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.

Inside the “Echo Chamber” of Conservatives and Civil Rights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the contrary, however, Voegeli argues that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Must be biased.


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

With Their Lips and with Their Feets: To the Pokey, More Satire, and Reverend Meeks

When we think of communication, we most often think of using language as symbols to convey meaning. But communication scholars have long recognized that communication through speaking and writing is not the only (or necessarily best) way to convey a message.

THIS WEEK, Stephen is hard at work on an article entitled “Media and Human Rights” that will be published in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Human Rights (edited by Professor Dave Forsythe). While there is some relevance to racialized communication therein, it is largely concerned with two interrelated items: the extent to which freedom of the press is protected or suppressed by governmental structures, and the nature and frequency of reporting of human rights abuses by media outlets. Since the focus of the piece is on “media,” there is an inherent bias toward words (both printed and spoken), but reporting of images (both still and moving) are also relevant.

Nonverbal communication exists alongside verbal communication in THIS WEEK’s points of interest. On the verbal side, we have Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, where he addressed a number of issues related to terror and oppression (with tacit references to race on more than one occasion) to a reported crowd of some 200,000. (BTW, check out this wicked cool site to get a 360-degree panoramic view of the crowd.) Toward the beginning of his address, he told the audience: “I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.”

Pretty cryptic stuff. We can only assume he was talking about those ears of his.



He referenced historical instances of religious conflict (in the Middle East and in Northern Ireland), ethnic conflict (in the Balkans and the Sudan), racial conflict (in South Africa), ecological conflict (global warming) and ideological conflict (The Cold War). With his repeated call, “This is the moment. . .,” he outlines a set of broad ideals that he claims “this is our time” to address.

The fallout? Short-term, he whooped McCain’s backside on the campaign trail over the past two weeks, garnering most of the media attention. Long term, though, the results are questionable. Will the warm reception by those overseas play into detractors’ script that he’s “not one of us?” Will the monumental speech in front of such a large crowd in Berlin reinforce images that he’s nothing but a skillful orator? We’ll have to wait to see.

One of America’s most popular contemporary orators, Stephen Colbert, wrote a biting satirical piece in this month’s Esquire magazine. The skillful commentary begins with the cover of the magazine.


To celebrate its 75th anniversary, Esquire has taken to replicating historic covers with contemporary twists. Colbert’s cover is a replication of a 1968 cover depicting Muhammad Ali in a pose mirroring a 15th century painting of a Christian martyr. Ali’s persecution was largely in response to his awareness of racial inequality (and power differences generally, illustrated by his public opposition to the Vietnam War – a war in which he refused to fight). Colbert similarly makes the case for racial inequality, but by way of a satirical journey through American history where he demonstrates how the white man has been repeatedly victimized. From the earliest days of the republic (“white men had to work like slaves just to oversee their slaves”) to women’s suffrage (“cutting the value of white men’s votes in half”) to the space race (“when our government launched a sinister conspiracy . . . to shoot all white men into space”) to the 1980s (when “white men were forced to wear effeminate pastel blazers [Don Johnson from Miami Vice] while black men got all the cool sweaters [Bill Cosby]”).

As we consistently note here when reviewing satire, it is a great commentary on power inequality for those who “get it,” but we (seriously) have students who report that their parents love Colbert because they think he’s making fun of liberals.

For a peek at those who are doing the talking with their feet this week, we turn to the sentencing of former Newark, NJ mayor Sharpe James (“he’s our maaaaaaan” -- if you didn’t get the reference, place Marshall Curry's excellent film Street Fight in your Netflix cue right away) to more than two years in prison for corruption. While the conviction of James, who is African American, is a result of one specific incident, the pay-to-play system of politics in Newark during his five terms as mayor is considered to be common knowledge in the city. The only questions centered on whether the ends justified the means – was Newark better, is Newark better, for having had Sharpe James as mayor for a generation? Like the indictment of Alaska’s U.S. Senator Ted Stevens earlier today, James’s sentence is a symbol not of individual malevolence, but of systemic problems that need more radical solutions.

