Friday, September 19, 2008

A Familiar Story

I didn't use the headline to diminish the importance of this story, brought to my attention by David Weiner. Black voters could be disenfranchised in record numbers in this election.

Andrew Hacker, a professor of political science at Queens College and a best-selling author, has an article in the New York Review of Books about this topic. He speaks to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now about the article.

On the subject of racism, he says:

I’ve lectured, oh, at a hundred colleges, at least. And I’ve discovered that if I, in, say, speaking, use the word “racism” or “racist,” those two six-letter words, the whites in the audience freeze. They don’t want to hear that word. “It’s not me. I respect Colin Powell. I love Oprah Winfrey. I admire Tiger Woods. I’ve got black friends.” You know, all that sort of thing. So, I’ve discovered—maybe it’s a strategic matter—never to use the word “racist,” because I can’t get across what I want to.
Here's the kicker for me, about asking white voters how they will vote (or voted):
[I]f you ask people, whether it’s in a poll or interviewing men or women in the street, they’ll say, “Oh, if I’m opposed to Obama, race has nothing to do with it.” You know, they may talk about his policies, they may talk about his lack of experience, or even, if they want to, they’ll say, “He looks to me like an intellectual snob,” which, by the way, is a nice white term. How often do you hear that blacks are called intellectuals? Anyway, so they’ll use non-racial reasons.
I used the headline "Familiar Story" because for many of us who either are informed or try to stay informed, racism like this is nothing new. Not to justify it, but this country -- even before it was a country -- is an institution of white racism. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and Affirmative Action, has only had 44 years to undo generations of individual attitudes. We all know we can legislate away certain behaviors, but we can't legislate away thought (yet). Having the thoughts in an environment where one's behavior cannot match the thoughts without repercussions causes dissonance that has to be resolved in some way. And one way to do that is to say you'll vote for the black guy, then flip the lever for the white guy once the voting booth curtain is drawn. Another way is to pay the black person less than the white person for the same job, or to deny rental housing to the black family in a white neighborhood, or for the white man to put his arm tightly around his white wife/girlfriend while strolling down the street in front of one or more black men.

On the reverse, blacks in America have the law on their side, but there is the dissonance of how they see the law subtly or even blatantly ignored. I see that resolving itself in black racism: the resentment against whites, what I'll call Jeremiah Wright syndrome. The indisputable anger at the white establishment for encoding a law but looking the other way when the law is skirted, bent, or broken. Often justified, but sometimes reflexive and irrational.

Hopefully, the much-praised Obama "ground game" has found a way to make a dent in these areas. In central Florida, for example, NPR last week reported that Obama precincts were registering tens of thousands of new voters.

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