First, a warning. In this post, I am going to attempt to "go there" on the issue of race in America and how it is reflected in the current campaign. I mean "go there" as in "let's not go there." We need to go there. We're already there, we just don't acknowledge it. I do not imagine that my perspective is universal, nor that I will not offend anyone. But if we don't go there, how can we ever imagine we're going to get at the heart of what is ailing this society?
Second, a disclaimer. I am a white woman in her 30's. Unnervingly, that may make some people more willing to listen to what I have to say than if I were, say, an African-American male. And yet, who knows more about race and racism in America than a person of color? More on this later.
Two things that have had a lot of play in the press the last couple of days have really stuck with me. The first was a lot of commentary accusing the Obama campaign of "playing the race card" in responding to Ferraro, and saying that Obama supporters are "injecting race" into this campaign.
The second is today's report that Hillary Clinton apologized for Bill Clinton's comments about Jesse Jackson in South Carolina by saying:
"I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive. We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama. Anyone who has followed my husband's public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with."
So, let's take these from the top.
I think most of us can see the absurdity of suggesting that, in the Ferraro flack, the Obama campaign introduced the topic of race. This is just factually incorrect, and I'm not going to dwell on it because, frankly, it's too stupid.
However, the issue of "playing the race card" is a real one. It implies that race, like, say, social security, is an issue that one can put on the table and take off in a campaign. But in this country, race is always on the table. It is on the table when we walk down the street and make judgments about whether to hold our valuables close before we even know we're doing it. It is on the table when I can get the attention of the clerk at a motel here in Ann Arbor for assistance when my colleague, an African-American male, better dressed, more distinguished and considerably older than I, cannot.
We liberals like to say we don't see color. But that's baloney. We see it, and we think we can ignore it. But the experience of being a person of color in this society is simply not the same as the experience of caucasians, and to deny that is to deny reality.
Dr. Glenn Singleton once said, "You can't play the race card. Race is the whole deck." He has a point. And in this election, to pretend that race is not a factor unless someone says it is is just absurd. Let's start with the fact that Barack Obama received secret service protection earlier than any presidential candidate in the history of this country except those who already had it before the campaign (like Clinton). I'll give you a hint -- it's not because he's tall that his life is more endangered in this campaign.
To accuse anyone -- anyone -- of playing the race card in this campaign is to deny the simple reality that every voter in America knows that Hillary is white and Barack is a person of color. The fact that we know that indicates that the card has already been played. It is always played in our society. So let's get over ourselves.
Which brings me around to Hillary's "apology."
Apologizing "if anyone was offended" is just about the worst thing you can possibly do if you have offended people. Ditto trying to say that you didn't mean to be offensive. It puts the blame for the offense on the person who was offended rather than on the offender. I can cut Hillary and Bill and every other person in this country a lot of slack for saying offensive things if they're willing to apologize and reflect on how they're going to avoid doing it in the future. But that's not what this was.
The last part of Hillary's apology boggles my mind as well. It is one step removed from "some of my best friends are black." Does she really believe that someone who has done good work on issues of race can't say something racist and have some deep, unconscious racist attitudes? Does this mean that Bill and Hillary can say anything at all, no matter how offensive, and be given a pass? Where does that permission to say stupid things with impunity end? Stereotypes? Epithets?
The judgment of whether a statement is racist and/or offensive lies with the group the statement is made about. If African-American people were offended by the Jesse Jackson comment (or the MLK comment, or Ferraro's comment) then it was offensive. That's the definition of offensive -- that it offends people. White people don't get to decide whether it should be offensive to black people. Who do we think we are?
What Hillary should have said is, "Over the course of this campaign, a number of things have been said that have caused offense to African-Americans and their allies of other races, both by me and by others in my campaign. I deeply regret those statements. As a white woman, I can only begin to understand the hurt that these statements have caused. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from these mistakes, and pledge to make fighting racism a priority, not just in this country, but in my own personal and professional circle."
I'm not holding my breath.
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