Finally, we turn our attention to Illinois State Senator Rev. James Meeks of Chicago’s south side, who is leading a movement for inner city Chicago students to boycott the first day of classes. More than a simple walkout to protest inequality in funding in Illinois schools, though, Meeks will be leading buses of students to a North Shore suburb to have them attempt to enroll in a well-funded (mostly white) school.

Like most U.S. states, school districts are funded by a combination of state and federal funding, but a sizable portion (in IL, some 50%) of school funding comes from local property taxes, which creates a system that Jonathan Kozol and others have referred to as apartheid. Poor neighborhoods have lower property values and, thus, have a smaller amount of money for schools. Underfunded schools tend to be of poorer quality, which generates a student body with high numbers of dropouts and low levels of collegiate success stories, which makes it difficult for those students to become gainfully employed and increase the value of the neighborhood’s property (and many of the few who do succeed financially do not return).

It is uncertain what will happen when the students show up at New Trier Township High School on the first day of school, but whatever attention the stunt gets will be appreciated by Meeks and others who are concerned about the continuation of privileging the wealthy (who are disproportionately white) at the expense of the poor (who are disproportionately of color).

Perhaps if Rev. Meeks and Sharpe James would simply read Colbert’s history lesson, they would realize whom the real victims are. And if Obama is elected, the victimization will only continue (and likely worsen), so that white American male will forever have to face what Colbert argues is the greatest victimization of all, “being robbed of your ability to be the victim.”

NOTE: We want to take a moment to remind you of more ways to keep track of what is going on with The Project on Race in Political Communication. You can subscribe to this blog via RSS feed (above) or by email (below), share it on your Facebook page (also below), and you can join the RaceProject Facebook group. Subscribe to Stephen’s YouTube channel for updates when he is featured as a political analyst on television. Finally, check in periodically at the main RaceProject site for information and links of interest, including media appearances and information about how to have one or both of us come to speak in your town.

Can't Beat This "View"

The women from ABC’s “The View” are on our radar again THIS WEEK (we have commented on their discussions previously). The timely bloggers are all over this, and most of them have it right on. For more, we suggest you read Carmen Dixon’s astute take at Black Voices, as well as the reader comments from Jonathan Adams’s post at Race Wire (as always, some comments are more sophisticated than others).



This is all a response to an episode two weeks ago (see video below) where Rev. Jesse Jackson was caught criticizing Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric toward African Americans (has he been dining with Ralph Nader or what?!). A few days after the tape was aired on Fox News, reports surfaced that on a different part of the tape, Jackson used the n-word (not directed at Obama) – a word he has vociferously condemned throughout the latter part of his career.



We will try to add a bit to this conversation.

What’s most interesting to us is Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s adamant statement that we “live in one world,” with Whoopi Goldberg responding vehemently that we do not. This is an excellent illustration of the unfortunate legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the eyes of white Americans. We believe that Hasselbeck, like most white Americans today, is sincere when she indicates that she wishes for one world. Hasselbeck is not a bigot; she is, however, racist, but like most whites (progressive or conservative), refuses to admit it. Goldberg used the word “understand” multiple times during the exchange.

What Goldberg may fail to understand – and what Hasselbeck certainly fails to acknowledge – is that it is very, very difficult for whites to understand systemic racism. Whites have lived in a world where their skin color has not been perceived as a negative characteristic. Stereotypes of whites have not served to keep them in disproportionate poverty, and to lead to disproportionate levels of illiteracy, incarceration or unemployment. In short, race really doesn’t matter to whites, and they believe (like nearly everyone) that it shouldn’t matter.

Hasselbeck’s tears were real, and they are of real concern, not because she has a huge audience for her ignorance every weekday, but because she represents the feelings of many white Americans, whether they subscribe to the rest of her conservative political views or not.

