OK, if you clicked that link, surely you are aware of the Great Purge of 2011, and resulting Great Boycott of 2011. You may or may not be aware that much of the Sturm und Drang is about the role of race in progressive criticism of President Obama. There were and are a group of Kossacks who believe that race plays a significant role in the heavy fire that is being directed towards the President from the left, some of whom took it upon themselves to "push back" against it. This push back did not for the most part go over well with the alleged perpetrators of these critiques who almost invariably believe that their feelings about the President have nothing to do with his race.
This conflict erupted in almost every rec-listed diary critical of the President, and pretty soon we were into HR battles, calls for the banning of certain posters, and GBCW's. We have no idea why Meteor Blades left, but before he did so, he himself received some criticism for his failure to take appropriate action against certain participants in this battle. With Meteor Blades gone, things escalated and Markos was forced to step in. Step in he did, without nuance or subtlety, and the hammer fell indiscriminately, and, it turns out, disproportionately against members of Black Kos, especially female ones. Thus, the boycott.
Some of my favorite Kossacks are in the group banned, and in the group boycotting, but this particular (half-)black man is not boycotting because I don't see the injustice. I think that everyone who received disciplinary action deserved it, and that it's Kos' right and responsibility to take action countering abuse of his website, however clumsily he might accomplish that.
I do think, however, that we should use the boycott as an opportunity to somewhat more dispassionately discuss the issue of the role of race in criticism of President Obama. Presumably, a number of the posters who might otherwise elevate the temperature in such a discussion are not here this week, and so there exists the possibility of having a discussion that might more productively lead to a common understanding of how to go about criticizing the President in a way that is not perceived as racist.
I do think this is an important discussion, because racial conflict has over the past half-century been a bane of the progressive movement, often preventing us from achieving our goals. If you take a close look at the mid-1960's, when the broad coalition that defeated Jim Crow, elected Kennedy and Johnson (in a landslide), and confronted the military-industrial complex in Vietnam deteriorated into warring factions and a white backlash that elected Richard Nixon twice, and stopped the 1960's social movements in their tracks, you will see racial conflict within the movement as a key factor. Nothing much has changed since then; if progressives and Democrats cannot unite across racial lines, all else is lost.
Coming to a common understanding may also become more important here at Daily Kos in the coming weeks and months as Kos implements the promised new community moderation system that will apparently involve "mini-trials" of alleged violations/violators.
I wrote a diary a few months ago that tried to analyze in some detail the dynamic of differing perceptions of what constitutes racism. In that post, I argued the following as a way to address allegations of racism in a public forum such as this:
I might suggest the following as a "third way" to look at this: an acceptance on both sides that there are in fact certain things that are objectively racist and certain things that are not, and this objective, shared reality exists independent of both the intent of the speaker and the perception of the recipient. And when I say "objective", it's not in the scientific sense, as much as the linguistic sense. Words have meaning only is so far as they are effective at communicating something, and they don't communicate anything if they do not reflect a shared understanding between the speaker and the listener.
That may all be a fancy way of saying that in my view, determining whether a particular comment is racist or not, one must consider not just one point of view, but many: the intent of the speaker, the perception of the listener, and the general understanding of the meaning of the words in question. It's not fair and right to exclude any one of those three sources of information from your analysis. So I disagree with those who would say that white people do not have "equal standing" to engage in a debate about the meaning of an allegedly racist term with members of a minority group. I would also disagree with those who say that if no racism was intended, then it is by definition not racist.
Somewhere in between the intent of the speaker, and the perception of the listener, and the general understanding of words and phrases in the wider world, there has to be an "objective", mediated understanding of whether something is racist or not, and no one has the exclusive right to be the arbiter of that understanding.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
This post will delve into the third aspect of this, the understanding of certain terms in the wider world. Again, I don't think you can look at that factor as dispositive without also looking at the subjective intent of the speaker and the subjective perception of the recipient, but those discussions are inevitably more intimately involved in any one case. This is a chance to look at things in the abstract, without actual subjective real world participants to worry about. Let me also being with a disclaimer and an invitation in that I don't have all of the answers here, and my attempt is to start a discussion that might create a common understanding, and so welcome input.
It's always good in my opinion to start with the easy cases.
1. Using racially derogatory terms in reference to President Obama is racist.
Duh! The "N-word" and President Obama should never appear in the same sentence. Period. If you don't know this already, you may want to think about losing your Daily Kos password. 'Nuff said on that.
2. Criticizing President Obama in terms that reference his race is probably going to be seen as racist.
Clearly in some cases: "That black . . . " -- never appropriate. Yes, he's a black man, but if you are not racist, then his race should have nothing to do with your feelings about his performance as President. There are some nuances here. You do have to consider the following rule:
Members of an ethnic group can talk about fellow members of their own group in racially-loaded terms that non-members of that group cannot.
