Patient. . . and Radical

In sending out a recommendation for our blog last week, one of our Twitter friends, the very thoughtful @readingmachine, described us as "patient," which we took as a high compliment because we try to be measured and thoughtful about our offerings. It led us to consider the degree to which it is difficult to be both radical and patient in this political climate.

It is an appropriate time for us to be a little reflective, as we have just begun our fourth year of us writing this weekly blog. (Interestingly, it was at about this time last year when we felt it necessary to "defin[e] our role.") Of course, much has changed in America since we wrote about the start of the first season of Survivor in 2006, when the "tribes" were divided by race. Much has stayed the same, too. While we were by no means the first online writers to dedicate our space to race and politics, we were among only a small handful of such sites. Now the blogosphere is crowded with smart, thoughtful offerings on the subject. Back then, we had only a handful of readers, most of whom either knew us personally or were former students. We had the odd reader who thought we were full of it, but for the most part, the comments were civil and respectful; folks appreciated what we were doing, even if they disagreed with what we wrote.

But things today are much more heated with respect to our topic. Drew Westen, who is working on the cutting edge of political psychology research, wrote a must-read piece for Huffington Post this week where he explains how race has a way of leading to incivility in the way we communicate with one another. Joe Gerstandt wrote a thoughtful piece about how to find "sweetness," and the White House, which has wisely tried to deescalate the anger all summer by downplaying the role race has played, stayed on message this week, as President Obama suggested that race was not an issue in the opposition to his policies because he "was Black before the election."

To be fair, the overall political climate is probably not, overall, more hostile than it was in the fall of 2006, when progressives were outraged over some of President Bush's policies, but the hostility much more directly centers on race today. So when @readingmachine offered that we were "patient" and @Maevesmom, later in the week, advocated for "relentless etiquette," we were encouraged to reflect on THIS WEEK's events through that lens.

We have taken a bit of heat over the years from folks who are not familiar with (or simply disagree with) the goals and practices of folks who work in higher education. Specifically, we have been accused of being arrogant and elitist because we have consistently argued that it is the responsibility of scholars to be able to see the "big picture." While we cannot dismiss out of hand charges that we are -- individually or as a pair -- arrogant, we would like to offer that most folks in academia (including us) make a fraction of the money that people who went to school half as long make. Perhaps we are sensitive about it, but far from being reflective of self-importance, this fact is either a testament to our dedication to our profession or to our abject stupidity. Our guess is that whichever choice you prefer depends greatly on the degree to which you think we are on the mark with our analysis most weeks.

In any case, we put ourselves out there each week, which makes us a target for criticism, so we understand that withstanding those jabs is part of what we must expect. We explain to our family members who are troubled by such remarks that the attacks are not really personal, but that it is difficult to separate what we are doing from who we are; it is difficult for our critics, and it is difficult for us.

We are expected to be "patient" and to engage in "relentless etiquette"; our critics are not. Those who defend the status quo have always been, by definition, resistant to change. From flat earth defenders to slavery supporters to school integration resisters, there is a perpetual struggle between those pushing for more progress and those who think that we have made enough progress (and that any more would be "reverse discrimination"). But progress is not the same as equality, and while it is uncomfortable for many, those who fight for equality do not and cannot stop at each stage where progress has been made. Intellectual growth, like all growth, requires a tearing down before building back up. In this case, we need to tear down the myths of White supremacy and American meritocracy to expose systemic racism and help folks to understand that the precise use of language related to race is an important factor in determining whether we will continue to move forward or whether we have reached a nadir.

There is a name for such a push: radicalism. Those who seek fundamental changes to the system that created and perpetuates inequality (based on race, sex, etc.) understand that we need radical change. To most Americans, "radical" is synonymous with "extreme," but like "racism" the term has been (perhaps intentionally) diluted by those who wish for it to lose its power. By conflating the term "radical," the etymology of which is "by the root," with "extreme," defenders of the status quo have been able to push advocates for radical social justice to the margins of American political discourse. But if we use a metaphor of weeds, the difference is that we can continue to mow over or "weed whack" those little pesky buggers, or we can get down on our hands and knees, get a little bit dirty, and pull them out by the root so that they never grow back. That's radical, and that's what is needed to bring about social justice. (What that means in policy terms, however, is subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article.)

So is it possible to be patient and radical?

We hope so.

For the past eight years, we have engaged in social science research to help others (and ourselves) more fully understand the complexities of racism in American politics, particularly the ways that it is reflected in and moved along by language. But we started The Project on Race in Political Communication as a "project" because we always had a vision for our work that transcended the confines of the narrow academic communities within which we work. Part of our mission is to "share [scholarly] information with the mass public in an accessible way," which we do each week in this space.

Beginning this past summer, we also began to provide a place for folks to gather and discuss these issues (on our Facebook page and via our Twitter feed). In all of these endeavors, we have tried to create online space with an academic atmosphere that is a departure from most of the other politically-oriented online environments. To be fair, we have had some problems getting folks to appreciate that one must adjust one's behavior to the context. Just like we would not welcome the sort of screaming matches that characterize cable television news in our classrooms, we expect civil and respectful exchanges of ideas in our online learning communities. The physical space and power differentials that occur naturally in our classrooms make such expectations relatively easy to manage; online, however, it is much more difficult. Just this week, we were forced to issue a call for civility on our Facebook page because we began to notice that the sarcasm and "gotcha" comments that are so prominent in other online settings were starting to seep in. There are nearly 1,000 teacher-learners who look to that page for information and commentary on issues relating to race, politics and language, and we want to be sure to provide a safe environment for the thoughtful and respectful exchange of ideas without fear of bullying.

So while we appreciate that passions are running high, it is important to point out that academics do, in fact, have commitments and responsibilities that differ from non-academics, and that among them, being at once patient and radical is important.

Academics must view the world differently than journalists, who in turn must view the world differently from those who have no training in journalism. Just this week, Talking Points Memo writer Glenn Thrush had to apologize for taking a document sent to him by a political operative and including it in one of his columns without carefully checking the content. He appropriately noted that the responsibility did not rest with the party leader who sent him the information; that person's job is to spin, persuade and manipulate. While we can argue that everyone has a responsibility to be "truthful," the art of politics is about constructing reality, so we probably won't get too far with that argument. Journalists, however, have a responsibility of pulling back, checking sources, and striving for objectivity (which should not be confused with neutrality).

Academics have yet a different set of expectations. First, with respect to our research, the (often double-blind) peer review process is the step of the scientific method that is designed to ensure that the rigor that is expected in terms of methodology and theoretical development is reflected in our publications. Not long ago, one of our online critics rhetorically asked of a blog entry, "so this passes for academic rigor?" Certainly not! There is less editorial oversight for blogs than there is for media publications, let along academic publications. The work we do here does not significantly contribute to the professional evaluation of our work or promotion at our respective institutions, and it certainly would not pass for "scholarship" at either North Central College or New York University. What we offer here is an application of social scientific scholarship to current events. The peer review process moves (by design) much more slowly. Part of the challenge of teaching students in the 21st century is helping them to weigh information appropriately. If one of our blogs was listed as a scholarly source on a paper, we would certainly deduct points.

Second, as teachers we have a different set of expectations than those who are not teachers. Mark Edmundson wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times this week wherein he very eloquently explains why teachers must view the world differently from others:

Because really good teaching is about not seeing the world the way that everyone else does. Teaching is about being what people are now prone to call “counterintuitive” but to the teacher means simply being honest. The historian sees the election not through the latest news blast but in the context of presidential politics from George Washington to the present. The biologist sees a natural world that’s not calmly picturesque but a jostling, striving, evolving contest of creatures in quest of reproduction and survival. The literature professor won’t accept the current run of standard clichés but demands bursting metaphors and ironies of an insinuatingly serpentine sort. The philosopher demands an argument as escapeproof as an iron box: what currently passes for logic makes him want to grasp himself by the hair and yank himself out of his seat.

[. . . ]

Good teachers know that now, in what’s called the civilized world, the great enemy of knowledge isn’t ignorance, though ignorance will do in a pinch. The great enemy of knowledge is knowingness. It’s the feeling encouraged by TV and movies and the Internet that you’re on top of things and in charge. You’re hip and always know what’s up. Cool — James Dean-style cool — was once the sign of the rebel. But the tables have turned: conformity and cool have merged. The cool character now is the knowing one; even when he’s unconventional, he’s never surprising — and most of all, he’s never surprised. Good teachers, by contrast, are constantly fighting against knowingness by asking questions, creating difficulties, raising perplexities. And they’re constantly dramatizing their own aversion to knowingness in the way they walk and talk and dress — in their willingness to go the Lester Bangs route.

To be clear: we do not believe that Rachel Maddow, Glenn Beck, Keith Olberman or Rush Limbaugh have to adhere to any of the standards that we have explained herein. They are not scholars in the formal sense (though they are all quite bright), and they are not even journalists in their current roles. They can choose to be radical, or they can choose not to be. They can choose to be patient, or they can choose not to be. Their decisions on these elements must be driven by their personal preferences and motivations, not by any external standards that should be applied to them. That is not the case with us.

Like anyone who cares, we get angry, too. We just do not feel as if it is appropriate to bring that personal anger into any of the Race Project spaces without filtering it through our training and "the big picture." That is one of the reasons that, despite calls to publish here more frequently, we have resisted. We think that the ability to step back and not write quickly contributes to our ability to be patient. What we personally think -- as citizens -- is important, but it is only equally important to the thoughts of every other American. Our degrees and training and the fact that we have an audience does not translate into advanced moral worth or importance. To be sure, if we thought that way, we would, indeed, be quite arrogant. What we do is not "better" than what Lou Dobbs does; it is, however, different.

Of course, as someone pointed out on Twitter a few weeks ago, only those who have relative privilege have the luxury of "patience"; for many Americans who are on the business end of systemic oppression, real justice has been far too long in coming. Further, those who feel as if the power and relatively privilege that they have always knows is being threatened are also understandably impatient and anxious. In our middle-class positions, we can be patient with those who are not patient with us, even as we are impatient with how slowly progress is being made. It is a luxury we do not take for granted.

At the end of the day, folks who like the heat of battle and engaging in arguments rather than productive discourse can find literally thousands of such places online and, most recently, at town hall meetings. We hope, however, that folks who are looking for radical ideas that are presented with patience, will find a comfortable and supportive environment with us in the spaces we provide.

Racial Narcissism

As we are sure you are well aware, it was a very busy week in race. From President Carter's comments about Joe Wilson's outburst being reflective of racism (and Bill Cosby's support of that statement) to Rush Limbaugh's accusation that a White student being beaten by a group of Black teens on a school bus in Belleville, IL as a natural result of "Obama's America," there is much to discuss.

A lot of thoughtful analysis has already been put forth (see our Facebook page for an archive), so we will, as we generally do, try to step back and put the entire week into some context.

To do so, we offer an analogy in an attempt to capture the collective mindset of Whites who are understandably frustrated that they have been continually referred to as "racist." Last week, of course, we addressed their frustration with a concept we called "racism fatigue." THIS WEEK, we dig just a bit deeper to offer a look at "racial narcissism." This "disorder" is, we argue, a natural occurrence of being socialized into accepting a battery of (largely unspoken) "truths" about Whites and non-Whites.

We want to be very clear here that we are not using the term "narcissism" literally (i.e., in a clinical sense). That is, we are not saying that White people are all narcissists. Rather, we offering an extended metaphor to help characterize the way that Whites who are not bigots have collectively reacted to accusations of racism. This is not a diagnosis, and it is most definitely not designed to be an attack of any sort. To the contrary, our overarching argument is that until we understand that being referred to as "racist" is not an insult but a statement of fact about the internalized, largely subconscious acceptance of White supremacy that is applicable to everyone (irrespective of race) who is socialized in a racist culture, we cannot move forward. That is why we advocate using "racist" only as an adjective -- it describes all of us but does not define any of us. (It is what we are, not who we are.) We should reserve the word "bigot" for those who engage in overt displays of racist animosity (and who are not coy or embarrassed about those feelings). No one should ever be called "a racist," as using the term this way detracts greatly from the importance of the word as a marker of systemic power and institutionalized oppression.

According to the most current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), a personality disorder is defined as "[a]n eduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment." Without belaboring the individual points too much, this nicely characterizes much of White America in the Obama era.

The difficulty of helping folks to understand systemic racism is reflective of the enduring quality of racial narcissism. Because non-bigoted Whites do not believe that they or people like them are racist but rather operate under the assumption of equality, there is clear deviation from the expectation of our culture. We expect that everyone is equal, so when our (or others') racist behavior deviates from that expectation, there is a violation of norms (what Tali Mendelberg has called "the norm of racial equality"). This behavior is pervasive in the sense that it characterizes all Americans (not just White Americans -- see the oft-cited Kenneth Clark "dolls" experiment for just one vivid example). Racism is certainly stable over time. Bigotry, however, is not. While no one can deny the progress that has been made from the 1600s to the 1800s to the 1960s to today, it is important to remember that progress is not the same as equality. White folks in America are still much more likely to "succeed" on any number of indicators than people of color because of systemic racism. Racial narcissism clearly leads to distress and/or impairment for Whites and persons of color. The one element of the definition that strains the analogy is the fact that an individual personality disorder has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, whereas recent developmental psychology literature suggests that racism is learned much earlier (conservatives flipped over the most recent Newsweek cover story on this issues).

So far, however, we have only explained how racism can be conceptualized as a collective personality disorder (to the extent that we collectively have a cultural "personality"). Narcissism is but one personality disorder, and its specific characteristics are similarly applicable.

From the DSM IV:

Someone who suffers from Narcissistic Personality disorder (NPD) has at least 5 of the following characteristics:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

We will not go through each of these (you're welcome). Some of them are self-evident, and at this point, we are confident that you get the idea. We will leave it to your comments to elaborate or refute individual points, but while no analogy is ever perfect, we hope that this one works as analogies should -- to make a point by activating understanding of something more salient (in this case, individual behavior) to something somewhat less familiar (systemic racism).

