Breaking News: Republicans Support Affirmative Action (Sorta)

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin might be an excellent choice for vice-president of the United States. While it might seem a stretch to consider that Palin could be president if the Republican ticket is elected and something happens to McCain, our attention THIS WEEK is centered on the choice itself.

Palin was clearly chosen because she is a woman. She’s not just any woman, of course, but neither is she the most qualified conservative available. Still, she is a good choice to energize the far right, who have been less-than-enthusiastic about John McCain. Palin is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling and a creationist. Folks on the far right who may very well have stayed home on November 4 are likely to come out now. They may be more inclined to organize and volunteer for McCain in a way they might not have if he would have chosen Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman or even Mitt Romney. For all of these reasons, McCain has raised his raw number of votes for the general election. The question now is how many independents will revert to Obama since the Republican ticket looks more conservative than it did three days ago.

From the Republican perspective, independents will be attracted to the ticket because Palin is a proven reformer. She fought against her own party (thank goodness that Ted Stevens is now a punching bag for Republicans!), and she and her husband have ties to unions. It is clear that Americans want change, and the Republicans have put together a ticket that is designed to offer that change: a “maverick” Republican senator and a little-known woman (and that’s important) who has not always toed the party line all.

The choice of a woman for vice-president is not, as many have argued, designed to woo Hillary Clinton supporters. It was clear in Denver last week – at least for the first two days – that Clinton supporters were still angry over Obama’s nomination. But Karl Rove and McCain strategists are not stupid enough to think that Clinton supporters would vote for McCain simply because he chose a woman as a vice-presidential candidate. Most of those supporters have no policy congruence with Palin (or McCain), and they are no more likely to stay home on election day now than they were before Palin was chosen.

What Palin offers (besides appealing to the far right) is an opportunity for white voters to feel good about their ability to help make history without voting for Obama. The “history” motif is now not exclusively the domain of the Democrats. Palin will be the second woman nominated for vice-president by a major party (and the first Republican), and she would be the first female vice-president. But many of those who wish to see the political glass ceiling shattered are not willing to see it happen by someone whose policies are not in line with their interests – especially because Palin has virtually no experience, and she is not on the top of the ticket.

The tradeoff for the Republicans is that they no longer will be able to argue that Obama’s experience is an issue in the campaign. Or will they? On ABC News’s This Week, Senator Lindsey Graham argued that Palin is more prepared to be president than Barack Obama. That argument is going to be difficult to make.

What has yet to be discussed is the fact that the choice of Palin cuts against conservative ideology. For conservatives, meritocracy is the call of the day. Ignoring elements of a racist and patriarchal culture that makes it difficult for women and persons of color to compete with white males, conservatives argue that hard work trumps disadvantage, and that the person with the best qualifications should get the job. It would be very difficult to argue that Palin was the most qualified individual for this position. In short, she is an affirmative action pick. One of the reasons that her resume is thinner than that of other possible choices is that she is a woman and a mother. In a culture that places disproportionate childcare responsibilities on women, men are able to rise in their professions much more quickly. Woman are paid less, promoted less often, and perceived as less competent than men. Her gender has been a hindrance to her advancement. But will the Republicans call out Obama supporters on their inherent sexism when they question Palin’s qualifications?

It’s not likely. They’ve got no credibility on the issue since such an argument is contrary to their philosophy. But we will see them accuse Obama supporters of being sexist. Count on it.
Similar to the way Geraldine Ferraro accused the Obama camp of “playing the race card” when they called out Ferraro’s racism, the McCain folks will certainly accuse Obama supporters of being sexist when they point out that Palin was primarily chosen because she is a woman.

So here we go. Let’s keep an eye on the doublespeak that will be coming out of the Republican Convention this week. They will seek to have it both ways: they are against affirmative action when it is convenient, and they are for it when it is convenient. From where we sit, they should be for it all the time. Having a female vice-president would, indeed, be an important step toward equality between the sexes. Her lack of experience is certainly related to her gender. She will be treated unfairly as a result of her gender (watch for comments about her attractiveness, her attire, her voice, investigations into her sex life, etc.). The Republicans will use this reality to criticize Obama supporters’ attacks of Palin, even though they have dismissed similar criticisms in the past.

