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TechnoratiNo Name for the River
What astounds me about the "race card" -- which either did or didn't get played in the presidential race recently -- is its thinness.
Racial politics, and racism itself, used to be a way of life, as pervasive as hatred, as far-reaching as ignorance. Large institutions were devoted to it, politicians reveled in it, history is permeated with it. And now all that's left of the phenomenon, apparently -- or so it would seem, to anyone whose 24/7 mind-control machine (once known as the boob tube) is hooked up -- is that single card, the playing of which not only queers the game but forces a moment of freaked-out media attention on the fact that a game is being played at all, and all of us are in some vague way participants.
An examination of the incident might be illuminating not so we can cast a verdict on it one way or the other, necessarily, but so we can get a glimpse of the contours of the game itself, and the larger context in which it hovers uneasily. That context, of course, is America, past, present and future. Presidential elections have, over the years, it seems to me, become more and more about the game and less and less about the context.
So what happened, of course, is that last week Barack Obama said: "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, 'he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'"
And a day earlier, in the wake of Obama's high-five world tour that generated enormous media attention, John McCain's campaign released an ad that noted sourly: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?" Mixed with images of Obama in Europe were America's two favorite airheads, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Maybe their presence in the ad is completely innocent, but to angry critics, the operative inference is that they're sexy, young white women "notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear," as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert noted.
And this is the state of America's racial awareness in the 21st century, as manifested in our quadrennial ritual of power transfer, the process that's supposed to make us the world's greatest democracy. How embarrassing.
I blame the actual participants in the "game" -- the presidential race -- who are trapped in a win-lose struggle with enormous stakes, far less than I blame the pervasive corporate media, which are unable to resist the temptation to hop into the game with them. Thus they breathlessly report on every last gaffe and emotionally manipulative sound bite, every poll spike, every superficial accusation, with gleeful overkill, keeping us overly informed about nothing in particular, and at the same time they do their best to reduce the context of their reportage to the game itself. What matters is who wins, not what the country learns about itself and decides to become.
This dumbed-down state of national awareness, which the media seem to feel obligated to maintain, reminds me of a defining characteristic of very primitive societies: They have a name for every bend in the river, but no name for the river. The "river" of presidential politics is our evolving, collective consciousness.
What, then, might the race card incident tell us about the name and destiny of this river? Our nation has evolved through three distinct eras of racial awareness. The first, of course, is the Slave Era, when we lived with the concept of human chattel and conceded African-Americans three-fifths the humanity, and none of the rights, of white people.
The Jim Crow Era followed the Civil War, Reconstruction and the constitutional corrections of Amendments 13, 14 and 15. This era was characterized by racial prejudice hardly less virulent than during the Slave Era, lynching picnics and a wide array of laws maintaining racial separation and inequality in every aspect of life. White supremacy was overt and unashamed of itself: James Jeffries was "the Great White Hope," for instance, when he took on black boxing champ Jack Johnson in 1910.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s ended the Jim Crow Era, stigmatized racism and shattered most legal forms of racial discrimination, forcing the still-virulent racism harbored in many American hearts underground. This is the era we are still in: the era of racial code words and indirect, de facto discrimination. It's the era of Bush I's infamous Willie Horton ad and Nixon's Southern strategy, by which the Republican Party quietly ceased to be the party of Lincoln. It's the Era of Forgetting.
And Obama, by poking at the nation's subterranean racism, by suggesting that the McCain campaign was not above tapping into it through fear and innuendo, violated the cardinal rule of the Era of Forgetting: He talked about it. McCain, through Paris and Britney, sought only to remind us of how scared we used to be. It was a nostalgic appeal to the good old days. Don't make more of it than that.
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
© 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
13 Comments so far
Show AllThank you garvey 'ol boy. Will do just that, as per your request. Next time your passin' through ol Kaintuck come on up and sit for a while. I bet I can have you in stitches in less than 10 minutes.
Marc, you clearly are incapable of detecting humour and sarcasm.
But please do keep up with your ignorant, and down right stupid posts...they reaffirm my beliefs about the intellectual capacity of right-wingers. Even when it clearly isn't your aim, your posts often make me laugh.
olemanriver,
You are, in classic USAn style, personalizing the issue.
