JOHN MCWHORTER NOVEMBER 16, 2010
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Kanye West yelling that George Bush didn’t care about black people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was not, in itself, interesting. He had a CD to plump for (Late Registration), as well as just plain himself to plump for, as he was a newer phenom then than the source of regular episodes of galumphing megalomania that he is now.
Interesting, however, is West’s acute discomfort in his recent interview with Matt Lauer at actually being confronted with footage of his accusation, good and loud and right in his face. With all of his cockiness about so much, he couldn’t take it. The sight of this was especially haunting in that West, like so many artists, is hyperarticulate in his creations but not especially so when speaking casually (not a knock on rappers, mind you – there were times when it was hard to believe that the George Gershwin of interviews was the man who wrote Porgy and Bess or the opening to Concerto in F). Both verbally and emotionally, when having to actually own calling Bush a bigot, West falls to pieces.
Most definitely, the good word in September 2005 was that if Katrina’s victims were white, the governmental response would have been quicker and more effective. In my view that was always a weak case (Hurricane Andrew, 1992? Same delay, same complaints – but the victims were white). Few, however, went as far as to treat this as evidence that George Bush, himself, thinks of black people as less than human and deserved to be outed as such. To most of us, however we felt about the man and his work, that would have seemed truly mean.
And it was precisely that from West, with the “conscious” strain of rap he represents channelled this time into the smug, puerile Michael Moore version of social engagement. Note also the backtracking in his later claim that he actually thinks Bush doesn’t care about any people, which, if he actually believed, would make the singling out of black people in his condemnation somewhat incoherent – he meant what he said the first time.
What makes the Lauer debacle such a key moment is that it is a demonstration of how the charge of racism has evolved in our society. Prototypically, we associate a person charging racism with powerlessness. This is what is behind the good-thinking idea that black people can’t be racist by definition – they are only responding to what is dumped on them; they are the subalterns, as a certain terminology has it.
But West’s charge came from a position of, actually, rather awesome power. To call someone a racist today is only a notch or two less potent than calling them a pedophile. Racism may still be “out there,” but it is socially incorrect. It is whispered, hedged, released unintentionally amidst frustration. It is an embarrassment, disavowed even by racists.
Note, for example, that whatever you think of West’s antics, the natural response to his calling Bush a racist is a loaded kind of “Ooooooh,” with a downward intonational contour, signalling, roughly, “It’s on!” That means that we consider a charge like West’s potent, at least at first – it is a deft play. The accused now must defend himself – and probably cannot. “I’m not a racist” works generally about as well as saying some of your best friends are black.
Therefore, West had the power, and Bush being President lent him no complimentary power whatsoever. It’s late summer, 2005. Which person had more moral power in America? You have two choices. A: A white, swivel-tongued Republican fifty-something widely assumed to have been instated illegitimately, who had led the country into a deeply unpopular war going extremely badly. B: A charismatic twenty-something black rapper just recently risen to superstardom, cherished for rapping about serious issues. There is no contest.
The naked power of the racism charge makes something understandable that may have seemed a little off when it was announced – that Bush would call the West episode, of all things, the most disgusting point of his Presidency. Despite all of the stingingly awful revelations we endured during those eight years and all of the hideous things that were said about Bush daily during them, it does not surprise me in the least that the one that would actually hit home the most would be someone calling him a racist – and specifically, someone with the moral authority of a young black rap artist.
This is a sign of how far we’ve come on race, in its way. If somebody on Mad Men called Don Draper a racist, there’d be a lot less of an “Ooooooh” (although after just three years further of narrative, the “Oooooh” would be just like the one we know – it’s amazing how fast official social mores changed). Yet what West could pull was also a sign of how awful the by-products of our coming this far can be. The power of crying racism is susceptible to abuse by those of a self-medicating and unheedful frame of mind.
West knew very well what he was doing in pushing that button. He was not nobly speaking up for the powerless or presenting a moral analysis. He was being, quite simply, a bully. This was the same bully who grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift. This was the same performative indignation behind West’s pretending to think white scientists created AIDS to sterilize black people on the opening track of, wouldn’t you know it, the very CD he had just released while calling George Bush a bigot.
In the end, if history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, we could call Jim Crow the tragedy and Kanye West squirming and sputtering in that NBC studio the farce. Only when occasions to level the racism charge in earnest have become rare does one feel safe getting off on “calling someone a racist.” The litmus test for deciding whether someone is genuinely a bigot is whether you would feel comfortable telling the person so to their face.