The result will be a muddying of the water with respect to who is standing for the ordinary American, who is on the side of history, and who is the candidate of change. The game for Obama, then, will be sorting it all out in a way that the American public can digest it. The game for McCain will be continuing to keep things confusing so that the choice for change is not so clear. McCain needs to convince voters in key states that he and Palin are simultaneously dedicated to the right and willing to fight the right when the situation arises. If they are able to pull it off, they will win in November. At this point, though, it’s still a long shot.

Conservatives and Civil Rights Redux

We are very excited about the blog THIS WEEK. After our discussion of William Voegeli's excellent Wall Street Journal piece two weeks ago, we engaged in a discussion with Dr. Voegeli via email. We all agreed to reprint that exchange here for the purposes of stimulating additional dialogue. Though Dr. Voegeli did not have time to write a formal response to our response to his response (dizzy yet?), we leave open the invitation for him to do so in the comments section below. Further, we very much encourage you to also join in the discussion.

The following is the text of the email exchange with no changes except the inclusion of hyperlinks to additional material where we feel it might be helpful to you, the reader. We want to thank Dr. Voegeli for his willingness to engage us with this important topic and for agreeing to share the conversation in this space; we all three agreed that it is a great "teaching moment."

Before reading further, please take a few moments to read Dr. Voegeli's article and our blog about it. The following will be much more meaningful in the context of the original WSJ.com article, as well as our treatment of it.


Dr. Caliendo and Dr. McIlwain:

Thank you for bringing my article on civil rights and the conservative movement to the attention of the readers of “This Week in Race.” I appreciate, as well, the compliments and attention you paid to it. I’m guessing you won’t mind if I respond to some of the points you raised.

I should begin by saying that I haven’t read Echo Chamber, so when you discuss my article in the context of that book’s argument, everything I know about that context is based on your description of it. If reading the book invalidates anything I say here, I will, naturally, revise my positions.

As I understand your reading of it, Echo Chamber argues that conservatives further their agenda by “framing” the information the public receives and assesses. When I do read the book, the question I will want it to answer is whether this isn’t something that everyone in politics does. And, if so, what’s the big deal? Will Saletan’s book, Bearing Right, for example, argues that all the participants in the abortion debate try to frame the issue to their benefit. The choice frame competes against the life frame. In a democracy, the one that makes the most sense to the most people will prevail. If liberals feel that conservatives have been selling too many frames to too many voters, the thing to do is offer better frames that will have wider appeal, and explain clearly why the liberal frames are better. The thing not to do is complain, as Thomas Frank does, that wicked conservative rhetoricians cynically put forward arguments they don’t believe to ensnare stupid conservative voters who do believe them.

According to your analysis of my article, there is a conservative frame and a civil rights frame, each advancing distinctive and generally opposed ways to think about the requirements of racial justice in the U.S. The conservative frame is preoccupied with states’ rights and limiting government, the civil rights frame with correcting an American system that is “fundamentally stacked against people of color and those who are impoverished.” If I understand correctly, you think my essay was in some ways an analysis of how the conservative frame fails to appreciate the more compelling and admirable assertions of the civil rights frame, and in other ways was an example of that failure.

I agree with that argument to this extent: I am a conservative who thinks the conservatives were fundamentally wrong and civil rights activists fundamentally correct on the questions about which they disagreed from 1955 to 1965. At the same time, I think the conservative framework is, in general, better than all the alternatives to it for helping Americans to govern ourselves satisfactorily. Clearly, there is some tension between these two propositions. Your analysis of my essay welcomes its criticism of the way conservatives responded to the civil rights movement, but criticizes it for not resolving the tension I’ve described in the obvious way: by admitting that conservatism is essentially wrong, if not evil.