Part of the reason that systemic racism is so unfamiliar (in thought -- it's quite familiar in experience, we just aren't always aware of the name for it) is that our primary reference text for language, the dictionary, does not generally distinguish between individual-level bigotry and systemic racism. Indeed, on a number of occasions folks have argued against our argument to disentangle the terms because "racism" is listed in a power-neutral way in most dictionaries.

Harry Allan, the "media assassin," ran into this issue THIS WEEK as he was criticized for his take on the Kanye West controversy from the MTV Video Music Awards. Allan responded to a critic in a follow-up post titled, "'Why Can't Black People Be Racist?': A Brief Primer on White Supremacy." It's a thoughtful piece (as usual) that would be largely unnecessary if dictionaries would accurately describe racism as having a power component to it.

Similarly, Jesse Washington wrote a piece for the Associated Press that centers on the all-too-common "cry wolf" allusion. Washington wisely ask, "if everyone is racist, is anyone?" If the appropriate conceptualization of the term is adopted (i.e., "racism" refers to systemic and internalized, subconscious White supremacy), the answer is "yes." By the colloquial (and dictionary) definition, however, the answer is more complicated. Everyone is not a bigot, but some folks are. Folks who are not bigots, however, are racist, too, and have the same burden (irrespective of race) as everyone else to honestly, meaningfully and radically deal with racism. The "cry wolf" criticism only holds if racism is conceptualized as individual-level rather than systemic. If it is appropriately conceptualized as systemic, it is impossible to "cry wolf" because the wolf, indeed, is always actually there!

A fair question at this point would be, "Hey RaceProject guys: who the hell do you think you are, trying to change the dictionary?!" Our response would be, "Who else?"

We are not suggesting, of course, that we alone are best qualified to influence such an important reference book. But who, if not scholars in their respective areas, should be influential on shaping the denotation of complicated constructs that lexicographers consider as they go about their work? And, we must add, we did not (by a long shot) invent the conceptual difference between these terms. The distinction is understood so well by academics who study race and ethnicity that it is virtually assumed in those conversations. But as race has moved back into the forefront of White consciousness over the past few years and the Internet has provided more material about the topic, we have been persistent in our demand for the language to catch up with the concept.

This is an important point. Folks like us who argue that "racism" and "bigotry" should be distinct terms are not arguing that the concepts should be distinct. They already are distinct. That is not a point of contention. What is being advocated here is that our language must be precise enough to capture the conceptual differences. Part of getting treatment for a disorder involves recognizing that one has the disorder. If non-bigoted Whites do not feel as if they are racist because they understand the term to mean conscious resentment for persons of color, they are not likely to seek the much-needed "treatment." This, too, is reflective of collective racial narcissism.

To that point, Joanna Ashmun notes that "[n]arcissists rarely enter treatment and, once in treatment, progress very slowly. . . .It's difficult to keep narcissists in treatment long enough for improvement to be made -- and few people, narcissists or not, have the motivation . . . to pursue treatment that produces so little so late."

The "treatment" in our analogy is reflection about the power and complexity of racism and our inability to fully come to terms with it so that we can dismantle it. Well-meaning White folks have spent the last couple of decades stomping their feet and covering their ears while screaming that everyone is equal, that we/they are color blind, and that we/they have Black friends. There is a steadfast refusal for us to get treatment for our collective disorder.

Like personality disorders, however, racism is not the "fault" of the culture who suffer from it. As Whites are quick to point out, no one in America today ever owned a slave, and few have even engaged in conscious discrimination of a person of color. Much of our resistance to our own racism comes from an unwillingness to take responsibility for its existence. But we do not have to take such responsibility. We do have to recognize, however, that once it is revealed to us, we must deal with it with honesty, focus and persistence. We cannot continue to ignore the uncomfortable reality of our collective ignorance. There has never been a more opportune time to seek treatment. We can leave our guilt at the therapist's doorstep and work together (not against one another) to better understand our collective condition so that we can move forward.

Racism Fatigue

In 1998, Susan Moeller published Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death, in which she explains that media coverage of these types of stories contributes to the tendency of Americans to divert our attention from worldwide human suffering. Moeller helps us to understand that the ways issues are presented determines the degree to which folks will continue to be responsive. As we work our way through the administration of the nation's first Black president, it is important to consider whether Americans are experiencing "racism fatigue."

THIS WEEK, we wrote an article for OpEdNews wherein we explained the racial context for Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst during the president's health care address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night. If you are interested, we encourage you to jump over there and give it a read. Essentially, we explained that the persistent characterization of Barack Obama as "other" by his opponents has established a context within which behavioral norms can be dismissed. Just this week, it meant that Joe Wilson could hurl an insult during a formal address and that some parents could pull their kids out of school rather than have them listen to the president give a speech (the contents of which were released in advance) about working hard and getting an education.

The response to our article surprised us a bit. Some folks were frustrated that we stopped short of calling Wilson's actions racially motivated (TWIR readers know that we almost never speculate on intent) while others chastised us for invoking race at all. There was a lot of Internet chatter about Wilson's past behavior regarding race since his outburst, and that may be of interest to South Carolina voters or others who are determined to expose him as a bigot (we have chosen to not even link to that material here). We read that material and appreciate its value; it is just not central to what we think matters most.

In fact, we believe that the "gotcha" practice of trying to out bigots can be counterproductive because it tacitly reinforces the notion that "racism" is primarily about individual hatred of persons of color. While those who are bold enough to be open about their resentment of persons of color ought to be recognized as having conscious attitudes that set them apart from most of the American public, overt bigotry represents only a fraction of racial inequality in 21st century America. We ought not lose sight of bigoted occurrences, but we think it is most important to draw attention to the racial underpinnings in contemporary political discourse because that represents a more widespread and powerful current that is carrying along our centuries-old tradition of White supremacy.

But it can be quite tiring, indeed, for racially progressive folks, the millions who are genuinely trying to understand the roots of discrimination and White privilege. The more we folks who do this sort of work write, speak and advance sophisticated ideas about systemic racism, the more (and louder) defenders of the status quo put forth overly simplistic snippets that are easier to understand and, thus, believe.

Such reactions were on display this weekend as millions of (overwhelmingly) White folks gathered at rallies organized by political groups who oppose Barack Obama and/or his policy preferences. Joe Wilson was heralded as a hero at many of these gatherings as many noted that his outrage Wednesday night was justified because they, too, believe Obama is a liar. Further, the outburst was related to and consistent with their desire to keep "aliens" from having access to health care. They see no racism in labeling millions of Brown folks as "other" and subsequently (and angrily) preventing them from having access to what many believe to be a fundamental human right. Despite the fact that they have chosen to speak out so forcefully against government spending during the administration of the first Black president when two of their heroes -- Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- greatly contributed to the deficit during their presidencies, they see no racism in their position. Despite the fact that similar groups of Obama's opponents just a year ago brought stuffed monkeys, claimed that Obama was a Muslim and an Arab (which suggests that he is both a terrorist and a liar), yelled that he should go back to Africa, and engaged in myriad other bigoted behaviors, they see no racism in their position.

To the contrary, these folks, when asked about such underpinnings, become quite agitated, noting that the minuscule number of persons of color who agree with them is a coincidence, that they have a Black friend (seriously, this is often used as an alibi against any suggestion of internalized racism), and that it is Obama's supporters who are the real "racists." They are fatigued -- tired of always being called "racists."

This is also where the fatigue begins to surface on the part of advocates for racial justice. In the context of such anger and hostility, is it possible to explain to someone that "racism" is a systemic concept tied to White supremacy, not simply individual-level prejudice? Can one help a sign-waving, screaming, scared middle class White person to understand, in that moment, that 98% of their brain's activity takes place outside their consciousness, so ruling out racism as a factor is impossible? When fear and hostility are in full bloom, it is neither the time nor place to try to explain the complexities of human thought and behavior broadly, let alone neuroscience.

But where is the space for such discussion? All the world has become a tea party or town hall meeting for those who oppose President Obama.

That's why Joe Wilson screamed out. When Congressman Wilson apologized, he said, "I let my emotions get the best of me." At the end of this summer of anger, we are seeing the manifestation of a rhetorical climate that has painted Barack Obama as an "alien" himself. "I want my country back!" is heard at many of these gatherings. One wonders, from whom? From the "other" who has taken it, of course. From the man who does not look like other presidents looked. From the man who doesn't look like "us," like "America." From the man who is not really even American (so say "the birthers") and, therefore, is not even legitimately the president. From the man who will take care of people "like him" and seek retribution and/or reparations for slavery against Whites. From the Marxist/communist/socialist/fascist/terrorist man who used his Hitler-like oratory skills to fool Americans into electing him.

It is exhausting in its intensity and, quite frankly, its effectiveness.

White conservatives are genuinely tired, and while many of their criticisms of the president are not legitimate, we think that their fatigue is understandable. They are tired of being told that they are "racists" because they oppose a man who happens to be the nation's first Black president. They are tired of knowing, with all of their being, that they are not, in fact, "racist," even if they cannot always explain why they are so angry about this particular president. Most of them have worked for generations to use the appropriate term to describe Black Americans, moving from "colored" to "Black" to "African American" and now just resorting to just speaking the word more quietly than the rest of the sentence to avoid any perception of bigotry. They taught their children never to use the n-word, to give everyone an equal chance, irrespective of race or ethnicity, and they genuinely appreciate the diversity that has come to characterize their work spaces. For heaven's sake, some of these folks marched in the 1960s to end legalized segregation of schools and to bring about social justice in our laws! "What more," one can hear them shout, "are we supposed to do?! We have a Black president! That's not equal enough for you?! What more do 'you people' want!"

They're so damn tired.

But they are tired precisely because there is so much about racism that they do not understand. It is difficult for humans to understand that we cannot know what we do not know. It feels ("logically") that we are in control of our own brains. We are not. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that while we have made so much progress with respect to individual-level prejudice (even considering the backlash we are seeing now), we have much more work to do to help folks understand the complexity of systemic racism. It is very hard work -- not just to facilitate such discussion, but to engage in it. It is hurtful to realize that racism internalized from our culture is more powerful than explicit teachings to the contrary by our parents (or to our children). It is frustrating to think that we are on the right track, only to catch ourselves reaching for the door locks or feeling a tinge of fear or at least suspicion when a Black man approaches (this isn't just Whites, by the way). And it sure as hell is exhausting to worry about whether someone will call us "a racist" when we feel certain that our attitudes are not at all rooted in racism.

Racism fatigue is not new, but we are seeing a widespread outbreak in 2009.

Joe Wilson's emotions got the best of him. Indeed, much of the political psychology research has revealed the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that Enlightenment-era philosophers put forth (privileging the latter over the former, of course). It is unrealistic (and, we would argue, unwise) to ask folks to take emotion out of their political decision-making. After all, we tend to appreciate emotions that lead to outcomes that we embrace. (Progressives want folks to feel empathy, for instance, so that more socially just policies are adopted.) We find nothing wrong with the fact that Joe Wilson feels strong emotions about making preventative health care available to those who cannot afford it, even if our emotions on the subject are quite different from his.

Further, we find the tangential discussions surrounding his act to be distractions from the primary point (health care reform) and our point (the racial context for the outburst). That is, we do not particularly care whether the action was consistent with practices of the British House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions or whether the president was actually lying. Those are fair items to consider in a broad discussion of the incident, but shouting insults has not been and is not the custom in the U.S. Congress -- whether the president is there or not -- even if the he was not telling the truth.

The folks at the rallies this weekend hold anti-reform attitudes that are similar to those held by folks who opposed civil rights reform a half century ago. White Southerners were tired of being told that they were "bad people" for expecting Blacks to live their lives separately from Whites. They were tired of uppity Blacks telling them anything, in fact. And they were tired of White Northerners talking about them like they were unenlightened bumpkins. They knew the truth, and they were tired of being told otherwise. They wanted their country back. The parallels to the current fight for civil rights (of which the extension of health care to all is but one part) are striking.

So how do we overcome racism fatigue? The first step, we propose, is to do our best to continue to be persistent about the effects of systemic racism but also continue to be diligent about explaining that pointing it out is not an insult. "Racist" is an adjective; it ought not be used as a noun because doing so drains it of its power. Here's why: First, calling someone "a racist" (noun) suggests that he or she is aware of his or her racist attitudes; that may or may not be the case. We can almost never prove intent because those who are intentionally bigoted know how to maintain plausible deniability. It is a no-win situation. Second, using the word as a noun permits defenders of the status quo to turn it around and use it to describe anti-White attitudes (see the sign from this weekend's rally in Washington, DC, above, for example), which rhetorically forces the concept into the neutral position. Anti-White prejudice exists (and, we believe, should be vigorously opposed), but is not nearly as dangerous as racist attitudes because it carries with it no systemic power. When "racism" becomes understood simply as any resentment based on skin color, the true power and effect of racism is lost. It is possible to identify racism without tying that concept to the intent of one or more individuals. When people stop feeling as if they are being called "racists," they may be more open to understanding the way racism really works.

Even so, it may be too late, or the context might be wrong. White folks of all political persuasions, by and large, want to believe that Barack Obama's election signaled the end of American racism -- Dr. King's dream realized. If we are in a "post-racial" period, it is not appropriate to bring race into the discussion; those who do are "playing the race card." So, in effect, there has been a cruel shift in culture such that those fighting for racial justice are accused of actually perpetuating injustice. Who wins in such a circumstance? Defenders of the status quo, of course, because no further progress can be made.

The problem, though, with arguing that this may not the right time to be pushing harder is that White folks are not the only ones with racism fatigue -- those who have been on the receiving end of American racism for generations are quite tired, too, and have been for some time. We have to push, and we have to push wisely, not just strategically. We have to raise consciousness and understanding about the complexities and destruction of systemic racism. We understand that conservative Whites are tired and that progressives are feeling tired, too, but now is not the time to rest. The stakes remain high for those who are harmed by racism: all of us.

