Continuing similar themes from last week:
From Reuters: (In its entirety)
Analysis: Race issues beset Obama’s “post-racial” presidency
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:12pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Many supporters of Barack Obama hoped his election as America’s first black president might herald an era of post-racial politics, but race has been an issue his administration just can’t seem to avoid.
Division and tension between black and white Americans has cropped up repeatedly over Obama’s 18 months in office, hurting his popularity and distracting from his political agenda.
The issue surfaced this week when the Agriculture Department pushed a black official to resign after allegations she discriminated against a white farmer, only to apologize a day later for acting too quickly and without the facts.
Some said the White House was too eager to prove to its critics on the right that it does not favor blacks.
“The Obama administration lost some political capital because they acted without thinking things through,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University.
Obama and race relations have often grabbed headlines.
Last July — in the heat of the White House fight for its healthcare overhaul — when Obama was subjected to scathing criticism for saying police had “acted stupidly” when they arrested Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, on charges he was breaking into his own home.
More recently, the Justice Department dismissed voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, prompting criticism from conservative groups who said the black president was unwilling to prosecute fellow blacks for civil rights violations.
“When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn’t suspect that it’s fake — you should presume that it’s fake, until further evidence becomes available,” columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.
CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS
It has been more than 40 years since landmark U.S. civil rights laws banned discrimination against blacks. But race in America remains a forceful, divisive factor in areas from jobs to educational opportunity to banking and home ownership.
Blacks account for 13 percent of the U.S. population and on average earn less and are more likely to be unemployed than other racial groups. They are also more likely to be arrested and are given harsher sentences.
“Racial conflict is America’s deepest wound, still poorly healed,” columnist Michael Gerson wrote in Wednesday’s Washington Post.
Both the right and left accuse each other of injecting race into the political discourse. Experts say that’s inevitable given Obama’s position as the first non-white U.S. president. Obama’s father was Kenyan and his mother a white American.
This week, Shirley Sherrod, a black official at the Agriculture Department, said her bosses pushed her to quit after conservative media repeatedly broadcast a tape that seemed to show her saying she had discriminated against a white farmer because of his race.
It was later found that the tape had been altered to misrepresent Sherrod’s remarks at a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest black rights advocacy group. She had in fact been saying that race should not matter.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack publicly apologized and the department offered her another job. She said she had not decided whether or not to take it.
DISTRACTION
Whether intended or not, the furor over the Sherrod case distracted media attention on Wednesday from one of Obama’s biggest achievements — his signing of a historic reform of financial regulation that was opposed by conservatives.
Conservatives had linked the tape to the NAACP asking the conservative “Tea Party” political movement to denounce racism by some of its members. Images such as Obama with a bone through his nose and the White House with a lawn full of watermelons are often displayed at Tea Party rallies.
Tea party leaders say the movement is not racist but concede there are racist fringe elements in its membership.
Gillespie said the stakes are higher for Obama because his presidential campaign sought to emphasize that it was would not be bogged down in racial disputes.
“So when Barack Obama got elected … this meant that he wasn’t ‘supposed’ to address racial issues and that if he did discuss racial issues, there would be a whole backlash,” Gillespie said.
Such issues are a distraction from serious problems like racial disparities in U.S. unemployment and education, he said.
(Editing by Kristin Roberts and David Storey)
Is Zengerle right on in her analysis? Are there racial tensions lurking just under the surface of the political debate? If so, how much does it have to do with the dissention we feel today?
I don’t know Patricia Zengerle but she and I have something in common. She is also catching hell from the conservative bloggers. Oh well….
I think that the tensions are there on both sides – particularly and primarily among old geezers who grew up in segregated America. During economic downturns or times of significant social or demographic change many people look for a scapegoat and both political parties count on being able to manipulate this fear of the “other”. If the far right wants to hold the Prez responsible for a few isolated incidents then they can be expected to be held responsible for the racists in their ranks. It works both ways – but it shouldn’t work at all. People should look behind the curtain.
any distraction to derail the Presidency of Obama at any cost – and no cooperation.
That is what the talking heads have been preaching since he was elected. Michael Steele is even calling Afghanistan Obama’s war.
I have come to see it as that also, PAt.
Except that this President has not been above playing his own game of racial politics, starting with the Cambridge police affair and now the Shirley Sherrod incident. It’s a cynical game of rush-to-judgment-and-take-no-prisoners.
The first step in solving anything is defining the problem. Race gets in the way in these discussions. The question people should ask is what is the state of people in poverty (not black, white, hispanic, etc) but people in poverty. Are people in poverty more likely to be “to be arrested and are given harsher sentences” or is that reserved only for blacks? There is no question that blacks occupy a high ratio of people in poverty but by focusing solely on race, we may be missing the real problem.
This country spends about 5-10% of its budget on “welfare” programs. Since 1965, we have spent over $10 trillion in programs considered by many to be “welfare”. That’s about $225,000 or more per person considered in poverty today. Has anyone looked to see whether there has been any difference made? Are there any nonbiased, in-depth studies done to what the funds spent have done?