You won’t be surprised that I’ll decline that invitation, and you will be relieved that I won’t offer a full explanation for why I am (still, after the failings I describe in my essay) a conservative. To be as brief as possible, I agree with George Will that liberals think the point of politics is to make the world a better place, while conservatives think the point is to keep it from becoming worse. In the context of domestic American politics, the way things can get worse that worries conservatives the most is when social reformers become so convinced of the necessity and superiority of their plans that they become quite comfortable with the government’s using its inherent monopoly on legal physical force to compel other people to fall in line with their vision.

This was the thought that led me to write that conservatism came to grief over civil rights because it had no starting point for ending Jim Crow, while liberalism came to grief because it had no stopping point after Jim Crow had been defeated. I’m thinking about busing, for example, and specifically about the 1974 Supreme Court decision in Milliken v. Bradley. By a vote of 5-to-4 the Court rejected the mad scientist scheme, devised by a federal district court at the behest of civil rights plaintiffs and approved at the appellate level, to bus school children all over the Detroit metropolitan area - the city plus 53 suburban school districts - in order to achieve racial balance. Had such liberal heroes as William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall been able to find one more vote, the plan would have been upheld and conservative justices like William Rehnquist and Warren Burger would have been the dissenters.

Perhaps you think busing was a fine idea, that it’s a shame the Milliken decision prevented it from being extended to entire metropolitan areas, that conservatives (and whites generally) who opposed busing were, yet again, “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.” But the question about the absence of a liberal stopping point will not go away. Bill Clinton was aware of it in his “mend it, don’t end it” speech in 1995, saying that affirmative action “should not go on forever” and “should be retired when its job is done.” It’s clear, however, that the refusal of its advocates to state clearly what it would mean for its job to be done – or what it would mean for an affirmative action plan to go too far and violate rights of citizens who aren’t part of any minority group and whose well-being doesn’t figure into any scheme of social justice, but who deserve, simply and merely as citizens, to have those rights respected – guarantees that affirmative action will be retired only because of the victories of opponents like Ward Connerly.

Let me note, in closing, that I dispute your interpretation of my quotation of the Ta-Nehisi Coates article on Bill Cosby. I was making the same point that Coates made: black voters have entirely plausible reasons for voting Democratic, even those black voters whose worldviews are, in important respects, conservative. Thus, it was untrue and unfair for you to say that I was implicitly criticizing black voters by making the inherently racist assertion that they are “so unsophisticated that they vote against their interests.” (Do you think, by the way, that Thomas Frank was in any way bigoted, or simply condescending, for explicitly making the same generalization about white, working-class voters?)

Secondly, you misconstrue my “swipe at the social science” used in the 1954 Brown decision. I was not trying to evaluate the Clark doll experiment, but to argue that Supreme Court justices lack the capacity to do so, and shouldn’t have tried. It’s an argument the historian James Patterson, no one’s idea of a conservative ideologue, made in Grand Expectations, where he said that Clark’s research was “dubious and subject to different interpretations. Black children attending desegregated schools in the North, for instance, seemed to have lower self-esteem, as Clark defined it, than black children in segregated schools. The fact of the matter was that in 1954 there simply did not exist sufficient research that could ‘prove’ whether any particular racial mix in schools was superior – or in what ways – to any other. The Court would have done better to avoid socio-psychological speculation, which opened it to criticism.” The best way for the Court to have avoided that criticism would have been to overturn Plessy by embracing the “color-blind Constitution” Justice Harlan’s dissent called for.

Best regards,

Bill Voegeli
Claremont, CA


Dr. Voegeli,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply to our blog. We don't at all mind that you responded; to the contrary, we'd like to include this exchange in a future blog, if you agree to do so. We'll be happy to extend you an invitation to write the final entry if you wish to respond to what we write below.