Beyond White Guilt: The Role of Allies in the Struggle for Racial Equality

We do not normally take requests, but THIS WEEK, Ludovic Blain, formerly of Stop Dog Whistle Racism (and now with the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative), asked us to comment on "why white liberals are unable to grasp and take action to expose, challenge and provide alternatives to the racism spouted from the right." We think it is an important question and one that we may not have squarely addressed in this space over the past three years, so here we go.

First, it is important to be clear that we are limiting our discussion of what Blain referred to as "white liberals" to White folks who are progressive with respect to issues of race. Some of those folks may be politically conservative in other areas or would otherwise reject the label of "liberal" altogether. Still, we feel as if the root of the question is about Whites who 1) understand that there are significant problems with respect to racial inequality that are systemic and 2) are interested in seeing those problems addressed and eventually solved. There are many Whites, of course, who may be wonderful people in general, but are convinced that ending "racism" means getting folks to quit using the n-word or joining the Ku Klux Klan. These folks believe that we have progressed to the point where there is now equality among races in America and that the election of Barack Obama is further proof of such progress. We are not addressing those folks here; rather, we are addressing the role of what scholars refer to as "allies" in the ongoing struggle for racial equality.

Broadly speaking, allies are folks who have privilege in a given category but work alongside those who do not to bring about more equality. So an ally for LGBT rights would be heterosexual, for instance. Feminist men are allies. Able-bodied folks can be allies in the struggle to bring attention to and remedy discrimination against those with physical challenges. Whites are allies in the struggle for racial justice. (See Dr. John Raible's "Checklist for Allies Against Racism" for examples of what this might mean on a daily basis.)

It is important to remember that the word "privilege," when used in this context, does not mean absolute privilege. There are a lot of White folks, for example, who certainly could not be considered to be "privileged" because they are poor, were raised poor, had other disadvantages, etc. With respect to a similarly situated person of color, however, they are considered to "have privilege." In other words, having "privilege" means having an advantage, all other things being equal and is not the same as "being privileged." Like "racist," it refers to what we are, not who we are: "I am someone who has privilege, but I am not privileged; I am racist, but I am not a racist." Failing to appropriately define the concept invariably results in an unraveling of its meaning; after all, only a very small fraction of the population would be considered to be "privileged" in the broadest sense of the word (someone always has it better). Most of us have some degree of privilege in one context or another.

Allies are important to social movements, but they find themselves in a complicated position in a number of ways. They are at once needed because they have disproportionate (though almost never absolute) access to the power structure that, by definition, those who are out of the privileged group do not have. On the other hand, as members of the privileged group, they must always be aware that no matter how well intended, they do not have the lived experience of someone who is in a disadvantaged group, and exerting their perspective can be (or can be perceived as) a further act of oppression, symbolic of the larger issue. In this sense, there is a very real irony present in these relationships.

We will use ourselves as an example. Charlton has the experience of being a Black man in America, which is something Stephen can seek to understand, but can never fully comprehend. Stephen can only know what is is like to be a person of color through the lived experiences of persons of color. One of the ways that this is illustrated is when he speaks publicly about racism. In fact, we often engage audience members in discussion about this issue during the Q&A portion of our public lectures, so we can relate what those folks have shared with us.

There is an inherent sense of legitimacy ascribed to Stephen from White audience members because he is perceived to not have a personal agenda in the matter. That is, if he is successful, White supremacy -- from which he has benefited and continues to benefit in ways that are largely unknowable -- will be dismantled, and he will therefore have less of an advantage. When Charlton speaks about the same issues, he is certainly viewed with a sense of legitimacy with respect to his understanding of how racism works, but there is always a sense amongst White audience members that he is less trustworthy because he has a clear agenda; unlike Stephen, he stands to benefit directly if racism is lessened or eliminated.

Furthermore, it is expected that people of color in academia (particularly in the social sciences and humanities) will be engaged in scholarly pursuits related to race and ethnicity. This, like many stereotypes, is an assumption rooted in reality. It is true that a vastly disproportionate number of scholars who work on these issues are of color, and it is true that a great number of scholars who are of color have as their research interest issues that involve race. But it is quite frustrating for scholars of color who are not interested in these issues to be presumed to be, much like it is frustrating for all tall persons to be constantly asked if they play basketball. And for Whites who have devoted their careers to exploring (in the case of scholars) or fighting (in the case of activists) racism, similar questions arise.

Whites ask them (sometimes quite openly), "Why do you do this? Do you feel guilty about being White?" People of color are sometimes (though, at least in Stephen's experience, not often openly) concerned about the possibility of intellectual colonialism. In other words, just like a man who teaches Women's Studies must be thoughtful about being patriarchal in his approach, Whites who are involved in these issues need to be constantly reflective about the potential to be (or even to appear to be) presumptuous about the proper way to do or think about things.

THIS WEEK, Chris Matthews (left) promoted a documentary about the Kennedy brothers (planned to air this coming Thursday on MSNBC -- see trailer here or below), some of which, naturally, focuses on their participation in the Civil Rights Movement. In plugging the program on The Colbert Report this past Thursday, Matthews claimed that the Kennedy brothers "created the Civil Rights Movement," to which Colbert brilliantly replied, "I loved Kennedy's 'I Have a Dream Speech.'" (Matthews appeared not to pick up on the jab). The comment is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's remark during the Democratic primary contest in January 2008: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” The problem, of course, is that these statements give ultimate (rather than proportionate) credit to Whites for the progress made to bring about racial equality.

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This notion is not unprecedented, and we would not argue that it is an intentional slight. In other words, it is reflective of the speakers' latent racism, not of any conscious bigotry. As another example, school children who were educated in the second half of the 20th century, unless they were part of an Afrocentric curriculum, likely learned that Rosa Parks was an elderly woman who was too tired from a hard day of work as a seamstress to get out of her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Though Rosa Parks did work the day she was arrested, she was not old (42), and while she was, indeed, tired, her real fatigue was from injustice and frustration that her work with the NAACP was not yielding enough publicity for the cause. Rosa Parks was an advocate for racial justice and was participating in an act of civil disobedience when she refused to give up her seat.

Why, then, did generations of children learn such a different story about Rosa Parks? While conspiracy theories are interesting (and often warranted), one need not believe in any conscious decision on the part of Whites to appreciate the cause and effect of this myth. (One compelling argument, for example, is that by not celebrating Parks's direct action, young folks were not taught to believe that civil disobedience was an acceptable or effective response to injustice.) It is more comfortable for Whites (who until very recently had the market cornered on writing history and History textbooks) to believe that it was the benevolence of Whites that remedied the past evils of slavery, Jim Crow and racism in general. It is comfortable for White folks to believe that while they may never have owned a slave or forced someone to a separate water fountain, they (and/or folks like them) took responsibility and corrected the wrongs of those earlier times.

To a certain extent, of course, this is correct. Whites did control almost all the power in those days (as they disproportionately still do), so Hillary Clinton and others were right in noting that "it took" Whites (not just LBJ but the U.S. Supreme Court, White members of Congress, etc.) to "get it done." But such a half-story undermines the courage and intelligence of African Americans who did much of the hard work and planning for years before Whites took notice on a large scale. Further, such skewed versions of history reinforce stereotypes of African Americans as helpless and needing Whites to come to the rescue.

And this remains the primary complication of the contemporary White American who is concerned with and involved in understanding and/or solving the problem of racial inequality. These folks do not wish to be perceived as believing that they are coming to the rescue. They wish to work alongside people of color in the struggle, all the while knowing that it is at once not their struggle and at the same time -- since White supremacy ultimately hurts every member of society -- very much their struggle, too.

In addition to the millions of White Americans who are deeply committed to moving forward toward greater racial equality, there are a handful of White scholars and activists who are deeply engaged in these issues. You might have (should have) come across the work of Tim Wise or that of our friend and colleague Bob Jensen, for instance. Are they driven by guilt? Probably initially, but not ultimately.

When White folks realize the depth and complexity involved in racism (i.e., that it is more than simply disliking someone based on the color of his or her skin), there is an inevitable feeling of guilt because they understand that it is impossible to know how much of what they have achieved is the result of their own hard work and perseverance and how much can be attributed to their race. That is a confusing place to be, and it invariably leads to some feelings of guilt.

But Whites who are committed to being anti-racist (which is a proactive stance that differs from simply being not racist, which we contend is impossible without the praxis involved with anti-racism) -- whether they are dentists or service workers or insurance salespersons -- do so because they feel a responsibility to take advantage of their advantage. They seek to use the privilege that they neither sought nor earned to contribute to the dismantling of the system that provided it to them.

Finally, then, we come to Mr. Blain's question that he posted to our Facebook page: [W]hy [are] white liberals . . . unable to grasp and take action to expose, challenge and provide alternatives to the racism spouted from the right?"

One reason is that it very difficult to address because it is so complicated. A sophisticated understanding of racism cannot be reduced to sound bites. People of color understand it because it is a part of their lived experience. One of the ultimate privileges that comes with being White, however, is that it is possible to go through most of one's life without considering race. (Of course, anyone paying attention to the news in the past few years in particular does not have such a luxury, which is one of the most powerful benefits of having a Black candidate for president, and, of course, a Black president.) Most White folks believe that if they avoid basing their conscious evaluations of people on skin color (or gender or sexual orientation) then they have successfully avoided racism (or sexism or heterosexism). To convince them otherwise requires that they have an understanding of how the human brain works (i.e., the subconscious) and how systems and institutions are more than the sum of the humans who occupy positions within them. In short, it takes a lot of work to disrupt the comfort most Whites have come to enjoy with respect to their own (mostly subconscious) racism.

Secondly, many Whites do not feel that it is their "place" to engage in such conversations. While those who understand the complexities of racism understand that the battle is against a system of White supremacy, not against White people, most folks see it as a battle between Whites and persons of color. They may be rooting for persons of color to "get ahead," but they do not see how they are involved so long as they remain "color blind."

Finally, it is important to understand that many of the "liberal Whites" who are out in front and are visibly and vocally advocating for a more tolerant and fair society with respect to race are not the folks who have (or who articulate) the most sophisticated understanding of how it works. Chris Matthews, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and others are certainly on the liberal side of the political spectrum and have been clear about their commitment to racial progress, but if we compare their statements and actions against Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech or the writings and public statements of Patricia J. Williams or bell hooks or Cornel West or Michael Eric Dyson or (most prominently as of late) Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Marc Lamont Hill, we can see that the depth of understanding is absent from the public comments of these progressive Whites (if not from their own personal understanding). In that sense, while it is certainly better than leaving the issue to Patrick Buchanan or Glenn Beck -- or leaving it unaddressed -- it does a sort of disservice because it perpetuates and reinforces the notion that progressive Whites must simply avoid racial prejudice for their work to be done. It is certainly admirable to avoid bigotry, but it is only through a proactive anti-racist process that White supremacy will ultimately be dismantled.

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois criticized Booker T. Washington's approach to racial progress by noting that it "has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs." Just as DuBois was correct that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line," he is correct that the burden to dismantle an unjust system falls on all of our shoulders. Whites and people of color, however, must bear that burden differently while we bear it together precisely because of the ways in which racism has affected us differently as it has affected us together.


We want to give a special shout-out THIS WEEK to the kind contributors at the Google Blogger Help newsgroup who solved a relatively minor but nagging issue that we had. You may have noticed that the RaceProject "favicon" (the small logo that appears in your URL window and favorites list) and our list of "Links" only appeared on the main landing page and not on the archived pages. That's fixed now, so you should see them on every page you surf on the blog site. Thanks, Blogger Help folks!

Hatewatch: Don't Forget the Bigots

For nearly three years, we have put forth weekly analysis of current events that reside at the intersection of race, politics and language. Specifically, we attempt to apply scholarship from the fields of communication, political science, sociology, anthropology, critical studies and psychology to the news so that the work is accessible to folks who do not have advanced training in the social sciences or humanities.

Our work is balanced on two key points: 1) While we have a primary and fundamental commitment to the academic process and seek to contribute to the scholarly literature, we also have a normative interest in reducing racial inequality. We launched the RaceProject.org website in 2003 and the RaceProject.org Facebook group in 2007 in an effort to bring those tasks together. 2) We join with others who differentiate individual-level racism (what we consistently call "bigotry") with systemic-level racism because we believe that understanding that difference is the key to turning folks' attention to working on the latter. As a result, we have offered some 140 entries here, most of which totally ignore individual-level bigotry, in part because we try to de-emphasize the intent of those who reveal racism in their language and expression.

Every once in a while, though, we need to remember that while bigotry may be taking its last breath in America, it certainly is not dead. Further, it is conceivable that bigotry will make a comeback now that the nation's top elected official is a man who identifies as being African American.

The hard working folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center spend a lot of time, money and energy tracking bigotry, particularly as cases move through the legal process. If you are not an email subscriber of their weekly "Hatewatch" newsletter, you might be surprised about the number and intensity of incidents that occur. We reproduce their newsletter here THIS WEEK to remind readers that, while internalized racism is more widespread and is a more significant impediment to social justice, overt bigotry dramatically affects the lives of thousands of Americans each year. We cannot fall asleep on this front.

