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Go Home Suck It Up, Tea Partiers—the NAACP's Right On This One

JOHN MCWHORTER JULY 16, 2010

Suck It Up, Tea Partiers—the NAACP's Right On This One

BY JOHN MCWHORTER

Much to my surprise, I’m with Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP on this Tea Party business this week.

Jealous has called on the Tea Partiers to officially disavow the racists, such as there are, in the movement. I am pleased to see that he has been on good behavior—no melodrama, no exaggeration, no pretending it’s 1962 (which I read as one more sign that that style of race discussion is on the ropes). Complementing his call for the Tea Partiers to be explicit, he has been explicit in saying—admitting! This really is something special, folks—that the Tea Partiers themselves are not a racist body.

If he’s going to actually admit that in public, then it’s a fair trade for the Tea Partiers to speak up about racism in their organization.

My guess is that they don’t think the issue of possible racism among them is a big deal. I get where they’re coming from. Are there actual bigots among them? We can assume so, just as we know that there are people who cheat on their taxes. But is the movement fundamentally motivated by anger that Barack Obama is black? I don’t see it.

Those who disagree point to the tacky T-shirt slogans (“There are lions in Africa and there’s a lyin’ African in the White House”) or the epithets reportedly hurled at John Lewis and comrades after the health care bill passed.

But I do not classify this stuff as the “Racism” we are to be concerned with. This kind of thing comes down to a particular question: will insult ever be polite? Or, are we really thinking that there could be a society where race never figures in an insult hurled at a black person?

The irony is that as long as we maintain a culture of sounding aggrieved whenever someone says or does something tacky, we are preserving such actions as opportunity for prime insult – that is, it’s what insults are intended for, to injure. I discussed this some months ago here.

In any case, that’s just me. Elsewhere, it is considered the informed view of the Tea Partiers to see them as acting out in a disguised protest against there being a black President. The proper way to start the discussion is to say that there is “an element” of racism—but since racism is considered as abhorrent as pedophilia, even that is enough, rather like there being an “element” of arsenic in one’s beer.

And people who think this way need a lesson. The idea has been first that America needed not to segregate people; next came that America needs not to be racist in general; and now the idea is that America needs to learn to harbor no negative sentiments about black people even in its heart of hearts. That’s a tough one, but lots of people smarter than me seem to think it’s a worthy quest.

Well, here’s a lesson America also needs to learn, especially those who read a T-shirt and think it’s their responsibility to think of it as a direct descendant of what got John Lewis’ head cracked on the Pettus Bridge in Selma. Maybe this lesson will be as tough a sell as teaching Americans to have no racist sentiments of any kind, ever—but it’s equally worthy of proposal.

Lesson: deep anger at a black person can occur without the root of it being a hatred of black people. Corollary lesson: when said anger is harbored by groups, chance will dictate that some individuals within it will be less decorous than most, and that they will “Go there”—expressing their anger in disrespect, which when aimed at a black person, will logically entail phraseology singling out color. Sometimes the tackiest among them will pop off with, yes, the one that starts with n.

Once it was clear Obama would be elected, I knew that once the honeymoon was over, a hot new issue would be explorations as whether criticisms of Obama were “racial,” and here we are. First off was the Joe Wilson eruption ("You Lie!"), and now the Tea Partiers.

So, Tea Partiers—if you’re really so concerned about the state of the country as a whole, take a time out and help us learn a lesson. Condemn racism and its expressions in your midst. Try this: likely there will be fewer of the T-shirts and envelope-pushing aspersions, which will render your message that much more effective with the media.

In the meantime, you will contribute to the nationwide sea change in the race discussion that has the NAACP approaching this issue so temperately in the first place. This is the most constructive, untheatrical statement that has come from the NAACP in eons—it’s worthy of what they were about a hundred years ago. Let’s go with it.

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40 comments

Your writing is always so highly intelligent and supremely articulate. We are lucky to have you at TNR and we are fortunate to have your books, as well.