First, we want to be clear that our blog focuses on race, politics and language, so our treatment of Jamieson and Cappella's Echo Chamber was less designed to be a review of the full volume as it was intended to situate your essay in the context of its discussion of the Trent Lott situation, which they use as an illustration of their larger point in chapter 2. Their thesis is not simply that conservatives frame information to further their political agendas. You are absolutely right that everyone does that. The point of their book is to show the relationship between the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and Fox News television broadcasts. They discuss framing and priming, but those comprise the theoretical basis for their research, not the thrust of the book. The close relationship of message framing and the potential effects it has on the audience is the primary contribution of this work. It is certainly true that conservative frames have been more effective than liberal frames in the past thirty years (at least). George Lakoff's 2004 book Don't Think of an Elephant speaks directly to that.

Second, we want to note that one of the premises upon which our work rests is that there is too much debate and not enough dialogue in politics today. In that spirit, we'd like to elaborate and, perhaps, clarify the points you raise, but we do not wish to persuade you that we're "correct." The mission of THIS WEEK IN RACE is to apply scholarship from the fields of political science and communication to current issues of race, politics and language. Our work is not value-neutral, of course; we are decidedly committed to racial equality and exposing the way language tacitly serves to perpetuate racial inequality. So while we strive for objectivity, we do not attempt to be neutral, nor do are we naive enough to believe that our own values do not inform our work.

So the criticism you make of Thomas Frank's claims about "wicked conservative rhetoricians cynically pu[ting] forward arguments they don't believe to ensnare stupid conservative voters who do believe them" is beyond our scope. Indeed, one of the things that we've argued consistently is that as social scientists, we are interested in the effects of language, not the intent of those who use it. Intent is often inferred (by our readers, as well as the broader community), but it's always speculative. We try to point out inconsistencies and poor logic by those who use racialized language, but we are not interested in "outing" bigots as much as we are in pointing out the inherent racism in all of us.

It is on this point that we are concerned that you may have taken offense to our point about our criticism of your use of the Coates quotation. TWIR readers will recognize that we use the term "racist" very purposefully. It refers to systemic racism, not individualized bigotry. Everyone who has been socialized in the United States is racist in a way that privileges whites. That "racism" is mostly subconscious, but it exists, and it exists for everyone, irrespective of skin color. This is why you will hear scholars claim that "black people can't be racist." Black people can certainly be bigoted, meaning that they have animosity toward whites or members of other racial groups, but racism is the internalized assumptions that we all posses about people of color, even as our conscious minds strive to counteract that socialization. In that context, what we perceived as your assumption that blacks are so unsophisticated that they vote against their own interest did, indeed, reflect your racism. You may, as some conservatives (like Sean Hannity do) argue that you are not racist. Lots of folks do because most of us do not consciously judge people negatively by the color of their skin. We will not try to convince you otherwise, but we will say that racism is like an affliction such as alcoholism or even cancer: until we recognize that it's there, we cannot treat it. We've long argued (alongside others) that an unfortunate legacy of Martin Luther King is that white civil-rights progressives agreed with him so much that they convinced themselves that they were no longer racist because they were not bigoted. It is largely that reason that racism (not bigotry) is still so prevalent today. We haven't dealt with it squarely. So, even though Coates is black, he very well can make racist statements based on his assumptions. That's the real revelatory power of the Clark experiments.

On that point, we may not have been as clear as we wished to be about the possibility that Clark's work did not necessary imply that segregation was the cause of the black children preferring the white dolls. We are in absolute agreement that such an inference was a stretch (at best). Our concern was your original sentence, which we took to implicitly criticize the study itself by characterizing the research as "problematic." We agree that it was problematic to use the results in the case the way it was used, but the study is not problematic -- it is an important indication of the way racism (as opposed to bigotry) works in America -- it affects all of us in a way that we do not usually even recognize, and it leads to what Dr. Cornel West argued in his 1993 book Race Matters is one of the largest problems facing black America: "too little self love" (he pairs this with "too much poverty"). We intended our discussion of the scholarly debate over footnote 11 in the Brown case to suggest that we were sensitive to the argument about employing Clark's work in this way, but we may have not been as clear as we should have.

