Is Race an Issue? Are You Kidding?

How strong is the impulse to denial in America? Remarkably, some continue to wonder whether or not race remains an issue in the presidential election. The answer was written on my windshields last week. I have an Obama sign on my front lawn in suburban Minnesota and as of two days ago I also have two cars marked with the large white letters "KKK."

This winter, a wealthy friend treated my wife to a week at a luxury spa. Two very well heeled women who claimed to be registered Democrats confided that as much as they admired Obama, they were not yet ready to vote for a black man.

In a masterful op-ed in today's New York Times, Bob Herbert reminded the Polyannas that there are white voters all over the country with the idea of color stuck in their craw. Having rehearsed some stories, Herbert concludes:

"After many years of watching black candidates run for public office, and paying especially close attention to this year's Democratic primary race, I've developed my own (very arbitrary) rule of thumb regarding the polls in this election:

Take at least two to three points off of Senator Obama's poll numbers, and assume a substantial edge for Senator McCain in the breakdown of the undecided vote.

Using that formula, Barack Obama is behind in the national election right now."

The issue is more complicated than people coming straight out about their biases. Racial consciousness is a very murky business. A few weeks ago, Bill Clinton clenched his teeth, squinched his eyes, and insisted "I'm not a racist." Americans of the Caucasian stripe seem to imagine that we can just roll our eyes back, look around our psyches and decide whether or not we have any of the racist poison in our system. While we may know whether or not we have ever used the N word, it is much more difficult to discern whether or not we have been infected by stereotypes and the old power arrangements.

I have always been a stalwart supporter of civil rights and on paper at least have no grounds for accusing myself of racism. And yet as I wrote in an earlier Huffington Post blog, I know that I have not entirely escaped my history and environment.

As I noted, when I began teaching college I was more inclined to offer extra help to African American students than to their white counterparts. As a coach I was probably more solicitous to black athletes. On a number of occasions, I have caught myself in heightened states of alertness when a black man walked by me at night. Does this make me a racist? No, but it should give me humble pause to understand that I, no less than other baby boomers, am not immune to the brain- tarnishing representations of race to which my generation has been subject.

As I have crossed the fifty-yard line in life I am a less narcissistic and have come to understand that my feelings are not unique. If I have a twinge of a sentiment, I know others have it as well and many in a much higher degree.

Last night, as I listened to Michelle Obama tell her poignant story with perfect timing, my wife handed me a tissue. Yet for all of the heat in my cheeks there was also a nasty part of me that was a little envious. How come she and Obama could do what they did and not I?

Now, I have won the employment lottery and have a wonderful job teaching at a superb college. But if things were otherwise, as they are for so many Americans, I could certainly imagine that tincture of animus entering the voter's booth and blossoming into a perhaps subliminal, "I'll show them." This is what Bob Herbert is afraid of, and right fully so.

Comments

[lovethesinner]

Reasons for HOPE:

It is always darkest, just before the dawn. The only constant in the universe is CHANGE.

O B A M A - B I D E N ' 0 8

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Hope your first sentence is true but I'm sure that the second is. Thanks
Gordon

[BannedFromCommenting]

You know what these White snobby racist people need to think about... How would they vote if they were BLIND??
What if they NEVER saw skin color in their lives? Because they could not??
Makes you realize how racism boils down to a simple issue os MELANIN in the epidermal layers of skin!!! How stupid does racism sound now?? Cuz thats all it is!!!!!

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Good point on th blindness.Thanks. Gordon

[lavndrblue]

I live in suburban Minneapolis as well and the other day a white kid probably around 8 yrs old was riding his bike by my house. I have an Obama sign in my yard and he flipped it off. I stuns me that this child, too young to vote is being indocrinated by the adults in his family. Race is an issue in this election as sad as that is, it's true.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Amazing. When I called the cops they had the gall to tell me that the KKK had nothing to do with the signs. They also egged the outside and get this - inside of my car. Thanks and
best
Gordon

[elifant71]

