Potpourri

TWIR email subscribers: As you surely noticed, there was (is?) something wrong with the email distribution system that we use. We apologize that you received two emails of an old entry, and we're also sorry that you didn't get last week's blog delivered to your inbox. Please read it, though, by clicking here. We hope that you find it worthwhile.


There’s a bunch of stuff that has surfaced THIS WEEK, but making a common theme would be a stretch. To be honest, we’re also being a bit lazy this week after the amount of work that went into last week’s blog.

Further, we’re embarking on a tough three weeks. We’ll be together most of next week, cooped up in a little room watching and coding political advertisements at the Kanter Archive at the University of Oklahoma. Next Friday, we leave for Denver, where we’ll stay for a week for the Democratic National Convention. Stephen will be at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN the week after that. So we’re coasting a bit this week. We appreciate your understanding.


Is Obama the End of Black Politics?

TWIR reader Richard Maopolski brought to our attention this lengthy piece from the New York Times Magazine. We started to excerpt and comment on it, but the fact is that it is a must read – in its entirety – for TWIR readers (particularly those who have followed RaceProject research more broadly).


Blognigger

We’ve reviewed satirical websites, pictures and stories in this space before, but to be honest, we don’t know what the hell is up with this one. TWIR reader Professor Denise Scannell sent this to us because she heard some folks talking about it and knew that we’d be interested. We are, but we’re a bit confused as to the point that he or she is trying to make. Circumcision, Osama Bin Laden, Bernie Mac – we don’t know what’s happening with this blogger from Brooklyn, but you can do your best to figure out what’s happening here. Most of it is not directly related to race, and it’s not clear if the writer is black. Hmmm.


Spanish Olympic Men's Basketball Team Mocks Billions

We haven’t seen this level of sophisticated mockery since third grade. (Well, okay, we see it in Wrigleyville, Chicago, but whatever.) Nice going, guys. Real nice.

Mountains and Molehills

A particularly bright and insightful person asked us this week if we found the criticism over Hillary Clinton’s latest racist slip to undermine the Obama campaign’s stated intention to be a different kind of campaign – that is, one that does not seek to magnify every slip by an opposing candidate. It’s a point worthy of consideration.

First, as our friend recognizes, spending time analyzing Clinton’s comments in this space is not the same as the Obama campaign making political hay out of it. Our job, as we see it, is to provide some perspective that our readers may not have gleaned from the mainstream media or from their own analysis. In fact, most of the criticism of Clinton’s comments about “hard working Americans, white Americans” from this past week came from media pundits and bloggers rather from the Obama campaign itself.

Second, it is one thing to capitalize on an isolated “slip” and quite another to point out a communicative act that is indicative of a trend in one’s campaign. Clinton’s remarks clearly fall into the latter category. In the context of “fairy tales,” MLK needing a white politician to accomplish something, Jesse Jackson winning South Carolina, praise for black men who know their proper place, and Geraldine Ferraro’s suggestion of affirmative action in the presidential race, the latest comment carries more substantive weight than what Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe offered on Sunday’s Meet the Press.

First, let’s take a look at McAuliffe’s explanation of Clinton’s comments. We will then go back to the original statement to see if we can accept it as valid.

When Russert played the audio clip of Clinton’s remarks and asked about it, here was McAuliffe’s initial response:

First of all, Tim, as you know, she was quoting an AP story. In fairness, she was quoting what had been written in the AP. Both candidates have put together terrific coalitions. What Hillary was talking about is the coalitions that she has been able to put together that has allowed her to win Texas and Ohio, a lot of working-class folks have come out. I'm not saying that Senator Obama can't win that at the end of the day. But, you know, we have been both proud of what we have brought to this table. . .

At this point, McAuliffe continued his rationalization for Clinton staying in the race, deflecting the substance of the question. One might notice, however, that besides falsely putting the words in the metaphorical mouth of the Associated Press, McAuliff did not at all address the questions about racism implicit in the answer. Russert pressed:

But when she uses a phrase, “hardworking Americans, white Americans,” Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco…she's saying that white Americans are hardworking Americans. A lot of African-Americans took great offense at that.

To which McAuliffe responded:

Yeah. Well, and that's not what she meant. And she was quoting the AP story and could--literally, nobody has worked harder, as you know, than President Clinton... Tim, listen, both Clintons have worked their whole life on civil rights issues; Hillary, her entire life, has been working on issues, on education, on health care. They both have been out there fighting hard. This is the end of a long campaign.