- liberal reformer

July 17, 2010 at 3:04am

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The NAACP is misreading the Tea Party and McWhorter's analysis is off base here. This latest comment only reinforces how correct President Bush was when he snubbed the organization. The NAACP will never allow an honest discussion of any policy outside the left wing of the Democratic Party. The Tea Party is basically a reevivial of Ross Perot's Reform Party. If anyone is paying attention, even modestly reading TNR, you will know the Repubilcan Party is on the rocks. Not just in bad shape, but basically broken down and without an idea. The Democratic Party is dominated my large special interests like the NAACP and Unions. And the Democrats are not doing so great right now either. The racist aspects of the Tea Party are basically along two lines. Trying to roll back affirmative action because they do not believe that is fair. And trying to roll back re-distributive economic policies because they believe that is raising taxes and not fair. And in reality these are hardly planks in a platofrm. If they caught the car, trying to overturn these policies would be diffiuclt. It was the 1992 NAACP convention where the NAACP attaacked Ross Perot as 'Out Of Touch' and 'condescending'. The NAACP does not have any use for the Republican Party, and is threatened by Independent Parties. And they will attack anyone outside of the Democrats as racists to protect their turf. The NAACP can deliver the Black vote, but they are completely irrelevant to the rest of the nation.

- CRS9TNR

July 17, 2010 at 7:46am

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Mr. M. to draw possible connections between this post and your *last* on Jesse Jackson, can I read you to be saying, when you say things like: ...Those who disagree point to the tacky T-shirt slogans (“There are lions in Africa and there’s a lyin’ African in the White House”) or the epithets reportedly hurled at John Lewis and comrades after the health care bill passed. But I do not classify this stuff as the “Racism” we are to be concerned with. This kind of thing comes down to a particular question: will insult ever be polite? Or, are we really thinking that there could be a society where race never figures in an insult hurled at a black person... that these slurs constitute “pseudo-events” as you described that term in your last post? Which is to ask, are these insults, however obnoxious, more about “symbolism and drama rather than substance”? Following that line of thought, given the terms of your previous post, you would say, I’d think, that, for Tea Partiers, these events are a distraction from their hard, unglamorous work of pushing forward their fiscally conservative, libertarian agenda of marked fiscal restraint, lowering taxes, and, generally, very limited government? (I understand one significant difference here is that the symbolic, dramatic events that Jackson helps transform into pseudo-events are built on the imputation of racism, which ostensibly at least has Jackson advancing the cause of Black Americans, while the imputation of Tea Party racism is explicitly counter to any formulation of the Tea Party agenda. That agenda in trumpeting individual liberty and individual achievement is markedly against any kind of identity politics.) For what it’s worth, I don’t expect public Tea Party disavowals of racism any time soon if that is to take the form of some organized statement. That’s not because the Tea Party is racist but because, amongst other possible reasons, firstly, the Tea Party is not that kind of a national organization, it’s more, now, a kind of inchoate movement; and that’s because, secondly, Tea Partiers will argue that disavowing racism in the way Jealous is calling for, which is to say institutionally, is like disavowing “beating your mother”, the disavowal implicitly tarring the disavower with some of the sin being disavowed.

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 8:08am

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p.s One further thing that passes for a thought: the request for that disavowal would be like asking the Democratic Party to disavow the anti Semitic, and just generally rabid Code Pink.

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 8:27am

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"One further thing that passes for a thought: the request for that disavowal would be like asking the Democratic Party to disavow the anti Semitic, and just generally rabid Code Pink." basman, I call BS on that one. The reason is this: name me one subgroup within the Tea Party [or whatever] that is explicitly as racist as Code Pink is anti-Semitic, according to you. [I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't know. And that is not the point.]

- rlgordonma

July 17, 2010 at 10:27am

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Sorry rigor donna--it's me, not you--but I'm missing "the point". Could you be more clear and then I'll either admit the error of my ways or quarrel with you some.