I have absolutely no problem putting money into helping people in poverty. I do have a problem if we are putting money into things that prevent us from doing things that may work better. It may very well be that our current system is better than anything else we could do, but having worked in government for many years, I have seen first hand how the easy way to work on a problem is to continue a program rather than determine its effectiveness and whether something could be better. Not just cosmetic changes but real change.
We have also been overtaken by economists who have these models that don’t necessarily pan out. My apologies to economists because I think they have a role. But I know that one model says that 40,000 jobs are created for every $1 billion spent in infrastructure. So we spend X billions of dollar expecting to produce an additional 5 million jobs. But that didn’t pan out from what I could see since the President hoped to add 2 million jobs and we obviously didn’t. Also, these 40,000 jobs tend to be temporary short-term jobs and don’t necessarily turn into enduring employment. Certainly in economic crisis we need even short term jobs but did we spend enough in industries that produce enduring employment?
The point is that we have social problems caused by poverty whether race has anything to do with it or not. The race issues are obscuring the problem and thus will not lead to worthwhile solutions.
Wow, long post for me!
Emma, do you really think that was a ‘plot’ re Cambridge or a gaffe? I believe he mispoke did one of those leap to judgement types of things. Again, looking at something from the surface….it did seem stupid to arrest someone in their own home. He did not know the details and being president, should have not commented.
He screwed that up. He apologized and tried to fix it on a public level. What else could he do? I find it amazing how much perfection we expect from presidents.
Rez is the only person who knows the secret here. 😉
I have mixed feelings on all of this. There are more white people on welfare than black people. Of course, there are more white people. What I find maddening is that every child in the United States is offered an education. Yet so many drop out or do something to keep others from learning. There are 2 ways around poverty: being able to work with your back or with your head. Those who haven’t aquired the skills to work with their heads often aren’t willing to work with their backs. I am speaking symbolically of course.
Schools need to provide more vocational training. This is a horrible failure of the American educational system. Somewhere along the way some dufus got the idea that everyone had to know Shakespeare and go to college. We need more plumbers, electricials, auto mechanics and auto body technicians. They don’t need Shakespeare. Thanks NCLB.
I would agree with you, Moon, if Cambridge were an isolated incident. It wasn’t. And poor Shirley Sherrod was just the latest victim of the rush-to-judgment racial chess game.
I blame Breitbart for that one. I don’t feel like I can say a thing here because I leaped right on the band wagon myself. I didn’t realize at the time that Breitbart was involved or I would not have leaped. I think he is a liar and a scum bag having nothing to do with this incident.
I started out with this presidency fairly neutral. That is changing. I find myself defending him because so many are willing to chop at any cost. I am fairly neutral on most presidents. Some stuff they do well, some they screw up. They are human.
Most. It is no secret the one I really liked and moved out of my usual neutral stance over…..
😉 yep and I know you weren’t talking about my post. :).
I wonder if politics are genetic? @Rez
I know insanity is. You get it from your kids.
Or your spouse.
A “post-racial” radical leftist. There’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
What are you talking about slowpoke?
You know, I don’t think I really know what ‘post racial’ means. Is it one of those utopia terms?
Race Card Fraud:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/20/race_card_fraud_106382.html
PT, the race card fraud does exist. We have all heard it at one time or another. However, I am not so sure that in this case, it is accurate.
How many lawn jockeys, fake letters from Ben Jealous, and presidential witch doctors does it take to create racial overtones. Not many. Those kinds of things float around like pollen or fairy dust and coat everything in sight. Notice the lawn jockey is still being discussed, even though you can’t find any traces now. (Wise people picked up a copy before it disappeared.)
Sometimes I think people just use very bad judgement about ‘humor.’ And it bites them each and every time.
No argument MH, the line between poor taste and racism can be a fine one, but I think in this Sherrod case, the jury is still not yet in.
She has gone from racist to modern day Rosa Parks in a day – and then back again. It was her week to shine, yet, according to the Washington Post, was not interviewed on a single major Sunday morning talk-show — why – because of follow-up interviews where she apparantly suggested that Breitbart wants blacks “stuck back in the times of slavery” and attacked Fox News as racist – after the timing of the Fox News releases were reviewed and documented. Fox was at fault for assuming that the NAACP and the White House had done the due dilegence. LOL! See any cover-ups?
Not to end the honeymoon, but I don’t see what Fox and the news releases have to do with anything other than perhaps once again, Faux News is down-playing their part in the entire Shirley Sherrod debacle. Since when does Faux News take its lead from the White House? Bwaaahahahaha.
I know what the time stamps on this blog say. They are irrefutable. Fox Nation had the short version up long before they are admitting to doing so.
How about posting the interview with Dean and Chris Wallace?
BTW I enjoy Mr. Ed. My only gripe is that he should list his show as comedy on MSNBC.
What is it you want posted? Dean who?