Eugene Robinson really does not want to go "there." So unfortunately, I have to.
I have been having a reoccurring conversation with my Black friends and family members.
It usually starts with someone announcing out of nowhere: "they're going to kill him. They are setting him up to get shot." There is never any need to explain who the "him" is in that sentence. We all know who is being talked about. This is usually followed by bowed heads and the sounds "hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm."
I found it interesting that Lawrence O'Donnell spoke on Countdown last night about the fact that he had been listening to the reaction to President Obama's speech on black radio. He pointed out that he heard a lot of people calling in to suggest that racism was at the heart of Congressman Wilson's disrespect of the President. Well, duh.
Unfortunately, today I read Eugene Robinson's take on the matter and I find myself cringing on his behalf. Eugene just doesn't want to go there... Instead he calls the Republicans' behavior on Wednesday night "un-american." He then gingerly approaches the third rail of American life in this section of his column:
You will note that I have not yet mentioned race. For the record, I suspect that Obama's race leads some of his critics to feel they have permission to deny him the legitimacy, stature and common courtesy that are any president's due. I can't prove this, however. And if I'm right, what's anybody supposed to do about it? There's no way to compel people to search their souls for traces of conscious or unconscious racial bias. We could have an interesting discussion about the historical image of the black man in American society, but that wouldn't get us any closer to universal health care.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
You can almost hear Robinson fighting with himself as he typed these words. He was already envisioning his appearance on Morning Joe the next day where Mika would suggest that "playing the race card" has no place in the debate. Then Robinson would be cowed and have to spend the next 10 minutes reassuring the good white folks on Morning Joe that he really wasn't suggesting that Wilson was a "racist" but that he was saying that race "had played a role" in the whole episode. One can see why Robinson just doesn't want to go "there."
But poor Eugene is not the only black person in media who doesn't want to go there... Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic shares his perspective on the Wilson affair:
I think a lot of us see a racial angle in a white South Carolina congressman yelling at the President and interrupting his speech to the nation. I'm not prepared to go there. Knowing this country, it's history, and some of South Carolina's particular history, I have my suspicions. But I hate these arguments in which we try to go back and forth over a contention, that's basically unprovable.
What would have happened if Obama was white? The truth is, I don't know. I think we get baited into these debates by people who speak about the black/white divide in a manner that shows a basic ignorance of American history. History chastens us all. And when you see people speaking as if problems integral to the very origins of this country, problems which we compounded over the course of two centuries, should basically be solved in a half of a century, it leads you to speculate.
But the fact is that we aren't mind-readers. Let's stick with what we know, and say the dude did something incredibly stupid. His motivations are between him and his God. He has to sleep with himself at night--not us. He must pay his own debts.
So Coates has his "suspicions" but is "not prepared to go there." He suggests that we cannot prove that Wilson is a racist because we are not "mind-readers." I believe that this is a true cop-out on the part of Coates. In private company among other Black people, I am certain that his "suspicions" would have been expressed less timidly. I anticipate that Jonathan Capehart will be on the tevee tomorrow tip-toeing and tap dancing around reality too.
On Tuesday, I posted a diary saying that Barack Obama is a victim of the "Black Tax" and then the next day Rep. Wilson straight up disrespected him in the Chamber. Here is my black tax diary...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
So this is why Black Folks Tend to Shout... It just gets to be too much. Yesterday unbelievably Joe Wilson took to Youtube to suggest that he "would not be muzzled." No indeed. The people who will remain muzzled (at least in mixed company) are going to be us Black Folks who really want to SHOUT.