Tuesday, August 14, 2012
The election of the biracial Barack Obama was supposed to
usher in a new era of racial harmony. Instead, that dream is becoming a
tribally polarized nightmare –by design, and intended to assist in the
reelection of Barack Obama.
Consider the increasing obsession with the term “white”
(as in versus “black”), along with the old standby charge of “racism” — nearly
all of it emanating from the president’s surrogates and celebrity supporters.
Upon the announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick,
almost immediately Donna Christensen, the non-voting congressional delegate
from the Virgin Islands, tweeted: “Wait a minute! Are there black people in Va?
Guess just not w Romney Ryan! At least not seeing us. We know who’s got our
back & we have his.”
“Got our back” — compare the Chicago Bears coach Lovie
Smith’s video appealing to African-Americans to cover the president’s back — of
course implies that Paul Ryan is a veritable racist who by virtue of his skin
color and conservative politics will stab blacks in the back. In that vein, Mia
Farrow, viewing the initial Romney/Ryan rally, offers, “Camera pans crowd:
whole bunch of white people.”
Here is what Melissa Harris-Perry, the weekend host of
MSNBC’s Hardball, said of Paul Ryan’s referring to the Declaration of
Independence: “The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov.
Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence. I’m deeply irritated by
their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and
that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When
they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely
thing to say as a wealthy white man.” In the postmodern world of Ms. Harris-Perry,
which is the world of Barack Obama, what we say has no innate meaning apart
from our class, race, and gender.
Expect the Ryan selection in the next few days to spawn a
new flurry of “wealthy white man” invective in a manner that two Clinton-Gore
tickets, a Gore-Lieberman ticket, and a Kerry-Edwards ticket never did.
Yet there is no indication of a new racism on the part of
conservatives or Republicans. Herman Cain — until dismembered by media
accusations — led the Republican primary field for weeks in the polls. Michael
Steele ran the Republican National Committee for two years. Allen West remains
the Tea Party’s most popular politician. And many polls showed that Condoleezza
Rice was the favored vice-presidential candidate among the Republican faithful.
George W. Bush chose two African-American secretaries of state. That post has
not been held by a white male since the ancient days of Warren Christopher.
Yet when Romney goes to Poland, Cokie Roberts
hypothesizes that he is angling for the votes of Polish-Americans. Louise
Lucas, a Virginia state senator who identifies herself as part of the Obama
“Truth Team,” not long ago blurted out: “What I am saying to you is Mitt
Romney, he’s speaking to a segment of the population, who does not like to see
people other than a white man in a White House or any other elected position.”
According to Ms. Lucas’s logic, if Obama in 2008 won 43 percent of the
so-called white vote, and 97 percent of the African-American vote, then there
lingers a suspicion of white racism, of prejudiced individuals who are voting
on the basis of racial identification rather than the issues.
Among the many unhinged things that the majority leader
of the United States Senate, Harry Reid (D., Nev.), has said, the creepiest is
his most recent editorializing about a possible Mitt Romney victory in
November: “The day after the election 17 angry old white men will wake up and
realize they just bought the country.” In 2008, Barack Obama raised about $800
million, well more than double the amount raised by John McCain. Were there any
“angry old white men” who helped Obama gain such a substantial edge in
money-raising?
Not long ago NBC’s Brian Williams asked Mitt Romney to
confirm or deny that he was going to pick “an incredibly boring white guy” as
his running mate. In the world of Brian Williams and Harry Reid, “angry old
white men” and “boring white guy[s]” refer to suspect conservative others,
never themselves, who win exemption from blame for their natural propensities
because of their bumper-sticker liberalism. Imagine the fate of any pundit,
politician, or media person who talked in stereotyped terms of “wealthy black
men,” “incredibly boring black guys,” or “angry old black men.”
This latest round of acrimony follows the accusations this
spring of tea-party racism, mostly from members of the Black Caucus. Charles
Rangel (D., N.Y.), remember, claimed that Republican primary candidate Rick
Perry advocated a jobs program that was one “one stage away from slavery.”
