Obama's "Race Card" Ploys Somehow Everywhere and Nowhere

Peter Wehner has a column today titled "Obama has Worsened Race Relations". Here are some things in that column:

• A 2009 prediction that, if the President's poll numbers drop, "be prepared for the 'race card' to be played" coupled with an in-advance judgment that any claims of racism over the next eight years "will be ... transparently false".
• The claim that Obama, along with Eric Holder, has "acted in ways that have divided us, stoked resentments, and heightened tensions and mistrust."
• The claim that Obama and Holder "have repeatedly put a racial frame around incidents that have nothing to do with race."
• The claim that Obama and Holder "have sought to exploit grievances rather than overcome them."
• The claim that "Obama, throughout his presidency, has been a master at dividing Americans of every race and class order to advance his own political interests."

Here is something you won't find in Mr. Wehner's column:

• Any actual examples (quotes, statements, policies, announcement -- anything) from President Obama that even supposedly demonstrates the President doing any of these things.

Fancy that.

"Playing with Cards" Now Available (Again)

A few months I posted, and then took down, a draft essay entitled Playing with Cards: Discrimination Claims and the Charge of Bad Faith. It came down at the request of the journal reviewing it, which generally doesn't allow such pre-posting. This policy was unknown to me at the time, since such draft distribution is quite common in law, but I was happy to oblige (and want to thank the journal for its flexibility in not peremptorily rejecting the piece then and there).

In any event, though, the piece has been formally submitted and accepted in Social Theory and Practice, and they have now officially given permission for a pre-publication copy to be placed back online. So for those of you who missed it the first time (or just want to bathe in its glory again), the essay can be found either on SSRN or Academia.edu, as per your preference.

A Deeply Rooted Response

One of my current projects involves exploring the "race card" response to claims of racial injustice. A large part of why that interests me is because it seems to the retort of choice when faced with any -- and I mean any -- allegation that racism might be an issue. Consider the conservative response to President Obama's statement that "deeply rooted" in America. That's a statement that seems banal, bordering on trivial. It doesn't call any specific person racist. It doesn't attack his political opponents as racist. It just acknowledges, in a vague, general way, that racism is significant problem in America and it won't be solved in a day.

And a good portion of the right went ballistic.

"Playing the race card more overtly than ever before" screams Breitbart.

"How many ways can he insult Americans?" demands the American Thinker.

"So much for that post racial America promise," sneers Gateway Pundit, linking to a speech where the President, um, promised no such thing.

In theory, the "race card" complaint should be reserved for situations where a claim of racism is so patently incredible that the only reason one could bring it up is as a distraction. I'm skeptical that, even on those terms, the "race card" response is ever appropriate because I'm skeptical of our pre-discursive intuitions regarding what sorts of racism claims strike as credible or not. But this response illustrates that the issue is not with particular claims, it's with there being a claim at all. Folks like Breitbart complain about the "race card" almost as a matter of reflex; it's the response of first resort no matter what type of claim is being made here. If it can deployed in as innocuous a case as the one at hand -- a general, even platitudinous acknowledgment of the ongoing power of racism -- there's no circumstance where it won't be deployed.

Pointing Fingers

This is literally the sort of thing I joke about. "Haha, some people are so clueless they would think a Black guy pointing his finger is a gang sign." Alas, now it's all over Minneapolis news. They shouldn't have actually needed the photographer (full disclosure: my college buddy) to have to tell them how "pointing" works, but it's journalistic malpractice to continue running with this lunacy.

And yet somehow, even though 3 hours ago this would have been the parody example of "paranoid racism", odds are that I'm going to be the one accused of "playing the race card."

Reflecting on the Race Card

In class yesterday, we discussed "the race card" and its counterpart, "the 'race card' card". To say that someone played "the race card" is to say they made an accusation that something or someone is racist maliciously, in bad faith, or (perhaps) with insufficient evidence. "The 'race card' card", then, is complaining that a statement which allegedly makes an accusation of racism is illegitimate or out-of-bounds as a tool for shunting the discussion away from the merits of the claim.