White Supremacist Threatens To Kill Judge
Pueblo Chieftain
May 17, 2008
Aryan Brotherhood member Jay Gregory threatened at a sentencing hearing to have a federal judge murdered after referencing the 1984 assassination of a Jewish radio show host by the white nationalist group The Order. [more]

Man Arrested For Trying To Sell Cyanide To Aryan Brotherhood
The Oklahoman
May 15, 2008
Texas resident Jeffrey Don Detrixhe was arrested for allegedly agreeing to sell 100 pounds of cyanide for $10,000, a thermal imager and a fully automatic AK-47 to a federal informant that Detrixhe believed was representing the Aryan Brotherhood. [more]

ACLU: York Public Assembly Law Still Unconstitutional
The York Daily Record
May 17, 2008
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, proposed changes to a York, Penn. law governing protest rallies, several provisions of which were struck down in court after a white supremacist group sued the city, are not enough to make it constitutional. [more]

Sacramento Men Arrested For Gay Bashing
Orange County Register
May 16, 2008
Micah Jontomo Tasaki, 21, Gregory Lee Winfield, 20, and Robert Lee Denor, 19, allegedly uttered anti-gay slurs then beat and kicked a gay man just hours after the California Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning a state ban on same-sex marriages. [more]

Potpourri

Every once in a while, there is so much going on that we have to offer a "potpourri" entry. (What that really means, of course, is that neither of us is able to find a clever theme to tie the disparate items together in any meaningful way.) On such occasions, we look forward to your input to expand on our brief analysis.


Jamie Foxx Makes Bigoted Remark

On his satellite radio program, Jamie Foxx and his colleagues enjoyed a brief, but horribly offensive attack on teen pop sensation Miley Cyrus that included calling her a "White bitch." Foxx quickly moved to apologize publicly, appearing on The Tonight Show, but there is no excuse for his behavior. As many conservative commentators pointed out, leftists move to boycott or have fired White folks who make such remarks. While we disagree with reciprocity arguments surrounding elements of racism, bigotry should, indeed, be held to a standard that involves equal punishment for equal offenses. In other words, while it is not appropriate to say that a Black comedian joking about White folks is as troublesome as a White comedian joking about Black folks, racially-provocative name calling and hateful language should be equally condemned. Further, at least in this case, the racial nature of the comment did not work to significantly add to the humor -- it was simply gratuitous.

Foxx was correct to apologize, but conservatives were also correct in this case to call "foul." Defenders who claim that Foxx "goes hard on everybody" (as the person who compiled the YouTube clip linked above does) are not on solid footing here. We wouldn't accept that logic from Don Imus, and we cannot accept it here.


First Black Disney Princess

After a gaggle of White princesses (Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, and Belle) was joined by Native American (Pocahontas), East Asian (Mulan) and Arab (Jasmine) "royalty," Disney has pushed forward with an anticipated film featuring a Black princess. Tiana, who was originally to be named "Maddy" when the film was announced two years ago, will be the central figure in the upcoming The Frog Princess. The film has apparently taken a while to produce because of concerns about how the princess was portrayed in the original script. Jezebel reported last summer that the original name may have sounded too much like "Mammy," and that the character was too submissive, leading to concerns about connections with slavery.

The new formula is getting its share of criticism, too. Apparently, the prince is White, and Tiana is depicted in fashion similar to other "ethnic" princesses (and Barbie dolls, for that matter): she is dark skinned but otherwise has features more often associated with Caucasians (e.g., straight hair, thin nose) -- a "sexualized version of white women," according to Janel at Sugar and Spice v. Rough and Tough. See the CNN story about the film here and the official "teaser," embedded below.




USSC Hears "Reverse Discrimination" Case

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in Ricci v. DeStefano, a case that involves claims of reverse discrimination. After a test resulted in disproportionate success for White applicants for promotion within the New Haven (CT) Fire Department, the City determined the test to be racially biased and nullified the results. The firefighters who would have been promoted (a group that includes White non-Hispanic firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter) argue that they are victims of reverse discrimination. There is a lot of legal minutiae in this case, and there are a number of complex factors that have been debated by folks on both sides THIS WEEK. We turn your attention to arguments by Ilya Shapiro of The Cato Institute, the folks at Firelink.com, Acting White, and a panel of law experts at the American Constitution Society.


McCain Works to Clear Name of Boxer

Senator John McCain is working to urge President Obama to grant a presidential pardon to the late Jack Johnson, who was the first African American heavyweight boxing champion. As CNN reported this week:

Less than five years after winning the heavyweight title, Johnson was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral" purposes.

Johnson was black and the woman was white -- enough to get even a champion imprisoned in early 20th century America. Justice Department lawyers decried it as a "crime against nature" for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman.

Johnson was convicted by an all-White jury and fled into exile for a number of years until he surrendered to authorities in 1920. He served a 10-month sentence and died in an automobile accident in 1946. McCain, whose civil rights position has been marred by what he has since admitted to be a mistake in voting against the federal Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, is leading the charge with fellow Republican, New York Congressman Peter King.

Working to right an obvious past act of racism is no substitute for working to uproot systemic racism in the present, but it is nonetheless a welcome action on the part of these two public servants. Nice work, fellas! Let's just hope that the president goes for it.

Black Tea, White Tea: Making Sense of the Outrage

Across the country, angry Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom were White, gathered THIS WEEK to protest. What they were protesting is open to some discussion, but at the very least, there was concern about the latest round of deficit spending.

It has been argued that the "parties," instigated by conservative think tanks, supported and sponsored by conservative media and pundits, and with rhetoric aimed disproportionately at the Obama administration, were exercises in hypocrisy and "faux populism." For our part, we took notice of racial message that came forward, though they were relatively few, in part because organizers asked participants to avoid such messages in their signs.

Supporters of the tea parties, pejoratively referred to as "teabaggers" in the blogosphere, have been very defensive with respect to the racist charges, arguing (validly) that one ought to be able to criticize a Black president without being called "a racist." We use this space to attempt to explain how scholarly criticisms of racism differ from playground accusations, and why the former are appropriate to consider and apply to the parties.

First, we point out that folks who study racism and racial discourse by and large do not use the word "racist" as a noun (as in "He is a racist."). This is because the term is used to refer not to individual-level prejudice, but systemic oppression that is rooted in narratives and institutions that perpetuate and reinforce such individual attitudes. Since everyone who is socialized within a system characterized by historic inequality based on race is affected deeply (and subconsciously) by those messages, everyone is racist. (Note that we did not say that everyone is a racist). Colloquially, the term is used to identify persons who are unabashedly prejudiced on the basis of skin color. For that, we use the term "bigot."

The distinction is crucial because conflation of the terms leads to an assumption that there is virtually no racism left. Since there are only a handful of bigots among us, it is comforting to believe that we are not "racist" if we don't use the "n-word" or consciously base judgments on skin color. That's convenient, but it's dangerous because it has led to our collective inability to meaningfully confront the most pressing issues of racism in America.

Second, people who are supportive of the "tea party" messages broadly have tended to try to explain how some of the signs were not "racist" because there were plausible explanations for the designers' intentions that do not involve race. That is, there are cries that Obama supporters are "using race" to discredit otherwise valid opponents of the Administration. It is important to note that we divorce "racism" from intent because, as social scientists, we are primarily concerned with effect. That does not mean that it is not worth considering the intent of those propagating the messages; it just means that it is a task better left to journalist and scholars in the humanities. For us, it is enough to acknowledge that such messages are potentially not "bigoted" in the sense that someone consciously attempted to play on negative racial predispositions. We are all driven to some extent by our racism (as defined above), so arguments about whether there was consciousness involved in the design of the message is irrelevant to our point that such messages are rooted in and subsequently prime subconscious racist sentiments.

Actor and activist Janeane Garofolo drew a lot of criticism for saying that the "parties" were essentially exercises in racism by "rednecks." Her language is not helpful in the sense that while it drew attention, it undermined more thoughtful and clearly articulated points about the racial nature of the discourse at work at these events.



Huffington Post covered the events and posted pictures of some of the "most offensive" signs, some of which had racial undertones. We took the liberty to lift some of these and post them below with annotations that we hope will make it easier to understand why these messages can be considered to be racially insensitive.

This image depicts a Black man (ostensibly Obama) slitting the throat of Uncle Sam from behind. While the violence is offensive, it also works to prime racist fears of Black violence. If the president was White and a similar poster were made with the White president, there would be no issue. For some, that is the rationale for why there accusations of racism here are unfounded. That relies, of course, on what we (and others) have referred to (in this space and elsewhere) as the "false reciprocity" fallacy. In other words, just because a similar message could easily be made about a White person does not mitigate the racist nature of the message. If there were no history of racism and, thus, no negative stereotypes about people of color, then reciprocal arguments would be valid. But there are no myths about "White violent criminals," so messages like these are more effective as a result of racist predispositions.

This image is racist because it wouldn't make very much sense if the president were not African American. The phrase was made popular by the character Arnold Jackson, played by the actor Gary Coleman, in the 1970s/1980s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes." If it were a contemporary common phrase, we might not be as concerned, but given the history, it is impossible for anyone to hear (or read) the phrase without an image of little (Black) Arnold Jackson's face, screwed up in a combination of confusion and contempt, rhetorically "asking" his brother, Willis, what he was "talkin' about." The degree of "offense" is lower in this image than in the above image because Arnold was a beloved figure, but the unnecessary connection to race is troublesome because it prompts us to think about Obama's race, thus activating our racial schemata and making accessible other information about African Americans -- most of which is negative -- as we evaluate Obama.

The level of ethnic insensitivity here does not need much explanation. Analogies to Nazis or Hitler are all too common in our contemporary discourse, and this is merely another example. It is clear that a number of people are upset about governmental spending, but suggestions that paying taxes -- even more than one believes is appropriate -- is on par with the attempted systematic extermination of an entire ethnic group are not only unfounded, but profoundly offensive.






Reminiscent of the "little girl monkey" imitation we saw at a McCain/Palin rally during the campaign, this youngster displays a sign that plays on stereotypes of Black folks as "not quite human." Such messages were important during the dehumanization of Africans during slave times and the continual denial of rights to African Americans during Jim Crow. As we have seen recently with the Washington Times editorial cartoon, such imagery still evokes powerful emotions and criticism.


This message references the 1990s-era In Living Color skit that featured African American comedian Damon Wayans as a parolee who does his community service by playing a clown named "Homey." According to a Wikipedia entry, "His goal in life is to get even with 'The Man,' a personification of the white males he thinks are "holding him down." There would be concern about the sign even if it were held by a person of color because it references a character that is criminal and suggests that Obama is motivated by a desire to harm Whites (as was suggested throughout the campaign in a variety of ways). As always, it is even more unnerving to see a White person use Black cultural images to criticize an African American.



ACORN has been criticized for the corrupt practices that have been uncovered in some of their work. The organization is designed to empower poor persons, particularly those in urban settings, by advocating for housing fairness, in part through registering people to vote. The corruption was a result of the organization paying persons for registering voters on a "price-per-registration" system, which led to some folks falsifying registration forms. Republicans and conservatives alleged that Obama's supporters were trying to "steal" the elections (imagery that plays on predispositions about African Americans and crime), even though votes could never be cast by folks who did not exist. While criticism of ACORN's practices are valid, the organization had nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of the "tea parties" last week, unless one buys into the conspiracy theories about Obama's election being a result of corrupt practices.

This sign addresses the non-issue about Obama's birth certificate, where opponents have tried to argue that he is not really a natural born citizen. While the question may have been valid when it was first raised, it has been addressed a number of times, culminating with the U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on the issue. See this video of a "tea party" in Cleveland in February where protesters claim with some confidence that Obama is lying about his citizenship status, some noting that he is Kenyan. This plays into racist notions of Black folks as untrustworthy and "other" that are pervasive subconscious beliefs among Americans.




This last image speaks for itself.

In short, what we hope readers will recognize is that while there are "wingnuts" from all parts of the political spectrum, thoughful analysts who are concerned about racism at these assemblies are neither claiming that all criticisms of Obama are racist in nature nor arguing that even the folks holding these signs are themselves bigots. If we are to make progress with respect to race relations, though, we must be diligent about pointing out where these messages appear, how they work, and why they are effective.

Through the Eyes of Children

THIS WEEK, Stephen relates a story about his recent trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

I recently spent an afternoon at the very impressive Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The facility is beautiful, with a number of memorable artifacts from throughout Lincoln's life. In addition to two very interesting and well-produced shows, the museum part of the campus is broken into two parts: a log-cabin that traces Lincoln's life until 1861, and a White House that documents his years as president, up to and including resting in State after his assassination.

Overall, it was a powerful day; I highly recommend the experience. I have been troubled, though, by one aspect of the trip, which I thought TWIR readers might appreciate and/or like to discuss here.

After walking through a replica of Lincoln's one-bedroom boyhood home, there is an exhibit about the slave trade that features life-like (and life size) figures such as those that are scattered throughout the museum (see image at left). This display includes a (White) auctioneer with his right hand firmly clasping the shoulder of a Black boy who appears to be about seven or eight years old. The boy is clearly wailing with grief, reaching out for his mother, who is steps away, in shackles, being pulled away by a White man who has purchased her. For her part, the mother is teary, as well, but her gaze is fixed on the eyes of her husband, who is similarly shackled and being pulled in the opposite direction by another purchaser.

My nine-year-old daughter, Amelia, approached the slave auction exhibit with great interest. I watched her face and mannerisms as best I could from behind her, my hands resting gently on her little shoulders. She looked on, but said nothing. As we moved with the flow of the crowd on to the next exhibit, she turned around and craned her neck to look around me for a final glance. A few moments later, as we were looking at the gravestone of Lincoln's young son who died at age 3, she turned to me and said, "Daddy, if we have time, can we go back to look at the slave one again?"

My heart sank. I fought back tears at the exhibit in the first place and couldn't bring myself to think about what must have been going on in her head. Now she wanted to go back. What did that mean? Why did she want to expose herself to that again when all I wanted to do was forget that I ever saw it?

I told her that we surely could go back, and that if she wanted to go back right away, that was okay with me. So we nudged our way through the crowd and back to the exhibit. I stood in the same position (behind her), but this time, she wanted to talk about it. As she pointed at the various elements, she explained to me that sometimes families would be torn apart because people didn't always buy slaves as a family. She knew this, she informed me, because of the story that came with Addy (Walker), the American Girl doll whose family struggled for its freedom. As I turned my ear toward her -- partly so that she wouldn't have to raise her voice and partly to hide my wet eyes from her -- I nodded and agreed that it was a terrible situation. After a few moments, she was satisfied and pulled my hand off to the next room to see what else there was to see.