We chose to highlight your essay because it is one of the few works by a conservative where the writer is not trying to explain away misunderstandings of racist policies or language. We appreciate that you are frank about the mistakes conservatives made with respect to civil rights. But you certainly are aware that you are unique in this respect. That's precisely why we invoked Jamieson and Cappella's chapter on the Lott incident. Rather than own his racism, Lott argued in his memoirs that he was misunderstood. After all, he asks us to understand, he doesn't use the n-word and he's had black friends, staffers and supporters. Again, he's making a fine argument that he's not a bigot, but that's not the same as not being racist. Further, the conservative media, while distancing themselves from Lott, didn't do as you do and argue that those policies were flawed -- instead, they turned the tables to argue that liberals were being hypocritical (which they were). From our position, it is this inability or unwillingness to embrace the way racism really works that is at the heart of the problem.

As committed as we are to racial equality, we must, by definition believe that "conservatism is essentially wrong" on the issue of civil rights. We wouldn't say "evil," because that implies intent, and we can't ascribe intent or speculate on motives (well, we can, but it's not useful or grounded in any way). So we want to make two points here: 1) we do not comment at all on conservatism writ large; we are focused on race, so in that context, we believe conservatism is wrong. 2) we do not come to this conclusion by a skewed perception of conservatism but by its history and current practices by adherents.

We were not aware of George Will's explanation of contemporary American ideology, but we find it to be accurate. So by that definition, "liberals think the point of politics is to make the world a better place, while conservatives think the point is to keep it from becoming worse." Inherently, those who are disadvantaged (the poor, the uneducated, women and racial minorities) will be less interested in maintaining the status quo as those who are in relative positions of advantage. "Worse" is relative, is it not? If one is homeless, how much worse can it get? If one is illiterate and living on minimum wage, how much worse can it get? It can always get worse, but the floor is a lot closer to folks in these situations than it is to you (presumably) and us. On the other hand, if one is advantaged, it is attractive to have the boat not be rocked because there is more to lose. For most middle-class Americans, the perception of their position (as a result of living beyond our means) allows us to view ourselves further up the socio-economic ladder, and thus less likely to support policies that would do anything other than "keep things from getting worse." If one accepts that the racial and economic inequality that exists in America today is unacceptable and not solely the fault of those who suffer the disadvantage, then keeping things from getting worse is not a viable option; we want things to get better.

Perhaps this is where we part ways. Part of the conservative position has been the reliance on a model of American democracy that stresses meritocracy and personal responsibility. Given an equal starting point, it would be hard to argue with these values. But it is clear that the starting point is not equal. There continues to be documented inequality with respect to income, wealth, education, incarceration, teen pregnancy, etc. There are two possible explanations for this: it is the fault of those who continue to make bad choices, or it is a systemic problem. (There is another argument -- a biological one -- as well, but so few subscribe to it that it's not worth mentioning here.) While individual choice is always a variable in one's social standing, bad choices by a wealthy teenager in a suburban town are less likely to have life-changing results as such choices by a person of color who lives in the inner city. Where a white kid's mom with connections might be able to plea down a DUI, a city kid relying on a public defender my lose his or her chance for financial aid to college. Further, meritocracy is a myth. For example, inner city schools are vastly underfunded compared to suburban schools. Conservatives argue that "you can't throw money at the problem," but while some suburban children take Advanced Placement classes and, therefore, can have a GPA above 4.0, the smartest kid in the school with no AP classes is bound by a maximum GPA of 4.0. Relying only on "merit" for college admission, then, is inherently disadvantaging persons in certain situations and advantaging others. Those sorts of examples rarely surface in affirmative action discussions amidst the "I knew a guy who was denied admission to college because he was white" stories.

