Voting on the basis of race and gender

This morning on MSNBC, columnist Richard Cohen and regular contributor Pat Buchanan were arguing about what constitutes "racism" and what is simply "voting for your tribe," as Buchanan called it.

Cohen said that this election exposed the racism that is still in this country but that has not been talked about in a long time. He cites exit polls in many Appalachian states where white voters said race had played a role in their choice of candidates, and of these a majority voted for Hillary Clinton.

Buchanan said he saw no difference between blacks in Philadelphia voting for Barack because he is black and whites in West Virginia voting for Hillary because she is white.

Cohen replied that the difference was that many whites in West Virginia were actually voting against Barack because of his race, while in Philly blacks may have been voting for Barack because of his race, but were not voting against Hillary because of either race or gender.

Pat Buchanan is not the only white commentator, nor white American, who fails to see a distinction between African American citizens voting for a fellow black American and white citizens voting for a fellow white American. They are both examples of voting for your tribe and should be seen as perfectly acceptable, according to Buchanan.

I almost don't know how to respond to this. It's one of those things that no matter how you argue it, the other side simply does not get it. But I will try.

First off, blacks have more often than not voted for white candidates, sometimes because the white candidate was better than the black candidate, sometimes because the white candidate was the only candidate. In presidential contests, there have been very few black candidates an African American could vote for. The fact that for the first time in the history of this country there is the actual possibility that an African American could become president is something extraordinary, and it seems logical to me that a majority (though not all) of African Americans would see this as a historic opportunity to elect one of their own. The large majorities of women who support Hillary Clinton feel exactly the same way about voting for a woman for the first time.

It should be said that African Americans are not voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama just because he is black, but also because he is a gifted candidate. Indeed, he could not have gotten as far as he has were he not extraordinary. The same is true for Hillary Clinton. She could not have gotten as far as she has were she not extremely bright and highly talented. Women and men who voted for Hillary at least in part because they wanted to elect a woman to the presidency are voting honorably. (I might add here that the intelligence and skills of the two Democratic candidates are of a completely different caliber than that of John McCain, who is a mediocre talent at best, no matter how compelling his personal story.)

But somehow voting for Hillary Clinton, or John McCain, or any other white candidate, just because they are white, as voting for John McCain or Mike Huckabee or any other white male, just because they are white and male, has an element of prejudice about it. There's nothing wrong with voting for any candidate because you think they would make a good president, regardless of race or gender, but to vote for one gender or one race because you have a bias against the skin color or anatomy of the other candidate is something different.

Pat Buchanan wants to act as if we are a country with no history of racial hatred and violence. He wants to see the actions, thoughts, and history of white Americans as completely analagous to the actions, thoughts and history of black Americans and this is to completely ignore reality.

Pat knows as well as anyone that this country has a long history of discriminating against people based on the color of their skin, a history that began with white Americans owning African American slaves. Ever since then, it has been a struggle for African Americans to be treated as well as their white counterparts. First slavery had to be outlawed and the slaves emancipated, then segregation eliminated and Jim Crow laws overturned. Then voting rights had to be legally protected. The job isn't finished, however. Deep in the hearts of some people in this country, the color of one's skin determines how worthy a human being you are. This is something that cannot be overcome with laws. It can only be overcome with education and inspiration, and it has not happened yet in many areas of the country, as we have discovered in this primary season.

Those white voters who voted for Hillary Clinton in West Virginia and other Appalachian states, who said race played a role in their vote, were making a statement about their lingering attitude towards people whose skin is dark. Many of these same people would not vote for Hillary Clinton in the Fall were she the Democratic nominee, because they would actually prefer a white male like John McCain. Since they didn't have a white male candidate, they chose a white female candidate. In the lingering caste system they live by, a white male is superior to a white female, but a white female is superior to a black male.

It is different with black voters, who are far more willing to vote for the white candidate. Even the exit polls showed that far more Obama supporters said they would vote for Hillary in the Fall if she were the nominee, than Hillary supporters said they would vote for Barack. This was especially true among voters who said race played a role in their choice of candidate.