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 11:12am

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basman, I think the point might be that Code Pink is a fringe organization (grouplet?), doesn't dominate the intellectual debate inside the Democratic Party, and most certainly has little to no influence on candidate selection and state primaries. Therefore to suggest the parallel is to obscure the fact that the Tea Party is a powerful presence in the GOP, has a considerable influence on the intellectual landscape of the party, and has played a major role in candidate selection and primaries. Apples and pears.

- ironyroad

July 17, 2010 at 12:04pm

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I don't think that anybody is advocating (or at least expecting) the TP to make an organized statement disavowing racism. It would be counterproductive to their purposes, not to mention a giant hammer with which to beat them over the head. However, the situation remains that many democrats find it "highly" suspect that such anti-government opposition - take "our" country back - has arisen conveniently and quickly with the election of black Democratic President. What makes this particularly disingenuous to me is that this country has spent the past 30 years under a conservative tilt - Reagan, Bush (x2), Republican revolution, etc. These movements provided our country with many level headed alternatives to liberal rule. Yet it as if (because the electorate sent a message in the form a black President), that this country has been floundering, de-regulating, and running deficits under 30 years of liberal rule. If that were the case, I'd find the TP movement to be much more genuine than I currently do. And really, how hard would it be to turn to your neighbor, holding a sign referring to BHO's African heritage - something that has nothing (literally) to do with our political issues - and just say to them "put that down man, you're hurting our cause"? I (and I suspect most Democrats as well) don't want to think of TPs as racist. But, their mischaracterization of what the last 30 years has entailed, and what BHO represents, has prevented the average TP (to my knowledge) from taking this simple step. It is not YOUR country, it is OUR country. This solution is SOSOSO simple, and I think McWhorter is simply correct.

- jmarshall

July 17, 2010 at 1:05pm

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Well let me, and be, quarrel some. The argument is that firstly the issue is not so much a parallel which entails exactitude, as a comparison; but the bigger point is that the comparison is that: racist lunatics are to the Tea Party--a fringe grouplet, (the racists, that is to say)--what Code Pink is to the Democrats. If it's true, as I believe, that Code Pink is notoriously anti Semitic, where does that comparison break down? Apples and at least crab apples.

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 1:08pm

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McWhorter writes: "So, Tea Partiers—if you’re really so concerned about the state of the country as a whole, take a time out and help us learn a lesson. " How about you show some examples--not plants at tea parties, not contrived and made up examples--but actual examples, of racism occurring at these events. Cameras are everywhere. Show the video. Someone if offering $100K if you can show what I'm asking for. Let's see it. And then I'll match you one for one with dems calling Rice and Powell horrible names, union members beating black men on camera without fear of reprisal, etc. And when I've exhausted mine, and you've exhausted yours, we can step back and count how many overt examples from each side there really are. My guess is we'll quickly see the dems are a whole lot less tolerant than they think they are. And we'll reveal the NAACP for what they are: a lobbying arm for the dems. Just like NOW, they really don't care about who they claim to support. PS. Do you really think if the right had their own version of president Obama--a clean, bright and articulate light-skinned black man absent any hint of the negro dialect--they'd not run him in a second? Of course they would. PPS. As offensive as that last graf sounds, it is in fact how Biden and Reid describe our president, and their boss. In 2010. Shameful. And the NAACP says nothing. Do you really doubt it's not all about politics? Uh huh.

- seattleeng

July 17, 2010 at 1:11pm

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Seattle says: "PS. Do you really think if the right had their own version of president Obama--a clean, bright and articulate light-skinned black man absent any hint of the negro dialect--they'd not run him in a second? Of course they would" That's the problem. He's not there. At all.

- jmarshall

July 17, 2010 at 1:15pm

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"union members beating black men on camera without fear of reprisal" I missed that one. Please direct us where we can get a credible press report of this.

- tnmats

July 17, 2010 at 1:32pm

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"where does that comparison break down?" I think the comparison breaks down where things don't make sense as elements in a comparison. The teabaggers can be compared to the codepinkers, but to compare the TP to the Democratic Party (or Code Pink to the GOP, come to that) seems intuitively suspect as the question of scale and part-to-whole proportion is ignored. Parties go with parties (and nobody invites me to parties anymore boohoo!) and fringe groups with fringe groups. So -- fruit trees with fruit trees (generic) and apples with apples.