I am living in the south, and surprisingly enough find that there are more Obama signs posted than anyone elses, but I think I side with the opinion that what is talked about now is not necessarily what is going to happen when the curtain closes and its just you and your conscious making your vote. My husband and I are Edward's supporters turned Clinton turned Obama supporters. I believe I am having the same historic surge that my parents saw in the sixties with MLK and Kennedy. I am in awe that it has taken 45 years to get somewhere that intellectually we should have been in the 1970's. I am hoping that our emotional growth as Americans has finally caught up with the rest of the world. I wait with baited breathe and hope I don't pass out from a lack of oxygen! I want my nephew's and niece's and the children born to my generation to know a colorless society, and see a woman as president in their lifetime and not know the phrase "Glass Ceiling".

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for your uplifting comment. I hope so too!
Gordon

[SEQUOIABISON]

I must admit a tinge of bigotry, I am bigoted against bigots.

[picodegallo54]

once we all realize that no one is 100% free from the tinges of racism, including ourselves, we can then begin to face it openly. as long as we are in states of denial, it will continue to fester and influence how we think and act. accept it, put it in its place. recognize when its rearing its ugly head, and confront it. the person who tells me they don't have a prejudiced bone in their body scares the hell outta me.

[happypup]

I think you are right. You cannot end, confront, control or understand racism until you acknowledge its existence. Obama's 'race speech' should be the first step in our national recognition, and eventual healing process.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Agreed. we need to try and be honest with ourselves about this issue. Thanks
Gordon

[MARTYB]

Can't really blame you about the "higher alertness" at night when passing by a Black, me too and i am
of the same persuasion, sigh. Now that McCain has a "younger" VP all he has to do is start swearing loudly and clearly that he will deport and build a wall between us and Mexico and it will be over folks, another 4 years in a HUGE LANDSLIDE.

[Veman]

As groundbreaking and inspiring as the Dems primaries were, they have also exposed our ever present and ever disappointing limitations as human beings. How limited we are in our ability to see ourselves in others who are different.

"If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?

Is it so hard for us, as humans, to think that a woman could care as much about us though we do not share her gender? Must we persist in thinking that a man of color would neglect the needs of so many to the sole benefit of those who look like him? Why do we insist that I can't care about your well-being simply because you dropped out of high school and I went to college? Or because your rich and I'm poor? Or because you pray to a different God?
How sad that we humans, after thousands of years of "enlightened" civilization, remains so limited in our ability to empathize with one another and cast aside so many meaningless social constructs. One is not moved to be compassionate or feel sympathy or pity or to ameliorate another's plight, if one does not empathize, first.
I will look to those who would break down divisions to lead me. I will look to those in whose eyes I see empathy, to inspire me. We are many and different but, ultimately, we are one.

E PLURIBUS UNUM

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Amen. Thanks for the inspiring post. With you 100 percent.
Gordon

[riverhippie]

The number of white who eill not vote for a black man should cancel out those African Americans who are voting for the first time because a black man is running.

It's true that the Democrats always get a large majority of the black vote. But this year, black turnout will be humongous: mostly because of Barack Obama's race.

I don't condone anyone voting for or against Obama because he's an African American, but I understand why many blacks will do so. I'm disgusted at whates who won't vote for him because he's black -- shallow and stupid.

But I don't think that's what will decide the election. Obama's got a lot of selling to do to moderate Americans.

Can we trust him to take a new course in world politics? Yes. Can we trust him to be tough and not get pushed around by Putin and such? I don't know.

Will raising taxes on the rich and big business make the economy grow? I don't think so.
Will it cost jobs and make prices go up? I hope not, but I think so.

I'm listening Mr. Obama. But you got some explaining top do.

[riverhippie]

Excuse me, it's late and I'm tired.
Corrections.

The number of whites who will not vote...

Whates instead of whites... I kind of like that one.

[qwr]

Well, your tiredness shows in your post. Over ninety percent of blacks voted for Kerry. But somehow over ninety percent of blacks voting for Obama raises your suspicion that it is only race that matters. How do you explain the fact that Condi Rice has a much higher approval rating among whites than blacks? Just what kind of hippie were you anyway?

