You may have noticed that throughout this election I've made constant allusions to Marion Barry. That's because my first job in journalism was working at the illustrious Washington City Paper. This was the summer of 1996, I was 20 year old college student, and Barry, back from the dead, was busy inflaming the city's white population. When I started at City Paper, I was given a copy of Jospeph Mitchell's Up In The Old Hotel, Norman Sims and Mark Kramer's Literary Journalism and Tom Sherwood and Harry Jaffe's Dream City. It's funny because while the former two books came to define me professionally, the latter was the most influential.
Most people who saw D.C. from afar in the 80s and early 90s, simply thought that city was populated but utter morons. But Dream City put Barry in historical perspective, tracing the doings of the racist thugs who'd once been its overlords. Barry carried with him all of that history, and master politician that he was, he employed it to great effect. By the end of his mayoral career, a consortium of wise-men in the District were actually considering paying him not to run. I didn't cover Barry much, but I got to study the work of some great reporters who did. I thought then that the District under Barry was simply a particularly egregious case of demagoguery and victimology. But I was young, and I didn't know history.
Rick Perlstein has outlined how Nixon basically turned a victimology of white struggle into a political career. Then there are the racists who terrorized the black middle class in the South, and then routinely charged that they, themselves, were the aggrieved, not the blacks who they'd just run out of town. White victimology is lamentable and ultimately accepted, mostly because the "white working class" is more an idea, an weird amalgam of the purity of the white Southern belle and nobleness of the savage, than an actual group of people. Still it's been a sight to watch the same clucking heads that dismiss black people for "a culture of failure" and for worshiping ignorance, now tell us that it's fine for someone who potentially holds the fate of civilization in their hands to know as much about the Bush Doctrine as the man on the street, to think that "Intelligent Design" is science. Enough, indeed. Marion Barry wrecked D.C. These fools are talking about the world.
As Barry's last term in office closed out, to the horror of us progressives, he flirted with the idea of running again. At that time, Ken Cummins, who'd been a scathing critic of Barry, wrote a piece urging Barry on. His point was that the District deserved--indeed needed--the opportunity to show that it's electorate had matured, that Barry shouldn't be eased out, but should be put out by the people that put him in. Perhaps sensing that that's exactly what would happen, Barry declined. I've thought about that piece all weekend while weighing McCain's embrace of the culture wars and outright lying. Many who thought McCain honorable are now distraught and would like to see a return to the McCain they thought they knew. But if only because I was never that invested in McCain as the honorable warrior, I say bring it on.
The thing is, we deserve to know exactly what manner of country we are living in. Are we living in a place where people think claiming to be offended is actually a qualifier for national office? Does our citizenry actually think that Obama is a Muslim, and worse, that being a Muslim is a disqualifier? Do we actually believe that a presidential candidate of a major party would endorse sex ed for Kindergarten? At this critical moment, are these the issues that sway us? In the 1960s, Baldwin warned us of integrating into a burning house. I need to know precisely what manner of house we've entered.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Thank you for putting into wors what I've thought so often - just where are we as a country?
I think I got the answer to the question of what kind of house this is when Bush was re-elected in 2004. That Bush was run out of town by his own party after Abu Ghraib did it for me, so I have no illusions about this nation.
I still think Obama will win, and I don't think it will be all that close, but it won't shock me if he doesn't. It will piss me off, and I may leave the country--and I'm not one of those who said that in 2004--but it won't shock me, more's the pity.
I don't think that making the election into a referendum on race is a winning strategy at this point.
I think it's a great strategy if Obama loses to explain how the election was, in fact, a referendum on race... but I don't think that making it one before the fact will change a single mind in the direction you want it changed.
I read a great article today that perhaps only Black folks would think about -- Palin's rise is only possible because of white privilege and the demise of this nation's dominance can only be hastened by it. Imagine for a minute that Palin is a Black Christian fundamentalist with an out-of-wedlock teen that's about to marry a thug, went through 6 colleges in 5 years, knows less about foreign policy than any college political science major, believes man cavorted with dinosaurs, has been caught in 4 or 5 huge lies and continues to repeat them, claims that part of her foreign policy experience is the proximity of Alaska to Russia and, as so humorously stated on SNL this past weekend, holds up her challenged baby to the crowd like the Lion King. Imagine the universal contempt that would be shown her way. When we act along racial lines, we diminish the country.
