race chasm

Recognizing the Race Chasm

David Sirota — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:52:56 -0400

The issue of race makes a lot of folks uncomfortable - and that's especially true right now when the nation is closer than ever to electing the first black President of the United States. As my new newspaper column this week shows, many Serious People who dominate our political debate have reacted to this historic election and their own queasiness about race by exposing their prejudices.

On one side, you have the ostriches - the political "thinkers" like Reihan Salam and Michael Lind who look at the Race Chasm and pretend it doesn't exist. These people look at a racially polarized election map, and explain it away with either flippant fact-free stories about Hillary Clinton's "waitress-mom sensibility," or wild theories about Northern European migration trends from a century ago. They expect us to forget that most often the simplest explanation is the most obvious - especially when it comes to a black-white racial divide that has been a defining characteristic of American culture since our country's inception.

On the other side you have the minstrel show producers - the media and politicians who are more than thrilled to exploit race and treat African Americans as less than human. My column offers up all sorts of specific examples of this, but I think Keith Woods of the Poynter Institute summed it up best. Appearing on PBS this week, he said:

"You see a full vocabulary for talking about white Americans in this debate, from blue-collar, a euphemism for white blue-collar workers. We talk about lunch-bucket Democrats. We talk about the soccer mom and the NASCAR dad, all of which are euphemisms in the national discourse for white Americans. And then we talk about black people, as though they are all the same, with pretty much all the same views."

Each side is expressing a form of bigotry. In denying the racial divide exists, the ostriches are telling African Americans that racism is just their imagination. In other words, the whitewashing (no pun intended) legitimizes racism by pretending it doesn't exist.

The minstrel show producers are more honest than the ostriches - they are overtly telling African Americans that they are unimportant, even though that's positively false in both the human and political sense.

The silver lining in all of this is the fact that - despite the ostriches - we may start to have a much-needed national conversation about race, to the great consternation of wealthy white pundits like Bill Kristol. As all of this racism oozes out of the political Establishment for all to see, we can recognize just how bigoted American culture is - and recognition is the first step towards addressing a problem.

You can read the whole column at the San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Ft. Collins Coloradoan, In These Times, TruthDig, Credo Action, or Creators. The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

Nightline: Important Questions In the Black Community Aren't "Real"

David Sirota — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:30:14 -0400

Sometimes racial denigration is easy to see - think white police officers in the segregation era using hoses to stop peaceful protests. Other times it is more subtle - like a few days ago on ABC's Nightline.

I don't usually watch the show, but I happened to be flipping through the channels on Tuesday, when I caught the program's predictable piece on Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Here was how correspondent David Wright (no relation to Jeremiah) concluded his piece:

DAVID WRIGHT: Many black leaders had no comment on today's developments. Obama could yet pay a price in the black community.

REVEREND AL SHARPTON: Some are going to agree. I think some are going to disagree vehemently.

DAVID WRIGHT: But the real question now is what do white voters think, especially the white voters of Indiana. They weigh in on Tuesday, and Obama's hoping there's enough time to convince them that he and his controversial pastor have gone their separate ways for good. (emphasis added)

So according to Nightline, there are questions about the painful and deep fissures the Obama-Wright issue is causing in the black community, but those aren't "real." No, "the real question is what do white voters think" - and, according to ABC, they - and only they - "weigh in on Tuesday" (apparently, Indiana's black population doesn't get to weigh in...did someone suspend the Voting Rights Act in Indiana?).

David Wright is white, and probably didn't even have a clue that what he said is a very clear message that he - and the people at Nightline who edited his piece - really don't see black people, or even the black vote, as important - or, in their words, "real." In fact, if they go back and consider this at all, they will probably tell themselves they didn't mean it that way - though that doesn't make it any better. Very often the true beliefs of public figures comes out in Freudian slips.