[tbone99]

The truth is the number of African Americans polled who said they wouldn't vote for a black president is just a couple of points lower than the number of whites.

[riverhippie]

And you believe that?

[CharlieinDenver]

The liberal idealist part of me hopes that race or sex is no longer a factor, that the color of a man's skin is no more and no less than the color of your eyes. That idealist believes in the flag, the American Dream, and those precious words "that all (men) are created equal."
The realist in me, unfortunately, knows better, and has seen much evidence to the contrary. As having Jewish heritage, I've been the recipient of anti-semitism. In my adult life I've seen people of color actively discriminated against, illegally profiled, and treated as 2nd class. As a homosexual, I've been on the wrong side of homophobia. I know exactly what it feels like to feel unsafe in your own city, your own neighborhood. I wasn't fearful of crime but those among me, my neighbors and fellow citizens: those who hate at an exceptionally deep and malevolent level.
To deny this evil is to enable this evil. It was Martin Luther King who said
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. "

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

On the mark. I love the quote that you close with. Thanks
Gordon

[TJoad]

Excellent post. . . (unfortunately)

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Many thanks for taking the time to write.
best,
Gordon

[RApplewhite]

To all the "naysayers, the "I can't vote for" ,and , the "I won't vote for" crowd... continue thinking the way you do...The Republicans have served you well and, if you haven't already, you will soon be sitting down to a banquet of consequences... With not enough money for gas, food, or shelter, because your job as been outsourced, you'll be forced to sell all of that "Made In China" stuff which made you feel so secure.

[rcwblessed]

Great point, RApplewhite. I call it the "cut-off-y­our-nose-t­o spite-your-face syndrome. Many middle and lower class whites (both Republicans and Democrats) will vote for McCain, because he's white vs. Obama being black. It seems this is their only issue on which their votes will be cast. These same voters will totally ignore how they and the country have suffered under GWBush's policies. Does anyone really believe that McCain's administration will be any different, when it's a matter of record that he has voted with Bush's policies 95% of the time. Their policies have done absolutely nothing to help middle and lower class Americans, because that is not the Republican agenda. I guess I will never understand racial hatred of this kind. Sad!

[KingCranky]

Gordon:

I'm not pro-Obama, I'm anti-McCain, and I bashed your post on John Edwards, but that being said, this post is so on-target it's scary.

This white Texas boy absolutely agrees with what one reply said earlier, that Affirmative Action is still badly-needed in our society to even come close to leveling the playing field, and that race is still a huge factor in this country, although I see that ever-so-slowly giving way to a more class-based society, and when more middle-class whites are forced into poverty by corporatist agendas and legal disenfranc­hisement-t­ightening up bankruptcy rules, little ability to file lawsuits against incompetent/malign businesses & doctors-they'll start to turn away from the Republicans, as they'll be on the receiving end of the GOP's tender mercies for a change.

Thankfully, with the almost instant state of communications, and many more aggressive voices against racism, it's no longer so easy to successfully practice harsh bigotry, and much easier to challenge such knuckle-draggers than ever before.

Even though I bashed your Edwards piece, I truly do appreciate that you actually replied to my comments, it's a good sign here at HuffPo when the featured bloggers really interact with their respondents.

Again, excellent post on the topic of race, and while I'm not pro-Obama, I will absolutely attack the rightwings blithering idiocies about him, as they get me more irate than Obama's run towards the right-the FISA & telecom immunity votes-has.

[ToddInGA]

Really wonderful post here, Gordon. As usual.

It's a terrible loss for us as a country that a historically significant step for racial equality like the one we are witnessing is not more prominently part of an intelligent public discussion.

[Deidroni]

I would like to see an Obama ad comparing himself to Tiger Woods. The commercial could convey that what Tiger has done for golf, Barrack will do for "Brand America". Barrck will improve America's image in the world which is necessary for success in the global market. Obama will improve America's image, prestige, and respect in the world which will result in more international commerce and hence improve our economies and our standard of living.

Obama will make a great president.

The Republican brand is dead. No more torture, spying, waring, and intimidation by America.

Vote Democratic.