Deleted. Say what you want, just spell my name right.
Thanks for the whole point on "worshipping ignorance", be it Palin-worship, or whosever culture of failure you might be talking about.
I swear, I don't understand the revulsion that occurs to those who are most competent.
Take a look at this Obama speech on the financial markets - delivered during the Bear Stearns bailout. (Scroll down to view the video).
Obama speech is just AMAZING - really, phenomenal. More than his other speeches, this speech - tracing history on how the founders thought of the financial system, to the current issues in finance, substantive, informative, wide-reaching, in touch with basic American values - is the speech that tipped me into being an Obama supporter.
Can you imagine McCain delivering this speech? Or, God forbid, PALIN??
Hillary could have - but I doubt would have had as smooth a narrative and delivery.
(Bill Clinton could have, of course - but Bill is and will always be the man.)
At base....the republicns are n.....ish in there behavior. The Daily Show's brillant sketch "Republican or Rapper" demonstrates this character trait of the R's.
Great post TNC. I would like to see more Baldwin quotes. The greatest essayist ever, in my opinion.
First, I need to mention your reference to Joseph Mitchell -- what a brilliant writer. I hope Washington City Paper doesn't expect all its 20-year-old interns to write at his level all the time, but it's good that they know real reporting when they read it.
Your last paragraph sums it all up. We'll find out a good deal about ourselves in the next couple of months. I'm very, very pessimistic over all, even though I've felt all along that Obama would win. Remember those "Obama Waffles" guys? They're doing that during the "Hey, guys? Just tone it down a bit -- we're trying to win a campaign here" phase of things. Once that phase is over, it's going to get incredibly ugly.
The challenge day to day, is to stay in the Hunter S. Thompson, H.L. Menken range, and not to stray into the Uncle Charlie from Shadow of a Doubt area.
JR Shells--perfect.
Good post Coates.
I read this post twice and still can't figure out how the many topics that you mention can be coherently related to one another. Maybe I'm just not that smart.
I particularly am confused by this:
"White victimology is lamentable and ultimately accepted, mostly because the "white working class" is more an idea, an wierd amalgmam of the purity of the white Southern belle and nobleness of the savage, than an actual group of people."
This is very strange. As someone of the white working class (assuming I am not disqualified by my obtaining a professional degree, and, Yes we Exist!) I haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about or what this even means. If you are saying that there is not a single group of white working class people that shares a set of political priorities and social values then I might agree since these things are often influenced by geography, ethnicity, etc (and when will you ever find such a homogenous group?). But I don't know that this is what you are saying, and these odd references to noble savages and southern belles are losing me.
Moreover, maybe I'm blind to the failings of my own, but where is all of this white working class victimology that you speak of? Class and status resentment amongst the WWC are very real. However, this is not the same thing as victimology as I define that term, which (put very simply)is to skirt responsibility and blame another group for your own failings.
If any commenter wants to help me out, I welcome a response. And easy on the snark if you can help it.
Thanks
TNC: you used to write for The City Paper??? Talk about having gone from the ridiculous to the sublime ... must have some prestidigitation in you (and I mean that in a good way).
Here's what I can't figure out: Did McCain's bump in the polls come from hard-core Repubs getting on board after Palin or from "independent voters" migrating? Or both?
According to Wikipedia, in 2004, the Dem Party was bigger than the Repub Party. And given Obama's registration campaign it has only gotten bigger. It's hard to believe that truly independent voters would be attracted by Palin (or at least remain so today). It's impossible to believe that a significant majority of them would.
So what gives? Unless independent voters are largely Palin fans, the math doesn't seem to work.
I view it less as an opportunity to have a referendum on race than as a referendum on Karl Rove style politcs and culture war. The neocon economic policies and foreign policy has already failed utterly for all the world to see. Now is the chance for America to decide if their campaign practices are also deserving of the scorn and rejection of the electorate.
Tour de force, Ta-Nehisi.
I was in DC as a child before we knew Barry would be "Mayor-for-Life" and just about everyone loved him, then was back as a young adult when he was a much more divisive figure. For however problematic he became, it's testimony to his political acumen, and that history you've pointed out, that he's still in elected office.