We talked in class about how the fears which undergird the race card were legitimate. Given (a) the widespread belief that racism is deeply, gravely wrong, and (b) the lack of widespread agreement on what racism is, being tagged with the charge of "racist" has the twin properties of being potentially career-ending and extremely unpredictable. I analogized it to how the death penalty was described in Furman v. Georgia -- akin to being struck by lightning. It is no wonder that people are very anxious around the subject. "The 'race card' card" is an attempt to defuse this seemingly dangerous power.

On the other hand, the attempt to silence "the race card" via "the 'race card' card" is severely problematic on its own. Most obviously, questions about whether something is racist or supports racial inequality are really important, and it is a discussion that needs to be had. We can't say we're trying to build the best, most just country America can be while effectively exiling a huge area of moral dispute from critical inquiry. And while there are legitimate reasons why people are wary of that conversations (see above), there are also illegitimate ones -- namely, people content with the status quo who would rather not see it challenged, rightly or not. The potency of "the 'race card' cad" allows them the ability to permanently defer and thus suppress that discussion.

One bit of evidence for the latter effect is that "the 'race card' card" is deployed exceptionally broadly, even in situations where nobody is being called a racist, even in situations where the prospect of racial injustice isn't on the table. I thought of this while reading this analysis of President Obama's recent polling. The poll notes that Obama's approval ratings are quite low amongst Whites (36/61), while still being relatively high amongst non-Whites (67/32). The piece doesn't say "thus, Whites are racist." It doesn't even really say anything about racial justice issues at all. The only normative conclusion it draws is that, in a country that has a lot of White people, losing Whites badly is not a good sign for one's re-election prospect.

And yet, what was the first response that got broadcast on CNN?

Well, Jack, it’s nice to see CNN is still a valued member of the president’s re-election campaign. Let’s just further divide an already divided country by trying to make this about race. The president is in over his head and people are beginning to realize this administration has only made a bad economy worse.

In effect, this is accusing CNN of playing the "race card" for Obama, simply by virtue of the article making note of a demographic split. That is less indicative of someone genuinely worried about being "hit by lightning", and more someone who wants to shut down a discussion before it starts.

My own views on this topic are close to those expressed by Professor Hirsch, encouraging a default towards discussion and a presumption of good faith. That cuts both ways -- we should assume that a person advocating a policy we believe to have racially unjust effects does not consciously harbor malicious thoughts towards the group in question, but we should also assume that the person making the accusation of potential racial problems is doing so honestly and because the legitimately believe there is a problem that needs addressing.

Has the President Condemned Marx Yet?

Like Pejman Yousefzadeh and (apparently) the rest of the Jewish community, I'm personally outraged that the Obama Administration has yet to discover time travel, and thus was unable or unwilling "to forcefully speak out against instances of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party" -- namely, a statement by Rep. James Moran (D-VA) from September 2007 (over a year before President Obama took office). One would think if you're going to have one keynote example of Obama's supposed unwillingness to take on anti-Semitism, it would be a good one -- "good" defined here as "not requiring one to violate the laws of physics."

Shifting tactics from examples of Democratic anti-Semitism that occurred before Obama took office, Mr. Yousefzadeh then turns to examples that don't involve Democrats, also mentioning a collection of anti-Semitic cartoons posted on "progressive blogs". Alas, most of them show up on Indymedia, which, as the name might hint at, isn't associated with the Democratic Party (of course, even if some random yahoo who identifies as a Democrat says something anti-Semitic, that doesn't actually obliged the President to issue a response). Perhaps we can merge the two complaints together and inquire why the President hasn't come out against Lenin?

And don't get me started on the ridiculous double-standard wherein we can impute the President's "unwillingness" to condemn cartoons published on a website that 99% of Americans have never even heard is evidence of his contempt for Jews, but dare mention* racism amongst the Tea Partiers and you're playing the dreaded Race Card.

* Or, since Mr. Yousefzadeh, despite his recitation of Jews' apparent fear that we'll be "tarred as racist by a charismatic president who is a gifted orator," doesn't actually give an example of President Obama calling anybody -- much less a Tea Partier -- racist, have a "supporter" do it. Apparently, Obama's oratorical skills are so great that they transmute onto all the faithful.