To tell the world that someone is just short of a pedophile and be unable to own it – and when watching tape of it, not even confronting the person in real life -- is a deeply uncivil act. Ideally, Lauer’s interview with West should be shown at diversity seminars as a lesson on the tempting moral detours lurking amidst what begins as higher wisdom.
27 comments
"a lesson on the tempting moral detours lurking amidst what begins as higher wisdom." That's a keeper.
- jacko
November 17, 2010 at 1:53am
Good article. I've enjoyed your essays over the years. One of the reasons why a charge of racism stings is that it's impossible to defend against. And yet it just hangs in there, tainting whoever is accused. Witnesses to a charge of racism can't help but think, just for a second, "is it true?" even if they are ultimately unconvinced, and the accused know this. And, if you happen to be a public figure, one of your tags in the press will always be a person "that did [such and such] but who has invited charges of racism for [fill in the blank]." You cannot be there to defend yourself every time the charge is levitated in the mind of a new consumer of the day's news. However, the game is starting to be up, since these charges often makes the accuser look worse, and people are beginning to recognize true bullying if that's what it is.
- MICRM
November 17, 2010 at 7:30am
Or how about this: "The litmus test for deciding whether someone is genuinely a bigot is whether you would feel comfortable telling the person so to their face." I don't even know which way that is supposed to cut. If you would feel comfortable calling someone a "bigot" to his or her face, that would demonstrate that the person is in fact a bigot, or is it the other way around? Obviously, it is a non-sensical statement meant to support McWhorter's thesis that the growing dislike for being called a "racist" is commensurate with, indeed bears a direct causal relationship to, the decline of actual racism in our society. McWhorter is a linguist, not a social scientist, as far as I know, and so I don't know what qualifies him to make assertions about how and why we react to the "racist" epithet. He states, as if it is an indisputable truism, that people dislike being called a racist or bigot more now than they did 40 or 50 years ago, and infers from what he believes is the growing defamatory power of the word "racist" that true racists in our society are rare. I don't necessarily accept McW's premise, but I surely do not agree with his conclusion (that racism is rare on our society). How can McW ignore the ravings of the likes of Limbaugh and Beck and the millions of people who worship them, or the willingness of more than just a few wingnuts to believe that Obama is some kind of outsider who is trying to destroy our country, or the gross economic disparities along racial lines, or the astonishing discrimination in the criminal sphere, which is not solely attributable to differences in crime rates, including the "driving while black" syndrome, the latter of which McWhorter himself acknowledges is still a problem? I must conclude that McWhorter either is sticking his head in the sand for some reason, or knows where his bread is buttered. There is probably much truth in what West said about the response to Katrina. Irrespective of whether Bush himself harbors any racist attitudes, it is not hard to imagine that there would have been a much quicker and more thorough response, both in the immediate aftermath and in the years that followed, if most of the victims had been white rather than black. But the big story for me here is Bush's reaction to West's insult. The notion that West has ever carried a significant measure of "moral authority" and that his words could legitimately put the President of the United States on the defensive is ludicrous. What we should be remarking about is that the President gave West's words any heed whatsoever. The low point of his presidency, Bush says, is not 9/11, or the many useless deaths of our young people in Iraq, or the economic crash, or even the government's tragically slow response to the disaster in New Orleans. Rather, it is that a pop musician called him a racist. It shows what a puny man he is. ostrichism, or knowing where his bread is buttered.
- NR143296
November 17, 2010 at 9:03am
I had never heard of Kayne West until the publicity surrounding former President George W. Bush's memoir, and most of the commentary I read was about the incongruity of Bush having thought West's remark the low point of his presidency (or whatever precisely was it that Bush wrote), seemingly surpassing in depth the 9/11 attack not to mention the bungling of the Katina disaster itself. OK, that said. The charge of racism is flung about quite readily these days not to mention previous days, by people of all political persuasions. (As are lots of other words. Scurrility is the mother's milk of politics.) A handy cudgel for as well conservative blacks -- Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of "electronic lynching" notability and representative-elect Allen West who just this week said "I guarantee you, if I was a black Democratic congressman-elect, they would not be doing these type of actions. And the fact that they're attacking a woman like this, that shows me something about sexism and misogynist behavior." Rep.-elect West managed to one-up entertainer West by combining racism and sexism into one silly charge. Allen West may even have thrown in Thomas's "electronic lynching" metaphor for good measure. I forget. All because some people heaped scorn on his imbelcilic idea to appoint an incendiary radio-talk show host as his chief of staff. Is the charge of racism "a notch or two less potent than calling [someone] a pedophile." Please. Hardly. Do a Nexus search. I will be willing to bet -- a Five Guys burger -- that the charge of racism is common and mostly hardly newsworthy. The former (commoness) is the cause of the latter (not particularly newsworthy). Dan
- dbuck1
November 17, 2010 at 9:04am
Sorry, the floating phrases at the end were supposed to have been deleted.