Representative André Carson (D., Ind.) leveled the charge that the Tea Party
wanted to lynch blacks from trees. In February, Representative Maxine Waters
(D., Calif.) exclaimed, “I saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens
[at the California state Democratic convention]. Don’t ever let me see again,
in life, those Republicans in our hall, on our screens, talking about anything.
These are demons.”
A number of celebrities have joined the “white”-labeling
chorus. The legendary actor James Earl Jones opined: “I think I have figured
out the Tea Party. I think I do understand racism because I was taught to be
one by my grandmother. My grandmother was part Cherokee, Choctaw Indian, part
black, she hated everybody, and she taught all of her children and
grandchildren to be racist, to hate white people and to distrust black people.”
The popular actor Morgan Freeman, who for years resented
racial identity politics, weighed in last fall on the supposedly new epidemic
of white racism: “What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the
country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re
going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.’” More recently
Freeman ventured into the field of racial genetics and decided that Barack
Obama was not a “black man” after all: “First thing that always pops into my
head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this
barrier for him, they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she
was white — very white American, Kansas, middle of America.” Freeman then said,
“There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America’s first black
president hasn’t arisen yet. He’s not America’s first black president — he’s
America’s first mixed-race president.”
Chris Rock in incoherent fashion has sounded off a lot
recently about race. Of Obama, he said, “If I want to talk to him, I can call
him. Dude, being the first black anything sucks.” On the Fourth of July, Rock
tweeted, “Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m
sure they enjoyed fireworks.” Cher tweeted illiterately of the supposed
Republican war on women, “No prenatal care For women who can’t afford 2care of
themselves& their babies & theres more ! F— THESE OLD WHITE MEN who
couldnt laid.”
In part the new emphasis on “white” takes its cue from
the us/them themes that have been voiced by the president himself and members
of his administration. In 2010, Obama appeared in a Democratic National
Committee video in which he urged his supporters to make sure that “the young
people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008
stand together once again.” Right before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama
addressed an audience in Philadelphia, charging that Republicans “are counting
on black folks staying home.” He went further still with Latinos, calling on
them to “punish our enemies” — in the light of his opponents’ “cynical attempt
to discourage Latinos from voting.”
All this race-baiting follows the Henry Louis Gates
incident, the Trayvon Martin editorializing, and Eric Holder’s growing corpus
of racial commentary — from saying America is a “nation of cowards” on matters
of race to accusing his congressional overseers of racist payback against
himself and the president.
For whom is this new staged anger at “whites” calibrated?
Surprisingly, I think most likely the independent swing
voters. For all the talk of softer support in minority communities, Obama will
probably win huge majorities among them, comparable to those of 2008. He might
increase voter turnout by revving up fears of white racism, but in general he
has few worries over the minority vote.
In contrast, Obama will not do well with the so-called
working white voters, and apparently has written them off; he has few worries
that the current “white” obsession can do much more damage among the
“clingers.” But among moderate independents, the Obama campaign is seeking to
brand Romney as someone well beyond the mainstream. If the Obama labeling
campaign is successful, voting for Romney will mean becoming socially
unacceptable; it will be tantamount to embracing a Neanderthal sort of mindset
that opposes Obama not on his disastrous economic policies but simply because
of his race.
The key to such stigmatization is to Palinize Romney —
not merely as a near-felon who lies on federal disclosure forms; not just as an
international financial pirate who avoids taxes through overseas scams; not
simply as 1-percenter who has a car elevator in his house; and not even as a near-murderer
who supposedly likes to fire innocent men and throw their cancer-stricken wives
out into the street without health care.
Well beyond even all that, Romney must be portrayed as
something like a Bull Connor or a David Duke. If Obama can stigmatize Romney
voters as racists and “white” supremacists, then perhaps he can peel away 3 to
5 percent of the critical independents, who desperately fear being associated
with a reactionary racist.
In short, until the election of Barack Obama, “white” was
an increasingly rare designation. Intermarriage, integration, and assimilation
were making race itself an irrelevant consideration. That notion was what
Barack Obama correctly assessed would get him elected — and, now, exploding
that notion is what he thinks will get him reelected.
It’s that simple.
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