Barack Obama accuses John McCain of playing the race card. Most voters seem to think it is Obama who is playing the race card, but he is actually doing something rather different. He is playing the racist card.
There is a difference. The race card – as most people tend to define it – is about appealing to people on grounds of race: don’t vote for the black/white/Jewish/etc. guy. Obama is trying to paint his opponent as a closet racist.
It is an important difference. I am not sure there is a race card in American politics today – not in the country as a whole. In certain districts there might be, but not nationally. In saying this, I am not claiming that there are no people who are racist. I am simply saying that that there are more people – many more people – who are repelled by racism than attracted to it. Appealing for votes on racist grounds would attract a few and repel a great many more. It would be tactically stupid. And, by the way, would be tactical lunacy when your opponent is both black and well known. The fact is that the tiny number of people who could not stomach a black president are not going to vote for Obama anyway. McCain does not have to appeal for their votes: just as Ted Strickland and Ben Cardin didn’t have to.
It is often argued that the *Bradley-Wilder Effect *- in which opinion polls seem to exaggerate the appeal of black candidates – is evidence of substantial closet racism in the US. It is evidence, so it is said, of the effectiveness of the race card. I suspect it is evidence of the effectiveness of the racist card instead. People who are not supportive of Obama’s candidacy ony anyone of a number of grounds feel reluctant to tell opinion pollsters this, because failing to support Obama is considered akin to racism. Thus opinion polls greatly exaggerate his support. This is especially true outside the hardcore Democratic vote. The media seem happy to report that Obama has a strong appeal to swing and cross-over voters. They ran with this narrative throughout the primary campaign. But the evidence of the way people actually vote show that this is not so. Obama lost the primaries and only won in the caucuses, where the electorate was restricted to hardcore activists. He also tended to lose swing states, winning in states where as a candidate in the general he is assured of either victory or defeat.
So, there is no race card, but there is a racist card. You can accuse people of racism and there is no acceptable response. No evidence is requred the accuser and none is accepted from the person accused. It seems to some self-evident that anyone who is accused must be guilty. It reminds of the words put into Deputy Governor John Danforth’s mouth by Arthur Miller in The Crucible:
“In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims — and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?”
In the traditions of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, a crime which cannot be proved is one of which the accused must be acquitted, even at the cost of acquitting the guilty. But with racism, as with witchcraft, it is considered essential to simply change the rules of evidence: an accusation is considered sufficient proof of guilt.
(As an aside, it is worth noting, that despite the brilliance of his play, Miller’s political analysis is naive in the extreme. He wrote *The Crucible *as an analogy for the McCarthy hearings, failing to distinguish the fairly obvious difference, that communists are real and witches are imaginary. In the 1990s he came up with the even more absurd analogy: to the prosecution of Bill Clinton. Communism may be real, but it is still possible to falsely accused of it. Perjury is not only real, but Bill Clinton was demonstrably guilty of the crime, so the analogy with Salem is pathetically weak. Not only that, he made the comparison at a time when falsely accusing people of witchcraft was, itself, back in vogue. Janet Reno is a much better analogy for John Danforth than Ken Starr ever was).
Daniel Horowitz
Neil Stevens
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Jake Walker
Good piece, qlangley -
Achance (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 5:08AM EST (link)recommended.
In Vino Veritas
GREAT points Q, and in fact a recent
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 8:08PM EST (link)poll in PA/WVA in which a fairly high percentage of whites said race “was an issue” was misinterpreted by the left, I mean the press, but I repeat myself.
Most meant by that the rev wright and obama’s 20-yr pew-parked butt in a racist church.
great essay
I agree completely and actually touched on this issue recently.
see below.
http://beta.redstate.com/diaries/gamecock/2008/aug/06/stephanopoulos-ok-with-prospective-racism-cha/
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
gc HIGHLY recommends - nt
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 8:09PM EST (link)nt
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
This is no Ordinary Blog, how does one announce the greatness of such?
speciallist (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 8:35PM EST (link)One recommends to prove it’s Brilliance. I think I have made my point. Have I not?
where is from ME to you & his lobsters? n/t
pilgrim (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 8:46PM EST (link).