- NR143296
November 17, 2010 at 9:11am
So Kanye West has moral power? I had no idea. I can imagine Rush cooking up some kind of racist rant and then thinking to himself - "What would Conway think? I sure as heck don't want to get on his bad side. I'd lose all the black members of my audience, and all the whites who look to Conway for moral guidance will be offended. I might wind up doing a midnight radio show in Boise." I do think this little tempest illustrates the difference between the amount of vitriol directed at Bush versus that directed at Obama. As divisive as Bush was, and as unpopular as he was when he left office, the unfair accusation that stung him most was a seven word statement by a rapper that few people over 35 years old had even heard of before his outburst. If, God forbid, Obama gives a self-pitying interview two years after he's left office, he'll be able to cite hundreds of far more hateful statements, from far more prominent Republican and conservative politicians and pundits.
- Geoff G
November 17, 2010 at 10:32am
"It’s late summer, 2005. Which person had more moral power in America?...." (a) The President, a quasi-monarchical figure in modern America. Or (b) a rapper. And McWhorter picks... the rapper. Well, of course he does: his career consists of dismissing the existence of racism in modern America, and of condemning (mostly black) people who claims that racism is still important in this country. As a pretty servile apologist for the truly powerful, what else is McWhorter to do? It's telling that McWhorter leaves unexamined the point that Geoff G makes: that George II was on the evidence a lot more bothered by being called a racist by Kanye West than he was about what actually happened to (mostly black) people in New Orleans during Katrina.
- SMacEachern2
November 17, 2010 at 10:50am
dbuck - That charges of racism are more common does not mean that they aren't powerful. I'm white. I'm a fairly liberal guy. I grew up in DC in a mostly black school with mostly black friends. I founded the local chapter of the College Democrats on my campus with three black members. One misinterpretation of something I said got me called a racist in a public meeting and nearly led to me being expelled. If you think the charge of racism isn't serious, you're delusional. And for the record, Dubya doesn't hate black people. For all his flaws, his actions over the course of his life demonstrated that he's pretty much race-neutral. It's just that he hates poor people.
- janus
November 17, 2010 at 11:05am
Al Capone was eventually nailed for tax evasion, rather than the far more serious crimes he was undoubtedly guilty of but for which no legally admissible proof could be offered. So the bully was bullied, and it stung? Bully for that. With everybody in the political realm (from the president on down) eager to "move on" from the many and varied enormities committed by George W. Bush and his administration, without a single shred of accountability demanded, I cannot find it in my heart to give a shit that Kanye West took an enormously public opportunity to hurt his feelings. And you say he didn't deserve it? I say he deserved worse.
- austinexpat
November 17, 2010 at 11:31am
janus, Your bad experience doesn't undermine my point. Tossing around the charge of racism has rendered it less meaningful. It's true of just about anything. The F-word used to be toxic. Now it's used with the frequency of a comma. (Thank you George Carlin.) Increased use dilutes impact. We agree on Bush. Not a racist. Incompetent president, though. Dan P.S. Which hurts worse. Being accurately or falsely called a racist? Did you know that in early America, under the English common law still in effect, truth was not a defense to a charge of libel. You could go to jail for speaking the truth. Today, on the other hand, if you speak the truth, no one pays any attention to you.
- dbuck1
November 17, 2010 at 12:22pm
Janus, That's exactly what I was thinking when reading the article. For Bush, it was not about race, but class.
- ReganaD
November 17, 2010 at 12:24pm
Both Secretaries of State who served under GWB were black, which would not have happened under any president before Clinton. And while not substantive evidence in and of itself, it does suggest that racism was not a part of the Bush presidential style (unlike Reagan's, for example, where it was clear that the Great Communicator had a lot of trouble communicating with anyone who wasn't white).