And there I was -- a man who has spent his professional life researching the power of racism, speaking to students and members of audiences around the country who have gathered to hear my thoughts, giving quotes to media outlets who have published my ideas on the matter internationally -- dumbfounded as to what to say to the one person who most needed him to say something smart.

It wasn't the first time something like this has happened. We live in downtown Chicago, so there are examples of racism and inequality all around us. Four years ago, I came back from the local drugstore with a story about a man who told me that his girlfriend was in the hospital and that he'd really like to buy her a card. I told him that I had no cash (which was true), but that if he wanted to pick out a card, I'd be happy to buy it for him when I checked out with my order. When he met me at the register, he had about $60 worth of candy, stuffed animals, etc. with him. Right or wrong, I paid for it, and went home to share the story. Amelia listened attentively, and then went off to play in her room by herself. When I went in a little bit later to check on her, she said (I remember this verbatim):

"Daddy, you know that man who you bought things for? I know it doesn't matter, but was he light-skinned or dark-skinned? I know it doesn't matter. I'm just wondering."

"He was dark skinned, babe. Why do you ask?"

"I know it doesn't matter," she said for the third time, but it just seems like every time somebody needs help, he has dark skin. That doesn't seem fair."

Great. Now I was in the position of having to try to explain economic racism to a five-year-old.

Look, I am very much willing to admit that some of this is my fault. I can't be easy being the daughter of a guy who spends his life studying inequality. This poor kid. Here's an example: My wife and I are very much opposed to Barbie, for obvious reasons, but we decided early on that while we would not buy Barbie for Amelia, we didn't want to make a big deal out of banning her from the household. So if she got a Barbie as a gift (including from Santa -- more of that in a moment), we didn't force her to give it away or throw it out. But I am absolutely ZERO fun playing Barbies. My Barbies say things like "I don't want to go shopping; let's go to the library!" (And yes, my Barbies use semicolons.) "I'm starving!" or "I don't know how I can possibly stand up with such tiny feet!"

Playing Barbies with me totally sucks.

And race has always been a subtle factor in our play. In my professional work, I advocate acting in counter-stereotypical ways. That is, it's not enough just to be not racist; we must be anti-racist. This has been fine for the most part, but I still sort of regret the year that Santa brought the big-ass Barbie castle with the princess who was "Black" (she has no typical African American features except dark skin) without realizing that there was an actual movie that went with it (and, of course, didn't feature that Barbie).

In all seriousness, though, how should we handle this? We know what the handful of White bigots do: they teach their children that their skin color makes them superior. We know what people of color do: they teach their children that they will probably be judged unfairly by the color of their skin, but that they should push beyond it and work hard to prove themselves. As someone who teaches college at a predominantly White institution, I can feel confident in pushing my students to think critically about race because they are adults and have minds that can handle the dissonance I seek to instill. But a lot of what we face with White college students is a result of progressive parents teaching them to be "color blind." As a result, we have to work to make them understand systemic racism in order to confront it.

Is that really the best plan? Lie to our children in the hopes that either racism will mysteriously disappear before they become adults or hope that they'll learn to confront the truth in a meaningful way later? Isn't that largely passing the buck because it's easier than dealing with the difficult truth of racism in America?

I didn't expect to be so affected by the museum or by my daughter's reaction to it. In a lot of ways, the fact that she recognized so early that Black folks tend to be poorer than White folks is more troubling to me because it is a current problem. I guess that the other parents felt very comfortable and secure telling their children that what they saw in the slave auction exhibit was horrible, but that it was a long time ago, and things are better now.

It's impossible to argue with that sentiment, but I want Amelia to understand that progress, while wonderful, is not the same as equality. At some point (maybe not today), I want her to understand that what she saw in that exhibit is directly responsible for the inequality she sees in her city today. Because what if I don't help her to understand that? By not making the link, I am tacitly supporting the faulty proposition that there is no relationship between slavery and modern racism. Should I let her think that Black folks have the same chances as White folks? If so, the explanation for racial injustice today has to reside in individual choices rather than systemic oppression. In other words, if we don't help our children to understand how the legacy of slavery affects us today, we should not be surprised when they grow up and refuse to support systemic changes for social justice.

On the other hand, don't our children get to be innocent for a while? Isn't it my job to protect her against the hurt she clearly felt at that exhibit? Isn't it my job to help her to understand that America is truly a place where anyone can make it, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.? The easy answer is "there must be balance," but in the moment, that's not very helpful. We need to be ready when those teaching moments arise. Teaching kids that Martin Luther King, Jr. is a hero and that the Ku Klux Klan is bad are easy decisions. Knowing when and how to make the link between bigotry and racism is much more difficult.

We'd appreciate any thoughts you have about this issue. Now Stephen needs to go and make sure that Barbie knows that if, indeed, Ken turns out to be gay, that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Moving Forward in a New Era

It is undoubtedly a new era in American racial politics. While most of the old rules still apply, there is a new dynamic in place that will affect the way we (and others) approach racism in our work. THIS WEEK, we offer our analysis of the inauguration with an eye toward the future -- not just of the nation, but of the Race Project and research, commentary and analysis on race generally.



We have no interest in being the sobering voice that kills the collective euphoria that is sweeping the world this week. The symbolic nature of Obama's rise to power is an important element in the struggle for civil rights in and of itself; the fact that he will probably work to move us forward in this area while in office (and, we believe, even more so after he leaves office) is icing on the proverbial cake.

There was a good bit of hyperbole swilling about yesterday, but a lot of it was accurate. This is, indeed, a new era. There has been a shift to the left that is comparable to the shift to the right that occurred when Ronald Reagan took office. If it can be sustained for a similar length of time, there is a real opportunity to socialize a new generation into the core American values of putting others' needs before our own intersets, acknowledging the lasting power of the legacy of slavery and segregation to earnestly combat injustice and inequality, and fostering a genuine belief in the dignity of each individual that translates into equal opportunities for every American child.

That is a tall order, indeed, and one that is in competition with a very troublesome economy and a fractured foreign policy record for the attention of the new president. Not everyone will be pulling in the same direction. Despite impressive nonpartisan demonstrations from the likes of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and others, there is a small group of folks who could not listen to Obama's speech with an open mind and heart and who have already begun the countdown to the 2012 election (which clearly indicates that they have no plans of helping or even rooting for a successful end to the recession, a smooth withdrawal from Iraq or any of the other plans Obama has for his first term).

In a speech at a forum immediately following the ceremony yesterday, Stephen highlighted three categories of citizens in terms of their response to the historic event. The text of that speech appears below.

Finally, we would very much like to invite TWIR readers to share their thoughts about the inauguration. Where did you watch it and with whom? What did you feel and think? We would love for the comments section to be a repository for the reflections of our readers -- people who are constantly thoughtful about race and politics.

Stephen Maynard Caliendo
Faculty Panel Following Barack Obama’s Inauguration
North Central College
January 20, 2009

Americans’ responses to this event can generally be categorized into three groups:

One group – the smallest – is sickened by today’s events. These folks never wanted to see a minority (a woman or a member of a racial minority group) in the White House.

Another group, comprised of mostly young people, is unimpressed or even frustrated by the attention being paid to Obama’s race. These are folks who consider themselves “post-racial.” They understand that it is a big deal because it is a “first,” but since they are not overtly bigoted (and know very few people who are), they do not fully grasp the significance of the moment.

A third group – by far the largest – is moved beyond words. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, folks in this category reflect upon this, a day many thought they would not see in their lifetime.

The first group, the bigots, will have their day yet. They will not go quietly, though I am confident that they will be rendered increasingly irrelevant. They will devise new ways to couch their racism, deny the impact of our racist history, and make certain that any failing President Obama has will be at least in part attributed to his race. Look for suggestions of an “affirmative action” president from members of this group. They subscribe to the familiar double standard when poor folks need help it’s welfare, but when CEOs need help, it’s government aid. They will use Obama’s presidency as a way to accuse poor people of color of resorting to victimization and laziness – after all, if this black man can be president, racism is clearly not a problem, right?

The second group is, of course, the future. They will push forward with their vision of a color blind society. I would advise members of this group to try to move into the emotional space of the third group today. See it through their eyes. Try to understand that reminding ourselves about the struggle results in two positive outcomes: 1) we are less likely to repeat our same mistakes, and 2) we constantly remember that progress does not equal equality.

It is squarely on the shoulders of the third group to move the significance of this moment forward. For it is you who remember that the streets of Pennsylvania Avenue this morning are lined with the blood of Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King, Jr., just to name a few, the sweat of Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Morris Dees and Jesse Jackson, again to name but a few, and the tears of Nelson Mandela, Mamie Till, and millions of people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities who have watched as a nation that in so many ways is the beacon of democracy, justice and equality has fallen far too short of those ideals for far too long.

But today is truly a new day. The next generation will not see race as a barrier to the highest office in the land any more than the current generation sees having been divorced or having experimented with drugs – both of which were once deal breakers, but now are quite irrelevant.

The next generation must understand, however, that Barack Obama became president in spite of his race. His election does not make it equally likely for a black man or a woman of any color to be elected to any office, though it makes it more likely. His election does not mean that African American babies born today have the same chance at prosperity as white babies born today. His election does not lift from our collective shoulders the burden of doing the hard work that is necessary to heal the wounds of the past and the present. His election does, however, mean that we are much closer to those goals and to that work.

As someone who has committed his professional life to combating injustice and inequality, I’m very proud to be an American today – more than any other day in my life. I’m proud to share this moment with you, on this campus of this College, which has such a strong commitment to social justice. I’m thankful to those of you who decided to share this moment with us, as well. And I’m looking forward to moving into a new era with an optimistic outlook about moving closer to realizing the potential that is America.

Thank you.

Teach Your Children Well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Republicans’ Internalized Racism Continues to Surface

Lest readers think that we are cherry-picking examples of racism on the campaign trail, or that last week was an anomaly in terms of examples of blatant racism surfacing, we present four examples that have come to our attention this week.


ACORN’s Aches
There was continued discussion THIS WEEK about allegations of fraud surrounding the voter registration efforts of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The group was mentioned almost as much as alleged Obama BFF William Ayers on the campaign trail, and even during the third (and final) presidential debate on Wednesday night. On Friday, Sarah Palin spent time trying to link Barack Obama to the group, which is facing an FBI investigation over allegations that its operatives have submitted false applications for voter registration.

The group is clearly guilty of misconduct. We have no doubts. But there are significant racial implications to the attacks by the McCain campaign. ACORN is, by design, centered on work in the inner cities, where a disproportionate number of people are of color (and others who tend to vote Democratic) live. It is no secret that higher levels of voter turnout (which are not only predicted for Election Day, but are being seen in early voting states already) will benefit Obama and down-ticket Democrats. What is most disturbing, though, is the false label that has been placed on the allegations.

ACORN is not being accused of “voter fraud,” but rather voter registration fraud. Technicality? If one were to point it out to exonerate ACORN, maybe so. But we point it out merely to demonstrate that the result of the mislabeling is to lead folks to believe that inner-city (i.e., minority) folks are working to steal the election for Obama.

The truth is that while submitting fraudulent voter registration applications is both illegal and reprehensible, it cannot, on its own, result in any additional votes for Obama (or anyone else). ACORN has long had a practice of paying workers on a per application basis for their ability to secure voter registrations in their assigned area. To get more money, they submitted fake applications. That is horrible, and those folks should be punished; perhaps ACORN should be held responsible for their inability to stop the practice (and for engaging in tactics that encouraged it). But the fake people can not show up to vote. Even if all the fake applications were approved (which they clearly were not) and those fake names ended up on the voter rolls, the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team (which was reportedly submitted in Nevada) will not show up to that precinct to cast a ballot on Election Day. In other words, this is a story that is worthy of attention on the merits, but is far from the story that the Republicans are putting forth.

So why are they doing it? Some have argued that they are laying the groundwork for legal challenges if McCain loses by only a few electoral votes and has lost some swing states by a small margin (most allegations of fraud against ACORN are in swing states). We try to avoid speculating on intent, so we will point out that the effect of such cries plays into the stereotypical view of African Americans that they are untrustworthy, corrupt, and willing to cheat to get ahead. As we have pointed out in previous weeks, these are messages that have been leveled against Barack Obama almost since the day he announced his candidacy (by Hillary Clinton, and then by the Republicans). John McCain has had associations with ACORN as recently as 2006, but it is much easier for white Americans to believe that Obama would be involved in a scheme to steal the election.


“Out” in Ohio
Are we overreacting? Check this out.

While concerns about the so-called Bradley effect continue to play a role in political discussion throughout, we are presented with this example, where the Bradley effect is nowhere to be found. Far from telling pollsters they will support Obama and then revert to their racial fears behind the curtain of the polling booth, these White Midwesterners are out and proud about their contempt for African Americans and Muslims, and they’re happy to announce that these reasons are enough to keep them from considering voting for Obama.



While the sheer bigotry of these people speaks for itself (oops! Is that “elitist” of us?), we feel the need to comment on three of the comments.

1. “I’m afraid if he wins, the Blacks will take over.” Right. Because as soon as Obama wins, African Americans will gain the majority of seats in Congress and most state legislatures, be placed into seats in the highest positions of Fortune 500 companies, and kick all the White folks out of their suburban homes, forcing them to go and live in public housing. She’s got a good point, “that one” does.
2. “When you’ve got a Negra runnin’ for president, you need a first-stringer.” Which “Negra” first-stringer does this guy think should have run? That’s the problem with Black folks – they just cannot get their first stringers to do the heavy lifting for this country.
3. “He is friends with the terrorists of this country.” We cannot be sure if this guy meant terrorists who are of this country (William Ayers, perhaps?) or terrorists who wish ill upon this country (e.g., some radical Muslims), but that nicely makes the point of how well muddying the water can work on folks who are not in a position to process information critically. Neither McCain nor Palin ever accused Obama of directly befriending Muslim terrorists, but by 1) stoking the fires of his “other status” amongst the rumors of Obama being a Muslim while 2) focusing obsessively on Ayers, they allow people to come to the conclusion that Obama is friends with or even related to (in the previous speaker’s claim) foreign terrorists.