And back to rationalizing her continued presence in the campaign. McAuliffe fails to offer exactly what she did mean. She was NOT quoting the AP story, and the old “I have supported equal rights for black folks all my life” argument has nothing to do with the fact that she clearly implicitly associates “hard-working” with whites. This is consistent with a study conducted in 1990 by Linda Williams, where she found that whites in her study tended to attribute positive characteristics such as “intelligent,” “strong leader,” “knowledgeable,” “hard-working,” “gets things done,” “experienced,” and “trustworthy” more often to white candidates than to black candidates. Further, it is consistent with all of the work that has come from the Implicit Associations research at Harvard (go here to take the Implicit Associations Test yourself to see your level of subconscious bias).

And hold on a sec: "literally, nobody has worked harder than President Clinton. . .on civil rights issues." Is he serious? LITERALLY. So Bill Clinton has worked harder on civil rights than Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisolm, Al Sharpton -- Barack Obama, even! We have one of two possibilities here: 1) McAuliff really thinks that Bill Clinton has "literally" worked harder for civil rights than each of these people, or 2) McAuliff meant that he worked harder than any other white person, which, besides being highly arguable, is further indicative of the notion that his reference point is whites and whites only (he'll let us know if he's including people of color when he speaks of "anyone").

In any case, Tim Russert stayed on point:

Here's a report from the New York Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton played the race card as she dismissed Barack Obama as a candidate who can't win support from `white Americans.' ... The `white Americans' remark drew a swift rebuke from some superdelegates, and private dismay from several Democratic" party "officials who said they're concerned about reuniting the factionalized party. Muriel Offerman, a North Carolina superdelegate who has not disclosed her choice, said: `That should not have been said. I think it drives a wedge, a racial wedge, that's not what the Democratic Party's about.' ... Massachusetts [undeclared] superdelegate Debra Kozikowski said: `That's distressing. ... I'm not even sure how to respond to that. I'd like to think that it was not intended to be what it sounds" "but... it" "sounds like trying to split the country down the middle.'" Those are undeclared superdelegates responding to Hillary comments about race.

Uh oh. How is McAuliffe going to respond to all of THAT? How ‘bout with:

And you know what? I can put up 30, 40 more superdelegates who will say, you know, talk about what the Clintons have done on the race issue. First of all, I hate that even race is even in the--we should not have it. We shouldn't have race, we shouldn't have gender. We ought to talk about who can do the best job uniting this country, moving us forward, dealing with health care, getting our troops out of Iraq fast and safe, creating jobs, dealing with the mortgage crisis. That's what this campaign has been about, in fairness. We had 23 total debates through the process, a lot of issues being discussed and let's make sure we stay back focused on the issues.

Ok, so let’s make sure we’re clear here. If you know people who think what she said is racist, but I know people who think it’s not, it’s a wash and therefore not racist. Got it.

Most important, though, the white guy wishes race wasn’t an issue. How nice. How novel! “We shouldn’t have it,” he says. “Can’t we just forget about this whole messy race stuff – it makes me so uncomfortable to have to deal with the realities of racial inequality and the fact that my candidate is garnering support by tapping into existing racial animosity (the type “antipathy” for folks unlike themselves that Obama was so criticized for noting last month in San Francisco).”

Finally, McAuliffe argues at the end of this statement that we should be sure to “stay back focused on the issues.” By this, we presume, he means issues such as those he just mentioned above. But he didn’t just say THOSE issues, he called those issues, THE issues, which means that he does not think race IS an issue – not only that it he wishes that it weren’t. In other words, “people” are trying to make this an issue when it is not. And who are those “people?” Not the hard working white Americans, of course – they, like the rest of us, are ostensibly past race and view everyone equally.

McAuliff’s argument is deflective and insulting to anyone who cares about racial injustice as a real and important issue facing America. But more than that, he is off mark from what Clinton actually said. Let’s take it apart. Here is the quote:

There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working--hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. ... I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.

It is very important for us to listen to her comments, not just read them. (Again, you can do that here). Listen for when Clinton 1) interrupts herself (to make a correction) and 2) uses a vocalized pause to buy some time to think.

1) She interrupts herself after “working” to change it to “hard working.” Why the importance of the modifier? The suggestion is that she’s not being supported by all Americans who have jobs (who “work”) but by those who work “hard,” which implies jobs that require physical labor or repetition and do not pay particularly well. These jobs are most often held by Americans without college degrees. She is absolutely correct that she has been doing well in part of this demographic – whites who meet these qualifications. But there is a disproportionate amount African Americans who are without college degrees and are therefore “hard working” and she has not gotten their support (though she has done well with Latinos of all economic groups). So the interruption and clarification helps to narrow down the base of her support, distancing her from the so-called “intellectual elites” that make up a portion of Obama’s base.