I mean, it just doesn't get any more overt than that when you think about it. Here is a show that beams out to the entire country, and one of its reporters concluded a piece by telling 37 million African Americans that the issues in their community do not matter - an especially galling message, considering the Obama-Wright controversy is one inherently about tensions within the black community, and is also being exploited by the media and opposing campaigns through not-so-subtle racial politics. And yet, not a single media watchdog group - progressive or otherwise - nor anyone at ABC publicly criticized this. Most likely, no one even noticed.

Sadly, this kind of thing is the norm in American political culture - and particularly in the 2008 presidential campaign, whether through the downplaying of the black vote's importance, or through people like Chris Matthews suggesting that black people aren't "regular people." The political Establishment likes to talk about racial equality and Santa Claus-ify Martin Luther King, but the denigration continues.

Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.

Pennsylvania and the Persistence of the Race Chasm

David Sirota — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:03:52 -0400

A few weeks ago, I published an article in In These Times showing how Hillary Clinton has been winning states almost exclusively in the Race Chasm—states whose populations are more than 6 percent but less than 17 percent black. The results of the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania—a state whose demographics fall squarely in the Race Chasm—continue the trend.

I have hypothesized that the Race Chasm exists because of racial politics. Specifically, in states where there is almost no black population, black-white racial politics has little traction because it isn't part of the political dialect. In states where there is a very large black population, the black vote can offset a racially motivated white vote. But in the Race Chasm, the black vote is too small to offset a racially motivated white vote.

So how prevalent was race as a factor in voting in Pennsylvania? The exit polls suggest that when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) previously said race would be a huge factor, he was absolutely correct. Specifically, page 4 and 5 of the CNN exit poll show a whopping 19 percent of Pennsylvania voters said race was an important factor in their vote, with Clinton winning almost 60 percent of that segment. Broken down further, 13 percent of the white vote said race was a major factor in their vote, with Clinton winning 75 percent of that group.

These are big numbers, especially considering the fact that these numbers only represent voters who are willing to admit to pollsters they are voting on race. The real number is probably much higher, because some voters may not want to disclose such taboo voting habits.

Let me reiterate something I wrote in my original Race Chasm analysis:

Clearly, race is not the only force moving votes. Demographic groups—white, black or any other—do not vote as monoliths. Additionally, the Race Chasm does not mean every white voter who votes against Obama nor every black voter who supports Obama is racially motivated.

However, considering the exit polling and the fact that Pennsylvania falls squarely in the demographic Race Chasm, it is clear that those who continue to pretend race is not a major factor in this campaign are deliberately averting their eyes from a very powerful force in the Democratic primary.

Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.

Race and the White Snob Industry

David Sirota — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:44:18 -0400

Think tank navel-gazer Michael Lind has a very long-winded article in Salon today desperately trying to downplay the issue of race in the 2008 political campaign. Like most white pundits, he can't seem to accept that yes, race plays a factor in American politics. And so he attempts to debunk my straightforward Race Chasm analysis by manufacturing a concept he calls "Greater New England."

Like most self-respecting think-tankers, Lind haughtily self-references, citing a New Republic article quoting himself discussing this "Greater New England" concept. He says this region - not really geographically connected - is that which was "settled by New England Yankees in the 19th century along with culturally similar Germans and Scandinavians." Yes, in one sentence, Lind calls my Race Chasm analysis "nonsense" and then - I'm not kidding - insists the key factor in the campaign is "the number of Yankee pioneers in the 19th century." Yes - according to Lind, the black-white politics that exists in Race Chasm states has no impact on the race, but Scandinavian immigration patterns from 150 years ago do.

Lind goes on to chastise "grotesque and repellent caricatures." At the same time, he makes broad sweeping generalizations claiming that the political culture of, say, Eastern Washington State is basically the same as Vermont. To Lind - the guy who is outraged at "caricatures" and stereotypes, all whites are whites, and all Northern whites have the racial sensibilities of Martin Luther King, and that's the end of it.

