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.

Nader Needs to Be Smacked, City Cars Get Shellacked, Dino Rossi Gets "Whacked"

Over the past ten days, a number of stories have surfaced that cannot escape our attention, even though we would like to "move on" for a bit. Let us explain what we mean.

We started The Project on Race in Political Communication in the summer of 2001 as an umbrella label for the research upon which we were about to embark, as well as to signify the immense amount of work that social scientists still had to do before we could comfortably say that we have a solid understanding of the racial dynamics implicit in political communication. In the fall of 2006, we began This Week In Race to call attention to the myriad elements of racial discourse that surface on a regular basis and to provide accessible scholarly analysis of those issues. We could not foresee in 2001 – or even in 2006, to be honest – that there would be an African American candidate as a major-party nominee for president in 2008. As a result, much of this space in the past year and a half has been devoted to Barack Obama, which is a much narrower focus than we would like. Still, while other stories are deserving of our attention, none are as salient as those about Obama. That said, we appreciate any comments our regular readers (or new readers) might have about the content of TWIR. Please leave those below.

The most visible racial communication put forth over the past week or so was Ralph Nader’s remarks to the Rocky Mountain News that Barack Obama was “talking white” and playing into “white guilt.” Here’s what he said:

There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.

Let’s unpack his remarks a bit. First, let’s examine the validity of Nader’s claims.

1. Barack Obama is half African-American. True.
2. Obama hasn’t vocalized a plan for a crackdown (strong or otherwise) on economic exploitation (in the ghetto or anywhere else). True.
3. Obama wants to talk white. Doubtful, but we can’t technically rule it out, we suppose.
4. Obama doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson. We don’t even know what that means. That he won’t be reading Green Eggs and Ham on Saturday Night Live?

Nader continued:

I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law. Haven't heard a thing.

We wonder what, precisely, qualifies Ralph Nader to know or feel confident to determine the “number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency” should be doing. Does he not recognize how condescending it is to tell Barack Obama what he should be doing AS A BLACK MAN? This continues a very old tradition of paternalistic treatment of African Americans by whites. “We know what’s best for you, so here’s what you need to do.”

The truth is that Nader is correct in terms of his analysis of the situation in poor areas. Obama undoubtedly knows it, too. And if that’s the case, there are only two options: 1. Obama doesn’t care about folks in those communities, or 2. he has made a conscious decision not to address those issues in public during his campaign.

In his accusations, Nader either assumes the former (which is quite presumptuous given the paucity of evidence to support it) or is too stupid to recognize smart political strategy when he sees it (given his success at presidential runs, this is a possibility). Does he really think that Obama would have secured the Democratic nomination if his campaign had been centered on helping folks in impoverished areas? While those of us concerned about economic inequality might dream of such a successful campaign, it is completely unrealistic to expect that ANYONE, but specifically a black candidate, who has to constantly battle stereotypes about his race, to be successful employing such a public persona. Just because Obama is not talking about it does not mean that he is not planning to address it while in office.

It is revealing that we have very few black leaders publicly making such claims. Does Nader just know better than they do what a black candidate should advocate, what the black community most needs? The difference between black leaders and voters and Ralph Nader is that the former are smart enough to understand that calling attention to what might be considered “stealth” plans to help those whose voice in the electoral process is not traditionally strong would be counterproductive.

Ralph, please listen to us for a second. If you really are concerned about the folks who are being exploited economically (and your life's work makes it clear that you do), do you really think that undermining the campaign of the one candidate who might actually be in tune with those concerns (as much from his community activism as from being African American) is really a good idea?

And finally, Nader displayed his remarkable grasp of the obvious:

He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician. He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.

You don’t say! He’s a black candidate running not just against an opponent, but against stereotypes of black males as lazy, violent and untrustworthy, and his plan is to appear to be not threatening? Wow, Ralph. You’re right. What a stupid idiot this Obama character is!

It’s a good thing that whites did eat it up or else he would not be where he is now.

To be fair, there is a fine line here. But Obama and the black folks who support him can hardly be called Uncle Toms, as Nader suggests. Further, if they are to be considered as such, it is not up to white folk to make that determination. If we wish to have a thoughtful discussion of whether Obama’s strategy is too much Booker T. Washington and not enough W.E.B. DuBois, there is certainly merit in that. But to publicly accuse him of selling out his race is counterproductive to what we might assume to be a common cause of moving toward a more socially and economically just nation.