In short, then, we don't have a policy position on busing, but we agree that it certainly didn't work. We disagree, however, that liberalism has (you said "had," referring to the Jim Crow era, to be fair) no stopping point. We're aware of no thoughtful advocates of affirmative action, to take but one example of a liberal position on civil rights, who believe it's a permanent fix for racial inequality. It has, however, helped to level the playing field (though there is clearly a long way to go). We agree with Justice O'Connor's position in her opinion in the U. of Michigan cases in 2003 that there should be a time when it is not needed, but that time is not now. Quotas were wrong, and we agree with their illegality. Giving a person of color points on an entrance equation is not denying a white person his or her civil rights, though; that person got "points" throughout his or her life that cannot be codified on an admission form. Very poor whites are not helped and often harmed by affirmative action. We concede that point for sure. That's unacceptable. Poverty in America is disproportionately black and brown, though, and even wealthy people of color face systemic disadvantages. In short, the "end point" of liberal positions on civil rights is when these situations no longer exist. The end point is when a white parent would just as soon have his or her child go to an inner city school than a suburban school because children in both schools have the same chance of gaining admission into a four-year college. The end point will be when persons of all races can choose where they want to live because income ranges are evenly distributed within racial groups. The end point will be when political figures' use of racial language is not effective.

We'll close, then, by noting that we were very critical of comments by Hillary Clinton and her surrogates during the primary campaign. We were critical of Joe Biden's comments about Obama being "articulate." We were critical of the Washington Democratic Party suggesting that an Italian-American opponent was attached to organized crime. Where we see language that plays on racial predispositions, we point it out. That's not only done by conservatives, but, as your essay so nicely points out, conservatives have been on the wrong side of this issue for a long time (RNC chair Ken Mehlman admitted as much in 2005). We hope that your work makes conservatives more likely to come forward and embrace those mistakes rather than pointing the finger at others or rationalizing them. If conservatives in the public sphere were as honest as you are, we would be satisfied that we are having a fair and open debate. If John McCain would say, "In my presidency, I would advocate policies that would keep things from getting worse in America," that would be refreshing. But we all know that he will not say that, even if he believes it (though maybe he's not a conservative in the Reagan form, so he may be a bad example). If conservative public figures are against judicial activism, they should denounce the Brown decision (it didn't integrate schools anyway), but they do not. They should address why white privilege (e.g., the AP courses) is acceptable, but affirmative action is not. We agree with you that "[i]n a democracy, the [frame] that makes the most sense to the most people will prevail." We have taken it upon ourselves to unpack those frames as they concern race, politics and language, and we appreciate your willingness to engage with us on the topic.

Best wishes,

Stephen and Charlton

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.

Deconstructing Pat Buchanan

It is relatively easy for progressive-minded people to dismiss Patrick J. Buchanan as a nut. The political pundit and two-time presidential candidate has made various statements over the years that are dismissed as bigoted, narrow-minded, or reactionary. We believe that, particularly at this point in our history, it is important to understand Buchanan’s assertions in a way that might help to shed light on the problems with racism in contemporary America.

Lately, Buchanan has gotten attention for his on-air comments and blog postings about race. Rather than exploiting snippets of his most controversial statements, we chose just one example for This Week so that we can dig deeper into the way this influential commentator (and those who agree with him) processes American history and culture.

Buchanan has gotten the most attention from two of his recent blogs (March 21 and 28, 2008) that squarely address race, responding to Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008 address from Philadelphia. The March 21 entry is a bizarre commentary on how well white America has treated African Americans throughout history (we’re not kidding, see below – see also his exchange on the matter with Tucker Carlson, which we noted in an earlier TWIR). In the March 28 blog, Buchanan cites Obama’s argument about both races feeling resentment and agrees with Obama’s description of white resentment, but then notes:

But then [Obama] revealed the distorting lens through which he and his fellow liberals see the world. To them, black rage is grounded in real grievances, while white resentments are exaggerated and exploited.

