Hi, I've been lurking for quite a while and registered a few weeks back, but this is my first diary entry. I don't think this is a double post, but please let me know if I'm stepping on anybody's toes. Also, I welcome corrections of any of the information that I post below. Finally, I'll warn you that this diary is quite long: proceed with time on your hands.
So, I've been thinking a lot about 'race,' the 'race card,' and 'racism' in the past few weeks; I'm not the only one. With Reverend Wright's comments making big news, accusations from both Clinton's and Obama's camps flying around about who first played the 'race card,' and Obama's speech calling on us to take the next big step in facing this issue, it's been on everybody's mind.
Many of the claims flying around the blogs are fueled by the passion of one camp or the other's supporters. But much of it is fueled my misinformation, and a healthy dose is fired by misunderstanding. I thought I'd take this chance to weigh in on one aspect of the issue that I have yet to see discussed. If you follow me down, I'll try to be as clear and succinct as possible. (A disclaimer: I'm well aware that racial/ethnic issues in this country extend in many directions beyond the black/white divide. This diary, however, is concerned with that specific divide.)
Confirmation Bias
I've been teaching American Studies in some form or another at the university level for the past ten years, for most of that time outside the US. Foreign students who sign up for American Studies courses or majors tend to have a complicated love/hate relationship with the US (who doesn't!). Speaking generally, they tend to be inspired by the country, amazed by its potential and output (politically, artistically, and so on), but also frustrated by what they see as its flaws and limitations. A whole diary could be devoted to what those are, but one of the biggest problems they tend to have stems from America's racial/ethnic situation. This isn't a new story. During his time in France, Jefferson was repeatedly grilled about the liberty/slavery paradox. For many of my students, learning about Jim Crowe, lynchings, internment camps, broken treaties, etc. causes them a fair amount of grief. They've all heard about slavery, but as the history of racial injustice becomes clearer to them, it tends to dent their "City on Hill" understanding of the country.
I try to address this in a lot of ways. One is to get them to understand the positive evolution of race relations in the country. I was so happy when Obama used the concept of "a more perfect union" in his speech because that's an idea I've long used with my students: the notion that while the US has never been perfect on race, it's continuously gone through the often difficult struggle of trying to get better.
The other main way I try to address it is to get them to see how racial and ethnic prejudice and stereotypes work in their own country. While slavery is certainly a special and specific type of racial injustice, in most countries in the world there is discrimination and even outright racism. I lived for many years in a Central European country with a large Roma population and the conditions in which they live (often institutionally enforced) break one's heart. The poverty, the school segregation, the police brutality all remind one somewhat of what it may have been like in America not too long ago. And even the most intelligent, liberal Central European will often start a sentence on the topic with, "I'm not a racist, but . . ." before launching into a diatribe about the evils of the 'Gypsies.' More than one of my students has told me that Roma are genetically predisposed to steal.
And yet, they don't want to be racist. Like many Americans, they resist the label and use breathtaking feats of gymnastic logic to prove that advocating for separate schools is not racist, and certainly not the same as the Jim Crowe south. So we spend a lot of time talking about how stereotypes are born: where they come from and how they are perpetuated.
I always spend a certain amount of time discussing Confirmation Bias (and herefor an interesting example into how simply and pervasively it works). Psychologists among you can correct me if I get this wrong, but basically Confirmation Bias is the idea that the human mind often looks for patterns in the world that confirm already-held beliefs. It happens in all facets of life, but is particularly pernicious with racial/ethnic stereotypes. An example I use in class has to do with media reports of crime: a burglary is committed and is being reported on the television news. The reporter says something like, "the suspect, a white female in her mid-thirties . . ." and much of the white audience thinks, hmmm, strange, if they think anything about it at all. On the other hand, the reporter says, "the suspect, a black male in his early twenties . . ." and the white audience thinks, there's another one. I simplify, of course. But the gist is that, in the US, there is a racial bias that predisposes many to think of young black men as, if not criminals, possessing criminal intent. Many of us don't want to think this, many try hard not to. But it's a deeply held impression, reinforced repeatedly in entertainment, news media, and, yes, sometimes by real life. Michael Moore does a fine job of bringing the seriousness of this home in the "suspect" montage of his film Bowling for Columbine. (Obviously, there are many different stereotypes about African Americans that are reinforced in this way in addition to the criminal stereotype. One that's been getting a lot of play over the past six months is the Magical Negro.)
