Frank Rich's Imaginary America
This Sunday, Frank Rich reported some of the most exciting news that has appeared on the pages of the New York Times in a very long time. According to Rich, Americans are on the verge of transcending the racial and cultural rifts that divided them for centuries. There simply aren't "enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall," the former theater critic insisted. This statement is so true that Rich did not even need to bolster it with actual statistical evidence.
Rich went on to announce that the rancorous street fights of the 1960s over militarism and civil rights have been neatly transmuted into "quieter social activism and grand-scale social networking." "The millennials' bottom-up digital superstructure," he wrote, has enabled economically marginalized ghetto dwellers and indignant campus radicals to air their grievances with the simple click of a button. So sit back in your Aeron chair, relax and blithely tend to your Facebook page.
"There is a heartening undertow," Rich assuredly declared. "We know the page will turn."
To support his confident prediction of a coming cultural utopia, and to make a larger point about the supposedly refreshing dynamics of the 2008 presidential campaign, Rich cited a Times report on protests in Harlem against the Sean Bell verdict. "This is not 1968," Rich claimed, "when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence. If you have any doubts, just look (to take a recent example) at the restrained response by New Yorkers, protestors included, to the acquittal of three police officers in the 50-bullet shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell."
Unlike Rich, and what seemed like the entire Times Metro desk, I attended the demonstration that erupted in Jamaica, Queens -- the neighborhood where Bell lived and died -- just hours after the verdict was announced. While this protest did not end violently, it was large, brimming with anger, and anything but restrained. At one point, I found myself in the midst of what seemed certain to become a brawl between a faction of furious protesters and a squadron of cops they had surrounded. It appeared from my vantage point that the cops retreated from the melee only because they were badly outnumbered.
But don't take me at my word. Watch the video I produced about the Sean Bell demonstrations, especially the latter half, which depicts the uncomfortable reality that Rich overlooked in his reductionist portrait of an imaginary post-racial America.
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Rich did not say racism does not exist only that it will be less of a factor than many pundits, like Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts for example, claim that it will.
Where I live near Atlanta my neighborhood - a middle class one- is equally split with black and white professionals. Thirty years ago my neighborhood would not have contained any black residents and 15 years ago only a few. There is still racism all over this country but far less than what we had in 1968 when our family's cleaning lady lived in a house without plumbing. In the seventies each of her children atttended either college or vocational school and have all gone on to careers where they make far more than their mom and where the subject matter of their work goes way beyond cleaning.
Things have gotten way better, Max, and you know it. In my neighborhood, blacks and whites live together peacefully. Black and white kids play together. My church is segregated, and everyone likes it better that way. I know many interracial couples that don't even warrant a second glance. Yes, there's still a lot of racism, but things are way better--and we're all better off because of it.
Rich is right. Blumenthal is wrong.
The protests of last week were very tame compared to protests of 1968. That's a fact. Why would you discredit yourself so much but not accepting that fact? The fact that you point out how the Sean Bell protests were still brimming with anger is a straw man - one that worked on some of the weaker minded commenters on this site that love nothing more than to pounce on any chance to criticize someone in the main stream media regardless of the criticism makes any sense or not.
The protests last week were still nothing compared to the violence in the street that was going on in 1968. Even though you're too young to remember (so am I) is no excuse for not understanding this. Have you not read about the protests and riots of the 60's? Have you never seen footage of the events circa 1968? Frank Rich was offering a nuanced analysis of some of the variables at play in this historic election. And, Ironically he was railing against the main stream media for all the ways in which they've gotten things wrong up until this point. Yet, you just lumped him in with the main stream media and ignored all of that. Not too insightful on your part, I must say.
Gee this was a multicultural protest. A big difference from the 60's.
In a country of 301 million - not everybody is wonderful, intelligent, enlightened or nice.
Discrimination still occurs - but is now mostly illegal.
Gotta keep fighting bigotry --- but some things are changing.
I don't think a re-run of the May 31 1921 Tulsa lynching riot could happen today. Even after 9-11 enraged mobs were not running through American cities murdering any people who looked Arabic.
Governors no longer get elected by threatening blacks with ax handles like Lester Maddox in 1966 Georgia. A non white looking guy with a name like Jindar would not be governor in Louisiana a few decades ago. A guy with a non waspy name like B. Obama would not be a serious contender for president even 10 years ago if some serious change wasn't happening.
Sure there's enclaves of ignorance, but they are not as huge as they used to be and becoming more isolated. It's getting harder to play the race card.
As Yogi Berra would have said - some of the improvements are for the better.
...i think you nailed this one correctly Mr. Blumenthal
More than race, police irresponsibility was the causative factor in the Sean Bell shooting - at least one of the cops was African-American. What white Americans don't realize is that they or their children could be the next Sean Bell. There was widespread shock after the riots at Columbia University in the 60s because excessive force was used against white, middle-class college students. The African-American community has lived with that for years, but the rest of us don't listen.
my question (which I suppose supports Mr. Rich) is this: Does anyone out there really think that there are enough "racist" voters who would otherwise vote democratic to change the outcome in a state should the dems nominate Obama? I personally don't think so, although I have no proof. I think that most people who would be unwilling to vote for a black man, would have permananently left the democratic party a long time ago, and would be just as unlikely to vote for a hillary clinton, or even a john edwards, whose cabinets and/or tickets would surely include people of color. the democratic party has clearly embraced minorities for quite some time now, and those who feel so strongly about race that they would withhold their vote because of a man's race (and I am sure that there are still a significant number) would never have voted for a democrat in the first place. Obama has won the primary in many "lilly white" states, and my suspicion is that is because the racist vote for the most part, lies on the other side of the aisle.