Chris Matthews confronted member of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) earlier this evening about her equating “liberal” with “un-American.” You need to watch this exchange to believe it.



Our research has shown a tendency to use "liberal" as a surrogate for "Black" in biracial contests, so there is no surprise that this logic is in play. We cannot assume that Bachmann is representative of Republicans broadly (or even a critical mass of them) in her ridiculousness, but directly after that, Pat Buchanan and The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel argued about whether or not Bachmann’s attitudes signaled a potential beginning for a fascist atmosphere rivaling the Red Scare and Senator Joseph McCarthy. Short of that, though, is the clear evidence that the strategy to paint Obama as “other” (Black, criminal, liar, terrorist, Muslim, unpatriotic, un-American) is the only strategy for McCain. Polls show that it is not working (and likely backfiring), which makes us curious as to why it continues to be the exclusive campaign tactic with a little over two weeks to go in the campaign. Perhaps McCan’s internal polling reveals something that we do not know.


California Cruelty
A newsletter sent out this week by the Chaffey (CA) County Republican Women’s Club included this illustration – perhaps the most disturbing and blatant piece of racist propaganda that has surfaced in a number of years from a mainstream group.


To get a true handle on the myriad elements at work here, we quote from Michelle DeArmond’s article, printed in the October 16, 2008 issue of the Press-Enterprise.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

As we have indicated in this space on a number of occasions, intent is irrelevant to the effect that racist messages have. It is hard to believe that Fedele did not intend to be racist (and it is impossible to believe her outright lie that she did not intend to link Obama with food stamps), but whether she did or not is beside the point.

Why does Fedele think that Obama’s statement that he does not look like any of the presidents on money was “outrageous?” It may not be relevant to someone who wants Obama to lose that he would have to compete against deeply ingrained images of U.S. presidents throughout American history in order to be elected, but it is an essential element of his historic candidacy. She was “offended” that he would draw attention to his own race? Sorry, there, Diane. I’m sure Senator Obama just failed to think about how offensive his comment might be to you. We can certainly see how being reminded that Obama is black (eeew!) might turn be off-putting. If “that one” would just keep that to himself, we could move past all this racial stuff, huh?

But the most hilarious (if it were not so dangerous) part of her statement is her claim that she does not think in racist terms because she once supported Alan Keyes. That is a good point, Diane. You forgot to mention how much you really enjoy the music of The Temptations and that you think Michael Jordan is an American hero.

As Joe Biden’s mother would say, “God love her.”


Missouri Motorway Madness

Finally, consider this billboard, which appears on a highway in southwest Missouri. The use of Obama’s middle name at rallies has been the subject of media scrutiny over the past few weeks, as it signals what appears to be an attempt to feed untrue Internet rumors about Obama being Muslim, which to thoughtful Americans is not an insult, but to those Americans who believe all (or even most) Muslims are violent and “hate America,” will work to perpetuate the idea of Obama as “other.” Taken with alongside charges that Obama is not patriotic, pals around with terrorists, and is not trustworthy, the potential for Whites to find a viable excuse to serve as a surrogate for race will allow them to vote against him guilt free.

The billboard was defended by local residents on the basis of "free speech,” as if the only other option was that government should censor the messages. But that -- like Obama’s “association” with William Ayers, his willingness to wear or not wear a flag pin on his lapel, and his “relationship” with ACORN -- is mere distraction from substantive issues, including Obama’s true character (which is certainly a fair issue for consideration). The issue here, however, is why this sort of speech is being used. People are absolutely free to be as verbally and symbolically bigoted as they want to be (so long as there is no incitement, which, we suppose, is arguable in this case). But in response to attacks on this message, the folks who support it defend only the process. We (and others critical of the billboard) would agree with them that the process of guaranteeing free expression should be upheld. So to argue on those grounds is irrelevant. We advocate for genuine compassion, acceptance and equality, not simply censorship to cover up the lack thereof. Suggesting that opponents simply do not want to see messages with which they do not agree is a sophomoric deflection from dealing with the ugliness of the message itself.

On the bright side THIS WEEK, Stephen’s prediction (on the RaceProject.org Facebook page) that we would see Jeremiah Wright has yet to be realized. Perhaps the comments by John Lewis rendered unwise drudging out that old argument, at least for now. Further, we predicted that someone would be caught using the n-word and/or displaying an effigy of Obama (with a noose, most likely), but that, thankfully, was not revealed either.

We suppose one could take those things to heart and try to look at the bright side, but in the face of the overt bigotry that has been revealed over the past two weeks alone, Pollyanna would have a hard time being so optimistic.


Be sure to bookmark our new blog, This GUEST on Race. In the coming days and weeks, we will be privileged to have blogs composed by guest scholars who will bring a fresh perspective to some of the issues that are of interest to TWIR readers. RSS feed it and share the link with your friends and family!

The Irrelevance of Intent: McCain and Palin Benefit from Racism

THIS WEEK, John McCain and Sarah Palin – both in public and in their campaign advertisements – continued their personal assault on Barack Obama as their standings in the polls (both nationally and in battleground states) continued to nose dive. This is typical, and on its face, not particularly problematic. Irrespective of party or ideology, when one’s candidate is losing on the issues, the last resort is to turn personal. Further, the politics of personal attacks have been part of presidential campaigns throughout our history. Most recently, Republicans attacked John Kerry as unpatriotic and untrustworthy, and Democrats attacked George W. Bush as being elitist and (paradoxically?) stupid. So some of this is not new. What is new is the extent to which these personal attacks on Obama tap into racist stereotypes of African Americans as untrustworthy (Obama has been called a "liar"), dangerous and as unAmerican.

Increasingly, McCain/Palin supporters have their backs up about this, so before they deluge the “comments” section with remarks that do not take into consideration the totality of our argument, let us be perfectly clear about what we are arguing (and what we are not).

We are NOT arguing that Palin and/or McCain are being intentionally bigoted in their comments. They very well may be, but whether they are or not is irrelevant to the point we are making here. Intent is absolutely irrelevant to consideration of what has been happening over the past week on the campaign trail. Intent is relevant to judging the character of candidates, but that is not what we seek to do in this space. We are interested to read about that in other spaces, but we do not claim to “know their hearts,” as President Bush might say.

We ARE arguing that the sort of assertions that are being made have the potential of unique and magnified effect as a result of the fact that they are being made against an African American candidate.

Perhaps what is most surprising is that we are not alone in this. While we have been writing about such effects for two years in this space, the mainstream media have, by and large, refused to engage in discussions of implicit racism. News organizations have certainly pointed out blatant, explicit bigotry (such as Don Imus’s comments, Michael Richards’s tirade, Mel Gibson’s drunken comments, etc.), but have largely shied away from shedding light on messages that maintain levels of plausible deniability from the sources. That is, if the racism inherent in the message is not a “slam dunk,” the mainstream media organizations have largely stayed clear of discussing it.

And for good reason. Since white folks want to talk about “intent” incessantly, any discussion of racism ultimately deteriorates into whether this person or that person is a “racist.” There is very little utility in this.

But what we have seen THIS WEEK is the media’s willingness to engage in decoding messages that are racist. While this is happening, McCain/Palin supporters are arguing that they are “not racist,” which, again is not at all the point. It is another example of Americans talking past one another on the complex issue of race relations.

Here are some examples.

While not new, we had yet to link to the Time Magazine story about the McCain ad (below) that some have argued suggests to fundamentalist Christians that Barack Obama may be the Antichrist.



But less alarmist concerns about Obama being “not like us” continue to pervade the McCain campaign discourse, just as we predicted at the start of the Republican National Convention.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd criticized what she sees as fear mongering by the McCain team (and McCain himself) in the wake of his “that one” comment at last week’s debate and what appears to be a resurgence of the same racist strategies that were used against McCain by Bush-supporting Republicans during his run for the presidency in 2000. (More on "that one" below)

In a Salon.com article, Gary Kamiya criticizes McCain’s campaign rhetoric THIS WEEK as reverting back to the historic Republican “Southern strategy” of invoking racial resentments to win the votes of white Southerners.

In The Washington Independent, Mary Kane reports about a flier that was circulated in her neighborhood that accuses white Obama supporters of liking him because of their own white guilt.

In contrast, a colleague of Stephen’s found this flier posted around her central Ohio neighborhood. (We are not sure if the errors are in the original or came during the transfer, but the substance is what is important.)

There were other reports that McCain volunteers were circulating information about Obama being an Arab or a Muslim, as well.

People protested outside of a Hendersonville, North Carolina real estate office, which featured this message on its marquee: “Osama-Obama; Not American; Not Welcome.”


This video (below) of McCain/Palin supporters in the parking lot of a campaign event made its way around the Internet THIS WEEK. Supporters are seen to be supportive of their ticket not because of the candidates’ merits or even the legitimate concerns about Obama (or Biden), but because of Obama’s status as “other.” The length they go to rationalize their irrational positions would be amusing if it were not so scary.



Politico also had a story THIS WEEK about voter anger at McCain/Palin rallies.

Individuals at McCain/Palin events were all over the news THIS WEEK, in fact. Much attention has been paid to the fact that John McCain twice had to disagree with supporters at events: one who said he was afraid of an Obama administration, and another who called Obama “an Arab.” John McCain responded in both cases by criticizing the supporter's comments, though he was booed by the audience after he did so in the first instance.

One guy brought an Obama monkey doll to a McCain campaign event. Watch the video below.



The mainstream media jumped all over this stuff (not fast enough for some, but it is irrefutable that they brought it to light).

Time Magazine’s Peter Beinart’s article complements TWIR guest blogger Ann Fisher’s offering last week by noting that attacks against Obama’s “patriotism” are not entirely distinct from appeals to “otherness.”

CNN’s Campbell Brown has put forth a number of statements and programs exploring the degree to which race has mattered in the election generally, and in the recent McCain/Palin events specifically. But, bless her heart, Brown does not entirely get it either.

Take this statement (below) as an example. Brown acknowledges the possibility of “race baiting” at McCain/Palin rallies, but criticizes those (like Dowd) who suggest that McCain’s referring to Obama as “that one” in the second presidential debate is overreacting. It is not. Invoking the common admonition by surface-deep ABC commentator John Stossel, Brown tells us to “give [her] a break” and asks us to “be careful” – to “use our heads.” Brown implicitly refers to the conscious mind as “our head” – as always, we argue that we must dig below that to really understand what is going on.

Brown says that calling Obama “that one” is not racist because she can remember her grandfather “talking about one of his kids or his grandkids as ‘that one.’” She allows for the fact that McCain may have meant to be disrespectful, but not racist. Here’s why she’s mistaken.

First, AGAIN, intent is not the issue. We do not believe that McCain was consciously being bigoted or even necessarily trying to implicitly tap into racist predispositions among potential supporters. He was, as he has been in all of the debates, being dismissive of Obama as not ready to be president. On its own, that is a legitimate campaign strategy. But with an African American opponent, referring to him in a way that puts him in the position of one’s child or grandchild is consistent with centuries of whites treating African Americans as children. If he had called Obama “boy” (as a McCain supporter called an African American cameraman this week), Brown would not have argued that the comment was not racist. If we are focusing on intent, there is a big difference between referring to Obama as “boy” or “that one”; since intent is not the most important element, the distinction is not important.

The McCain campaign has a strategy to convince white voters that Obama is not fit to be president on a number of levels. Since experience is not an option after they chose Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate, they have focused almost exclusively on the “not like us” motif.

African American member of Congress John Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, reacted to all of these stories with a statement:

"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."

Speaking of the segregationist former Alabama governor and one-time presidential candidate George Wallace, Lewis said that Wallace "never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."

The McCain campaign responded with outrage, and the Obama campaign came to McCain’s defense, all of which was centered on the ridiculous notion that Lewis’s claim was about McCain’s intent. Lewis was, like we do each week, pointing out that it is not enough to be non-racist; one must be anti-racist in the face of such harmful messages. McCain himself clearly realized this at the end of the week as he began to criticize those messages at his rallies.

Watch McCain supporter U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (below), who claimed on Face the Nation Sunday morning that Lewis’s comments were “an absolute offense to people like [him].” He went on to say “[W]e’re not going to be intimidated by this playing the race card simply because Senator Obama’s record has been attacked in a very fair way.”



But John Lewis was not at all reacting to attacks on Obama’s record. He was responding to suggestions that Obama is a terrorist, which the campaign has almost solely focused on since they abandoned discussion about issues two weeks ago. When host Bob Sheiffer asked Graham if some of the comments at the McCain/Palin rallies were “over the line,” Graham responded that what was over the line was Obama’s attacks against McCain on things like stem cell research. Hey Lindsey – that’s AN ISSUE. There can be disagreement as to whether Obama misrepresented McCain on that issue, but to not understand how criticizing an issue is not the same as implying that one’s opponent is sympathetic to terrorists is an alarming display of either stupidity or disingenuousness.

In contrast to all of this is an op-ed by Michael Cohen of The New American Foundation, who basically argues that if race matters at all, it will be in a way that benefits Obama. He says concerns about the way race implicitly biases white voters against Obama are “wildly overstated.”

Ok, Mike. Whatever you say. The examples we list above are surely just anomalies. Very few people really think like this.

How does that sand taste?

We leave you THIS WEEK with a grim prediction that we hope is not realized: the McCain/Palin events will become more heated and racial over the coming days. Someone will be caught using the n-word; someone will be caught with an Obama doll in a noose. Those actions cannot fairly be argued to be reflective of the candidates or the campaigns, but it is important to ask, as John Lewis has, why those folks feel comfortable saying and doing such things at McCain/Palin events. Remember, when McCain chastised the man for saying he was afraid of Obama, McCain was booed. In contrast, when Obama gave McCain credit for doing so, the crowd cheered. This is not to say that no Obama supporters are overly angry or out of control, but neither is it fair to merely say that “both sides have their wackos.”

