The Britney ad controversy has divided the commentariat into two camps right now concerning the Britney ad and racism. Some say there's nothing racist there at all. That was my first and even second reaction. Others, most eloquently, Josh Marshall, say that the ad is racist, because it evokes ancient fears of Black men winning over attractive white women. I think Marshall is wrong, not unreasonable (given that McCain hired the guy who made the Harold Ford "call me" ads), but wrong nonetheless.
Still, on further reflection, I think the ad is racist. Here's why.
The ad is racist for the simple reason that there is no chance on earth that a 46-year old candidate who had been
- a Harvard Law Review editor,
- a Chicago Law professor that faculty members of all ideologogical stripes were trying to recruit into the tenure-track faculty,
- author of two widely acclaimed non-ghostwritten books,
- author of one of the most well-constructed and memorable convention speeches in history,
- a respected state legislator with 8 years of service, and
- a three-year US Senator
would ever be equated to a glitzy and empty celebrity ...
if he were white.
"Liberal" would be thrown at such a candidate; "elitist" as well; even perhaps "arrogant" or "presumptuous."
But there would be no thought of comparing that candidate to Britney or Paris.
It's that simple.
On an unconscious level, I think that team McCain can't get their heads around the idea that a black man who is as attractive and well spoken as Obama could actually have intellectual heft and substance behind him; they've been conditioned to think that though blacks can talk a pretty good game and be good looking, they can't possibly have the real goods in the form of a subtle intellect and mature judgment. Rather, they can only be perceived as having the goods by guilty white liberals who are too sentimental about affirmative action.
While I could have come to this conclusion in any number of ways, it hit me like a ton of bricks after I clicked on a link on Ben Smith's blog to a Chicago Public Radio show that Obama appeared on in 2001 to discuss the legal history surrounding slavery. I was chuckling to myself at the notion that this guy Obama, who was expressing very thoughtful and nuanced views about the original Constitution and the degree to which it was tainted by the slavery compromise, could be said to have anything in common with our least favorite degenerate blonde ditzes.
Don't get me wrong. I am not arguing that the creators of the McCain ad were consciously stirring subtle racial resentment or even that they had race on their mind when they were making the ad. To the contrary, the ad's creators had very little on their mind. They were so ignorant of their own unconscious biases that they thought it was sufficiently plausible to tag Obama as someone who has no substantive merit -- but who, like Brit and Paris, is famous only for being famous -- that the ad would work.
Furthermore, I am not suggesting that Obama or his campaign even touch the argument I'm making. This is not one of those "backseat campaign strategist" diaries, it's simply an attempt to make sense of what the McCain folks are up to.