No, not the Tea Partyers or the Birthers. It’s another group, this one from the pro-Obama side. They are the people who forget a crucial fact about discourse in the United States. It is that there are few things more annoying or dismaying than to be charged with racism for saying or thinking something that, in fact, has no racial content to it at all.
A case in point appeared in the Chronicle Review recently. It was this article by Peniel Joseph, a historian at Tufts University. The opening sentence lays out the first premise of the argument:
“A year after Barack Obama was inaugurated as America’s first black president, the nation has been gripped by a startling new reality: a cascading backlash of racially tinged anti-Obama sentiment. The breadth of antagonists has been wide: the 9/12 marchers against health-care reform brandishing signs labeling the president a traitor (and some carrying Confederate flags); Tea Party rallies objecting (sometimes with racial slurs) to real and imagined tax increases; a birther movement that . . .”
Later in the article Joseph offers a hedge, stating that the “backlash” is “at least partially rooted in race and culture.” he even allows that “some opponents of Obama . . . oppose him on race-neutral grounds.”
But that’s all the non-race-based critics of Obama get, and even their actions “stoke feelings of racial division.” Compared to Joseph’s assertions about death threats, rising gun sales, “creeping racial anxiety,” and “the unfortunate politics of race baiting,” that allowance that there are, now and then, here and there, a “race-neutral” protester amounts to a tiny drip in the “cascade” of skin-color-fixated reactionaries.
What do these kinds of accusations foster? What do people who cast people who oppose Obama’s policies as folks-who-just-can’t-handle-a-Black-Man-in-the-White-House hope to accomplish?
Let’s give them the benefit of a big concession and say that a significant portion of those protests are race-based. I don’t think the portion is large, but certainly the size is a debatable question. But we can also agree that a significant portion of protest is not race-based. How will that latter group respond to essays like this one?
With anger and dismay. Many of them are independents who voted for Obama in 08 and have judged his decisions errant and his leadership wanting. Joseph’s essay doesn’t say one thing about policy disagreements those people have with the administration, though, which means that he doesn’t take them seriously. Nevertheless, these individuals have shifted because of them and are prepared to vote the other way the next time. Joseph’s (and others’) indictment only firms their resolve.
Here we get to the political impact: if they make up only 5 percent of the electorate and other things hold steady from last election, that means that Obama loses in 2012. And that’s why essays like this one are damaging to the political fortunes of the man. At the end of his piece, Joseph calls for a “national discussion” about race in America, a call that we have heard so many times before that it only makes people shake their heads and sigh. It won’t happen. Instead, Obama will have four years in office, then leave, and one reason, however minor, will be the commentators who set race above all other factors in the minds of citizens.
13 Responses to Obama’s Enemies
laoshi - February 14, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Don’t forget it was that non-Teapartyer Harry Reid who racialized Obama in the first place, strategizing the campaign of a “light-skinned Negro” as a sure thing.
blueconcrete - February 15, 2010 at 10:14 am
I’m not sure I understand the point of your article. Joseph argues that some of the opposition to Obama is on the basis of his race, but admits that “some opponents of Obama . . . oppose him on race-neutral grounds.” You argue that some of the opposition to Obama is on the basis of his policies, but admit that “a significant portion of those protests are race-based.” In other words, Joseph emphasizes race, but also policy. You emphasize policy, but also race. Looks to me like you’re just talking past each other.FWIW, I think Obama’s race is one explanation for why some people oppose him, but so too is his party affiliation; many folks oppose him because he is a Democrat and not necessarily because of any actual Democratic policies he supports (or, is often the case, fails to support). If anything, the recent Tea Party protests and the meta-narrative of his presidency demonstrate that many of his opponents aren’t very familiar with pending legislation. Many voters treat politics like a football game and vote for one side over another, regardless of who’s on the team or how they perform (i.e. the legislation they pass).
markbauerlein - February 15, 2010 at 10:29 am
Joseph says that even people who protest on “race-neutral grounds” “stroke feelings of racial division.” In other words, for him, race is everywhere and unavoidable.
