conservative media cartel.

The point, however, is that it should not even have had to take social science research to convince political actors in the 20th century (let alone today!) that something needed to be done to rectify racial injustice. The humanity is more important than the social science (or should be). Study after study has documented racial inequality in income, wealth, hiring, arrests and incarceration, capital punishment and education. How much more “evidence” is needed?

Voegeli implicitly criticizes black voters by citing an Atlantic Monthly piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who charged that

a sizable portion of the black electorate consists of latent conservatives “who favor hard work and moral reform over protests and government intervention.” Invariably, however, the black American who feels this way “votes Democratic, not out of any love for abortion rights or progressive taxation, but because he [sic] feels—in fact, he knows—that the modern-day GOP draws on the support of people who hate him [sic].”

And herein lies the problem – reminiscent of Ralph Nader and Geraldine Ferraro – with arguments from Barack Obama’s detractors. The above quote (as Voegeli uses it – Coates was using it in a descriptive sense to discuss supporters of Bill Cosby's social commentary) suggests that 1) progressives prefer complaining (protesting) to “hard work” (presumably because they favor government handouts to the laziest of citizens), and 2) black voters are so unsophisticated that they vote against their interests because they don’t want to vote alongside bigots. TWIR readers will have no trouble identifying the inherent racism in such an assertion. African Americans may not vote Democrat out of “any love for abortion rights,” but rather out of the understanding that Democrats on the whole appear to be more attuned to rectifying racial and economic injustice than Republicans.

But the fact of the matter is that neither party in our two-party system is in a position to advocate for the sort of change that will bring about social justice quickly. Voegeli points out that Martin Luther King was a radical and not so ideologically different from Malcolm X as we tend to think. He’s right, of course (though some of us don’t feel as if this is a problem). He points out that affirmative action is an offshoot of a “by any means necessary” strategy that stems back to Malcolm and King. He correctly notes that affirmative action has given conservatives fodder for criticism by allowing them to position themselves as champions of “equality”:

Conservatives have been delighted by the chance, finally, to present themselves as the ones articulating a principled egalitarian argument on behalf of innocent people whose prospects in life were diminished when they were judged according to the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.

This, of course, typically ignores the inherent systemic privilege of whites vis-à-vis people of color in America. And coming from a group that did not advocate such equality when it was legally occurring during Jim Crow – and that refuses to do so today, even as it stands up for “innocent” whites – leaves cries of principled adherent to core values ringing rather hollow. Voegeli notes the problem with affirmative action is that it fails to consider that “one employer’s. . . covert discrimination is another’s good-faith effort to hire and retain the best available workforce at market wages.”

This sounds wonderful, but the fact is that a system built on slavery and slowly altered to incorporate black Americans into that flawed system (avoiding systemic changes along the way) is bound to result in the hiring of a disproportionate amount of whites if left to “objective” measures of “the best available workforce.” What’s defines "the best?"

The most educated? Blacks lack access to a quality education in many areas as a result of a system that privileges schools in wealthier areas.

Experience? People of color are disproportionately denied access to experience because of inherent employer bias, as well as lack of educational training in most modern occupations.

Defining the meaning of key terms is what Jamieson and Cappella argue is most effective about conservative media. This occurs largely through the concept of “framing,” which is providing a context for information. Rather than relying on outright lies, framing allows the communicator to help the audience think about information in a particular way. According to Jamieson and Cappella:

In a world in which the public sphere is full of competing frames, the consistent redundant framing the conservative opinion media use gives their audiences a way to navigate politics, even when the conservative opinion media are silent or distracted. (142)

Ultimately, Jamieson and Cappella neither vilify nor champion conservative media. Rather, they put forth a complex picture of a seemingly organized effort to inoculate an audience against information by mainstream media. It’s good social science. In fact, it’s excellent social science.

Must be biased.


We would like to thank TWIR readers Patrick Skarr and April Green for bringing Professor Voegeli’s article to our attention. We would like to thank Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella for providing us with a copy of Echo Chamber.