- ironyroad

July 17, 2010 at 1:53pm

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Everyday we see union members (cops) beating people of color. You are not aware of these? Do you not watch the news? Go to youtube and type "cops beating" and watch until you've seen enough. And we can also watch union member that aren't cops doing the same. Type "seiu beating" and again, watch until you've seen enough. Youtube has hundreds of thousands of videos of union members beating people of color. Some in uniform, some not.

- seattleeng

July 17, 2010 at 2:18pm

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tnmats: "That's the problem. He's not there. At all." And he just showed up on the dem radar in 2006. Prior to that, nothing. Nada. And you believe this represents some form of enlightenment?

- seattleeng

July 17, 2010 at 2:20pm

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It is not in the interests of the Tea Party to disavow the cadres of racists, grouplets of neo-confederates, and other species of ultra far-right wing enthusiasts. The TP will not articulate a position paper entitled, "On the Nature of Racism and Relations with Racists?" There is a fundamental difference between the Tea Party and the NAACP. The TP is an upstart 'organization,' an umbrella group funded by the American right, including corporate and family funded foundations. Under the TP umbrella you will find a large assortment of groups and grouplets of hard core ideologues (neo-confederates, Birchers, racists, states-rights extremists, anti-welfare state conservatives), disaffected and economically threatened middle class voters, and ultra-conservative elements of the official Republican Party. The NAACP, in case you were sleeping during social studies class, is a historic membership based organization whose legal arm, the Legal Defense Fund, was and is largely responsible for the sea change in legislation, statutes and Supreme Court decisions effecting the rights of millions of black-Americans. Only a Manhattan Institute conservative could find equivalence between the influence and the historic weight of the NAACP and the Tea Party. The TP is not listening to the NAACP, John McWorter or the New Republic. It marches to a modern "Dixie" and, as a loose umbrella coalition, is unable to police itself or its membership. The more extreme the rightwing ideologies attracted to the protests and the cruder the racism, the better, is their approach.

- LawrenceGulotta

July 17, 2010 at 2:26pm

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Seattle says: "And he just showed up on the dem radar in 2006. Prior to that, nothing. Nada. And you believe this represents some form of enlightenment?" No, I believe that he represents that there is color is the Democratic party. I simply don't see the same in the GOP (at least not in any ratio that is even relatively close to our demographics). Enlightenment? Nope, just using my eyes. (Nice backhand though ...)

- jmarshall

July 17, 2010 at 2:35pm

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Lawrence: A touch of hyperbole? I know a few TPs and people who commiserate with their principles. The race issue is much more narrow (in my opinion) than you (and even I) would like to believe.

- jmarshall

July 17, 2010 at 2:44pm

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jmarshall: When I was a busy young man during the 1960s, I read a pamphlet written by Irving Howe, an occasional contributor to the New Republic, entitled "On the Nature of Communism and Relations with Communists." One of Howe's conclusions was that the democratic Left (liberals, social democrats, socialists, trade unionists, civil liberties fans) do not march with Communists, sponsor meetings and conferences with Communists nor join forces with Communists. Howe had the courage to patiently explain that there is no 'popular front' with totalitarians. The democratic Left marched for peace, the Communists marched for a Viet Cong victory. The democratic Left marched for freedom and civil rights, the Communists jailed dissenters in the USSR. Of course, Howe and his co-thinkers were excoriated by the "very old" New Left. Let us hope conservative intellectuals demonstrate the same courage that Irving Howe demonstrated during the 1960s by denouncing the anti-democratic and racist elements of the new right Tea Partisans. No hyperbole, intended. jmarshall.