livefreeordie2 - February 15, 2010 at 11:12 am
I recall during the run-up to the 2008 election that some folks were saying that if Obama won, it would lessen the emphasis on race as an issue. I never believed that. As has happened, the charge of racism is used even more readily as a tactic to discredit any criticism of Obama and his policies. Of course. It’s an extremely effective way to avoid discussing public policy issues on their merit. But I think that many are beginning to catch on. . .According to Rasmussen, 61% of voters think the current health care reform plan – one could call it Obama’s Health care plan with a wink – should be scrapped and the politicians should start over. We know that 53% of the voters voted for Obama. That means a lot of folks who voted for Barry don’t support his number one policy initiative. For anyone to suggest that millions of voters either a. forgot for the moment they were racists, or b. didn’t know that Obama was black doesn’t pass the laugh test. Blueconcrete seems to suggest that those voters are simply ignorant of the consequences of Obama’s policy objectives – either that or they simply switched teams in Virginia, New Jersey, and especially, the People’s Republic of MassachusettEs. Again, doesn’t pass the laugh test.The truth is that while of course there are racists out there, race and racism plays no significant role in the public policies debates we are having right now. The majority of Americans don’t want Obamacare not because he’s Black, but because they realize it would destroy our health care system. They don’t want the terrorists getting lawyers and being tried in New York, not because Obama and Holder are Black, but because they realize that these scum deserve to be treated like enemy combatants and there’s no reason to put a city like New York at risk.Other than, perhaps, child molester, the single worst thing you can say about someone is that they are racist. Everyone knows that. And everyone that’s been alive for the last 60 or 70 years or so knows that, compared to what we witnessed in the 50s and 60s, true racism today exists only with the remotest of fringe elements (both Black and White). The accusation of racism holds tremendous power and liberals, led by race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, have no compunction about using that power to try to win policy arguments they would otherwise lose.
stinkcat - February 15, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I think part of the problem is that if you are conservative, some on the left presume that you are a racist until you prove otherwise. Obama has received a lot of criticism and opposition from the right. Clinton received much the same when he was president. It doesn’t seem to be racially motivated, just the standard differences between liberals and conservatives.
slenjules - February 15, 2010 at 11:04 pm
I am proud that our country has elected a black man as President. It’s a sign of how far we’ve come in terms of racism. (Not that there isn’t room for improvement, of course.) I just wish President Obama’s politics and policies weren’t so contrary to my own. Certainly that doesn’t make me a racist, does it? Should we say many Americans hated George W Bush because he was from Texas? Well, he is from Texas but I daresay that had nothing to do with it.
blueconcrete - February 16, 2010 at 1:27 pm
@livefreeordie2,I suggested that many American voters are ignorant of policy. Recent Republican successes at the polls do not disprove my point. Neither would Democratic successes; like I said above, Americans liberal and conservative rarely cast a ballot on the basis of informed views on policy. The election of Obama in 2008 illustrates this problem: his Senate record indicated what sort of leader he’d be (unprincipled, middling) and yet many liberal-minded folks voted for him any way, in part because of his narrative… American voters almost always choose a comforting narrative over fact, which is why Sarah Palin hasn’t yet been laughed off the public stage and why conservatives really believe Obama is simultaneously a socialist, communist, and fascist — they don’t know any better because they’re ignorant, like many of their peers, regardless of political affiliation.http://www.amazon.com/Just-How-Stupid-Are-We/dp/0465077714/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
marktropolis - February 18, 2010 at 2:05 pm
livefreeordie2, I think you summed up your position on these matters pretty succintly: “race and racism plays no significant role in the public policies debates we are having right now.”Which is why it’s so challenging having any kind of discussion with you (in particular, but in this case, I’m using you as example) about race or racism. You believe that race has no role to play in the public sphere. Which makes perfect sense given the rhetorical territory you are claiming. Obviously, if race has no role to play in politics, than any discussion of race in politics must devolve into accusations of racism. Otherwise, why else would you talk about race?One question though: What is your definition of “true racism”? May help move this thing along…
livefreeordie2 - February 22, 2010 at 11:47 am
marktropolis – “What is your definition of “true racism?”I pretty much go with dictionary.com: rac-ism -noun1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule other races.2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.3. hatred or intolerance of another race or races.Notice. Nothing in there about telling a bad joke or being insensitive. Nothing in there about opposing racial quotas or affirmative action. Nothing in there about only the powerful or only whites. And certainly nothing in there about opposing a black president’s policies. There is a big difference between the racists of the KKK and a dope like Don Imus making a stupid crack about the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. There’s an even bigger difference between those two items and opposing socialized medicine or destroying the private sector.