For his part, Obama has released two new television advertisements to correspond with his Middle America tour to prove his “patriotism.”





Both ads follow a pattern that we revealed in an article published in The Journal of Black Studies last year:

[M]inority candidates (Blacks in this instance) use racial appeals too. But Blacks use racial appeals for different reasons than their White counterparts, and they construct racial appeals in different ways. Whereas White candidates attack, Blacks advocate. The dominant image in Black candidates’ ads with racial appeals is their own, not the White opponents’. And when appealing to race, Black candidates more often than not focus on substantive issues rather than talking about their own or their opponent’s character. When one looks back at the actual ads of Black candidates that feature a racial appeal, one can clearly get a picture of why such appeals are used. First, they are likely to be responding to and defending themselves against a race-based attack made their White opponent, thereby invoking racial language as well because it was the substance of the initial attack. Second (and in most cases), Black candidates are inoculating themselves—if not from possible race-based attacks from their opponent, then from likely stereotypical attitudes held by Whites. Third, Black candidates are using racial appeals targeted toward other Blacks in contests against Black opponents.

In an endnote, we indicated that in the second condition (one that is evidenced by Obama’s ads released this week), that “[g]enerally, such forms of inoculation take place in election contests where the Black candidate is running in a majority White district.” Since winning the presidency requires gaining a majority of Electoral College votes and Electoral College votes are won by winning (in most instances) a plurality of the statewide vote, Obama is effectively campaigning in fifty-one majority-white districts.

Expect to see more of this as we move into the summer and toward the conventions. In effect, Obama has to show white Americans that while he is black, he is not a repository for their stereotypes. Does that mean he is “talking white,” as Nader claimed? If by “talking white,” one means appealing to white voters (who make up the overwhelming majority of the electorate) by diffusing their unjust, harmful and debilitating stereotypes, then we suppose so.

While this was going on, dozens of city vehicles in Orlando, Florida were vandalized, apparently by rouge supporters of Hillary Clinton. Some of the cars contained racial epithets and other insults about Barack Obama spray painted on the cars.

And finally THIS WEEK, lest the Democrats become too smug about their inclusiveness now that the Clinton campaign’s racial insensitivity has come to a rest, there is this story out of Washington state, called to our attention by Race Project Senior Research Assistant Shannon Lausch. The state Democratic Party produced an attack ad against Republican gubernatorial nominee Dino Rossi that played on stereotypes about Italian Americans and organized crime. In a spot that charges Rossi with a number of shady relationships, the theme song from The Sopranos plays in the background.




After complains by the Italian Club of Seattle, the Party re-issued the ad without the music from the popular program about mobsters. In a pathetic apology, Party spokesperson Kelly Steele issued the following statement:

It's a catchy song, which we thought jibed stylistically with our communication about Rossi's designated attack squad — the BIAW — who continue to pour millions into false and misleading attack ads against [Democratic incumbent] Gov. Gregoire.

Ok, Kel. We got it. What a co-inkydink that attacks on an Italian-American opponent centering around shady business deals (in the CONTRACTING industry, no less) happened to be accompanied by a “catchy” song that calls to mind the mafia. Are you kidding us?!

Then, to top it off, Steele continued:

That being said, we'd like to apologize to Rossi's friend [Italian Club of Seattle president] Mr. [Brian] DiJulio, his organization, and anyone else we may have inadvertently offended. The video will be replaced shortly with an identical message regarding Rossi and the BIAW's sleazy attack campaign, using a different song.

The implication here is that the offense taken is not even genuine, but rather merely a product of Rossi’s “friendship” with the president of the club who complained. This is inexcusable and would never have happened in an area with a larger Italian American community such as New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Boston or San Francisco. Clearly, the Washington Democratic Party saw the risk of offending a few Italians as minor compared to the payoff of playing off negative stereotypes for political gain. Pretending that it was an accident is possibly more insulting than the act itself.

It's Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another supremacist activist said,

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

And yet another admitted the following:

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

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

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

So here is how we see it:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Obama eschews public financing

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

Sock Obama monkey doll gets sacked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT !!!

A MOTHERS RIGHT !!!!!

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

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

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

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

Some folks got it right away:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lets have a conversation about this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deconstructing Pat Buchanan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And this is where Buchanan, Sean Hannity and others who have resp