I was thinkin' of him the other day
speciallist (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 9:32PM EST (link)I think RS 3.0 tweaked his Pacemaker….kidding…???
And John Wayne..Militant Anti-abort Med student from Colo.??
speciallist (Diary) Sunday, August 10th at 9:45PM EST (link)n/p
It's an institutional problem
kowalski (Diary) Wednesday, August 13th at 10:43AM EST (link)It’s an institutional problem because racism is now interpreted as being constructed into society and therefore programmed into the subconscious. The result of that change is that people’s actions don’t matter as much as the interpretation of those actions according to a lefty psychologist or sociologist.
The very real danger is that anyone can be accused and there can be no objective proof or exoneration: all someone has to do is cobble together a set of reasons why someone might have said something that signifies — in the mind of the interpreter — a state of internal consciousness that connotes racism.
And of course, the only way to change someone’s consciousness is to reform people’s thoughts, purge them and make them think correctly, or just get rid of them entirely if they refuse to “comply.”
Less metaphysically, the “racist” card was played on me — unsuccessfully as it turned out — by a professor at a law school who had just arrived from Oxford University. It was an interesting story:
At the time, I was in charge of the school’s website, and as such I had the responsibility of keeping it updated. Because many of the professors at the school wanted to make sure every single change in their resume was instantly reflected on the website, I got a lot of personal requests along the line of: “Oh, could you just change this one little thing…” outside the normal site review and update process. As a result, my boss forbade me to make those changes unless they had been presented to her in writing beforehand.
People still tried.
One of them was a new professor who was arriving at the school after a stint at Oxford. He was African-American, which is all that needs to be said for the puroposes of this example, and he had been furiously updating his bio. at the time, particularly in response to the attacks on 9/11. Without consulting with my boss, I made exceptions for him personally, because I wanted to make him feel welcome, first of all, and also because I wanted to put our department’s “best face” forward.
One day I received an email update from him and I couldn’t act on it right away because of other, more pressing concerns. I also didn’t respond immediately to the email saying I’d received it.
The next day I discovered that he’d been incensed by my “neglect” and attributed it to racism on my part — complete with a letter to the Administrion. I was hauled before several people in the higher administration and forced to explain that not only had I been breaking the rules by disregarding my boss’ guidelines in the first place, I most certainly had been accomodating to him — in fact, more accomodating than I had been to any other professor at the school.
And he had never set foot in the place yet.
It sounds petty, but basically the guy charged me with being a racist because I didn’t jump at his request to have his bio. updated immediately. And I had been doing him the favor in the first place, in defiance of my boss, to make him feel especially valued.
Last time I’ll ever do that.
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Shorter version of this post
kowalski (Diary) Wednesday, August 13th at 10:50AM EST (link)The shorter version of this post is only two words long, BTW:
“Harvard. Disease.”
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5*
Thrhheggeegwc Jjtkylkfofud (Diary) Wednesday, August 13th at 5:32PM EST (link)Recommended. Obama to a “T!”
yeh its a good aritcle
helms4ever Thursday, August 14th at 1:25PM EST (link)we can’t have the rabblerousing get down a good debate on the issues. the president is not an affermitive action job!!!!!
A similar situation was found in the McMartin Preschool
Flagstaff (Diary) Thursday, August 14th at 5:31PM EST (link)travesty. People were convicted of crimes against children without any objective evidence.
Justice was shamed, and still is in some similar cases.
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”– Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, December 13, 1964
No good deed
Flagstaff (Diary) Thursday, August 14th at 5:37PM EST (link)goes unpunished.
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”– Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, December 13, 1964
Excessive analysis.
Flagstaff (Diary) Thursday, August 14th at 5:56PM EST (link)All that needs to be said is that only white Republicans can be racist. Black Republicans are Uncle Toms, and therefore traitors to their racial brothers.
White Democrats are immune to racism by virtue of their obvious good will towards all people of color as evidenced by their party affiliation. Non-Republican blacks cannot be racist, by definition.
Thus, anything a Republican does or says is open to being interpreted as either racist or not-black-enough.
Therefore, the only race card in this case is the King. Barack Obama’s face announces his race to all who see it. Why would anybody need to mention it, for any reason? Why does he feel the need to keep mentioning it?
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”– Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, December 13, 1964