- ironyroad
November 17, 2010 at 1:43pm
I fished out of the NYTimes archive, 12 Sept 2005, the actual Kanye West quote, here: ================ The anger has invigorated the president's critics. Kanye West, the rap star, raged off-script at a televised benefit for storm victims that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in Miami last week that Americans "have to come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a significant role in who survived and who did not." ============================================ Followed by this: ============================================= But behind the scenes in the West Wing, there has been anxiety and scrambling - after an initial misunderstanding, some of the president's advocates say, of the racial dimension to the crisis. One of Mr. Bush's prominent African-American supporters called the White House to say he was aghast at the images from the president's first trip to the region, on Sept. 2, when Mr. Bush stood next to Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, both white Republicans, and praised them for a job well done. Mr. Bush did not go into the heart of New Orleans to meet with black victims."I said, 'Grab some black people who look like they might be preachers,' " said the supporter, who asked not to be named because he did not want to be identified as criticizing the White House.Three days later, on Mr. Bush's next trip to the region, the president appeared in Baton Rouge at the side of T. D. Jakes, the conservative African-American television evangelist and the founder of a 30,000-member megachurch in southwest Dallas. ============================================== What can we deduce from this? West's criticism was narrower, but Dean's was more cutting, and even a black supporter of the president seemed to agree with both West and Dean. So, did this criticism hurt Bush because it was true or because it was not true? Today even Bush agrees that his administration bungled Katrina relief. Now, consider this. A week earlier, per the 5 Sept NYTimes, a chorus of racially charged criticism was lodged against Bush by, among others, Texas preachers, here: ===================================================== The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina became a rallying cry for African-American religious and political leaders here in President Bush's former hometown on Sunday, with pleas for charity mixed with a seething anger at the response to the crisis.Many blacks voiced suspicions that thousands of people were left to suffer and die in the floodwaters because they were, for the most part, poor and black."Are you telling me we can coordinate a relief effort on the other side of the world and we can't do it here?" I. V. Hilliard, pastor of the New Light Christian Center Church in northern Houston, thundered from the pulpit of his megachurch on Sunday morning. "I'm not saying they didn't care. I'm saying they didn't care enough!""I can't help but think that race has something to do with it," he added to a chorus of amens. Mr. Hilliard's church is the largest predominantly black congregation in Houston, with 20,000 members, four locations and a broadcast ministry. ================================================ This is powerful as anything Kanye West ever said, and it comes from a man of God, a Texan to boot. That didn't hurt Bush's feelings? A rapper got under his skin, but not a preacher? I'm baffled. Dan
- dbuck1
November 17, 2010 at 1:54pm
ironyroad: "Both Secretaries of State who served under GWB were black..." Fair enough, but it's not exactly news that there's a complex relationship between race and class, and that prominent members of looked-down-upon racial minorities can sometimes attain prominent status. Bush may well have cared about black people when they were Condoleeza Rice: the question is, how concerned was he about poor urban black people in New Orleans?
- SMacEachern2
November 17, 2010 at 2:58pm
While John McWhorter can really turn a beautiful phrase when he wants to and God bless him for banging the gong when he's on (stepping up to the plate on black folks and homosexuality, for example), I had a hard time going there with him in this essay. Some fundamental points were missed. The first fundamental Austin hit perfectly, but I'll get a few kicks in while I can (ahem): fuck George Bush and his destructive, ignorant, entitled demolition derby of a Presidency. Kayne West his lowest point? I'm sorry, but may George Bush rot in hell for that. The second fundamental is that "racism" is a bland word at this point, often deployed imprecisely and vaguely, so that the word can almost become meaninglessness. Racism is more than Rush Limbaugh playing Boss Hogg with his ugly verbal firehose. Racism is more often so institutional, so global, so epistemological (in Leon W's immortal phrase), that purveryors of it *almost* have a kind of right to not be aware of it - and become offended when accused of it. But George Bush and his pudgy rich white boy ilk have always proved something larger to me - that in 2010, a crucial element of being a responsible American (and parent) is learning about whatever privledge we have have been born with (class, race, gender, what have you) and having humility in the face of it. Too many Americans utterly fail at this and often childishly rebel at the idea of even trying it. You can't give up your privledge and no one is asking anyone to. But civilized adult citizens must attempt to a) see it b) reach across it c) grow up about it d) if you have power, DO something to level it off if you can. Racism so obviously played a part of the neglect of Katrina victims, it is not even worth arguing about. It's just that the part if played was bigger than George Bush and frustratingly, quite beyond him to even grasp.
- WandreyCer
November 17, 2010 at 3:21pm
dbuck - While painful to admit, the thing that keeps the charge of racism powerful despite its overuse is liberalism. In specific, it's political correctness. Unlike the word fuck, the charge of racism carries with it a horror that demands that we seek out and eradicate it at the slightest accusation. Meanwhile, you ignored what I said entirely. Almost getting expelled from school is not comparable with a comma; the charge of racism is an extremely powerful one. Hell, look at the related stories linked to on the right side of this article: Pin Prick, or, how suddenly being perceived as a racist cost George Allen his Senate seat despite being the incumbent and outspending his opponent 12 to 1.