Confirmation bias is very powerful, and often happens without us knowing it. In fact, when it does happen, it often brings with it a sense of satisfaction; it's the, 'aha! I knew it!' moment. So the fact that it serves to reinforce racial stereotypes doesn't necessarily make all of us racists. This is what Obama was getting at when he described his grandmother. He wasn't calling her a racist (as some have claimed); he was making an astute and very honest observation about how even the best meaning among us can fall victim to the pervasiveness of structural racism in this country.
This is why I disagree when some claim that Obama was introducing the 'race card' (again!) with his comment about his grandmother. On the contrary, he was making a very specific point about the very real effects of racism and the creation of deeply held stereotypes. The flip side of this, however, would be Bill Shaheen's selling drugs comment. This came on December 12, and was made without any evidence whatsoever. It had already been aired very publicly that Obama, like the current and at least one previous president, had tried drugs. But nowhere had the notion of his selling drugs been raised. When Shaheen brings this up, he's manipulating the way confirmation bias works (whether intentionally, perhaps only he knows. Perhaps). There is already a bias in the minds of much of white America that black men deal drugs; without any evidence, Shaheen ties Obama to that bias. This is an example of playing the 'race card': whereas Obama's grandmother comment was trying to bring negative aspects of race relations in America to light so that they could be discussed in an open way, Shaheen's comment tries to use those negative aspects to create doubt in people's minds and so perpetuates those aspects' very existence.
But What about Jesse Jackson, Jr? Confirmation Bias among Blacks
On January 9, Jesse Jackson, Jr. made some 'questionable' remarksabout Senator Clinton's crying in New Hampshire. For many Clinton supporters, this was an example of the Obama camp introducing the 'race card' because he criticized her for not crying over Hurricane Katrina, thus implying that she doesn't care about black people (never mind that he also questions her not crying about the Iraq war or unemployment).
Let's assume for a minute that Jackson was calling Hillary out for not caring about African Americans (mind you, I don't think that was the case, but I can see how his remarks could be read that way). Obviously, there are also stereotypes of white people among black communities in America. Again, at the risk of simplifying, I would point to one: the notion that the 'man' is actively or passively working against black success. While there are many, black or not, who rail against the 'man,' the use of the term to connote the oppressive power structure ('man's trying to keep me down') has it's roots in African-American culture and history and goes back well into the nineteenth century.
Here's the thing: throughout US history, the (almost completely predominately white) power structure--the 'man'--has given African Americans every reason for distrust. There are the obvious ones, from Slavery to Jim Crowe, from Emmitt Till to Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo. But there are others--many--that are lesser to known to the larger American population. However, because the mainstream media has historically avoided or ignored African-American tragedies, the stories are kept alive among blacks in other ways--by word of mouth, the black press, etc. The very fact that the mainstream media often hasn't reported such stories, or has waited to do so until many years after the fact, serves as a kind of 'proof' that the media is in collusion with the 'man.'
One example that relates somewhat to Katrina: In 1928, the Okeechobee Hurricane (Hurricane San Felipe Segundo) blew through the Carribean and across southern Florida, killing more than 2,000 Americans (more on the islands), over 75% of whom were migrant workers, mostly black. According to wikipedia:
Black workers did most of the cleanup, and the few caskets available for burials were mostly used for the bodies of whites; other bodies were either burned or buried in mass graves. Burials were segregated, and the only mass gravesite to receive a memorial contained only white bodies. The inequity has caused ongoing racial friction that still exists.
Here you have an instance of a massive tragedy affecting mainly black Americans, with the official response being, let's take care of the white victims. (By the way, this incident serves as a central episode in Zora Neale Hurston's excellent novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.) There are others. The point being that after Katrina occurred, when the response was demonstrably slow, when the president's own mother was making remarks about how "better off" the victims were after Katrina came along, Confirmation Bias kicked in among African Americans: it was an, 'aha! I knew it!' moment. The height of this response was probably Kanye West's remark about George Bush not caring about black people. While the truth of the response to Katrina may be more complicated, and while West's comments may have been off the mark, the incident confirmed a centuries-long pattern of treatment of black people at the hands of the (mostly white) American power structure. (This time, lots of white people agreed.) But just like with Obama's grandmother, being affected by confirmation bias in this case does not make those blacks who believe Katrina fits the pattern or who want to talk about that pattern racist.
"The Government Lied about Inventing the HIV Virus"
As most readers of DK know by now, the main comments of Reverend Wright have been taken out of context and so distorted that now they are often completely misquoted by Obama detractors. I've heard many times over the past few weeks that Wright claimed that white people invented AIDS to kill black people. Here's the quotation:
The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.
--Fox News
Not quite the same as claiming 'white people' invented it. But even when Wright has made claims about white people, he's generally very careful to distinguish between white people in general, and the power structure of the US, which is and has been predominantly white.