Thanks to both Obama and McCain, I think the electorate has a much clearer picture of what kind of country we live in. McCain has picked up the Bush's Rovian mantle with its nasty roots, and Obama, unlike John Kerry four years ago and to a lesser extent Al Gore eight years ago, has done a fairly good job of letting the Republicans show themselves. Would that fighting the good fight be a guarantee of victory... but it never is.
Jaybird,where do you see anything about"making the election into a referendum on race"?
As someone of the white working class (assuming I am not disqualified by my obtaining a professional degree, and, Yes we Exist!
No you don't. This is exactly my point--by the evidence most journalists cite, you'd be disqualified. Hell, as a low income college dropout, I might be more white working class than you. Humor aside, my point is that there is no such coherent group of people. Barack wins the "white working class" in Wisconsin, but the "white working class" is a problem for him in Ohio.
The allusions may be to cute. But there was this idea in the South, post-integration that the Southern white woman was the embodiment of all things pure. Likewise the concept of the "noble savage" pulls on similar dehumanization, in that the man who hasn't been touched by civilization is supposed to be more noble than rest of us. The "white working class" has the purity of that old Southern construct, the nostalgia, the sentimentality as well as that idea that the guy who still uses his hands for a living is somehow noble--simply because he uses his hands for a living.
There is no such broad group in America today. Or rather, they're a lot more diverse than that.
"In the 1960s, Baldwin warned us of integrating into a burning house. I need to know precisely what manner of house we've entered."
It seems to me that this is framing the question of "Either the country will vote in a non-racist fashion or it will vote in a racist fashion."
Perhaps I'm just reading it wrong...
But I am one of those folks who has become a huge fan of isolationism and limited powers for government... so I look at the two parties and say "not a dime's worth of difference" and think that gridlock is the absolute *BEST* we could possibly hope for.
But, anyway, the conclusion to the piece made me think that this was being framed as a "are you a racist who will vote against Obama or a good person who will vote for him? Is the house you live in on fire or not?" question.
Marion Barry reminds me of Robert Mugabe, in that he might be described as the deformed fruit of a poisonous tree, Mugabe’s world having been shaped by colonialism and apartheid. It’s hard not to believe that the corrupt, racist, hypocritical establishment objects to them for the good they’ve done, rather than the bad.
TNC, that was very powerfully said. In my completely unprofessional opinion, I think you could expand this and publish it as an essay somewhere.
Jaybird,
I respectfully suggest you're reading selectively. Certainly race and racism are addressed, but please re-read the last graph. Seriously thinking that presidential politician would teach sex-ed to Kindergartens has little or nothing to do with race. The question isn't are we integrating into a racist society, it's are we integrating into a stupid society. That was Baldwin's point, I think.
Sorry 'bout the double post. Not sure how that happened.
Does our citizenry actually think that Obama is a Muslim, and worse, that being a Muslim is a disqualifier? Do we actually believe that a presidential candidate of a major party would endorse sex ed for Kindergarten? At this critical moment, are these the issues that sway us?
Um, you may never find out. There seems to be this implicit assumption you're making that, if McCain wins, it can only be because people are stupid. I agree that voting for McCain is irresponsible, given the Palin pick, but there are perfectly intelligent people who place less weight on the vice-presidency and will still vote for McCain. If he wins, you won't be able to infer anything about the stupidity of the electorate. If you'd like to know whether our citizenry actually thinks Obama's a Muslim, just look at polling on the matter (I think it's a steady 10-12%), don't assume that if Obama loses it can only be because of stupid beliefs like that.
And when we find that we are just as angry and stubborn and backward a country as we feared? when it is affirmed that the one thing we cannot abide in a leader is someone who might think, even might be, smarter than we are . . .
then what?
Every now and then, on gloomy days when a kind and decent nation seems to have slipped a little further out of reach I wonder about this.
Jaybird,
TNC beat me to it, but you are really missing the point. The politics of White/working class resentment as begun by Nixon and perfected by Atwater and Rove is only partially about race. Hell every guy it has been used against was a Middle aged white Protestant except Kerry who is about as much of a WASP as any Catholic you will find:-)
Andrew Sullivan can get somewhat histrionic to say the the least. But he put it well the other day. If McCain wins this election using the type of campaign tactics he is we won't have a presidential election with Substantive campaigning for another generation. 2012 will be a gutter fight between Clinton and McCain using even lower tactics on both sides. If Hillary wins 2016 will be between her and some Rove backed candidate going even lower (Jeb?)
