Jim Webb Offers Nuanced Reading on Race

I just read a great post over at HuffPo about Jim Webb's comments on Morning Joe about the role of white working class voters and Obama's candidacy.

(And, just a plea, Rec this up. Let's elevate the dialogue now...)

Jim Webb's comments on how to interpret the issue of race and Appalachian voters are insightful and smart.  On the one hand, Webb does not disavow the role that race played in Obama's performance in Kentucky and West Virginia.

The Virginia senator suggested that race is indeed a factor in Obama's poor performance among white voters along the east of the country, saying, "we shouldn't be surprised by the way they're voting now."

At the same time, he countered the narrative that the kind of racism in the group is an insurmountable problem for Obama:

Webb sought to explain what motivates Scots-Irish Americans. First, says Webb, it's not a generic race or geographic label, but rather "a very powerful cultural group that's always underestimated, and it's not always in the Appalachian mountains." And the issue is not Obama himself, who Webb thinks is "saying a lot of good things that will appeal to this cultural group in time."

Rather, Webb -- whose previous book Born Fighting explores the effect of Scots-Irish culture on America's formation -- argued that Scots-Irish voters' unwillingness to support Obama is less about the candidate himself, than about a sense of injustice among the community manifested by the government assistance afforded to minorities in the post-Civil Rights Era.

Webb says:

This isn't Selma, 1965. This is a result of how affirmative action, which was basically a justifiable concept when it applied to African Americans, expanded to every single ethnic group in America that was not white, and these were the people who had not received benefits and were not getting anything out of it. And they're basically saying let's pay attention to what has happened to this cultural group in terms of opportunities.

One of the things I love about Webb's analysis is that he removes the generic label "Appalachian" or "White working class," and offers a more specific, and much more respectful, label of "Scot-Irish."  

Additionally, Webb makes it clear that there are things that Obama can do, themes he can address, which will win over some of these voters.  Openly discussing the ways in which some citizens, yes--white citizens--have felt disenfranchised and have not benefited as much from white privilege as some others in the society have, might be a way to begin to heal old wounds.

Webb then goes on to say--which is music to my ears:

Black America and Scots-Irish America are like tortured siblings. They both have long history and they both missed the boat when it came to the larger benefits that a lot of other people were able to receive. There's a saying in the Appalachian mountains that they say to one another, and it's, "if you're poor and white, you're out of sight." ...

If this cultural group could get at the same table as black America you could recharge populist American politics. Because they have so much in common in terms of what they need out of government.

This is the kind of smart, inclusive, and kind analysis that we need from our politicians.  This is a man I'd trust to handle issues related to all kinds of oppressed people.  His approach seems perfectly in sync with the way Obama thinks and confronts difference.  It is open and honest and not simplistic.

There is a saying my mother used to say much like the one Webb quotes: If you're white, you're just right. If you're brown, stick around, if you're black, stay back."  To me, such expressions, as tongue-in-cheek as they are, tap into deeply held feels of disenfranchisement.  It also strikes me as amazing how both groups of people are dealing with their oppression in similar ways without ever talking to each other about it.

As a child born of a black mother and a white father from a family that many people would refer to as "poor white trash," I know firsthand the anger of some working class whites, those Scots, Irish, and German immigrants who for one reason or another got left behind and never quite assimilated, feel about social programs that they felt would never see that some of them were starving too.  I am not apologizing for racism, but I think we must have an open discussion about resources if we want to get over this particular issue.

Once people understand that what matters in your leader is if   your needs get met, your voice heard, and your future improved, I think we'll all get on the same page regardless of history.