We wonder if Buchanan believes that he sees the world through a lens. In point of fact, we all see the world through the “lens” of our lived experiences, which include culture. To believe that only non-whites or those of opposing political ideologies have a filter is parallel to believing that only those who speak differently than us have “an accent.” What Buchanan fails to acknowledge is his own ethnocentrism, which, like all white, heterosexual males, is the reference point of power. When one comes from the group that exists as the reference point (the “norm”), any other perspective is “different,” even if one does not view it as “wrong” (though Buchanan clearly does, by claiming that it is “distorted”). Whites have a race. Males have a gender. Heterosexuals have a sexual orientation. Our common discourse, however, is rooted in a tradition that sees whites, males and heterosexuals as unspoken reference points, so that if we discuss race, gender or sexual orientation, we assume that we are talking about the “other” (non-privileged) groups; if we were talking about the “norm,” we wouldn’t have to mention a group at all.

Consider this: if one is describing another to a third person whom both know, the describer is likely not to mention race if the person being described is white, particularly if the describer and the receiver of the information are both white. The describer is likely not to mention gender if the person being described is male (though gendered pronouns render this example less powerful). While sexual orientation is not an observable characteristic, we might consider that the describer would not mention that the person is able-bodied or of average height or weight. If the person being described were in a wheelchair, taller or shorter than average, or particularly thin or heavy, the describer is much more likely to mention those characteristics.

This is logical given our need to communicate not just effectively but efficiently. In other words, if I know that the person to whom I am speaking will know that I mean “white” if I don’t mention the race of the person whom I am describing, it would be inefficient for me to mention it. The problem, however, is when we do not recognize that unstated reference points lead to assumptions of a “norm” that carry power and, thus, place those in “other” categories in a position that translates into very real disadvantage, even if such disadvantage is not intended by those in privileged groups. (See Martha Minow’s work for a more eloquent and thorough elaboration on this concept.)

So by Buchanan claiming that Obama’s lens is distorted, he is claiming that the world without such a lens (if possible) would be the “real” world. Since Buchanan does not acknowledge that he has a lens at all, the presumption is that he sees the world clearly (with no distortions). As a white male, he is correct: he sees the world in a way that those in power see the world. That doesn’t make it “right,” but it makes it consistent with others in privileged groups, which means that by those who get to define what is real and what is distorted, Buchanan is squarely aligned with the former.

And this is where Buchanan, Sean Hannity and others who have responded to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy by rejecting any claims that there is racism involved go wrong. They rely on the American myth of individualism, which is predicated, in part, on the false premise that we are in total control of our own minds. Failure to understand the subconscious and how it is shaped by our culture leads to a failure to understand how the subconscious in turn shapes our conscious attitudes. So when Hannity claims that he is “colorblind” and is not racist because he worked at a radio station that fought the KKK in Alabama (as he did on his radio program last night), he does so with a presumption that he can control all of his thoughts.

It’s the classic mistake of thinking that racism is bigotry – if Buchanan or Hannity were asked to define each, they would not be able to do so. To them, the KKK is what racism is. So long as we’re against that sort of stuff, we’re not racist. Similarly, since racism is bigotry, blacks can be “racist” if they speak out against white power. Leave alone that so-called black rage is against a white power structure rather than against white people, ignoring that African Americans have no systemic access to power to disadvantage whites as a group means that “racism” is not an appropriate term (though bigotry does apply if a person of color hates whites).

After calling Obama a bad father for not taking his children and wife out of a church “where hate had a home in the pulpit,” Buchanan explains in his March 28 blog why American white privilege is a myth. (The patriarchy in Buchanan’s statement is at least as disturbing as the racism: to suggest that a man can “take” his wife out of a church is a disturbing notion. If we were writing This Week in Gender, we’d be all over this one!)

Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket.

That is certainly true of the civil rights movement. Begun with just demands for an end to state-mandated discrimination based on race, it ends with unjust demands for state-mandated preferences, based on race.

Under affirmative action, white men are passed over for jobs and promotions in business and government, and denied admission to colleges and universities to which their grades and merits entitle them, because of their gender and race.

The last claim is patently false. We do not wish to debate the merits of affirmative action (or its drawbacks, to be fair) in this space, but Buchanan either intentionally lies here to bolster his argument, or he does not understand how affirmative action works, in which case, he is not qualified to talk about it. The real concern, however, is that he’s not alone here. Tune your AM dial to any station with a talk radio host, and you’re likely to hear a similar mischaracterization of affirmative action.