Fair enough and I apologize.
But I would watch out, though to a lesser extent, on making this a referendum on intelligence.
Adlai Stevenson should not continue to be the model the Democrats run on.
Great piece, TNC.
Palin offends me because she's unqualified.
It's not like the GOP female bench was empty (like the GOP Black Bench).
He skipped over every possibly qualified GOP woman to choose this religious right wing wacko.
This is Clarence Thomas all over again. But, will they get away with it this time?
TNC,
Anybody running for office that doesn't assume that people are mostly stupid is a fool.
The Democratic recipe for getting into the White House is already well known--run a middle of the road centrist candidate, preferably from anywhere but the Northeast, and then put somebody on the ticket who can pull in a big Southern state. For reasons unknown, the Democrats themselves have abandoned this strategy.
Robert Mugabe as a victim. LOL. More signs of the apocalypse.
"my point is that there is no such coherent group of people. Barack wins the "white working class" in Wisconsin, but the "white working class" is a problem for him in Ohio."
Okay, so the WWC may not necessarily exist as a reliably predictable voting block, at least how its defined by the pollsters (however the hell that is). I don't think it necessarily follows that it doesn't exist. I do believe (and I confess to lacking anything to back this up aside from experience) that there is a group of citizens, that ranges economically from lower to upper middle class, is usually white (yes, you too can be a WWC member!), is generally patriotic and/or nationalistic, wants less taxes, wants little or reasonable rstrictions on gun ownership, is pro-law enforcement, is inclined to defer to the Executive's judgment in wartime, believes in self-reliance (vague)yet is often union friendly, opposes mass immigration (but respects the immigrant work ethic), opposes affirmative action and any form of minority victimology, is ignorant about most foreign cultures/politics, is resentful of "elites", etc., etc....
Of course each member of this group need not hold all of these views. I think these are the people that Crook was referring to. Some may think I just defined the modern Republican but I'm not so sure.
And while you may be more WWC than me, I may be blacker than you. I have an out of wedlock child and a bad credit history. No offense intended.
"And while you may be more WWC than me, I may be blacker than you. I have an out of wedlock child and a bad credit history. No offense intended."
Dude, I have an "out of wedlock" kid and I just paid of all my credit cards last month. So what you sayin?
Eric, I see the problem as being pathologies on both sides brought about by the culture war.
It seems ideal, for me, to say something to the effect of "school curricula should be picked by local school boards". So if Bumfrig, South Dakota says "we want to teach Young Earth Creation alongside Evolution" and Cosmopolitan City, California says "we want to teach, you know, science" then both places should be allowed to do that and it's not a Federal issue.
As it is, the Culture War poisons everything and now it's an election over which guy will appoint the person who will be appointing the guy who will appoint the guy who will pick out the textbooks for 4th grade science.
I can hear the counter-arguments now: "but it's wrong to teach the so-called 'controversy' over YEC!!!", I agree that it is... but I would rather deal with a situation where the Cosmopolitan cities teach, you know, science and bumfrig teaches crap than have to worry about whether we might, yet again, elect someone who will appoint the wrong kind of people for the WHOLE ENTIRE COUNTRY.
Instead of letting Bumfrig be Bumfrig and Cosmo be Cosmo, we're having elections over whether we should make the country be like Bumfrig or like Cosmo.
And that's without even getting into the drug war and that's without even talking about abortion and I haven't even brought up issues of privacy and we aren't even talking about gay marriage.
But since we're discussing a presidential election, we are discussing all of those things.
And swing voters know it. Making the election a referendum on "stupidity" is a great way to lose a (yet) (another) winnable election.
Jaybird,
John McCain isn't exactly Ike:-)
That Stevenson lost to one of the most popular Presidents of the century during a time of great prosperity doesn't exactly make his campaigns collasal failures. I'd say there are times when if you are true to your parties convictions the mood of the coutntry is such that you're destined to be the loyal opposition. You could say the same about Republicans who lost to FDR.