In Good Faith and Bad

David Hirsh is one of those folks who makes me despair of getting tenure, for he's always already said what I was planning to write on. His recent article, Accusations of malicious intent in debates about the Palestine-Israel conflict and about antisemitism The Livingstone Formulation, ‘playing the antisemitism card’ and contesting the boundaries of antiracist discourse, 1 Transversal 47 (2010) is just such a paper (though I'm sure I could have come up with a better title). The piece, which discusses deployments of the "Livingstone Formulation" (basically, that claims of anti-Semitism are bad-faith efforts to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel), is extremely well-done and well-put-together, and is a must-read for anyone who cares about accusations of "card-playing" in racist discourse of any stripe.

Pulling for Cards

Oh, Republicans. One day, they're upset because Democrats want Black people to vote. The next day, they're livid because Obama is purportedly not considering Black candidates for the open SCOTUS seat (as noted, Leah Ward Sears has shown up on several lists of potential nominees, though I don't think she is being considered all that seriously. Ann Claire Williams' name has also bounced across my browser).

What a Strange Hypothetical

DougJ poses the following thought experiment:

Suppose there was a small country in Africa that was deemed vital to American political interests for whatever reasons. Suppose furthermore that it was constantly at war with its non-African neighbors, for whatever reason (maybe the country’s fault to some extent, maybe not). Suppose that African-American families owned the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal and that the heads of the editorial boards of two of the papers were African-American and that the editorial pages of these newspapers consistently expressed support for this small African country, more or less whatever it did (for the sake of accuracy, let’s say the Times was a bit more critical than the others). Suppose further that Ebony and Jet (now owned by an aging Harvard adjunct and someone from Australia) devoted a large part of each issue to describing anyone who criticized this small African country as racist (EDIT: or as a “self-hating African-American”).

People would eventually start to laugh at the “racism” charges, right?

The second thing that hit me upon reading this, which I'm putting first because it's a shorter thought, is the idea that it is particularly suspicious when Black people say things are racist, or Jews say something is anti-Semitic. Doug puts a lot of weight on this, and it is hard to see why -- presumably, if the hypothetical racism allegations regarding this country are so misguided, they should be considered suspect regardless of who was promoting them. I'm not sure what else to take from Doug's hypothetical except that he subscribes wholeheartedly to Professor Bell's rules of racial standing. Or perhaps I should respond with "suppose there was a community widely dominated by non-Jews, that greets every claim that something is anti-Semitic (and some claims that say nothing of the sort) with dismissal and derision. People would eventually start to laugh at the notion that they care about anti-Semitism at all, right?" (The answer, of course, is "wrong").

But what immediately struck me as weird here was this notion that people don't laugh at racism charges in America right now. It's not like we live in an America where, any time someone makes an allegation of racism, everyone immediately takes it seriously and demands accountability from the wrongdoer. Much the opposite -- the standard operating procedure for a significant swath of the American population (including one major political party) is to simply allege the folks are playing the "race card", make jokes about political correctness run amok, and whine about how nobody can say anything that isn't pre-screened for approval by Al Sharpton without being called a racist (cue eyeroll).

What does this tell us? Two things. First, that "ism" charges are considered laughable based on conduct that doesn't even approach Doug's hypothetical. Second, if one asks the purveyors of the "race card card" why they do so, they won't answer "because racism isn't a bad thing". They'll tell you a story very similar to Doug's -- about how the charge of racism has been diluted to non-existence by overuse, how it's important to preserve for "true, serious" cases, how they're merely reacting to aggressive thought-policing by the gatekeepers of acceptable racial discourse.

In other words, the narrative of why racism became laughable is a tale of majoritarian speakers telling themselves a highly distorted story of how "racism" is used as a weapon, so they can justify dismissing it out of hand. Or laugh at it.

One way of exaggerating the prominence of an "ism" charge is to presume that anytime a member of the minority group opposes your position, they are implicitly accusing you of racism/anti-semitism. As Doug laments, "I’ve had it with the fact that every time someone says something that opposes the Israeli far-right that person is labeled as an anti-Semite (EDIT: I forgot about the ones who are labeled self-hating Jews.)"