What Buchanan implies is a quota, though he uses that more accurate term “preferences” just before that. Having defeated the KKK (though the number of hate groups in the U.S. has risen since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center), these arguments assume that America is now “equal,” so proceeding to make employment and higher education admission decisions based on “merit” would be fair to both races. There are two reasons why this assumption is flawed.

1. Racial quotas are and have been illegal in the U.S. for decades. Creating a racial quota (where a certain number of positions are reserved for persons of a certain race) violates the 14th Amendment (equal protection) rights of those who are excluded from those positions (usually whites). If they are used, they are used illegally, but the perception of their use greatly outweighs their actual use. Because of historic discrimination, people of color face hurdles that similarly situated whites do not. While we may be 150 years from legalized slavery, we are only 50 years from Jim Crow. During that time, African Americans in particular were denied equal access to education and employment. This resulted, of course, in disproportionate poverty in the black community, as well as disproportionate rates of incarceration (which is closely associated with poverty). In the 1960s, black families did not have the means to save money for their children’s education or to move into neighborhoods with stronger schools than those that were and continue to be under-funded and neglected in working-class communities. The result is that products of those schools are disproportionately less prepared for college (which was increasingly necessary to make a good living). Without a college education, the next generation of poor Americans (many of whom are of color) faced the same cycle – a cycle that affirmative action programs attempt to interrupt (by mathematically weighting otherwise “objective” scores of applicants to take this disadvantage into account, reflecting on and adjusting recruitment practices, etc.). So when Buchanan notes that whites are denied seats in colleges “to which their grades and merit entitle them,” he ignores the inherent disadvantage with which people of color often begin with respect to whites. Whether we look at wealth or income, whites are far ahead of African Americans and Latinos in economic security. According to the 2000 census, the median net wealth for all Americans combined was $46,506. For non-Hispanic whites, it was $58,716; for blacks, it was $6,166; for Hispanics, it is $6,766. With respect to household income, the median for non-Hispanic whites in 2004 (updated census figures) was $48,977; for blacks, it was $30,134; for Hispanics, it was $34,241. How do we explain this discrepancy if a) everyone starts out with an equal chance, and b) whites are being disadvantaged by affirmative action programs?

2. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not end racism. They didn’t even end bigotry, but they did signal a change in acceptable norms in America with respect to open and willful discrimination and prejudice. As we regularly explain here, there are important elements to the way racism works. One of Stephen’s alert students, Shannon Lausch, brought this excellent article from this week’s Scientific American to his attention. The author, Siri Carpenter, does a wonderful job of explaining explicit bias v. implicit bias. We know that explicit bias is wrong, so we avoid it and try to treat everyone equally. When we hear claims of unequal treatment, we react against it, but we usually do not take inherent group power into account. So affirmative action programs appear unfair, black anger seems irrational, and white resentment seems to be justified because attempts to stem inequality are actually examples of reverse discrimination. This is where Buchanan’s arguments find a home.

Over the weekend, Frank Rich had a very thoughtful column in the New York Times in which he analyzes the paucity of attention to conservative white ministers who have close associations with prominent white politicians. (Thanks to Stephen’s alert student Tiffani Stevens for bringing this to our attention.) It’s definitely worth a read.

This is entry is already longer than we like to offer (if you are still reading, we love you!). But we promised above to fill you in on Buchanan’s March 21, 2008 blog. We encourage you to read it, but below is reprinted the last half of the column, followed by a link to an excellent discussion on its contents (and Buchanan in general) from Real Time with Bill Maher. At the end, Tavis Smiley notes what we noted in the first sentence of this entry: dismissing Buchanan as a nut is dangerous. Beyond that, it’s patently unfair that “nuts” like Buchanan are dismissed while “nuts” like Jeremiah Wright are dissected ad infinitum in the mainstream media. As we like to say: it’s a good thing there’s no more racism.


From Buchanan’s March 21, 2008 blog:

* * *

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.