Soccer Dad: Black, white, grey

April 4, 2008

Black, white, grey

In Two Black Americas, columnist Eugene Robinson makes an important observation:

In a sense, then, the most striking measure of how far African Americans have come since 1968 isn't the rise of Barack Obama. It's the story of Stanley O'Neal.
That's not to minimize the prospect that a nation midwifed by slavery could soon have its first black president. But O'Neal did something that would have been equally unimaginable 40 years ago. He rose to become chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street's biggest firms; by all accounts, he was a taskmaster of a boss who cared less about whether subordinates liked him than he did about the bottom line. He placed big bets on mortgage-backed securities, generating record profits for the firm. When he got caught in the mortgage crisis several months ago and was forced to write off billions in losses, he resigned -- and floated back to earth with the help of one of the loveliest golden parachutes Wall Street has seen.

Oh, and his grandfather was born a slave.

I'm not going to say I love Robinson's cynical tone, but his point is essentially correct. And he concludes with

It's misleading, then, to make any general statement about the condition of black Americans without recognizing black America's diversity. Economically speaking, there is one group of black Americans that has achieved success and one that hasn't -- and the distance between those groups is growing. To make more progress toward Martin Luther King's dream, we have to make an honest assessment of how far we've come -- and honestly account for who's been left behind.

When one listens to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, one hears the continued emphasis on racism, but Robinson's essentially arguing that America is pretty much colorblind. If there's a reason to admire Sen. Obama, it's that he's eschewed the language of Sharpton and Jackson - even if he allows his proxies to indulge in it.

However Sen. Obama loses his bearings when he talks about the national conversation on race. Charles Krauthammer observes in the Fabulist vs. the Saint (or here):

In his swoon-inducing Philadelphia speech, Obama had instructed the nation from on high that America was greatly in need of a national conversation on race -- a need curiously absent before his pastor's words sent his campaign into a tailspin -- and that he, Barack Obama, was ready to lead it. Everything was now on the table, except his association with Wright. Because to "play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election" would simply be a "distraction" from the suffering of the American people, which, of course, is the work of the usual suspects: corporate outsourcing and "the special interests in Washington."

The national conversation on race doesn't allow us to ask why behavior and talk - like Rev. Wright's - if displayed by a white person, would place that person outside the bounds of polite society. The conversation on race doesn't allow us to talk about why it's a crisis if whites don't vote for a black candidate but take it in stride when blacks refuse to vote for a white. (Hillary Clinton is carrying the white vote by a large margin, but if she were carrying it by the same proportion that Barack Obama is carrying the black vote, the nomination wouldn't be in question. If Sen. Clinton's white support exceeded Sen. Obama's black support, you can be sure there'd be plenty of discussion about white racism - or at least white resistance to a black candidate.)

Yes whites are the majority in our country. And yes our country has a history of racism. Yet it's hard to say that little has changed when opportunities that weren't available 40 or even 20 years ago. A black child, as much as white child can dream of becoming President or CEO.

UPDATE: A slightly different take at Likelihood of success. He does not agree with my premise of equating black intolerance with white intolerance however he writes:

There is also a flip side to this argument, which is what Shannon is pointing out here. If blacks as a group, at this stage of the game, expect their group identity, their legitimate shared experiences and perceptions, and their interests to be taken seriously, they have got to stop playing the game she has described. Not because I say so, or she does, or a judge will, but because the majority will not have it. The concept that people are wicked for being who they are is not only ironic when applied by blacks, once considered by some satanic themselves simply because of their negritude. It is not only morally and logically unsupportable. It is a loser of an argument. Liberalism is premised largely on guilt; but that much guilt is not being distributed through the water supply.

UPDATE: Juan Williams makes a similar point (or I'd like to think it's similar - via memeorandum)

So far, Mr. Obama has been content to let black people have their vision of him while white people hold to a separate, segregated reality. He is a politician and, unlike King, his goal is winning votes, not changing hearts. Still, it is a key break from the King tradition to sell different messages to different audiences based on race, and to fail to challenge racial divisions in the nation.
Mr. Obama's major speech on race last month was forced from him only after a political crisis erupted: It became widely known that he'd sat for 20 years in the pews of a church where Rev. Jeremiah Wright lashed out at white people. The minister cursed America as worthy of damnation, made lewd suggestions about the nature of President Clinton's relationship with black voters, and embraced the paranoid idea that the white government was spreading AIDS among black people.

Here is where the racial tension at the heart of Mr. Obama's campaign flared into view. He either shared these beliefs or, lacking good judgment, decided it politically expedient for an ambitious young black politician trying to prove his solidarity with all things black, to be associated with these rants. His judgment and leadership on the critical issue of race is in question.

election 2008.