Most annoying is Lind's claim that "the Sirota theory also suggests that all white Democrats are at least latent racists." It's just so damn annoying when professional scholars - ie. the people paid to do nothing other than read - refuse to actually, ya know, read what they then bloviate about. Because had Lind read the article, he would have seen this very prominent paragraph:

Clearly, race is not the only force moving votes. Demographic groups -- white, black or any other -- do not vote as monoliths. Additionally, the Race Chasm does not mean every white voter who votes against Obama nor every black voter who supports Obama is racially motivated.

The point - as stated explicitly - is not that all whites are racists, nor that all whites who vote against Obama are racists, nor even that the majority of whites who vote against Obama are racists. The point is that in close elections, a small minority of racially motivated white voters can flip an election - especially in states where a racially motivated black vote is too small to counter that force, and in an election where the white candidate has so clearly tried to inject race into the campaign. To deny that is to do what Lind and so many other white pundits have done: deny that race, racial politics and racism exists in America.

It's hard for me to say what motivates pundits like Lind to so vehemently attempt to divert the conversation from race. Perhaps it is a version of white guilt - some whites feel guilty about racism, and react by pretending it doesn't exist. Maybe it is white insecurity - some whites feel that acknowledging the race divide somehow indicts their own success. Or maybe it is resentment - some whites believe that since they personally are not racists and have had nothing to do with racism, we should deny those ugly forces exist.

What I can say is that the analytical acrobatics being employed to stop a discussion about race are astonishing. The simplest path from point A to point B is a straight line. But when it comes to race, elites like Lind want to insert all sorts of other points to camoflage the issue. To date, not a single critic has been able to indict the the actual data I have presented - not a single one, including Lind. That's because it is cold, hard facts - the kind that can't be challenged even in the fact-free Bush age. And yet, the vicious attacks keep coming. It is as if these people have never actually been to a place where black-white politics really exists (quite possible, considering Washington, though majority black, is so segregated that many parts of the Northwest quadrant can resemble a white-only gated community).

Lind says that those who bring up race are expressing "snobbery." But really - who are the snobs? The people who acknowledge the obvious issue of race that continues to be a major factor in American politics? Or the wealthy white people like Lind who sit in the comfy offices and tell everyone not to talk about race because it offends their genteel sensibilities? I'd say the latter.

Race Chasm Covered by CNN, Denver Post, Portland Oregonian

David Sirota — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:06:21 -0400

My article for In These Times about the Race Chasm has generated a lot of discussion and feedback about race in America - which I'm thrilled about. Race and class are the two issues that the Establishment is least interested in discussing - despite their prominence in our politics. And so if an article I write generates some ferment, that's a good thing - especially if it can also promote the work of a great progressive magazine like In These Times. That's exactly what happened this weekend when the article got some pretty major media coverage.

CNN, for instance, had me on to discuss the Race Chasm on its Newsroom program. You can watch it here:

The Denver Post ran an adapted version of the original Race Chasm article on the front page of its Sunday Perspective section. You can read it here. Similarly, The Portland Oregonian - in advance of the state's upcoming primary - ran an adapted version of the Race Chasm on its Sunday op-ed page. You can read it here.

The key part of my Post/Oregonian piece was the conclusion:

Summing up the right's "don't-ask-don't-tell" attitude when it comes to bigotry, New York Times conservative columnist Bill Kristol said, "The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race." From a cushy office in Washington, D.C. -- one of the most segregated cities in America -- it must be easy for well-heeled white commentators like Kristol to tell the rest of us that race should be ignored. But as the Race Chasm shows, now is precisely the time we need a national conversation about the divisions that still so clearly afflict our country.

Yes, as I said to begin this post, the conservative Establishment really doesn't want to talk about issues like race or class - to the point where that Establishment's spokespeople take to the pages of the New York Times to demand silence. But these are debates that must not be silenced if we are to overcome these divides in the future.