"just keep wearing your Obama '08 shirt and you can have a free pass on racial politics."

[wndycty]

I'm Not a Racist...I'm a Democrat.
posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell on 09/22/2009 @ 9:55pm

-snip-

I recognize that this is where the public conversation falls apart. I am not claiming that President Clinton is a racist who harbors negative racial animus toward black people. I suspect the opposite is true. Clinton has an amazing cultural ease and familiarity with black people. It is one of the reasons he was so wildly popular among black voters despite his often troubling policies. I've seen President Clinton sing, from memory, all the verses to James Weldon Johnson's Lift Every Voice and Sing. I bet that fewer than 50% of the Congressional Black Caucus knows this unofficial black national anthem by heart.

But President Clinton's cultural ease, personal familiarity, and even physical proximity to blackness and black people is not the point, his willingness to deploy racial strategies for political purposes and to create policies with a disparate racial impact is the point.

-snip-
But when I heard President Clinton's revision of his own political racial history it struck me that the biggest issue may not be uncovering racism on the Right, it may be that we are providing cover for racism on the Left. If opposing Obama means you are a racist, then supporting Obama must mean you are not a racist. No need to worry with substantive efforts to compensate historic injustices or address contemporary inequalities, just keep wearing your Obama '08 shirt and you can have a free pass on racial politics.

Racism is not the the sole domain of Republicans, Conservatives or Southerners. Not all racists pepper their conversation with the N-word or secretly desire the extermination of black and brown people. Racism is complex, multi-layered, and deeply rooted in the American story. Name calling is not helpful in uprooting racism, but neither is a false sense of moral superiority.
-end-

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/476388/i_m_not_a_racist_i_m_a_democrat

[PretzelWarrior]

1. snore.

[Forkboy]

4. Not enough of the word "Fuck" in it for you?

[PretzelWarrior]

5. no. it's some writer looking for an edgy angle. it's bullsh!t.

[Raineyb]

13. It most certainly is not

In fact, I believe there have been several people making the same point that Professor Lacewell makes about the left and racism right here on this board.

That you refuse to even read it only bolsters that point.

[sentelle]

2. I would suggest

That on occasion people be allowed to take off their Obama '08 shirts, if only to put it in the wash. Otherwise, it might walk away on its own.....

Although, if it could vote, it'd make life a whole hell of a lot easier.

[jonnyblitz]

3. good read. thanks for posting. k & r nt

[NYC_SKP]

6. "Melissa Harris-Lacewell"??? Oh Puh-leeze. That hyphenated double last name bullshit is so...

last millenium.

Harris, Lacewell, I don't care. Pick one and run with it, darling.

[jonestonesusa]

8. No response to the article's argument, but hatin' on her last name?

I bet your primate buddy could come up with a better response.

[NYC_SKP]

9. I didn't get my usual noon time play break, that always makes me nasty.

I'm actually a fan of Melissa.

She was a hoot on Maddow talking about Steele's plan to reach out to the hip-hop demographic.



I was testy and too harsh, I was.

[Karenina]

7. Great piece! She's a very thoughtful, well-educated woman.

[angee_is_mad]

10. Tell it sista

Preach it like it I T is!!

[firedupdem]

11. Rec'd...good reading n/t

[Number23]

12. Can't rec this fast enough. n/t

[Raineyb]

14. K&R

Hopefully this won't sink like a stone.

[Raineyb]

15. This line is the key to figuring out what happened during the primaries

"But President Clinton's cultural ease, personal familiarity, and even physical proximity to blackness and black people is not the point, his willingness to deploy racial strategies for political purposes and to create policies with a disparate racial impact is the point."

I think this is the single most important line in explaining why so many black people had had it with the Clintons in '08.

[burning rain]

16. To understand this article, it helps to know H-L doesn't hew to....

the most common definition of racism. For her it isn't about an individual's animosity toward people of this or that race, but the willingness to deploy political strategies that perpetuate inequalities that fall largely along racial lines. It's at once a fruitful and problematic redefinition of racism--problematic because it could serve to destigmatize racism by largely merging it with classism and plutocracy prettied up with a little racial diversity among the overdogs. And classism and plutocracy, unfortunately, are pretty well accepted in the US, even among Democrats.

[dsc]

17. Gee and when we make a similar argument about Obama and gays

we are called racist, go figure.