2) But the second clarification comes as she wrestles – as so many of us do (Ever notice how when white folks talk about “blacks” or “African Americans” they often say those words quieter than the rest of the sentence?) – with how to insert race into the conversation. One can hear her hesitation as she flips through her mental Rolodex to see if there is another word or phrase to convey the same message: “. . .and how the, you know, whites. . .” The “you know” here is not a question, but a vocalized pause that at once affords her an opportunity to search for a substitute and brings the listener into her thought process by using second person “you.” By stating that we “know,” she implies that it is factual. “Everyone knows they’re white, so I’m not a bad person for bringing it up.”

So while it is true that harping on a small “slip” is the sort of politics-as-usual that the Obama campaign has emphasized (and that millions have embraced), this incident does not fall into that category. She has talked about this particular racial dimension of the contest since the Texas and Ohio primaries. Her surrogates have used it a number of times since her support among African Americans slipped (the Iowa caucuses). There is a clear pattern that demonstrates that no matter how much Clinton and her husband, the former president, may have “worked” for issues of concern to African Americans, she is not somehow above racism anymore than the rest of us. What we hoped would have been different, however, is that she recognized that and worked hard to avoid using it to her political advantage.

Three research assistants from The Project on Race in Political Communication presented original social science research at North Central College’s annual Rall Symposium for Undergraduate Research this week. We present their paper titles and abstracts below.

The RaceProject welcomes undergraduate and graduate students who wish to get hands-on research experience working on issues of race, politics and language. Interested students should contact either of us by visiting the RaceProject main page.

The Digital “Hood”: Effects of Racial Priming on Online Argumentation

Mark Jenkins

Recent research on online argumentation primarily centers on the outcomes produced by the discussion. There has been a push to explore the potential effect on an individual’s civic participation as a result of having access to new media sources. Democracy is believed to be weakened by the threat of selective exposure and the lack of concrete identity in the online world. However, there have been few studies that have looked at this issue through a racial lens. By using Daniel Canary’s Manual for Coding Conversational Argument (1989) and viewing racial and political content on the new media source YouTube, I examine basic and often unfiltered arguments between individuals to gauge the level of racial discourse in an online forum of a user-submitted video featuring 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“George Bush Doesn’t Care about Black People”: An Analysis of the Presidents Who Did “Care” about Black Americans

Ann Fisher

Of the forty-two presidents whom Americans have elected into office, only seven have made executive orders or proclamations with the attempt of advancing African Americans in American society (Lincoln, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, L. Johnson, and Nixon).I do not examine what these presidents did to enhance the lives of African Americans, rather what they could have done to have an even greater effect on racial equality. Using scholarly literature from race theory, psychology of leadership, racial communication and public opinion, I examine environmental constraints, options available to presidents, and ultimately, action. The result will be a greater understanding of the reasons for the statistical inequality within the United States and the role American presidents have played.

Ethical Ideology Influences Judgment of Employees Returning from FMLA Leave

Elizabeth Konrad

The current research examines how employees who take FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) are perceived by their manager upon return from leave. The FMLA was enacted to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave after the birth of a child or to care for a sick child or parent. In this study, we look at how the ethical position of the manager, as measured by Forsyth’s (1980) EPQ, impacts how the employee is perceived. Participants in this study were asked to imagine that they were responsible for a firm during a critical time. They were told they had an employee who needed leave and were asked to evaluate that employee upon return from leave. The results indicate that individuals with low relativism and high idealism scores were the most negative in their evaluations, particularly when organizational problems occurred in their absence.

Additionally, Gwen Bowman, another RaceProject research assistant, participated in the Rall recitals of student scholarship.

Ballade by Albert Perilhou

Albert Perilhou was born in 1846 and died in 1936. He was a French composer and one of his most famous pieces is “Ballade,” composed in 1903. Ballade is French for ballad. A musical ballad is a piece with one movement which includes dramatic and lyrical narrative qualities. In fact, medieval ballads generally featured an upper voice and two lower voices. This theme is reflected during the Allegro sections the very expressive runs spanning the range of the flute. The beginning of the piece starts out in a slow Lento section. The introduction is very dramatic, further echoing the qualities of a ballad. The transition into the Allegro section is very abrupt. The Lento sections are song-like, with a distinctive melody. This melody from the beginning Lento section can be heard throughout each phrase, and the melody returns at the end.

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.