But if one canvasses the reaction of prominent Jewish organizations, one notices the anti-Semitism charge is pretty absent -- rather mysterious, given its presumed ubiquity. To be sure, many groups are now asking the Obama administration to defuse tensions after having expressed its condemnation. And they might be wrong. But if one looks at those statements -- AIPAC, CPMAJO (no permalink), and the American Jewish Committee -- neither the word, nor anything insinuating it, is present. Indeed, as I noted, a top official at the AJC wrote a furious post in the scandal's aftermath accusing Israel of "taking the US for granted". Those editorials Doug alludes to? Here's the Washington Post, maybe your ctrl-f for anti-Semitism works better than mine. The NYT editorial board hasn't issued a piece on the controversy, but Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd have, both backing tough action towards Israel. Jeffrey Goldberg called Secretary of State Clinton's chew out "smart and necessary". Even Abe Foxman, the particular villain of Doug's play, was clear that he viewed some American reaction to the Israeli move as entirely appropriate and understandable. And that doesn't even get into J Street.

The fundamental premise behind Doug's story -- of anti-Semitism accusations being pervasive and pervasively abused -- is simply wrong. Not only are important players in the Jewish pro-Israel community openly backing the Obama administration, but even those more circumspect simply haven't been accusing anybody of anti-Semitism. So enough with the victimology, already.

Apply Now!

Before it got lost in the archive muck, I wanted to link to this post by the Field Negro documenting what he would do if he actually owned that "race card" everybody assumes Black people have.

Subsuming the Black

My blog overlord, Joe Gandelman, links over to a Rasmussen poll which says that more "voters" found Barack Obama's "dollar bill" comment to be racist than they did John McCain's Britney Spears/Paris Hilton ad. The article is a bit unclear if they asked if voters thought the ad and comment were "racist" or "played the race card", which I think is generally meaningful, but not for the discussion I wish to have. For I think the real story about the Rasmussen poll is being buried here.

As I just said, the article frames the story as most voters (writ large) thinking that Obama's remarks were more racist than McCain's ad. That isn't exactly immaterial, but it hides the fact that this opinion tracks racial lines very closely. In the middle of the article, it is revealed that while just 18% of White voters thought that the McCain ad was racist, 58% of Blacks did. And while 53% of Whites thought Obama's remarks were racist, only 44% of Blacks did.

So in reality, there are at least two stories here. Certainly, from a purely political point of view it matters what the electorate as a totality thinks. But from the view of furthering our understanding of racism and society's perception thereof, the real story is that Blacks and Whites have substantially different ideas of what constitutes something as "racist".

Unfortunately, that second story -- the continuing divide in how Whites and Blacks perceive racism -- gets buried because "the majority" (which, of course, is dominated by Whites) thinks Obama was racist and McCain wasn't. The Black voice gets subsumed by the White majority, and ceases to be a relevant competing view -- it's just the minority (wrong) view. But I think it is very relevant that Blacks consider McCain's ad to be more racist than Obama's comments, and that Whites think the reverse. Is it racial loyalty? Is it a greater perception by Blacks about what racism actually entails? Is it partisanship? Who knows. But it is relevant, and the way the story is being covered hides that fact.

Also, a quick digression: It is interesting to me that White voters considered Obama's words to be racist, given that they don't pass the general threshold of racism in American public discourse, which is that nothing can be racist unless it explicitly and overtly expresses malice and hatred towards a racial group. Obama's comments were way to subtle for that, but presumably were covered under the "Black speaker" exception where anything that a Black person says that ties to race or otherness automatically is presumed to be a playing of the race card. And that gets transformed into "racism" because there is nothing more racist than a Black person ever insinuating that there is anything racist in what White people do.

UPDATE: One Drop at Too Sense has a great post on this topic as well.

Civil Rights Roundup: 08/01/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

The House of Representatives just passed a gender pay equity law, responding (I presume) to the widely derided Ledbetter decision of last year.

The Montgomery County police union is blocking the placement of audio recording devices in squad cars -- a key step in enacted accountability for cops (not to mention protecting them against bogus charges of abuse).

Gay couples are thrilled that Massachusetts has lifted the last barrier to gay marriages in its state.

Colorado prosecutors are treating the recent murder of a transgender woman as a hate crime.