Ike governed as a moderate who carried on FDR's policies for the most while laying some ground work for Civil Rights. After WW II that was about what the country was ready for. That he was followed by JFK and LBJ with the Civil Rights Act and a major extension of the New Deal fits as well. After taking some time to catch their breath the country was ready for some sweeping changes again. Stevenson just had the misfortune of being at the wrong time.
I'd say that a major reason W is so unpopular is he ran one way and governed another. After the drama of the Clinton years the country wanted some quiet times with an Ike like moderate and Bush campaigned as one. Then he totally switched gears in office.
Jaybird,
Your starting to get it. First of all the Culture War is over. People vote with their actual lives and viewing habits. It ain't liberal elites in New England watching trashy reality TV shows on Fox. It ain't liberal elites buying Britney Spears outfits for their 6 year old daughters at Walmart. Even Abortion is decided, it is just a sideshow for the religious right at this point. The country is overwhelmingly Pro Choice, Hell even South Dakota couldn't pass a harsh anti abortion law. Roe v. Wade isn't going to be overturned becasue the minute it is every state is going to leagliaze abortion and the issue is gone.
The point is the Right turns the Presidential election into a Culture War. Your right the President has nothing to do with what they teach in small town schools in Utah. (But persoanlly I think kids should have the right to get a real science education regardless of where they live) Gay Marriage is a state issue. and so on and so on. Obama is talking about tax policy and McCain is talking about Sex-ed in Kindergarden.
"Dude, I have an "out of wedlock" kid and I just paid of all my credit cards last month. So what you sayin?"
Damn. You really are black. Even if you do start sentences with "Dude".
In defense of my own blackness, I ate beef patties with cocoa bread nearly every day for my first two years at St. John's and I love the cheesy biscuits at Red Lobster.
"White working class" might be the wrong tag, but there is a large group of low-information, middle-class white "likely voters" with moderate levels of education that the common wisdom says will decide this election.
It cannot be denied that large swaths the white electorate are deeply racist. Deep down, most whites still think of blacks as stupid beasts who threaten their resources through preferential liberal government policies.
They point to the "failure" of black culture and black foreign countries as direct evidence, and they believe that in general, any white chief executive no matter how poorly prepared will be more competent than any black chief executive. Sarah Palin is nothing more than a vulgar, evil embodiment of that argument.
These whites aren't victimologists, they are straight up racists. There is a difference.
Obama is losing this election because of race. His only hope is to convince whites he is intelligent DESPITE his race, and to persuade them that he will not rob their resources in favor of blacks.
This election always threatened to be about race, and the Palin pick made it so. That's the state of the game, disgusting as it is.
Overwhelmingly pro-choice? You must be joking or dreaming. If Roe is overturned my guess is at least half of the state's will make abortion illegal except in cases of rape or the health of the mother.
Uh Libertarian your the one who is dreaming, we have a very real test from just last year, South Dakota coudln't do just that, they tried and it lost, I'd say at most maybe Wyoming or Utah would pass that law.
Sorry, I am not the one who is dreaming.
This is from 2006, but I don't believe much has changed:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-16-abortion-states_x.htm
I'd say that you should expect every Red State in the country would effectively outlaw abortion except in cases of rape or health exceptions if Roe is overturned.
laborlibert, you just pwned yourself.
You assert the existence of a group of "lower to upper middle class" white folks -- THAT's your white working class? The very fact that you describe upper-middle class whites as "working class" (as long as they're patriotic) proves you're just on some culture-war isht rather than describing a real sociological group.
Try again.
Trevor b.
I just pwned myself (whatever the f that means)? I'm on some culture war ish? Spare me the after-school insults Trevor.
Who ever said the white working class couldn't earn? How would this disqualify them from belonging to this construct?
What I'm saying is that the group that Crook refers to and that the host thinks is an illusion is defined more by culture than by economic status.
Pay attention in class.
"What I'm saying is that the group that Crook refers to and that the host thinks is an illusion is defined more by culture than by economic status."
If this is true, why is aforementioned group a "working class?" Its a contradiction in terms.
This election is not a referendum on race, nor on education or intelligence. It's a referendum on common frickin sense. The question is: can you fool just enough of the people most of the time? I wonder.
Joel said: "If this is true, why is aforementioned group a "working class?" Its a contradiction in terms."
