Racial, Racial

Last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews kept pressing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to say that a recent third-party ad that attempts to re-ignite the controversy about Barack Obama's connection to the reverend Jeremiah Wright was essentially racist. Blackwell, who is himself African American, didn't budge from his position, which was that Obama went to that church for a long time, that Wright definitely said the vituperative things he said, and that Senator Obama did not disavow his connection to Wright until after he began his Presidential campaign. Matthews kept asking (rhetorically), Shouldn't McCain stop these racist ads or at least condemn them? Blackwell said--quite reasonably, it seemed to me--"You should ask Senator McCain that question."

This finally got it through my thick head that the party playing the race card in this election most often, and with a real loud slap on the table, has been the media. There are those who will not vote for a black person because they are racist. They are who they are. They will admit to this evidently ineradicable bigotry or they won't. Then there are those who are wrestling with their racism and trying to vanquish it. It's like their appendixes -- useless but inside them anyway. Many are older Americans who were brought up with racism. They will admit to this vestigial prejudice or they won't. They will vote for Obama or they won't. Yes, in ads and mailings, the Republicans, or some shady, shadowy friends of theirs, are invoking race, stealthily or not so stealthily. This is racism, and this is important.

But race has been a factor in the public conversation about this election in significant measure because the media have kept hammering away at it, to some extent because they have had to fill the news cycle somehow and try to keep the drama coming. The Bradley Effect has spawned the Bradley Effect Effect -- tedium. "That one"! Oh my God! -- to hear some commentators, it was almost as bad as "Sambo." It's as if opinionators in print, on TV, and online were scientists hoping for a big natural explosion, and when it didn't happen, or not enough of it happened to feed the media kitty, they interfered with the experiment they were observing by enriching the uranium themselves.

These days more than ever before, events and their coverage always form a loop--the Heisenberg Journalism Loop, perhaps, in which reporters affect the stories they are trying to report objectively. Instant coverage of the hilarious and horribly-timed endorsement of John McCain by Dick Cheney made it possible for Barack Obama to get off some terrifically funny lines almost instantly in a speech in Cleveland, which in turn was carried in part by MSNBC. However inevitable this feedback loop is, it seems particularly sad if it creates a situation in which a serious problem that a nation is trying to come to terms with -- its history of racism -- is worsened by the media's pouring gasoline on its smoldering embers.

Comments

[blastit]

well I'm glad that somebody is talking about racism it is real and it exist and if we don't talk about it its never going to get resolved we need to discuss these things honestly as a nation. so in a very real way its good the media is bringing it.

[AlexeiJ]

To help fight anxiety about tonight's outcome, here's some feel-good Obama that you can watch between rounds of phone-banking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf19H_sHMro&fmt=6

[S1m0n]

The folks who got upset over the stuff Wright said did so because it was a black man saying it. It's not difficult to find white, conservative preachers making similar remarks, but no one cares. That's a dog-bites-man story. Both McCain and (especially) Palin have associations with such men.

[yoli647]

As a Puerto Rican woman I cringe everytime the "white" media mentions the work "race", it is not about race, it is about the qualifications of a man to run this country and heal the relationships around the world that Bush has destroyed. Thank you for brining up this topic.

[vegas9999]

THANK YOU!!!!!

[ohioan73]

Screw Blackwell. He's a crook just like every other Ohio politician except a few who are honest and care about people. Those FEW are among the Democrats. I didn't believe that Blackwell said that about Rev. Wright because of race. He's just a crook and a repug, that's all.

[jzucker]

disagree about as vehement a 100% as you can get. Even well-meaning white people have the luxury of casually sweeping aside issues of race. A person of color doesn't have the luxury you have.

[ShinjiIkari]

"There are those who will not vote for a black person because they are racist. They are who they are. They will admit to this bigotry or they won't. There are those who are wrestling with their racism and trying to vanquish it. Many are older Americans who were brought up with racism. They will admit to this prejudice or they won't. They will vote for Obama or they won't. Republicans, or some shady friends of theirs, are invoking race. This is racism, and this is important.

But race has been a factor in this election in significant measure because the media have kept hammering away at it, to some extent because they have had to fill the news cycle somehow and try to keep the drama coming. "

This is horribly cynical: true to an extent, like the media's supposed bias toward violence--"If it bleeds, it leads"--but still based on a twisted view of journalistic cause and effect.

In this case, you CAN'T "ask McCain" because McCain refuses to make himself available to answer the question! He won't let himself be caught admitting to exploiting feelings of white supremacy in a percentage of the American people, even though we see footage from GOP rallies where these feelings are exploited; we see campaign literature and listen to robocalls that exploit these feelings. But the person who is in a position to answer the question either refuses to make himself availaboe or "takes the Fifth."

[lennix]

yes its the msm that keep this going becuase its already been prove that this thing about rev.wright do not work and what black people are realy mad at is not the whites but the blacks like this guy on hard ball he knows how munch danger this is to race so he is look at worst then any white person becuase he dont give a damn about his own people or to put this race issue to rest for all of us he is not a leader but a token for the race haters

[goodmarina]

What do you suggest we do as a nation about the reality of racism?

The Media certainly was complacent and went along w/ the Bush doctorine (without real cause) lock-step-­and-barrel­.

It is about time that The Media start asking those tough questions. It is totally OK to ask follow-up questions such as: why did he say that? what did he mean? how does he know that? etc ...

Isn't that the beauty of living in a democracy?

[FemWorkingClass]

So, when does 'reporting' become 'shaping'? During the sixties 'protests' were staged for maximun effect in news reports. Communist Party inspired protesters were encouraged to promote violence. How does one learn what is happening outside the frame, the box, one sees on TV? These phones that transmit and/or record views and sounds can help, or be part of the shaping.
QUESTION AUTHORITY !

[CitizenE]

Outside the frame: 60s protests of the Viet Nam war were driven by draft age Americans who could find no good reason to be in Viet Nam. The numbers at the protests were so consistently understated in mainstream media that many of us could not read a newspaper for a decade after believing a single word was truly reported. Violence at rallies did not come until after years of police brutality culminating at Kent State. That's not to say there was an absence of violence or even an absence of the Communist Party, but I must say as someone who lived in Berkeley, California, was part of the anti Viet nam War movement, few if any took the Communist party very seriously--Mao's little red book was greeted with the same response as the wild eyed preacher who was a well known fence for stolen watches--and 99% of the violence was police overreaction. What we took seriously was carpet bombing, napalm, the massacres of villages, agent orange, our friends returning from the war seriously screwed up.

[FemWorkingClass]

"vestigial prejudice"
In consciousness raising sessions at high school (forty years ago) one was supposed to learn to question why one thought as one did (underlying assumptions) and examine the logical basis for these thoughts. It is amazing to realize how much you think you know, based on 'hearsay' from family, media and culture, that does not have basis in 'fact'.
"History is written by the winners."