Wanting to vote for the first female nominee for president if you are a woman, or the first black nominee for president if you are African American, is understandable. There is nothing prejudiced about it. Blacks have been voting for white presidential nominees for decades and women have been voting for male candidates since 1893, but this is the first year either group has actually had an opportunity to vote for a viable candidate of their race or gender. This year blacks didn't all of a sudden become prejudiced against whites (although Obama's opponents will try to use the comments made by pastors in his former church to make the case that his supporters are "racist") or females prejudiced against males. This is simply the first year these constituencies actually had a choice other than a white male, and they felt pride in those candidates.

Certain groups of white voters, on the other hand, who voted against Obama because of his race, were doing something completely different than voting on the basis of pride in their candidate. They were voting against a candidate because they did not see him as worthy, based only on his race.

If Pat Buchanan cannnot see this, perhaps it is because he shares their prejudice.

Shouldn't we be past this by now?

Being neither African American nor Jewish, I must admit I don't fully understand the depth of feeling that some people have in the racially tinged controversy going on now between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The latest salvos, even as the two candidates made statements yesterday intended to calm things down, have come from two Democratic African American leaders, Charlie Rangel and John Lewis, and a columnist from the Washington Post, who seems intent on accusing Obama of being in league with anti-Semites.

It seemed obvious to me from the beginning that, while the Clintons (yes, you still get two for the price of one) were not saying anything directly detrimental regarding Obama, they felt very threatened by Obama's candidacy, especially in the Black community. They obviously wanted to remind African Americans that white politicians like Hillary Clinton were acceptable, and that one didn't need a black president to achieve all of the objectives of the black community. This is why she reminded them that it was a white president who signed civil rights legislation.

But let's back up a step and look at the timeline of events leading up to this controversy.

In December, 2007, Bill Shaheen, Clinton co-chair, brought up Obama's past "drug use" and said it would be used by Republicans in the general election to suggest he had been a drug dealer as well. The drug dealing reference was interpreted by some as a reference to Obama's race (even though there are probably more white drug dealers than black ones) and so Shaheen resigns and Clinton apologizes.

On Jan. 7, 2008, Bill Clinton called Obama's opposition to the Iraq War a "fairy tale" and, probably because of the demeaning tone in which he said this, angered many African American voters who saw this as an attack on Obama's qualifications to be a candidate. (Clinton is a powerful voice in this country, and as a former president, his words carry much weight. When he attacks his wife's opponent in such an emotional outburst, it is going to get a reaction among those who feel kindly towards that opponent.)

On that same day, Hillary Clinton made her famous remark about the importance of Lyndon Johnson to the civil rights movement and angered more African Americans who overreacted to what she was saying. While she acknowledged Dr. King as the leader of the movement, she said "it took a president to get it [civil rights legislation] done." Since all of our presidents have been white, some people heard her comments as saying that while blacks can demonstrate, whites must legislate. I don't believe that is what she was saying, but I do believe she was trying to downplay the importance of having a black president. The Clintons don't say anything they haven't thought of carefully.

On Jan. 10, 2007: Andrew Cuomo, another famous Clinton supporter, explains Hillary's win in New Hampshire by saying, "you can't shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don't work when you're in someone's living room." The terms "shuck and jive" were deemed offensive and racist by some in the African American community. That same day, a British newspaper says a Clinton advisor referred to Obama as some people's "imaginary hip black friend."

On Jan. 11th, the Obama campaign suggests these remarks are not accidental, but instead part of a pattern, and the offended South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn says he might rethink his neutrality in the South Carolina primary. Hillary Clinton reacts by saying the Obama campaign is making political hay out of some unfortunate and misinterpreted comments.

On Jan. 13th, Clinton goes on Meet the Press and says the Obama campaign is distorting things but on that same day, in South Carolina, BET founder Robert Johnson, on the stage with Hillary Clinton, makes some even more inflammatory remarks, saying that the Clintons were supporting black causes when Obama was (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) "doing something in the neighborhood." Most Obama supporters believe this was a not-so-thinly disguised reference to Obama's admitted drug use as a teenager, though Johnson denies it. Johnson also made a reference to America not needing some "Sidney Poitier guess who's coming to dinner" kind of candidate, and I'll let you all figure out what that meant.

