THE PLANK JANUARY 25, 2008
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I'm posting the following email from reader M, not to endorse it (or to criticize it) but just in case Obama supporters do not realize what their candidate is now up against.
The email goes on to say, in part:
I was liking Obama quite a bit until the militant black establishment
came out for him. Here's the thing... your primary identity is either
American or hyphenated-American. In other words, you can be American
first, or you can be (example) Gay-American, African-American,
WASP-American.So bottom line: Yes, backlash has already happened. By being the Black
candidate rather than an American candidate, Obama is no longer in the
running to be MY candidate.
The correspondent also notes that he is more bullish on Hillary because she has not become a "Gyno-American." Nice. (And also nice of Kaus to "not criticize" this kind of trash). Anyway, reading Mickey's post does bring up some questions about the way the media has been covering this supposed "white backlash" against Obama--which if it is occuring seems to be doing so entirely because black voters have come to like the guy and/or tire of the Clintons. Or, to put it another way, Mickey's emailer is dead wrong: Obama has done almost everything imaginable to run as a not-explicitly-racial candidate.
Thus, if the press is going to comment on this "phenomenon" they need to come right out and talk about the blatant racism at work. It's somewhat of a surreal experience to hear one television commentator after another list the ways in which black support actually hurts Obama--and then deny that the great and good American people are racist. You can't have it both ways.
--Isaac Chotiner
4 comments
It's "Republican blogger Mickey Kaus" on first reference. I'm pretty sure that's actually in the AP Stylebook now.
But isn't there another way of looking at this other than, "Perceptions that Obama is 'the black candidate' may hurt him among bigoted racist voters"? No one seems to suggest that it's anti-Christian bigotry to point out how Huckabee's growing reputation as "the evangelical candidate" has more or less ghettoized his support and all but sunk his candidacy. If a candidate were to identify himself -- or, in Obama's case, were a candidate's opponent successfully define him as -- a candidate of and for a particular group, then isn't it natural for people who do not identify with that group to seek a candidate who would put their own interests first? Isn't this why, for example, Democrats prefer not to vote for the self-identified Republican candidate in a given election? If a candidate bases his appeal on empowering, say, rich people, and I'm not a rich person, is it class bigotry for me to shift my support to a different candidate?
This may not speak to the specifics of the Obama case, in which his opponent has engaged in race-baiting of the sort that Republicans hardly even practice any more. But we cannot assume racial bigotry in all cases where white voters may be alienated by a black candidate's race consciousness. (Alienated by the race consciousness of some of his supporters? In that case, an assumption of bigotry is probably fair.) I wouldn't expect my black neighbors to vote for a white candidate who seemed to them to be putting white interests as such ahead of their interests, and I wouldn't think them racists to vote against that white candidate.
- rhubarbs
January 25, 2008 at 1:01pm
I thought it was funny that the media had no problem saying Latinos were racist but went out of their way to deny that whites are racist.
- jhildner
January 25, 2008 at 1:08pm
I don't see the automatic connection between reluctance to voting for a candidate due to racially charged identification as racist. A reasonable voter can have legitimate concerns about the policies and behavior of establishment black politicians without opposing the for their race. Obvious disentangling such concerns from racism is incredibly hard, but we should not conflate opposition to identity politics with bigotry.
- japepper
January 25, 2008 at 1:55pm
Yes, politics ain't beanbag, and yes, Obama has to figure out how to block these groin-punches. He has to do this regardless of what journalists write or don't write.
But it's NOT the responsibility of journalists to simply assess, connoisseur-like, Obama's skill without pointing out, underscoring, screaming out the obvious fact that it's Billary who are directing the groin punches. THAT's the big story here.
- teplukhin2you
January 25, 2008 at 2:16pm