- LawrenceGulotta

July 17, 2010 at 3:41pm

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I don’t think so Ironyroad. The Tea Party is nothing in any way near the Democratic Party of course. That goes without saying and I was never meaning to say anything different. But it’s not comparable to Code Pink in that the Tea Party is a movement and somewhat of an organization of national significance and some measure of some power and influence in America. It’s an important component of the Republican Party, has some national sway and will affect and effect numbers of elections in pivotal ways. In that sense it’s nowhere near the fringe nuts that Code Pink consists of. So the comparison is apt between the racist elements of the Tea Party on its fringe, just as the Code Pink is on the Democratic Party’s fringe. In these terms, size does not matter. In these terms, the Democratic Party’s towering predominance as a national political presence over the Tea Party is not to the point at all. It’s entirely irrelevant. The point— or my point anyway—is the matter of their like institutional reluctance –as against what McWhorter support Jealous in calling for—to disavow their fringes out of concerns for legitimating them, getting tarred by their brush in the process and so on. But if you persist in seeing the Tea Party, for whom by the way I carry no brief, as comparable to the marginality of Code Pink, what I can tell you? And there you have it as easy as apple pie: plus, so many parties, so little time.

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 4:48pm

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Lawrence: "Let us hope conservative intellectuals demonstrate the same courage that Irving Howe demonstrated during the 1960s by denouncing the anti-democratic and racist elements of the new right Tea Partisans." I just read a relatively thorough nonfiction piece by Steven Hayward, "The Age of Reagan," which might interest you, regarding the implosion of liberal governance, which led to our past 30 years of conservative dominance. I thoroughly agree that core liberalism is often misrepresented as a communist front, and have often times told friends that the day liberals start killing conservatives is the day that I would take a bullet for them. Socialism is a red-herring. My point is that conservatives (while possibly on the verge of an implosion themselves) cannot (and maybe should not) be painted with this wide brush of racism. I think there are a lot things that conservatives are going to have to come to grips with (like the fact that their party is almost exlcusively white). Painting all liberals and liberal policies as disastrous and socialist just isn't intellectually honest, especially considering the policies of the past 30 years that brought us to elect a black President. I suppose liberals should fight fire with fire, but I se little use get worked up over conservative rants that are patently false. Owning up to one's mistakes is never easy. (A fact that Hayward impressed in his book). I almost hate to say it, but I think it is time for liberals to remain calm and sane - something that the battle over HCR very much appeared to display to me. J

- jmarshall

July 17, 2010 at 4:58pm

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Dana Milbank has an interesting article set to run in Sunday's Washington Post 07/18/10) on the Tea Partisans and Obama: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071602855.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

- LawrenceGulotta

July 17, 2010 at 7:32pm

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A party. Ironyroad (inexplicably looking 20 years younger) is dancing with a hot chick. They move across the room to basman who has just come in. basman: irony, I've just been thinking about that conversation we were having about Code Pink and the racists in the Tea Party -- I believe my comparison is apt because -- irony: So you got here, great! Hey do you know Emmy? basman: Hi, nice to meet you! But listen, here's the thing about the Tea Party and Code Pink and the Dems -- irony: Sorry dude but the music's too loud -- catch you later!

- ironyroad

July 17, 2010 at 9:44pm

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Emmy agrees with me. The subject, strangely enough, turned out to be kind of pillow talk for us. Better luck next party, next subject, next "hot chick".

- basman

July 17, 2010 at 10:20pm

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:)

- ironyroad

July 17, 2010 at 10:49pm

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"No, I believe that he represents that there is color is the Democratic party." First black secretary of state was Colin Powell. First black female secretary of state was Condoleezza Rice. Of two black supreme court appointments, one was republican. In the last 50 years, republicans have elected one black senator, while dems have elected two. What is this color you speak of? The parties are virtually indistinguishable in their records.

- seattleeng

July 18, 2010 at 2:35am

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Yeah, Seattle Eng except no. That ignores the 40 black Congressmen, all Democratic to zero on the Republican side since JC Watts, their only African American congressman, retired. It ignores the three black governors we've had post reconstruction, Govs. Patrick, Paterson and Wilder, all Democratic. It also ignores the actual voting record of the group in question, which repeatedly runs up to 90%, as well as the racial polarization in places like the South, where in many respects the Democrats are the "black party" and the Republicans the "White" one, heirs to the Dixiecrats in the state.