But, racism is a characteristic of a society, not an individual. For example, even the most well meaning white person's investment in their home will decline in value when the black population in the neighborhood exceeds about 15%. Then, with lower home values, the tax base goes down, when the tax base goes down, the quality of schools go down, when the quality of schools go down, more whites leave, and the poor schools prepare another generation for membership in the permanent black underclass. The continuation of the existence of a permanent black underclass assures race-based assumptions by employers, craft unions, and real-estate agents continue for another generation - which completes the circle.
Sure, there are anti-discrimination laws, which, if they were strictly enforced, could eventually break this circle, but they go virtually unenforced. I can attest that RE Brokers and construction craft union discriminate with impunity in my town. But, based on his racism-denying "race speech" in Piilly, and his arrogant, condescending, responses to the black activists in Florida the other day, Obama seem intent on leaving them unenforced.
Some of you may say this is about class, not race, but to those that say this, all I can say is "give me a break!" I have lived in the Appalachian region and rust belt most of my life and sure, their are poor whites. But the face of poverty in the USA is a black face with Western African features, anyone who doesn't acknowledge this is in stunning denial.
Maybe we should print money with the picture of the current president. Next president, new picture, more money. What the hell, it's all counterfeit already.
You leave out Step One in the "Who Played The Race Card" incident.
McCain's ad showed Obama's face on a $100 Dollar Bill, portraying Obama as an outsider to American Society.
Obama remarked, "They're going to try to tell you I'm different and you should be scared of me, that I don't look like any of the Presidents you see on your dollar bills."
And that's where it started.
This is a brilliant article.
The late, great Bertrand Russell, interviewed on TV at age 96, said, "life is a River the Banks of Which are Ever Receding."
Something is to be said for this perspective, for inevitably it takes you to the sea, where life originated.
Meanwhile, I remain a Racist and I will tell you why. I object to the perversion of the LANGUAGE and at this level I really do not care about the color of anybody's skin, what I object to is the CULTURE.
I understand the evolution of this Culture which arises from oppression. But as a White Man I go back generations and know those generations AND NONE HAD SLAVES DESPITE LIVING IN THE SOUTH. I have no reason to feel guilt about slavery. If you try to make me feel guilt because some other white people "owned" slaves, as far as I am concerned, you are a Racist.
Ultimately we have to go to belief, not color. And maybe RAP could discover Gerund.
-30-
Racism is systemic in all "White" nations. It may seem to have been overcome with laws and prohibitions, but it just went underground. It is a loud murmur that bursts its containment fairly often in these days of correctness, but it is always there. It is systemic because it is written right into our laws; USA, Canadian and Western European. Racism will never go away until it is recognized as part of the legal systems world wide. Racism is based in fear; fear of the "other."
So when do we recognize that we all bleed red, we all want security, a reasonable, healthy life, and community with those whom we live with? We might just agree on some of those life requirements if we stop looking at colour. As has been noted often enough, we all sh*t the same way, rich, poor, black or white.
You in the US have a choice for the president of your country. Two are Black; McKinney and Obama and three are White; Nader, McCain and Barr. So choose on their merits and platforms...what they stand for, not what colour they are.
I, myself, would go for McKinney, but I don't get to vote. She is just about the most real politician I have heard lately, including my own in Canada. She and Cindy Sheehan.
garvey, i nominate your home - you and your race were as responsible as was Jefferson. How about a sign over your door "Garvey and his people will never again" don't for a minute think that your not guilty of crimes against humanity. And by the way, the sign can hang over my door as well, but I'll ignore it because I DON"T CARE about non - issues.
"When will America rebuild and document a plantation with the placard "Never again," as one can see at Dachau? Just because the river has gone underground is no sign it will never return."
I nominate Monticello.
a people which spends most of its leisure time watching tv, deserves to be enslaved.
When will America rebuild and document a plantation with the placard "Never again," as one can see at Dachau? Just because the river has gone underground is no sign it will never return.
Indeed "it" is not a game, the correct assessment by first poster. It is not about cuteness, nor smackdown, nor one upping, nor race baiting.
It is about the left winning for the sake of citizens. The fix for the race card is putting Hillary on the ticket. The moment that happens, the whole debate shifts to policy positions and away from skin color.
It's not a game.
I learned that the hard way, sitting in the heat of New Orleans with no water and a crate of MRE's. I heard over the radio (powered by cranking) that this was all about a "blame game."
It's not a game. It's people lives.