marktropolis - February 23, 2010 at 12:18 pm
livefreeordie2 – Can’t say as I was shooting for the dictionary definition. I was attempting to ascertain how you view racism, what it looks like, how do you know it is what it is? No, there isn’t anything in there about jokes or insensitivity. Although is there such a thing as a racist joke? Can one be racially insensitive? As for the “nothing in there about only the powerful,” I’d ask you to read #2 again.I’m not going to debate the Imus comment. If he wants to tell racist (or at least racially insensitive) jokes, that’s on him. There are plenty of folks out there in radio-land who do so. How far removed they are from your stereotyped racists in KKK-land is up for debate. And your opinion will probably be dictated to some extent by how significant you view the role of race in this county. Which is really the point I was trying to make.These debates/discussions are colored (pun intended) by how you approach the larger issue. That of race. Or in your case, the private sector (at least as I’ve read and interpreted your comments throughout this site). If you truly believe that markets rule, then you will view everything through that lens. The only policy proposals that you’ll support are those that work in or through “the market.” And there’s no place for race in the marketplace. Unless of course you want to market things to a particular race, then it’s OK.You acknowledge that “of course there are racists out there.” But you don’t want to consider that those racists may be attempting to influence policy debates. It’s not that folks were or are disagreeing with Obama’s health care proposals. It’s that they’re showing up at public events with automatic weapons. It’s that the vast majority of the so-called Tea Partiers are white. It’s that the racially charged comments of folks like Imus and Limbaugh and Mike Savage, give license to racist behavior.It’s that much of the rhetoric of the Tea Party is eerily similar to the states’ rights crowds of the 50s and 60s in their fight against integration. It’s that the Tea Party is standing with the John Birch Society – and their rhetoric is being echoed (in both directions) in clearly racist forums like Stormfront.org. It’s like Trent Lott publicly praising Strom Thurmond and pining for the old days (of Jim Crow and white power).
livefreeordie2 - February 24, 2010 at 7:24 am
The point was and is, racism is a specific state of mind. To be a racist, one must be of that state of mind – that other races are inferior. Jesse Jackson famously said that, “. . .if I am walking down a dark street and I see that the person behind me white, I subconsciously feel relieved.” Does that slam at young Blacks make him a racist? I don’t think so. . . do you? If I see everything through a market prism, your post suggests you perhaps see everything through a prism of race. You see the Tea Party gatherings and the first thing you do is try to count the number of non-white faces? Why would you do that? The topic of the Tea Party people isn’t race. The concept of state’s rights was never about race and it hasn’t been used as a ploy by racists to try to prolong legal discrimination for nearly a half a century. I hate to break it to you, but those who favor abortion have more of a claim on hating state’s rights than race baiters.The point is, you claimed to want to “move (the discussion) along,” however, all you’ve done is prove my original point. You take anything done or said by your political foes – even the preposterous notion that the Tea Party peolpe must be racists – and label it racist or racially charged in an attempt to marginalize their opinions. It’s clear why you do that – the progressive point of view can’t stand the light of day, let alone any type of intellectual discussion, so you have no choice. The truth is, however, that if any portion of America retains a tie to racism, it’s the racist notion that Blacks, Latinos, or other minority groups are incapable of individual responsibility or success without help from compassionate white liberals in the form of affirmative action.
marktropolis - February 24, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Sorry livefree, but when folks start raising the confederate flag and talking secession, yeah it’s about race. But you’re right, state’s rights haven’t been “used as a ploy by racists to try to prolong legal discrimination for nearly a half a century” in large part because there hasn’t been legal discriminiation for nearly half a century.As for my “preposterous notion” that the Tea Party movement represents a racist agenda, Google “tea party racist” and check out some of the photos that have been taken at these gatherings. This isn’t my opinion alone. Also, I don’t need to label them as racists to marginalize their opinions. I already know their opinions are on the margins. Dare I say fringe. They want to continue to emaphasize his Kenyan background, or his childhood in Indonesia to paint him (literally in some cases) as the nonwhite other. And it’s working.Long and short, it’s not so much that folks are objecting to Obama’s policies (or proposed policies), it’s HOW they are doing so. Can we debate the policies without calling into question Obama’s birthplace? Can we do it without waving the confederate flag? Can we talk about racism without everyone pointing fingers? Interesting that you believe that the most significant example of racism in this country is in the support of affirmative action. Oh, and it’s only people of color who are being the racists. p.s., your little ditty about Jackson isn’t a slam against young black men, it’s an acknowledgment of just how insidious this thing called racism is – it’s such a powerful, deeply embedded idea that even Black people are afraid of their own children.
livefreeordie2 - February 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
marktropolis – Can we debate the policies without calling into question Obama’s birthplace? As I have said, you appear to have no desire to further anything but your own progressive agenda without regard to fact. Are there whackos in the Tea Party Movement? Of course! There are whackos in every movement. Shall we judge African American liberals by the acts of the New Black Panther party in Philadelphia and their clear attempts at voter intimidation? Your comments have nothing to do with anything other than your ability to sift through google and find anecdotes that you use to paint with a broad brush those with whom you disagree. Which was my original point.And by the way, you should actually read what you are responding to. . . the point in the last paragraph of my comment #11 was not that minorities are racist – just the opposite. That white liberals who craft affirmative action, welfare, and other legislation do so out of a belief that they (superior white liberals) MUST help these poor inferior non-whites who aren’t capable of success without white liberal help. That’s the dictionary definition of racism. Which shows that white liberals/progressives are the last bastion of bigotry and racism in the US.