- Crock1701

July 18, 2010 at 12:54pm

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Uh, Crock beat me to the punch. Seattle, you simply cannot admit that the GOP is almost exclusively white. It is obvious to anyone with eyes. Am I calling the GOP and everyone who votes that way racist? No. Hell, I'd even be open to arguing as to the reasons for this phenomena. But, therein lies the problem to me: Too many in the GOP will not admit the obvious. It doesn't make you a racist if you look around the room and say, "huh, there's nobody but white people here."

- jmarshall

July 18, 2010 at 1:02pm

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Crock, black representatives are exclusively from black districts. What is remarkable about that? You are celebrating that a district that is 80% black voted for a black representative? Somehow this represents diversity to you? 1% of African Americans in congress are from white districts. Read the details here. http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos334/archive/swain.htm Now, again, where is the huge difference in dem and republican thinking with our elected officials? There isn't any. Either find a good example quickly, or drop this nonsense.

- seattleeng

July 18, 2010 at 1:29pm

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jmarshall: "Seattle, you simply cannot admit that the GOP is almost exclusively white." That isn't the issue here. The issue is whether or not white dems and republicans vote blacks into power and appoint blacks into power at vastly different rates. They do not. And isn't this what you are really interested in? Does the white democrat act much differently than the white republican? The data says "no" Yes, the dems have more black members than the republicans. But this means nothing other than blacks have chosen to affiliate themselves with one party over another. If tomorrow, black people decided they republicans were the better party for them, then suddenly the republicans would have a more colorful makeup. But what would change for black voters? Nothing. They still continue to win the same number of races in black districts. They'd still continue to win white districts at the same rate. If you want to impress me, show me where white dem voters are dramatically different from white republican voters. From all the data I've showed, they are remarkable similar.

- seattleeng

July 18, 2010 at 1:41pm

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Things may change in 2012, but as somebody said (Leno, maybe?) back in late 2007 about the opening event for the GOP presidential primary race, "It looked like a bunch of guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club."

- ironyroad

July 18, 2010 at 3:33pm

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"Things may change in 2012...It looked like a bunch of guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club." May change by 2012? It HAS changed...VDH writes yesterday in NatReview: "It's surreal to see President Obama play the class-warfare card against the Republicans while on his way to vacation on the tony Maine coast, and even more interesting to note that now gone are the days when the media used to caricature Bush I ("Poppy") for boating in the summer off the preppie-sounding Kennebunkport. The truth is that the real big money and the lifestyles that go with it are now firmly liberal Democratic. One can use an entire array of evidence — the preponderance of Wall Street money that went to Obama over McCain in 2008, the liberal voting patterns of the high-income blue-state congressional districts, the anecdotal evidence of a Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or George Soros, or the ease by which an eco-populist like Al Gore buys estates and creates corporations, or the rarified tastes of men of the people like John Edwards of two-nations fame, or John Kerry of multiple estate residences. Bill Clinton was perhaps the first liberal president to embarrass progressive populists, who by rote caricatured those who played golf or amassed millions in post-presidential huckstering. The point is that Barack Obama's "them" rhetoric against those who supposedly make tons of money and won't pay enough in taxes to fund the Obama technocratic class's redistribution schemes seems almost fossilized. The more the polo-shirted Obama seems obsessed with golf, and the more he seems to prefer the landscape of the elite (who navigate the Ivy League, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Upper East Side, Cambridge, etc.), the more we wonder whom exactly he's railing about. Is it the less-cultured wannabe wealthy who don't make enough not to be hurt by high taxes, who send their kids to Penn State or Purdue rather than Yale, who run hardware stores or paving companies instead of inheriting estates or being CEOs for green companies, and who vacation at the lake with their powerboats and jet skis rather than bike through Tuscany? In short, Obama had better get the populist photo-ops down a lot better, since his calls to soak the rich from the 18th hole or the coastal vacation home look increasingly ridiculous.