A black person speaking to another black person could call President Obama "my n-word" or even an "Uncle Tom", but a white person -- not so much. It is what it is, the same way that women sometimes call each other "b's", gays sometimes call each other "f'gs" and so on.
Daily Kos is a predominately white environment. Even if you're black, not everyone else else knows that, so it's probably best for all of us to avoid talking about President Obama in ways that are only appropriate amongst (black) friends.
Negative references to his Kenyan ancestry, while not exactly racial, are close enough to fall into this category. Bill Maher's comment that he thought because Obama was black, that he'd be more "gansta" against the Republicans is probably not appropriate.
Do keep in mind that positive references based on Obama's race are generally acceptable. We don't have to always talk about Obama in non-racial terms. After all, whenever we speak of the "historic" nature of his Presidency, it's usually an explicit reference to the fact that he is the first black President. Clearly there's nothing wrong with that.
But even that can get dicey, however, because you open the door to a negative race-based criticism. Some have argued that President Obama cannot confront the Republicans the way many of us would like because he can't afford to fall into the "angry black man" trap. Well, OK, but does that mean that those of us who want a "fighter" for our side as President should never consider voting for a black man?
My suggestion, and certainly it's up to debate, would be to just avoid all explicit references to race as it relates to the actual performance of President Obama. Yes, his election as historic because of his race, but after that, his race should not be material to the question of whether he's doing his job to our satisfaction or not. But that's just me, others clearly may differ.
3. Negative references to President Obama that involve the color black might be perceived as racist even if they have nothing to do with his race.
A Republican Congressman got into trouble last month by comparing signing on to President Obama's debt ceiling compromise to kicking a "tar baby". Now, taking race out of it, the salient feature of a tar baby as a literary reference is not that it's black, but that it's sticky: if you touch it, you become stuck to it. But because tar baby has also acquired a racial meaning in the wider society, using the term in reference to President Obama is going to be perceived as racist.
Rick Perry similarly raised a slight stink when he appeared to refer to President Obama as a "black cloud" hanging over the nation. It turned out he was talking about the national debt incurred under Obama, but again, you can see that when you use the color "black" and President Obama in the same sentence in a negative way, things get dicey.
4. All negative comments about President Obama's personal qualities are highly suspect.
Much of the push back against the role of race in criticism of President Obama has been along the lines of, "criticize the policy, not the man". I think if you want to stay on the safe side, that might be a good rule. It probably doesn't solve things though. A President's performance is not just the sum of his policies; his personal qualities are very important as well. Leadership. Courage. Integrity. Honesty. Consistency. These are all personal qualities that define a Presidency, at least as much as this or that policy initiative does.
And this is where things get really difficult. The history of race and racism in America is deep and broad, and there are thousands of ostensibly race-neutral terms that have racial connotations. I've learned quite a few new ones just participating in these discussions. Nobody could possibly be aware of them all, but rest assured that it's very likely that those who are looking for signs of racism in criticism of Obama know more of them than you do.
But let's review a couple of the ones that have come up:
"The President has no balls"
This is a tough one. It's obviously sexist in the assumption that those without testicles lack the ability to be tough and courageous leaders, but is it racist? The argument has been that there's a history of black men being castrated in America, and so to refer to a black man as lacking balls essentially plays into that stereotype. As a black man myself, I was never aware of this particular stereotype of black men, that we lack balls, but OK. You decide on this one.
"Barry"
President Obama's childhood nickname, Mareen Dowd used it fairly recently. There's nothing per se racist about calling a person by their childhood nickname, but it does fit into a general history of American racism refusing to accept black men as full-fledged adult citizens. I think Markos himself ("Marky"!) declared it off-limits around here.
I could go on for days here -- there are literally hundreds of ostensibly race-neutral, racially-loaded terms out there -- but I'm running out of time, and I'd like to hear from others. What are some of the ostensibly racially-neutral critiques of Obama that have been alleged to be racially-motivated, and how valid is the concern? Can we start to create a list of what should be off-limits?
11:46 AM PT: I have to run into meetings for the rest of the day, so my apologies for not being able to stay in the discussion. I do wish to reiterate that I only threw out a couple of examples for discussion purposes, and did not mean to endorse any particular view of those examples. I also think that with respect to #4, my "highly suspect" language is being misinterpreted to mean that I think you can't criticize the President personally. I think you can and should be able to do so; I just caution that this is where it often becomes a minefield, so tread lightly! Thanks to all who are participating.