We are bound by the limits of our consciousness, and without the lived experience that being a racial minority provides, combined with our broader culture’s incessant focus on the American myth of individualism and equal opportunity, it truly is very difficult for whites to understand.

This is reflected in a recent CNN story that an Obama presidency could make things worse for African Americans. The story (with extensive quotes from RaceProject friend Dr. Andra Gillespie), notes that Obama’s election (and we would argue, his nomination, irrespective of whether he goes on to win) will serve as a signal to white Americans that the barriers of systemic racism have been exaggerated.

If we consider this in combination with a New York Times / CBS poll that was released last week, which showed that Obama’s candidacy is not closing the racial divide, we can envision an Obama administration that will likely attempt to address systemic racism with policies, but will have to work hard to overcome the attitudinal barriers that have been (and will be) solidified by the historic occasion.

That’s okay with us. For those who think that public policy cannot move social justice forward, we need only look at the historic Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case, which failed to integrate public schools (our schools are more racially segregated now than they were in 1954), but effectively provided “mainstream” (white) legitimacy to a movement that would bring about meaningful change for African Americans.

It is clear that electing Obama would not be a solution to racial inequality, but it may, over time, help Elisabeth Hasselbeck to figure out why a lot of African Americans are okay with saying the n-word, even though they do not want whites to say it.

For more on the “n-word” issue, watch our public debate, or visit Stephen’s YouTube channel.

Thanks to loyal readers Sunny Sunbir and Dr. Michele Ramsey for helpful tips as we constructed this week’s blog.

Sincere Wishes for Peace for a Man Who Would Have Hated Our Work

We are saddened to learn of the passing of former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. While his professional life was filled with animosity toward those different than him, his personal life appears to have been paradoxically compassionate. (Many people outside of North Carolina are not aware, for instance, that more than twenty years into their marriage, the Helmses adopted their nine-year-old son, Charles, who had cerebral palsy.)

Senator Helms was one of the last politicians (to date) to explicitly appeal to bigotry and resentment without fear of reprisal. He steadfastly fought for rights of those who had power to keep it, and for those who were denied access to the system to remain on the outside. He openly discriminated against racial minorities and homosexuals, fed off others’ fears of members of these groups to remain in office, and used his power to maintain systems of oppression. (For more analysis of Jesse Helms's racism and bigotry, we direct readers to our 10/26/07 entry.)

During his 1990 campaign against African American Harvey Gantt, Helms ran what has come to be known infamously as the “hands ad,” where he depicted a fictitious white, working-class, married man being denied for a position for which he was “the best qualified” because “they gave it to a minority because of a racial quota.” Admitting that he was only appealing to white voters in a state with a sizable minority population, the narrator in the ad uses second person (i.e., “You needed that job"), which is illustrative of the exclusionary vision of Helms’s America. In his first race for the U.S. Senate, Helms urged voters to elect him because he was “one of us,” as opposed to the “liberals” who he felt were contributing to the erosion of his version of American values.

As a Christian, Senator Helms wished openly to be welcomed to the Kingdom of Heaven. We hope that he gets his ultimate wish, and that the God he loved but so gravely misunderstood during his time on Earth is forgiving and compassionate toward him. It is unclear whether the illness that so debilitated him during his last months allowed him to be aware of what was transpiring politically, but we are confident that being alive and alert to witness the possible swearing in of a black man to the White House would have been more than this proud segregationist would have been able to take.

It has been said that the most important way to give is to forgive, and we urge our contemporaries who are similarly committed to social justice to do just that. We sincerely hope that Senator Jesse Helms find the peace that he worked so hard to deny to so many others during his professional career. Moreover, we wish the senator’s family strength during this difficult time, as he was clearly a loving and compassionate father and husband; there are many who will miss him and who are grieving this Independence Day weekend.

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.