The hatred is very lopsided here, and it is the responsibility of John McCain (and to a lesser extent Sarah Palin) to vociferously condemn such ideas, not just the actions. If they do, they risk putting a damper on the excitement they have stirred up among their most conservative and less educated supporters (we do not mean to imply any degree of overlap between those categories, by the way); if they do not, they will continue to alienate moderates that they will need to win the presidency.

Defining Our Role

In the past two years, we have received our fair share of critical comments. THIS WEEK, though, a new trend has emerged: some of our most thoughtful readers have begun to question (publicly and privately) our commentary. We are thankful for their honesty – thankful that they felt comfortable confronting our assertions and trying to keep us grounded.

Two things might account for this shift, and they are not mutually exclusive. First, it might be that conservatives have been so effective in pushing a position that any racial messages in the campaign are the “fault” of progressives and the Obama campaign so that our friends are beginning to panic about the possibility of losing moderate white voters. Second, it might be that we have veered off the path that we have set out for ourselves. Accordingly, we thought it appropriate to sketch out how we perceive our collective role – not just in this critical election period, but in general.

Before doing so, however, we want to direct your attention to a poll that was released this week by the Associated Press, in cooperation with Yahoo! News and Professor Paul Sniderman of Stanford University. Unlike most tracking polls by news organizations, the AP employed an elaborate instrument and used sophisticated analytical techniques on a very large national random sample (N = 2, 227). Results show that “[d]eep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close . . . [O]ne-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.” The AP story on the poll continues:

The poll suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about 2.5 percentage points.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one-third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

This is consistent with our research, as well as research from others who have been studying implicit associations and the potential effect of implicit racial messages.

The attack ads that have been produced take advantage of these deep-seated predispositions about African Americans. Whether that is the intent of the McCain campaign or the third-party sponsors of the ads is irrelevant to us. The point is that the messages, while they may have been leveled against a white opponent, will be more effective because Obama is black. We feel that it is our responsibility to continue to point this out as it occurs. Here’s why.


The Project on Race in Political Communication

In 2001, we set out to put forth an ambitious agenda to fill gaps in social science research on race, language and politics from an interdisciplinary angle. Shortly thereafter, we decided that students, other scholars and media organizations (as well as other interested persons and parties) might benefit from having a central place to go for historical information, updates on our work, and occasional analysis. We launched the RaceProject.org website in 2002 to provide that service.


THIS WEEK IN RACE

By 2006, we realized that we could reach a broader audience by applying scholarly principles to current events. We began this weekly blog in September of that year. Since then, there have been a number of other excellent websites and blogs devoted to explorations of latent racism (we are particularly impressed with the efforts of the folks at "Stop Dog Whistle Racism"). While it is true that we have been preoccupied with the presidential election as of late, our focus is much broader. If Obama wins, readers can feel confident that we will continue to follow attacks on him that activate racist predispositions. Irrespective of the outcome of the election, we will continue to bring forward elements of popular culture and news that reside at the intersection of politics, language and race.


Seeing the Big Picture

A reporter from the North Central College campus paper emailed Stephen about the comments exchanged on last week’s blog. She asked: What is your response to the blog being referenced as "about being anti-republican"?

Here is Stephen’s response (with hyperlinks added for TWIR readers):

A primary goal of the Race Project is to conduct research on race, language and politics and use what we learn to better understand racism so that we can move closer to racial equality. That is not a value-neutral position, but neither is it partisan. My blog writings are designed to explain the way racist and racial messages operate; we have been critical of both Democrats and Republicans over the two years that the blog has been up. While we do not endorse candidates, our feeling is that given not only Barack Obama's background, but his attitudes about race (expressed in his writings and his historic speech this past March), we as a nation would do more to address issues of racial inequality under his leadership than under John McCain's. The truth is that since the 1960s, neither party has gone out of its way to make progress on this issue. As a nation, we have largely swept under the rug the most important questions that still remain (disproportionate poverty, incarceration, lack of educational opportunities, joblessness, access to health care, etc. in communities of color). Progressives have expressed concern about the issue, but conservatives have by and large either argued that it does not exist or argued that it is up to people to pull themselves out of difficult conditions (ignoring the systemic barriers that lead to these conditions). Not since Jack Kemp in the late 1980s has a prominent conservative offered a specific strategy to rectify racial inequality (see our exchange with Professor William Voegeli in last month's blog for more on this issues). As a result, it is not surprising that we appear to be "anti-Republican" at times. For us, though, it's not about party or even this election specifically; it's about the bigger issue.

She also asked:

Do you think blogs such as these will have a positive effect on this year's election (as it pertains to more people becoming knowledgeable and aware of this campaign and politics in general)?

Stephen replied:

I have no illusion that the blog I write will have much of an effect on this election. Despite some healthy debate, most of our readers are already sensitive to these issues (or have become sensitive to them by reading our blog each week). In that regard, TWIR is an echo chamber of sorts. The fact is that because of the way the power structure is set up in America, and because white folks generally are not bigoted and like to believe that they have no racist predispositions, the deck is very much stacked against Obama. Most messages that take advantage of racist beliefs are subtle, so white folks do not see them as relating to race. When we or others point it out, folks generally think that we're "looking for racism" or are being overly sensitive. This has happened to Obama on a number of occasions during the campaign, as well. The problem is that if he (and we) ignores it, the implicit racist message will be effective, but if he (or we) points it out, it is he (or we) who is accused of "playing the race card." White folks would like to believe that we're "past race" in America because they have black friends or do not have conscious prejudiced thoughts. As a result, it is very uncomfortable to talk about race at all, and even more uncomfortable to admit that a message was particularly effective because of one's latent racism.In short, we feel that our job is to continue to help folks to understand how powerful systemic racism really is by pointing out the myriad ways it works. There is no doubt that we'll continue to get criticism from those aligned with the right when we expose messages from their side (as we've been doing with Republicans) and those from the left when we expose messages from their side (as we did repeatedly during the primaries with respect to Hillary Clinton's campaign).

Breakfast of Racists

An example of a racist message that preserves plausible deniability occurred earlier in the month at an event sponsored by Focus on the Family. The Values Voter Summit, like many conferences, invited vendors to come and sell their wares to an audience that is presumed to be interested in what they have to sell.

One of the vendors featured a box of waffle mix with Obama’s likeness on it. Besides the caricature of Obama and the obvious link to Aunt Jamima, there are mocking references to Obama supporting “illegal aliens,” a picture of Obama in a turban, and a rap song (in hip-hop vernacular) about Obama’s “waffling.” (See details and an interview with the vendors here.)

Some of our most thoughtful and respected friends disagreed with our early analysis (which we posted on the RaceProject.org Facebook page) because they believed either that the box was attacking, but not necessarily racist, or that Focus on the Family had no responsibility for the product.

Our response is that the box is clearly racist, irrespective of whether the vendor intended for it to be so. Here’s a similar example.

In 2006, African American candidate Harold Ford, Jr. ran for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. Like all black candidates running in majority-white districts, his election would rely on a significant number of white votes in addition to any minority support he would receive. The Republican National Committee ran a humorous ad against him (see below) that, in part, featured a white woman who claimed that she “met Harold at the Playboy party,” asking at the end (after the disclaimer, for Ford to call her. In fact, Ford had attended a Super Bowl party at the Playboy mansion, so while the woman was fictitious, the tone of the ad was clearly tongue-in-cheek, and therefore not inaccurate. However, the fact that the woman was white and Ford is black is not inconsequential. In a country that is still largely uncomfortable with interracial relationships (and even more so in the South), such a suggestion plays into deep-seated resentment about black men’s sexual prowess, and the need to protect white women from them. (The woman, by the way, is pictured from the shoulders up, with no visible clothing, even though she is on the street.)



In short, the ad was not inaccurate (as one could argue is the case with some of the claims on the Obama waffle box), but was more effective because Ford is black. The ability to deny that race is involved is not only not an effective claim that there is no racism, but it is, in fact, crucial to a racist message to work at all in the 21st century. (Though see Fox News Channels Neil Cavuto's comment from earlier THIS WEEK that lending money to "minorities and risky folks" is a disaster.)


In Solidarity

One of the reasons that progressive movements and activists have trouble is that they are constantly having wedges driven between them. We are not activists (we don't work that hard), but neither are we neutral bystanders in the struggle for social justice. Further, we understand that activists look to social scientists and other scholars for information relating to their work. We will not be providing any answers, per se, of how to defeat racism. We leave that to our readers and our students. Our role, as we see it and have defined it, is to help others to understand the myriad ways racism works to perpetuate white privilege and maintain racial inequality.

We invite our friends to continue to hold our feet to the fire. We do not want to stray from our mission. However, we believe that vigilance is more in order now than it has been for some time because 21st century racism is not nearly as recognizable as 20th century racism was. We do not wish to “find” it where it does not exist, but neither will we allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of satisfaction that explicit racism is out of vogue. On that point, as we noted in an earlier post, Obama’s selection as nominee (whether he wins or not) is likely to allow explicit racism to resurface since whites can feel confident that discrimination is gone once and for all as a result of this notable event.

It's Time

Stephen will be blogging for the next four weeks from Princeton University, where he is teaching Campaigns and Elections for the Junior State of America summer school program.

Six attempts. There were six previous attempts to post this blog. The number of relevant stories as the week continued to unfold made it impossible to feel satisfied that we’d addressed what we needed to. At the bottom of this entry are links to a number of other stories that deserve our time and attention. There’s simply too much to cover.

Sunday’s Washington Post, however, provided the material that forced us to stop and think about what a truly unique time in our nation’s history we find ourselves. The time to have the most meaningful discussion of race relations in America is not only opportune, but is, we argue below, imperative. At the risk of sounding alarmist, we are at a juncture at which continual navel-gazing, avoidance, and shifting the burden will result in dire consequences for our democratic system. Here’s why.

There were two prominent stories in yesterday’s Post. The first reported the results of a new poll that shows three in ten Americans admit feelings of racial prejudice. There are always many ways to look at numbers, but this finding is nothing short of shocking. It is not shocking that 30% of Americans have racial bias – far more than that do. The number is alarming for two reasons.

First, it surprising that three in ten Americans recognize that they have racial prejudice. We certainly do not see numbers anywhere close to that in informal polling of our own students. Do three of every ten folks you talk to admit to racial prejudice? Given the culture of acceptance and tolerance that has characterized American conscious political culture over the past four decades, it is quite surprising that this many respondents were aware of their own biases.

Secondly, it is surprising that even if folks realize their own biases that they are willing to admit it to survey administrators, even anonymously. It has been very difficult to gain an accurate measure of “racism” (defined numerous ways), and social scientists have consistently assumed that the numbers generated by surveys were low. It is similar to the difficulty of ascertaining the persistence of sexually transmitted diseases without access to medical records. Folks just are reluctant to admit to that which they understand to be socially unacceptable.

The situation becomes dire as we examine the gap in perceptions of race relations between whites and blacks:

Overall, 51 percent call the current state of race relations "excellent" or "good," about the same as said so five years ago. That is a relative thaw from more negative ratings in the 1990s, but the gap between whites and blacks on the issue is now the widest it has been in polls dating to early 1992.

More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as "not so good" or "poor," while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.

John Edwards has been often criticized for being divisive by noting that there are “two Americas,” but the more we acknowledge that perceptions of common circumstances between men and women, middle-class and poor, black and white, etc., the more we must admit that we are not living in one common America, no matter how much we wish to be.

What is not surprising are the results of a Post poll last month that found that nine in ten whites would be comfortable with the idea of a black president. (We should be surprised that one in ten admitted discomfort.) Yesterday’s Post story goes on to report, however, that more than half of whites called Obama a “risky” choice for president, while 2/3 saw McCain as a safe pick. While it would be foolish to dismiss the public’s familiarity with McCain, particularly when compared to Obama, it is also hard to imagine that there is not some “substitution” going on. That is, folks tend to evaluate consciously on criteria that are ostensibly unrelated to race, even though historically such characteristics are very much connected to racial stereotypes. A similar scenario exists with gender bias: women are not promoted as often as men to top corporate jobs because they lack characteristics of strong leadership – characteristics that are often associated with males. In other words: Obama is risky because he’s shifty and hates America, not because he’s black, but we “know” that blacks are untrustworthy and are angry at America because they haven’t “made it” at the same rate as whites.

Adding yet another twist to our concern is a corollary article that appeared in Sunday’s Post. Eli Saslow reports on the increased interest and membership in white supremacist groups in recent weeks (since Obama secured the number of delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination).

"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

Another supremacist activist said,

"I get nonstop e-mails and private message from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," said [Don] Black, a white power activist since the 1970s. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."

And yet another admitted the following:

"Our side does better when the public is being pressured, when gas prices are high, when housing is bad, when a black man might be president," said Ron Doggett, who runs a white power group called EURO in Richmond. "People start looking for solutions and changes, and we offer radical changes to what's going on."

And what good is an article on white supremacy and politics without a quote from David Duke?

"One person put it this way: Obama for president paves the way for David Duke as president," said Duke, who ran for president in 1988, received less than 1 percent of the vote and has since spent much of his time in Europe. "This is finally going to make whites begin to realize it's a necessity to stick up for their own heritage, and that's going to make them turn to people like me. We're the next logical step."

So here is how we see it:

• Americans who consciously subscribe to racial equality have long ignored their subconscious racial bias because they are overtly egalitarian (e.g., have black friends, don’t use the n-word, etc.).

• Barack Obama’s candidacy has capitalized on this “norm of racial equality” (see Tali Mendelberg’s work) to form a coalition of progressive whites and African Americans at a time when most Americans are ready for “change.”