You have a point. I suppose what I'm saying is that the group that I am talking about (and that I think Crook is taking abour as well) cannot be strictly defined in terms of economic status, contrary to the traditional definition of working class. That being said, I still think that the working poor to middle class range makes up the great majority of who I would consider in this group.
And remember that just because your doing well doesn't mean you ain't working. Unless your old rich it probably means you've busted your ass for most of your life.
JR Shells, if "Palin's rise is only possible because of white privilege", how on earth do explain Obama. Black privilege? He beat out a number of more experienced white senators, a more experienced hispanic governor, and Hillary.
I think Palin's more important feature is her sex, not her color. If it were Simon Palin, not Sarah, would anyone outside of Alaska have heard of her?
Jim S,
You didn't bring up the obvious fallacy in JR Shell's analogy: Obama beat them all, he ran in the pirmaries and won. Palin was appointed by McCain.
I guess we can't all get along together.... good day.
"White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America."
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/viewCommentary/3618/1
Tim Wise has got a big list of these, and most of them are right on.
I understand where you're coming from with the Palin/Barry comparison. However, demographics simply mean that more people can viscerally connect to Palin than to Barry. I think if you could somehow get through the gut reactions they have to people, they could understand how a Marion Barry or Sharpe James got elected. (I wouldn't include Kilpatrick or McKinney in this class because of a lack of longevity, but you get the picture.) For whatever reason, there's this tendency in the human race that the person in charge has to be like me. It may be an artifact from our tribal days, but denying it is kind of like denying gravity at this point.
Also, I think you're giving the "White working class" a bit more credit than they deserve. Yes, they were evil and wrong for harassing the Black middle class. However, a lot of it wouldn't have happened if not explicitly condoned (and in some cases, outright subsidized) by the White elites. They figured that if the lower-class Whites were set on the Blacks, they wouldn't notice that their standard of living was comparatively worst compared to people in similar situations in the Northeast and Midwest. In a weird way, the Civil Rights Movement was one of the best things to happen to working class Whites, if only because the elites had one major part of the okey-doke taken away.
Good article from Tim Wise, author of "White Like Me."
White Privilege, White Entitlement, Election 2008
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1755
I guess I always took descriptions of "the white working class" in places like Ohio and West Virginia as euphemisms for "white people who don't much like voting for a black guy." For that reason, I never would have thought to worry about whether "working class" really applied--euphemisms are almost never rational.
Though absent more data, I don't really know how to separate that from not trusting Obama based on slickness of rhetoric, or being too obvious about being smarter than they are, or lack of experience, or whatever. It seems pretty plausible that some fraction of white voters are just uncomfortable voting for a black guy, and what fraction of those were not going to vote for the Republican in any event is an interesting question, and one that I am not sure anyone knows precisely. (It's also not clear how many of those folks would rather vote for a white Democrat, but when pressed, will vote for a black Democrat over a white Republican.)
Rob said:
It cannot be denied that large swaths the white electorate are deeply racist. Deep down, most whites still think of blacks as stupid beasts who threaten their resources through preferential liberal government policies.
So, there's survey data that pretty directly contradicts this. The Pew Center did a report awhile back titled "Optimism About Black Progress Declines," which you can find at
http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/700/black-public-opinion
About 80% of whites report having a favorable opinion of blacks; about the same percentage of blacks report a favorable opinion of whites. There are problems with interpreting socially unacceptable answers to polling questions, but this isn't even remotely consistent with your idea that most whites see blacks as stupid beasts. The rest of the survey questions similarly don't support your idea.
There's plenty broken about race relations in the US, but that isn't it.
The results from that New York Times survey (some innumerate journalist wrote an incompetent story about it, but the paper also made the survey results available online) similarly contradict your model of the world. Specifically, the result said that 90% of whites said they'd be willing to vote for a black candidate for president, 70% said the country was ready for a black president, and 69% said most people they knew would vote for a black presidential candidate.
It's plausible that some of the white responders answering the "would you vote for a black guy for president" question were lying to avoid saying something socially unacceptable. But then they had this easy out, because they could say whether most people they knew would vote for a black presidential candidate. That lets a closet racist report his true feelings in the guise of "well, some of my friends...." So a plausible guess is that more than 69% and less than 90% of whites voters are, in fact, willing to vote for a black president. I'll assume (ignoring Palin) that hardly anyone who thinks blacks are unthinking beasts is also willing to vote for a black president, so this also contradicts your model.