The two major claims used to paint Obama with guilt by association with Reverend Wright are that Wright's comments are racist and that they are anti-American. Both have been debunked (although not to everybody's standards), but I'd like to address the racist claim in light of this diary. Wright's comments about HIV have been the subject of repeated ridicule in many places, but they also must be placed in context.
First of all, as anybody who remembers the 80s will confirm, the US government's response to the AIDS crisis was incredibly slow and ham-fisted--President Reagan (in)famously made no response at all to the AIDS crisis for over six years, a situation custom made for conspiracy seekers regardless of race or sexual orientation.
Second, there is a history in the US of official collusion with medical experiments involving African Americans under very unethical circumstances. The most famous (but not well known) example being the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment (and here) of the 1930s and 40s:
African American men were being medically examined for syphilis without their knowledge. They thought they were being examined for "bad blood" and didn’t realize they were part of some major research study. After anti-syphilis treatment became available, the men were not given the treatment.
After some of them were supposed to be treated after registering for the military draft, the United States government excluded the men in the study without their knowledge from receiving treatment and from conscription. Later, after penicillin was being widely used to treat syphilis the men in the study still weren’t given the treatment.
Some of these men died, never receiving treatment. Moreover, some of the men’s wives and children got infected because the men weren’t treated.
In addition, there were the North Carolina sterilization programs involving African-American women, which lasted into the 1960s.
In both instances, you have official institutions performing medical procedures on black American citizens, often without those citizens' informed consent, sometimes resulting in death and almost always resulting in negative life altering changes to one's body and mind.
For many in the public, including, ostensibly, Reverend Wright, this only became public information in the 1970s--around the time, incidentally, that Wright was becoming politicized. So here you have a clear instance of a 'cover up.' Combine that with official silence on AIDS for nearly a decade. Wright may be very wrong about the US government's role in the 'creation' of HIV, but he's not wrong about the potential of such a role existing. And in any case, raising the issue isn't racist when the fact is that he's talking about the government, and not white people as a class or group.
What's the Point?
Senator Obama was hardly the first to point out that race is still a complicated and, in many cases, crippling issue in the United States. But when he did so, he did so honestly and with a willingness to open up a complicated and difficult conversation. That is not racist; nor is it playing the 'race card.'' When Jackson and Wright made their respective claims, they may have been misguided, they may have been downright wrong, but they weren't being racist. They were making statements based on years of conditioning that has resulted from incidents occurring very similar to those they were discussing. Obama's right that those reactions are in part based on the past in America and that we need to move on, to work to make a different future. I agree. But that past is real, and until we can move on from it, we need, as a society, to recognize and acknowledge it.
Furthermore, as I've said, responses based on Confirmation Bias are not, inherently racist, whether the response of Obama's grandmother or Reverend Wright.
However, statements that make use of the potential for Confirmation Bias to set in in order to raise the spectre of the old stereotypes, that's a different question. When Shaheen mentions drug dealing in reference to Obama, when Ferraro hints at affirmative action, when Bill Clinton compares the Obama campaign tactics to a mugging, well the 'race card' has come out. Clinton and Ferraro may not be racists--I don't think they are--but as skilled politicians, they are aware of how race can play in America. Unlike Obama, who brought up race reluctantly, but then used it as a moment to call us to be better, these remarks prey on the worst stereotypes and fears of white Americans and reinforce them. This is the very big difference between the two campaigns' handling of race.
Final Thoughts
My point here has not been to paint the Clinton campaign as racist. I don't think it has been. I think it has tried using every conceivable trick to win, including playing the 'race card' on a few occasions. My point has been to try and debunk the notion that Obama's campaign has played the race card and to do so by trying to put some of its more 'controversial' remarks into context. For Obama supporters, that context is most likely clear. But for Clinton supporters and many independents, it is not. And if we're going to win the general election, we need to be able to convince the majority of Clinton's supporters as well as many swing voters of the sincerity of Obama's approach to race during this campaign. I know this has been a very long post (congrats if you're still reading), and I'd love to be able to get all of this down into some easily arguable sound bites. Others with more verbal dexterity than I might be able to do so. But please, share the stories of Okeechobee, Tuskegee, and North Carolina. Please be relentless in dissecting claims of racism. Please, use every opportunity to convince without haranguing, to persuade without shouting down.
I have high hopes for this election, and I think Obama's going to win it, but it's not going to be a cakewalk. And without the middle class, white moderates that Clinton has been so successful with, it may not be possible. It would be tragic if he were to lose based on misunderstanding, misinformation, and a lack of will among these white moderates.
And with that, I'll leave you with some words from Dr. King and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Peace.