- janus
November 17, 2010 at 3:39pm
Wandrey - Your eloquence makes me feel a tad uneasy to have posted just after disagreeing with you. I still do, but you are dead-on about privilege. The lack of self-consciousness and swaggering arrogance has been a painfully ugly pattern throughout modern conservative thought for decades (broken, I should point out, only by the noblesse oblige of George I, the war hero with a brain and a soul, whose son disdained him for both).
- janus
November 17, 2010 at 3:50pm
Janus, Just because someone is charged with being a racist doen't mean it's not true. Second, just because some might have hurled that charge doesn't mean the voters pivoted on it. Maybe the Virginia voters perceived some aspect of George Allen's personality (e.g., jerk, bully, Scaramouch), as a result of his videotaped remark or his general all-around demeanor, and they decided they didn't want him as their senator. Besides, James Webb was a far better candidate, not to mention a standup guy. The Virginia voters chose well. Dan
- dbuck1
November 17, 2010 at 4:04pm
Janus, Webb was not outspent in 2006 by Allen 12 to 1. He was outspent a bit more than 2 to 1, $14 million to $6 million. Robert Casey was also outspent, by Santorum by $6 million, in Pennsylvania but won anyway. 2006 was good year for Dem candidates. That's why we're defending 20+ Senate seats in 2012. Dan
- dbuck1
November 17, 2010 at 4:14pm
Wow Wandrey. Tell us what you really think about shrub. :-)
- tnmats
November 17, 2010 at 4:43pm
Janus - et all, what an eloquent, thoughtful thread this turned out to be. I hope everyone checks in. Pardon my spleen on Bush, but really now. No WMD? Post invasion chaos? On and on and he speaks of Kayne West. It brings back the bad memories of Bush Co's awfulness, which we will live with for generations.
- WandreyCer
November 17, 2010 at 6:14pm
SmacE: I agree that both a liking/respect for a particular black colleague and political comrade, and a complete lack of interest in the fate of poor black residents of New Orleans can co-exist in the one individual. That does, however, suggest that an accusation of traditional racism may be less than fair. An accusation of privilege and snobbery may be exactly on target. To turn your point around somewhat: one doesn't need privilege and high status to be a racist. It's a role pretty much available to all.
- ironyroad
November 17, 2010 at 7:40pm
ironyroad: That's certainly true... there's enough complexity in any of these issues to make facile distinctions difficult. My favourite example is the voter-suppression initiatives that take place in various parts of the USA, masquerading as deterrence against voter fraud. The logic for Republicans is: poor people and black people tend to vote Democrat, therefore we need to discourage poor people and black people from voting. Question: is that racism or merely cynical politics? My two cents... George II's calculations, such as they were, were always about People Like Me. Condi was just that: I have no idea if he would actually recognise her as black or not.
- SMacEachern2
November 17, 2010 at 8:58pm
Wandrey - appreciate the compliment. And, again, I agree with you on Bush. Even if he honestly disagrees about responsibility for all the disasters he caused, really? A rapper calling you a racist was worse than watching the towers fall? dbuck - I was mistaken about the Allen/Webb funding. Allen raised just under twice as much as Webb, $16.9 million to $8.5 million. I believe I must have been remembering a cash-on-hand figure from during the campaign or something. http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?ID=VAS1&Cycle=2006
- janus
November 18, 2010 at 2:20pm
Kanje West's accusation was as juvenile as every other outburst of his. I have no idea why adults take the actions or words of so many pop musicians so seriously. They owe their wealth and fame to the marketing skills of cynical producers and the musical tastes of children. As for Katrina, it's sadly obvious that the race of the victims played no part whatsoever in that incompetent, crony-owned-and operated OEM department's incompetence. The bureaucracy simple functioned the way it was designed to. The only moments of competence were performed by the rescuers who threw out "the book", like the Coat Guard and countless, extraordinary individuals who grasped that there was no one in charge. Playing the race card works marvelously well for multi-millionaires like Mr. West. Their stock value depends entirely on being perceived as triumphant underdogs.... just like some former presidents.
- mdicanio
November 18, 2010 at 11:23pm
If Bush II were to have donned an apron and dished soup for those affected most of this crowd would have seen that as cynical pandering and compensation for his own underlying racism. I'm not even going to provisional mitigations this thing. The whole racism thing was manufactured for the purpose of leveraging brainless and ultimately wished for proofs of an advantaged political. assumption. I agree with McWhorter on this one. Recognizing what isn't is as important than recognizing what is. The inability to distinguish is a playground ripe for a charlatan and scoundrels suasion. Everyone is diminished.
- jacko
November 19, 2010 at 6:26am
is as important as.... and a stylistic revision..... a charlatan and scoundrel suasion.
- jacko
November 19, 2010 at 6:40am