- seattleeng

July 18, 2010 at 8:53pm

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The joke about the "restricted country club" was in the "restricted," not the golf. Lots of people like golf and it's certainly not a socially exclusive sport any more. The notion that "inheriting" estates is a problem for Democrats is surreal. Obama didn't inherit anything, incidentally, but rather made his own way in the world. The "death tax" deal is a Republican obsession with creating a wealth-class that will be a permanent brake on fair taxation in the future -- discussing it turns normal human beings to babbling lunatics.

- ironyroad

July 18, 2010 at 10:08pm

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The firing shot of the tea-party movement in my view occurred in the 2004 Swift-Boat campaign against Kerry's military record. IT brought to the fore the primary thread of Tea-Party thinking as it seems to be among its very disparate groups, that being a disdain or even contempt for the notions of public service and shared sacrifice. Hence, why are GOP Primaries rejecting Republicans with solid military records (Simmons in CT), I cannot think of a veteran nominated by GOP recently (I will stand corrected though). It seems to be a sort of (hopefully) temporary counter-culture akin to the I can do anything I want ethos of the 60s.

- NR027810

July 19, 2010 at 2:39pm

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Like John McWhorter's writing generally, I agree with almost all of it, but I fear that in his eagerness to praise Jealous, he has missed an important point: the social and discursive value of developing thicker skins in a diverse, sharp-elbowed, opinionated society like ours. In my 2003 book Diversity in America, I argue, giving lots of examples, that accusations of racism, sexism, or lots of other isms that go to the motivations and associations of a debater tend to debase the quality of public debate on important issues by seeking to change the subject and to use ad hominem arguments to avoid discussing the merits -- in this case, the merits of the Obama administration's policies. It is a way of seeking to discredit the debater on the other side without meeting her substantive arguments. This ad hominem tactic is by no means confined to race; it is really the same tactic that attempts to discredit critics of Israel by calling them anti-Semitic or says that those who oppose using gays in combat situations thereby reveal their homophobia. They may or may not be, but their isms have literally nothing to do with the merits of the issue under debate. Knowing someone's ism (which is hard to do) may help us to predict what she will argue, but it is irrelevant to the truth of the claim. These important and complicated issues are hard enough to analyze without such obfuscating smokescreens. Is it too much to ask that we not conflate a speaker's supposed values and isms with the truth-value of her claim? If so, then the public debate is that much more impoverished and we are all worse off.

- schuckp

July 19, 2010 at 4:04pm

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NR, agreed. But I think the swifties could have been neutralized if Kerry had (a) woken up in time to realize they were a real threat and (b) been prepared to weather the storm of standing by his anti-war history as well as his service history.

- ironyroad

July 19, 2010 at 4:17pm

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Most of the tea partiers I know are plenty racists. They really don't like those black and brown-skinned folks. I won't judge the whole movement by that tiny sample, but I think that racism is a far stronger force in the movement than most people want to admit.

- Tobbar

July 19, 2010 at 6:51pm

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NR, the swift boaters were military themselves. They werent' against Kerry's military record. They were against what they believed were fabrications. And the swiftboaters had strong ties to repubs. And remember, T Boone Pickens has offered $1M to anyone that can prove the swift boat allegations wrong. Kerry even entertained a public debate on the topic. Wonder why he never followed up on it?

- seattleeng

July 20, 2010 at 12:11pm

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Oh yes -- if I accused you in public of being a practising necrophiliac, and a loopy billionaire came along and offered money for a public debate on the accusation, you'd leap at that opportunity, right? Kerry's problem was that he wanted to ramp up his Vietnam record and downplay his antiwar activism, whereas the real breakthrough would have been to stand by both experiences.

- ironyroad

July 20, 2010 at 12:30pm

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I'm sorry Mr. McWhorter but calling Rep. Lewis the "n-word", as opposed to "commie", "tax-and-spender liberal" and all the other labels conservative extremists like those in the Tea Party typically use to attack members of the Democratic Party, is meant to diminish the individual based on what they are, not on his political ideology or economic philosophy, and that is racism plain and simple.

- tessajacks

July 20, 2010 at 12:49pm

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