And when we find that we are just as angry and stubborn and backward a country as we feared? when it is affirmed that the one thing we cannot abide in a leader is someone who might think, even might be, smarter than we are . . .
then what?
I'm wondering the same thing--but the funny thing is, we already know that whoever wins, it's going to be something like the difference between a 48% and a 49% share of the electorate. That is, whether Obama or McCain wins will have huge consequences, but it won't really say a lot about the populace as a whole at all, except for things we already know: that about half of them for some reason always vote Republican in presidential elections. The last three have been balanced on a knife edge, and whenever that happens the consequences are such a magnification of small differences, last-minute reactions, dirty tricks and the political movements of smallish groups of people. Even if Obama wins, the ugliness is there either way; the question is just whether it works well enough, which is a matter of constitutional accident.
Emotionally, there have been so many times over the past eight years when I've just wanted to give up on this country, since it seems so obviously hell-bent on confounding any expectation I have of sane or humane behavior. But I can't formulate in any rational way what that would practically mean. I could try to get a job in some other country, get out of here and renounce my citizenship; but it's my home, its culture is mine and most of the people I love are here--I really don't have any choice but to be a patriot on that level. And, besides, people in other countries are incredibly anxious about US politics and resent the fact that even though it profoundly affects them they can't vote here. So fleeing to somehow symbolically wash my hands hardly seems like any sort of solution, it's just the temper tantrum of a privileged guy who got disappointed by politics. All I can really do is push my little push and hope for the best.
We don't actually know that the breakdown will be 49-48. Things change a lot in two months. Nobody's really sure what the deal will be with the GOTV operation.
Predicting the future is a tricky thing. We'll find out what'll happen soon enough; till then, y'know...don't despair prematurely.
TNC,
This post beautifully sums up what I was trying to explain to my mother. That to elect John McCain signals a grave something about our "democracy". Not because of what his administration would do (Lord knows I won't appreciate it), because it will indicate that we live in a world where truth is completely irrelevant to our elections.
I tried explaining to my mother (a southern white woman, btw) why I found Republicans' insistence that Palin was "more experienced than Obama" to be a tad racist. It's not calling him a dirty name or anything, but I asked her to turn the tables.
If Palin were white....magna cum laude from HLS, constitutional law professor at U of C, 8 years state senate, 4 in U.S. Senate, two self-written books, going on 20 months of hardcore campaign organizing. . . . that seemed to make it clear how sick, vile, and cynical this whole move was. It wouldn't have worked had he picked Clinton, of course not, but Hillary is white, after all.
understand where you're coming from with the Palin/Barry comparison. However, demographics simply mean that more people can viscerally connect to Palin than to Barry.
You may be right, but coming from a state that's continually derided as 'elitist latte-drinkers', I find it an odd comparison. I bet Vermonters own almost as many guns as Alaskans, and I bet most Midwesterners don't eat moose.
Ta-Nehisi, awesome essay. My husband and I keep talking about whether or not the house is on fire, and what we'll do if McCain wins.
Great point. I love the ponderings on DC and the City Paper. I've been making the point to my friends that this election roots out the good, the bad, and the ugly in a way that none of us expected in 2008. I'm watching this with my hands over my eyes, peeking through as if it is a scary movie. I'm scared only because I too must accept reality. The reality of the hate and foolishness I already expected was there and the reality of the enlightenment that I'm surprised to see.
"Imagine the universal contempt that would be shown her way. When we act along racial lines, we diminish the country."
The only thing that's universal anymore in this country is that we will all die at some point. We can't even use the old "the only thing I have to do is pay taxes and die" retort, because a great deal of Americans do NOT pay taxes.
To get back to your point, though, assuming the female you posit, there would indeed be what you describe from certain sectors of our culture. However, the very same people that are constantly slamming Palin right now are the very same people that would defend the fictional person you propose.
If you don't see that, you're either an extreme orphan of a skewed worldview or or so ideologically locked that you're blind to reality.
Rob said:
"It cannot be denied that large swaths the white electorate are deeply racist. Deep down, most whites still think of blacks as stupid beasts who threaten their resources through preferential liberal government policies."