Rich, Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, and the entire MSM attacked in concert to attack Al Gore in 2000 while giving a pass to George W. Bush. And the group again worked as if in a tribe in 2004 working to damage the Kerry campaign. It is no surprise when Rich gets something wrong, it is a surprise when he gets something right.
Rich almost seems to suggest in the excerpts quoted above that blacks can be part of the process as long as they behave themselves. Sometimes anger and militancy is called for. Police should not have a blank check to open fire on unarmed community members. The Obama candidacy is historic, but we still have miles and miles to go.
Firstly, although Rich is a columnist, he does need to make some effort to support his argument with facts, which he did not. I am a big Rich fan but this piece was not one of his best and since he has come out for Obama, he has not been as dynamic a writer. Second, if we are going to elevate this discourse, we have to stop seeing every comment through the prism of pro-obama/
You mirror my feeling exactly about the columnists and the NYTimes. Objectivity should be the realm of the liberal not the grimy parlamentarian tactics of Labor and the Tories. Once we had something better here. It has been forgotten. It is called the Art of compromise and the search for objectivity and consensus. Digoweli
You are a voice of reason in an otherwise unreasonable world. Thanks.
So his proof that there are no racists anymore is that the VICTIMS of racism calmnly protest racist cops and racist court verdicts?
What is forgotten by Rich and his compatriots is the well-documented fact that the number of sexist, misogynist attacks on Hillary Clinton has far surpassed any racist invective targeting Obama. In fact, the violent, sexist language of the hip hop culture, which has admittedly and repeatedly trashed women, permeates every message board on the internet in assaults against Hillary Clinton.
It is also true that a double standard is applied in defining racism. When Obama's black support is mentioned by his campaign, it's just stating the facts. But if the Clinton campaign dares mention white support for her, shouts of racism go up immediately.
The media's collusion with Obama supporters has also been obvious.
A far more nuanced analysis holds that race, gender, sexuality, and class are inextricably linked. See Patricia Williams' recent columns in The Nation on this point. Stop dividing - we need allies -
CI
cynicalidealist,
Williams omits the facts in presenting her theories about class, race, and sex. Read Jonathon Tilove's article on this topic in which he reports the venom that has been unleashed against Hillary Clinton:
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As a feminist who has actively worked for women candidates to Congress -- some successful, some not -- I'm tired of hearing how criticisms of Sen. Clinton are misogynistic attacks. She has NOT lost the nomination because she's a woman. In fact, if you read the message boards, you quickly get the impression that Hillary's support comes from angry, older women whose main argument for her Presidency is that, by God, women deserve it.
Clinton has lost the nomination because she did not conduct herself as a woman of principle nor as a woman with leadership, organizational or management skills.
Not once has Obama maligned women or the women's vote. Clinton, on the other hand, allowed her husband and other surrogates to race-bait early on under the guise of, as you say, "just stating the facts." This culminated with Hillary's own remark that Obama could not get the vote her base of "hard-working Americans, white Americans.
If the media playing Rev. Wright 24/7 is collusion with Obama, I would hate to see what they did when they weren't in cohoots with you. In fact, the media has taken its talking points from Camp Clinton's morning conference calls from Day One.
Whoa! You have got to be kidding. Hillary Clinton is in a dead heat nationally in the Democratic race against Obama. She outdoes Obama in head to head match ups with McCain. According to the latest Times/Bloomberg national poll take a few days before and a few after the IN and NC primaries the American people consider the economony the most important issue, and they trust Clinton more than either Obama or McCain to handle it.
Yet, the media and Obama supporters have been trying like crazy to force her out of the race for the umpteenth time during this campaign.
As far as your accusation that she made a racist comment, I'd like know why it is that when an Obamaphile cites the fact that if he doesn't get the nomination, the black community will sit out the general election, it's not considered racist, but when Clinton simply states the fact that a majority of white blue collar workers support her, everyone eargerly twists her words and starts shouting racism to the rooftops. The double standard here is extremely offensive.
In light of all the above, how can you claim to be a feminist when you're doing your best to undermine the candidacy of the first viable female candidate in the history of the nation?
Yeah, it was the clever "collusion" of the media that led to three weeks of all-Jeremiah Wright-all-the-time reporting on the major cable channels. I guess I just missed that part. Or did I miss all the pundits who believed HRC "inevitable" for so long when that was never the case, if they'd only paid attention to the grassroots.
Both candidates got their fair share of attacks and "free rides" -- the real media bias here was to keep the race going for as long as reasonably possible, not that it's no longer reasonable, they've given up on that.
Despite, or perhaps because, of her vigorous (which is a polite word) campaign, Hillary has lost the nomination. I'm done gloating, because eshalom can get past blaming the media and perhaps consider why his/her candidates resort to demagoguery failed.
Frank Rich never implied that racism has been completely vanquished. His point, I believe, is that we have reached a critical mass in this country where the forces of tolerance and acceptance have become stronger than the forces of prejudice and racism. I think Frank Rich would readily concede that we still have a long way to go before racism is eliminated entirely. Personally, I hope Rich is correct. The proof in the pudding would be the election of Obama as President.
Well stated.
What would prove that sexism and misogyny have been vanquished? The hip-hop culture is noted for language that trashes women, and elements of this violent sexist language used to attack Hillay Clinton can be found on every message board on the internet.
Exactly. Frank Rich is a subtle thinker, savvy observer, sensible writer. He has hope and charm in an age where both are desperately needed.
In case you forgot!
"Ignorance is strength" 1984 G. Orwell
" There simply aren't "enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall..."
I can understand how disappointing this news must be for the Clinton campaign.
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