Understandably, Obama's campaign has responded to these comments by Clinton, her husband, and her supporters, and even used them to fund raise. Would any Democrat expect him not to respond after the damage we saw four years ago from the "Swift Boat Veterans?" Obama has to prove he can stand up to overt as well as covert attacks, and it is obvious that many attacks against him, especially from those in his own party, have been covert. If he can't respond quickly to Clinton, how can he respond quickly and effectively to the Republican smear machine? And while I am sure Obama is capitalizing on this politically, I don't think anyone can accuse him of starting the whole sordid mess.

Yet even after yesterday's "truce" between the candidates, you have John Lewis attacking Obama on the News Hour last night and Charlie Rangel calling Obama "stupid" this morning on CNN.

And now this new twist: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has today attacked Obama for his association with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and its minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Wright's daughter is the editor of Trumpet Magazine, a church publication that gave Louis Farrakhan an award, and Rev. Wright has apparently spoken highly of Farrakhan. Since Farrakhan has made some atrocious anti-Semitic statements, Cohen is saying that Obama's association with the Chicago church is troubling, even though there is absolutely nothing in Obama's past or in any of his writings or speeches today associating him in any way with Farrakhan or his viewpoints. Cohen is applying a different standard to Obama than all the other candidates, who have not been asked to distance themselves from opinions of pastors or other people in their churches. Must each candidate's church be examined for evidence of something offensive? If so, the candidates would all be spending time distancing themselves from their churches.

Cohen's column, though, is not about the candidates' religious affiliations, nor about any danger posed to the Jewish community by the candidacy of Obama. It is rather an obvious attempt to discredit Obama and follow up on the mass emails (like the one forwarded by a staffer in the Clinton campaign) saying Obama was Muslim or "part-Muslim" and implying he was therefore an enemy of Christians and Jews. It is an attempt to hurt Obama and help Clinton and most of the Republicans, whom Cohen sees as friendlier to Israel.

Cohen challenged Obama to condemn the actions of his church and now we have this response from the candidate which should stop things, but probably won't:

I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

So where do we go from here? We aren't even two weeks into the primary season and already race has become a huge issue, not only between the candidates and their surrogates, but in the media, which loves to cover the down and dirty aspects of campaigns.

We haven't really come that far, have we? Like ignorant and uneducated throwbacks to the nineteenth century, we are still ready to pit brother against brother over issues of race (and if Hillary Clinton is the nominee we will see attacks based on gender, with sister vs. sister). And our candidates seem to be willing to say and do anything to win – and on this I put more blame on the Clintons than I do on Obama. Obama may have defended himself, his campaign perhaps even overreacting to ambiguous statements, but I simply can't see how he started it. And the acrimony that comes through in the voices of Charlie Rangel and John Lewis, people I admire greatly, when they attack Obama for reacting to what can be characterized as covert smears is something I don't understand. Neither do I understand the condescending way Bill Clinton talks about Obama, unless he is acting as a protective husband defending his wife's honor, something he certainly didn't think about eight years ago. Bill Clinton would do his wife's campaign an enormous service if he would keep his mouth shut. And if she wants to win, she ought to see that he does.

Furthermore, people like Robert Johnson, Charlie Rangel and John Lewis don't help the black community by voicing such anger towards the first viable African American presidential candidate, nor does Richard Cohen help anything with such provocative columns. None of them help unify the country, which interestingly enough is something the man they attack is trying to do.

While not too long ago I was enormously proud to say I belonged to the party that was putting forth the first serious woman candidate and the first serious African American candidate for president, today I am enormously embarrassed to belong to that party, embarrassed to be part of a political system that plays such ugly games, and embarassed to be part of a species that can be so destructive to other members of the species. Maybe tomorrow I'l feel differently, but that's how I feel today.