Speaking as a white male who, frankly, has as many problems and dislikes of the larger black culture as I do with the larger redneck culture, I am fully prepared to vote for a black candidate and have never in my life had problem one with having a direct supervisor that female or black or both.
In fact, I've got FAR more hostility to the do-gooder progressives a few decades back that thought they knew better than everyone else and, quite unintentionally but culpable nonetheless, of eviscerating the black family.
When you want to talk about dislike race to race, there are most definitely people with the same general color of skin I have that hate people simply based on their skin color. However, and I sense this is similar in the hispanic and black communities, most people have a problem with what they view as allowed to exist within the sub-cultures of the other groups.
There is no "Palin Rise" She was appointed! If ONE man wakes up on the wrong side of the bed then there is NO PALIN. Obama was elected by millions and millions of people from his own party.
There are an estimated 1.5 million Black men in prison and another 3.5 million on probation. Black males make up more than 70 percent of the total prison population, even though they make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.
Although blacks are 12% of the population in reality it is just 2% of the blacks that commit 50% of the murders and a greater percentage of other crimes. Consider: black females - 6%. Blacks from zero yrs. to 12 yrs. and black males from 50-100 years commit an infinitesimal percentage of the crimes. Therefore we are left with two percent. If we eliminate crimes committed by this two percent from the U.S. statistics our country compares very favorably with all Western countries. Fact -- blacks kill 7 times more than whites kill. Fact -- blacks kill whites 20 times more than whites kill blacks. Fact -- blacks mug or commit group crime against whites 50 times more than whites commit against blacks. Fact -- blacks rape white women 2000 (yes 2000) times more than whites rape black women. In New York City, about 300 white women are raped by blacks every year BUT there has not been a black woman raped by a white male in anybody¢s memory (going back over 20 yrs.) Consider: Al Sharpton had to go upstate New York to find a hoax and that was almost 20 years ago. (Source NYT 4/22/05)
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2004 report (released May 2006), blacks commit 54 percent of the homicides in America even though they constitute only 12 percent of the population.
An individual black male is seven times more likely to commit murder than an individual white male. It so happens that black felons commit 43 percent of aggravated assaults, 66 percent of armed robberies, 27 percent of rapes and 85 percent of interracial crimes of violence, mainly against whites (this last figure from a Justice Department report 2003). However, it's not just in the United States. The greatest dicators in recent years have emerged in Africa. People like Idi Amin of Uganda, Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, Mobutu Sese Seko, in Zaire, self-anointed Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Mohammed Saidi Barre in Somalia, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe -- the list is endless.
Blacks are dumber as well, statistics analyzed by the New York Times (July 4, 1999) dispel the poverty argument by establishing that impoverished white children whose parents earn less than $10,000 a year score higher on standardized SAT tests than black children whose parents earn more than $70,000 a year. Also, nearly 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock
Excuse me, Joe, but statistics can be manipulated, and basically just about everything you siad was stupid,ignorant and racist as hell. How can 2% of black people commit 50% of all crimes when we're not even 50% of the population. That just sounds like total BS. I've heard similar BS like what you just spouted for years. FYI, there was white man here in the Detroit area who not only murdered his wife but chopped her body up and left it strewn around different places to make it look like somebody else had done and then lied about it,or course (his sick,perverted.psychopath behind is in jail now for life). My point being that you make it sounds like white people are so damn innocent that they never commit ANY damn crimes. And as for blacks being supposedly dumb, well, if you go to an inner-city school that dosen't have any up-to-date books, no steady supplies, parents who don't care whether you stay in school or not,teachers that don't give a damn about anything but a paycheck, where no one gives a damn whether you learn anything or not---THAT'S what keeps a child from doing their best in school, not their skin color. And last time I looked, Africa wasn't the country in the world who had dictators---Saddam Hussain, Fidel Castro,Kim Il Jung, the premier of China---NONE of them are black, and they're all (or were) dictators. Also, what about that sick perverted white family that held a handicapped black girl hostage for several days in Virginia and repeatedly abused her throughout that time last year? How do you explain them and what THEY did? How do you explain the fact that a LOT of pedophiles seem to be mainly white men? Honestly, I've seen this same racist BS around for years---that's ALL it is, and I don't believe the half of it.
Black people actually go to school,shop, work and bring home food for their families and just regular everyday things---not all of us are in prison or doing some stupid BS that will get us there.