• Obama’s nomination will signal to whites who have resisted arguments about continuing systemic oppression against blacks that they were right all along. If black folks just worked harder, such folks will reason, they could achieve anything whites could achieve; and Obama’s nomination is proof of it. (They tried to point this out in the 1980s when the Huxtables from Bill Cosby’s popular television show had “made it!” And Colin Powell? Condoleeza Rice? Clarence Thomas? Hello?! Pay attention, people!!).

• This realization of achieved racial equality will serve to attract more whites to the idea that racial minorities are unfairly advantaged in America by a government that ignores the needs of whites. Under such circumstances (i.e., perceived equal political footing amongst whites and blacks), more whites will feel justified in fighting for “their” rights like black leaders have been doing.

At the end of last week, Barack Obama predicted in a speech that Republicans would use his race against him in the campaign:

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me: 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"'

Several news organizations questioned whether he had “crossed the line” by mentioning this (CNN’s Anderson Cooper, for instance). In truth, it has already been shown that Obama’s opponents (of both parties) are willing to draw upon racial prejudices to try to defeat him. His attempt to inoculate against it was predicted by our research findings of congressional communication involving black candidates. (See Obama’s latest ad where he emphasizes being raised on values such as self-reliance and making no excuses, as well as other values that white Americans tend to not associate with African Americans.) He wants to head it off and call attention to it because doing so has been shown to minimize (or reverse) the effects of implicitly racist messages.

As scholars dedicated to educating about power inequalities and the way our use of language can contribute to or challenge those differences, we see a moment in time that we cannot let pass. We are at a very crucial crossroads – not the first and probably not the last, but crucial nonetheless.

In addition to our scholarly work together, we are each embarking on more accessible projects separately to seize this moment and engage as many people as possible in honest and meaningful dialogue about race. We will be available throughout the fall to speak at colleges and universities (as we have for several years), civic group meetings and wherever else we are invited. We will continue to contribute to the broader discussion in this space, and we will continue to make ourselves available to media to facilitate discussions as events unfold.

If you agree (and we recognize that all of our readers do not – we are grateful for your attention, as well), we encourage you to share this blog and others that address similar topics, read as much as you can by the folks who comprise our scholarly base (Dyson, West, hooks, Patricia Williams, etc.), and talk to as many folks as you can.

This is not about electing Barack Obama. That’s a political decision that revolves around more than race. Our immediate concern is to take advantage of this crucial time in our national discourse to be clear about what we are really dealing with in America. When we launched The Project on Race in Political Communication in the summer of 2001, we did not expect to be faced with such a scenario so quickly. Win or lose, Obama’s run has provided us with this opportunity. The time is right to do our part.



Here are the other stories that deserve our attention. We are sorry that we are unavailable to discuss them all, but we encourage you to post your comments about any of them below.

Obama volunteers ban Muslim women from behind-the-podium position

In a testament to the reality that Obama’s campaign has to deal with in terms of people either believing he is a Muslim publicly or secretly, staffers engaged in the inexcusable last week in Detroit, keeping two women wearing the traditional hijab head scarf from sitting behind the podium, since folks in those positions often appear in media clips of the candidate’s speech. This is certainly not behavior befitting of a campaign that expects to be representative of all Americans, including minority groups.

In a related story, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Jewish group in Florida to disregard rumors that Obama is Muslim.

New York Mets baseball team manager Willie Randolph fired in the middle of the night

Besides the fact that Randolph is black, this firing wouldn’t warrant attention in our blog. However, last month, Randolph gave an interview where he wondered aloud whether he was being treated differently by the Mets organization because he is black. See interesting discussion on this issue by William Rhoden, JonGee and “The East Coast Bias.”

Obama eschews public financing

Most Americans probably didn’t even realize that general election campaigns for president have been fully funded by tax money since the 1970s post-Watergate campaign finance reform laws were enacted. Obama will be the first major party candidate to elect to raise his own money (and therefore not be subject to spending limits for the period between the Democratic National Convention and the general election in November). Those who have pushed for more equality in elections have long advocated public funding as a remedy to the interest-group-soaked fundraising that takes place in other campaigns and in presidential nominating contests. For them, Obama’s decision will be of great disappointment. For his part, Obama claimed that the public financing system put him at a disadvantage because Republicans were better poised to take advantage of loopholes in the existing law (that John McCain famously co-wrote and pushed through Congress).

Sock Obama monkey doll gets sacked

Stephen’s colleague, psychologist Heather Coon, alerted us to a short-lived controversy by a Utah-based company that planned to manufacture sock monkey dolls in support of Obama’s candidacy. After a day or so of vociferous complaints, the company scrapped the plans and offered a curious apology, claiming that they were too naïve to know that there was any history of linking Africans and African Americans to monkeys as a source of dehumanization. Though the original page is down, you can read Andrew Sullivan’s pre-apology blog on the subject (which includes a picture of the doll), as well as an interesting article by Kyle E. Moore on racial iconography generally.

A Bunch of “Shitheads” Who Don’t Get Satire?: What We Can Learn from Them and Ourselves

Charlton has never laughed so hard as he did a year or so ago when his 13-year-old cousin was telling him about the ridiculously absurd names of some of his classmates. There was [AB Seh Duh], spelled "ABCDE," "Alizay" (The name of an alcohol popularized by rappers like Tupac), and our personal, fall-of-our-chairs favorite: "Shithead" (pronounced [shuh HEED] – seriously, see below). After he had his laugh, he thought the show was over. “Nice joke,” he told his cousin. But the cousin wasn't joking.

Unlike earlier TWIR column targets that attempt satirical considerations of race, this article from the (ostensibly and hopefully African American) folks at The Peoples News clearly states at the end (in italics!): "Note: This article is satire, brought to you by the creative minds at The Peoples News. It's not real, but we hope it made you think." Of course, the best satire necessarily feeds on truisms and authentic experiences. Nevertheless, the comment section is full of remarks – both critical and supportive – of a "federal judge's" ruling that poor black women may not have independent naming rights because of the "ridiculous names" they have been giving their children.

As we noted when we reviewed “Black People Love Us,” there is a danger of using satire because it relies on the reader agreeing with the absurdity of the content for the intended message (opposite of that expressed) to be conveyed. But we can often learn more about the thrust of the intended message by examining those who actually do not get it.

In this case, as if the concept of a federal judge dictating naming rights was not absurd enough (many who are concerned about undue governmental interference may not find this very much of a stretch), there are passages that are blatantly Eurocentric (“’Hopefully we can see a lot more black children with sensible names like Jake and Connor,’ Cabrera said.”), racist (“Beginning in one week, at least three white people must agree with the name before a black mother can name her child.”), and seemingly impossible (“Her children are named Daryl, Q’Antity, Uhlleejsha, Cray-Ig, Fellisittee, Tay’Sh’awn and Day’Shawndra”). Still, dozens of commenters believed that the article was factual and responded accordingly. Here are a few of our favorites (no edits have been made):

Ronald Jackson // March 10, 2008 at 7:45 pm

While I agree that the name issue warrants review and has gotten out of control, I do not aggree with the Judges ruling that a parent particularly a black mother does not have the right to name her child simply because others find it chalenging to pronounce the name. I think it is even more apauling for the Judge to make the assumption that three wite people will be able to pick a name foe the child or even agree on the same name. Lastly, I think it is even more rediculus for the Judge to make make black men exempt from the ruling because he has made erroneous conclusion that most black men are not involved in their children’s lives.

donna whitehead // March 11, 2008 at 2:12 am

Ithink someone should, first, verify that Cabrera really did graduate from law school. If he didn’t then obviously get him out right away. If he did graduate from law school, someone needs to request a refund and send him back. This man needs some real work to do.

Minnie E Miller // March 14, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Does U.S. Federal Judge Ryan Cabrera have a law degree? He is amazingly frightening. While the names are outragious, mothers have a right to name their children anything they want (God help us). I am insulted that he feels white people can better handle the naming or Black folks children! The man is stuck slavery. Masters often changed the names of their slaves to blout out their memory of their homeland. My goodness some of us are stuck in the 18th century. He needs help!

mrs.whiteside // March 18, 2008 at 4:57 pm

IT IS AN HONOR TO NAME A CHILD. AND WHAT EVER THAT MAY BE SHOULD BE CHERISHED , ONE MANS TRASH IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE, no one seem to complain about Beyonce,condelisa,they are all unique… now DICK, BOB,BILL, MARY-KATE ,MILLIE SUE, AND many others as stupitas it may seem they all have a certian meaning naming a child is one of the last rights a mother has dont take that away too,
she already has to raise a child with out disipline, rules and structure all because of the government and now they want to take away the right to name a child too?
WAKE UP PEOPLE

KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT !!!

A MOTHERS RIGHT !!!!!

Ken L. D // April 28, 2008 at 10:41 am

I agree this name thang is outrageous and It realy needs to tone down a notch. Some names (Sha’Queata)you can get away with, but others(Uhlleejsha) are just ridiculas. Most of these kids that have these names are not proud of them; they are embarrased by them. They just grow into them, because they don’t realy have a choice. How do they cope with them? They make nicknames, different names, or tell people just call them by a first letter. If you haven’t had to have to name a child, yet, you might want to think about these statements. Your child is already pretty much born with a strike against him, why give them another one to make it even harder in this world we are living in?

Avis // April 28, 2008 at 5:34 pm

People should be able to name their children what ever they want, whether the whites are able to understand or pronounce it or not. Let the parents give the pronounciation and the system can follow that pronounciation.

Some folks got it right away:

geepee // May 2, 2008 at 9:47 pm

isn’t this article meant to be a JOKE?? Its not real…this was not a real ruling by a judge. We are all aware that there are some people (both Black and non-Black) giving their children some jacked up names and its time we made fun of that.

Juelz // May 8, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Most of you are way too funny! It didn’t even occur to me that someone would think this article was real until one of my girlfriends emailed me back outraged. LOL! Even if common sense didn’t kick in, it does have a disclaimer at the bottom that says, “Note: This article is satire, brought to you by the creative minds at The Peoples News. It’s not real, but we hope it made you think.” Maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to name our kids.

But many folks did not read the entire article (likely because they were so angered by the middle of it), and others did not take the time to read any other comments (which would have alerted them to the fact that it was a joke). There is some interesting ways to look at this. Limiting our analysis to self-proclaimed black commenters, we need to contextualize their reading of the satirical piece. Clearly, for many of them, it is not nearly as outrageous to think that a white judge would make such a ruling. After living through generations of racist policies and attitudes, it is only a short step to such absurdity.

Kwame Brown // March 14, 2008 at 5:29 pm

This sounds a like the days of slavery when masa named us. Yes the names have gone to far, but three white people approving our chikdrens names.

Lets have a conversation about this.

Tina // March 13, 2008 at 11:38 am

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? You can’t name your child whatever you want? I am sick of the WHITE DEVIL trying to tell us Black folk want to do. AND, then the Judge rules out Black Men because he feels that Black men are not involved in their childrens lives???? And the rule applies to BLACK WOMEN but the judge singles out IMPRVERISHED MOTHERS. I’m SPEACHLESS!!! I have to get up from my desk and go scream!!!

Furthermore, many of the folks who took it to be true and supported it did so for valid reasons. We have addressed the issue of “what’s in a name” in this space. There is both anecdotal and scholarly evidence that Anglo-sounding names are more likely to receive positive attention from prospective employers. A number of commenters addressed this unfortunate reality:

Kanitria (Ka-nee-tree-a) // April 14, 2008 at 3:21 pm

I hate my name. It lets everyone know that I am black even before they give me a chance. I am a very proud black women who wants employers to see me, not my name. With a name like Kanitria, they first make assumptions of who they think I am or what type of person I am before they get to know me. They assume that I am from the ghetto and uneducated because of the name my parents chose for me, which is not true.
When I had my son, I wanted to give him a somewhat simple but unique name… Khalin (Kay-lyn). I gave it a unique spelling, but it is becoming a more common name for boys and girls of all ethic backgrounds.
I do agree with a the early comment of Ishine, “ANYONE WITH THESE NAMES WILL NOT GET HIRED 99% OF THE TIME BY ANY REPUTABLE COMPANY!!!!” I believe we should do as he or she says and “Give yourself a chance and your kids a chance….let these companies take a look at your resume fair and square and see the accomplishments before they look at the name and put the resume in the trash.”

K. Walls // March 18, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Thank the lord for the judge because Black Women are getting or have gotten riduculous in naming there children and it is sad that it is predominatly poor black women. Why yolu would name your child something that will haunt them especially when they are young and trying to adjust to peer pressure. Mercedes,Alize and or Shequanna are names that automatically say black person. Come on Black people it is bad enough you show up for a job interview and the whiteman can already tell you are black by your name. most of the time you will not get the interview because of your name. WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE!!!

It’s certainly easy to point the finger and laugh at folks who took the article seriously. But there is a substantive difference between whites who took it seriously and non-whites (particularly African Americans) who took it seriously. While we do not know the race of each commenter, it is important to consider that from the perspective of someone who is not used to seeing satire and has lived through racism and racial bigotry that has little restraint, we might at least consider how some might have been easily persuaded of this “next step.”

After all, it’s the fact that our society has seen and tolerated so much institutional racism that this piece was written, that it is funny (to those who “got it”), and that it was able to spark such heated exchanges. It’s perfectly appropriate to criticize those who need to be more attuned to the context (and veracity) of an article, but we must simultaneously examine why so many were vulnerable to the gag. That tells us more about who we are collectively.

And, just to further show that Charlton’s cousin wasn’t joking, consider this comment from someone who recognized the article as satire:

Umm.. Get A Grip People... // March 17, 2008 at 10:56 am

If you don’t know that this is a joke they you really should do some more reading.

One name that should be outlawed is $_H_I_T_H_E_A_D (pronounced shy-thed)! That is a horrible name for a little child. Her parents should be kicked in the butt for naming her that.

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.