The Boston Globe editorializes against inhumane practices foisted upon illegal immigrant woman who are pregnant or just recently gave birth.

UT-Brownsville has staved off an attempt by the border patrol to erect a fence slicing through the middle of their campus.

Election law experts are very nervous about voter suppression tactics being directed at Black voters.

Texas is number one when it comes to sexual abuse in its juvenile justice system.

The ICE self-deportation plan continues to shine: now they say they want to use ankle bracelets to track the volunteers.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney: "Let's Call 'Sex Tourism' What It Really Is: Slavery."

California unlawfully and involuntarily transfers some of its prisoners to out-of-state facilities.

New Mexico district court rules against the retaliation claim of two people who Wal-Mart refused to hire, allegedly because their parent had previously filed a discrimination charge against the company. The case is EEOC v. Wal-Mart.

Grand Junction, Colorado residents can file civil rights claims again. The satellite office of the state's civil rights division, previously closed due to budget cuts, has been reopened.

Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) continues to show leadership on voter reenfranchisement, but more work remains to be done in the Sunshine State.

A police officer pulled over a legal immigrant, accused him of operating a commercial vehicle without a license because it had a ladder on top of it (he was painting his house with some friends), and then "unleashed a torrent of profanity-laced, anti-immigrant abuse." Unsurprisingly, the man is suing.

The "race card" flap between McCain and Obama has unintentionally put McCain's new support for the Arizona anti-affirmative action initiative back in the public eye.

Identification, Please

Thank you Ann Friedman:

It's high time we acknowledge that every candidate has an identity: a race, a gender, a cultural background. It may not make or break every voter's decision, but a candidate's identity is always an electoral factor -- even when that identity is white and male. Clinton's female supporters and Obama's black supporters don't get enough credit. They are making tough decisions on how to reconcile their political beliefs with their gut reactions upon seeing someone who looks like them up on the dais. In fact, all Democratic voters are wrestling with this. Very few Americans have ever had the opportunity to vote for anyone other than a white man for national office. After so many years with "white male" as the default political identity, we're all suddenly forced to think about how much a candidate's race, gender, and background should matter.

Let's make this election about the issues, everyone says -- and rightfully so. Our presidential nominee should be chosen primarily on the issues. But most of us don't separate issues from identity as cleanly as we'd like to believe. When it comes down to it, everyone is an "identity politics" voter. The problem is that phrase, as commonly used by right-wingers and some on the left who are tone-deaf on issues of race and gender, has the effect of cutting down the political choices and involvement of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians.

After all, Clinton and Obama and their supporters aren't playing "identity politics" any more than John Kerry's supporters did in 2004, or George W. Bush's did in 2000. It's absurd to suggest that the Andover-Yale-Harvard-bred Bush adopting a swagger and thickening his Texas accent, or John Kerry riding a borrowed Harley onto The Tonight Show set, was anything other than identity politics. And after several early primaries, as it became clear that white men most strongly supported John Edwards, nobody accused them of playing identity politics. Nope, that distinction is reserved for people who have historically not been in positions of political power. In short, you can't be a white guy voting for another white guy and still play the identity game.

See also me, back in November, on this same issue.

Race Talk = Race Card

I need help from someone who is more attuned to conservative race discourse to help explain this to me.

Okay, so there has been a bit a flare-up between the camps of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, over statements by a former Clinton-camper (David Geffen) who now is supporting Obama. During the dueling press releases, Obama's camp argued:

"We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because he's black."

Gibbs is not exaggerating, Senator Ford (who is himself Black) most certainly did say just that:

"It's a slim possibility for him to get the nomination, but then everybody else is doomed . . . . Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose - because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything."

Now, merits of the political analysis aside, Ford is basically saying "don't nominate Obama because he's Black."

Picking up the story, Powerline gleefully notes that "Barack Obama is playing the race card against Hillary Clinton!"

My question is: Is there any possible way for a Black public figure in America to talk about race in a manner that is not immediately tarred as "playing the race card"? Up until today, I'd have said, "when they're protesting the argument that Black people shouldn't be nominated for President," but apparently our horizon as been pushed yet further back.

And so, this whole line of argument remains incomprehensible to me.