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) givin