Racism and the Race

Brazilian and US race relations are becoming more and more alike:

So why is the presidential race a statistical dead heat? The pundits have offered a host of reasons, but one in particular deserves more exploration: racism.

Welcome to the murky world of modern racism, where most of the open animus has been replaced by a shadowy bias that is difficult to measure. As Obama gently put it in his race speech, today’s racial “resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company.” However, they can be — and possibly will be — expressed in the privacy of the voting booth.

By NY Times Op-Ed Columnist CHARLES M. BLOW

This is supposed to be the Democrats’ year of destiny. Bush is hobbling out of office, the economy is in the toilet, voters are sick of the war and the party’s wunderkind candidate is raking in money hand over fist.

So why is the presidential race a statistical dead heat? The pundits have offered a host of reasons, but one in particular deserves more exploration: racism.

Barack Obama’s candidacy has shed some light on the extremes of racism in America — how much has dissipated (especially among younger people) and how much remains.

According to a July New York Times/CBS News poll, when whites were asked whether they would be willing to vote for a black candidate, 5 percent confessed that they would not. That’s not so bad, right? But wait. The pollsters then rephrased the question to get a more accurate portrait of the sentiment. They asked the same whites if most of the people they knew would vote for a black candidate. Nineteen percent said that those they knew would not. Depending on how many people they know and how well they know them, this universe of voters could be substantial. That’s bad.

Welcome to the murky world of modern racism, where most of the open animus has been replaced by a shadowy bias that is difficult to measure. As Obama gently put it in his race speech, today’s racial “resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company.” However, they can be — and possibly will be — expressed in the privacy of the voting booth.

If the percentage of white voters who cannot bring themselves to vote for a black candidate were only 15 percent, that would be more than all black voters combined. (Coincidentally, it also would be more than all voters under 24 years old.) That amounts to a racial advantage for John McCain.

And this sentiment stretched across ideological lines. Just as many white independents as Republicans said that most of the people they knew would not vote for a black candidate, and white Democrats were not far behind. Also, remember that during the Democratic primaries, up to 20 percent of white voters in some states said that the race of the candidate was important to them. Few of those people voted for the black guy.

Some might say that turnabout is fair play, citing the fact that 89 percent of blacks say they plan to vote for Obama. That level of support represents a racial advantage for him, too, right? Not necessarily. Blacks overwhelmingly vote Democratic in the general election anyway. According to CNN exit polls John Kerry got 88 percent of the black vote in 2004.

Think racism isn’t a major factor in this election? Think again.

Charles Blow's column will appear on alternate Saturdays. E-mail: chblow@nytimes.com.

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Poster for Seminar on Manuel Querino

See provisional program here (in Portuguese)

Brief autobiography of Manuel Querino

Manuel Querino hand-wrote his own short biography - the original can been found in the Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia's archives. Here is a scanned copy on a PDF file (in the original Portuguese)

One Year After the Jena Tree Was Cut, Little Progress Has Been Made

Thursday 31 July 2008

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by: David A. Love, The Progressive Media Project


We have made some progress since the ugly incidents in Jena, La. But we still have a long way to go to make the noose a thing of the past.

On August 31, 2006, a black student at Jena High School asked the principal if he could have permission to sit under the "white tree," the tree where white students typically congregated. The principal told the student to sit wherever he liked. The student and his friends decided to sit under the white tree.

The next day, three nooses - a potent symbol of racial hate - were found hanging from the tree, the act of three white students at the high school. This prompted a protest under the tree by the school's black students.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters told the black students they were making too much of the "prank."

"I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen," Walters told the students.

It was a vow that Walters made good on.

After a fight on December 4, 2006, between black students and one of the white students who had done some of the racial taunting, Walters charged six black students with attempted second-degree murder.

Mychal Bell, 17, the first of the students to stand trial, eventually pled guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility with credit for time served. Charges were reduced for a number of the other men as well, but their cases are on hold as an appeals court decides whether to remove the judge in the case for showing bias in the proceedings.

On July 31, 2007, the tree was cut down. And on Sept. 20, tens of thousands of marchers converged on the town of 3,000 residents to protest racial discrimination in Jena's legal system.

But those who believe that the Jena was an isolated incident should give it a second thought.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of noose hangings since the Jena incident, according to DiversityInc magazine. It notes about 80 noose incidents in schools, government offices, the workplace and public places in the last 11 months. And according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in America has increased from 602 groups in 2000 to 844 in 2006.

The good news is that Louisiana, New York and Connecticut have made noose hanging an offense punishable by prison. Hopefully, other states will follow suit.

But it will be difficult to do so if broadcasters keep tossing the word around. In January 2008, when Golf Channel commentator Nick Faldo suggested that other professional golf players should "gang up" on Tiger Woods to beat him, broadcaster Kelly Tilghman added that they should "lynch him in a back alley."

And on Feb. 19, 2008, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said on his radio program: "I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels - that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever - then that's legit. We'll track it down."

We should have zero tolerance for nooses in America. And lynching is not a metaphor to be thrown around lightly.

Some 3,500 blacks were lynched in this country between 1882 and 1968.

This should not be the stuff of pranks or cranks.

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David A. Love is a lawyer and writer based in Philadelphia. His blog is davidalove.com. He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

Barbershop poster (from the USA)

obama fro!, originally uploaded by boxeswithknobs.

Racial fantasy factor runs rampant in US presidential campaign

Op-Ed Columnist

Running While Black

By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 2, 2008

"Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as 'the American president Americans have been waiting for.'"

RACY

From Mike Allen's Politico Playbook

RACY

The NYT's COOPER looks at the Obama camp's delicate balance on race.

'As Mr. Obama carefully addressed the issue on Friday, his campaign's formidable network of grass-roots activists, and the Web sites crafted to give them 'talking points' to carry into battle against Republicans, remained uncharacteristically quiet on the matter, even though the issue dominated political blogs for a second straight day.

'David Plouffe, the campaign manager, talked briefly, and not too eagerly, about it. And the campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, blamed the Republicans for misconstruing Mr. Obama's words as an attack, and quickly moved on.'

WASHPOST's Weisman and Murray report was the subtext - and sometimes the chief distraction - on the campaign trail Friday.

'Yesterday showed how hard it will be for both to avoid the issue now that it has burst into the public sphere. Obama was heckled in St. Petersburg by black nationalists who accused him of not doing enough for the African American community. In Florida's Panhandle, McCain faced a barrage of questions from reporters and asserted that he is not running a negative campaign 'in the slightest,' even as his aides launched their latest online attack ad mocking Obama as a candidate with a messiah complex.'

The balance transcends rhetoric. As the AP points out, Obama opposed offering 'reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.'

'The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.'
This position does not sit well with the NAACP and many Democratic lawmakers.
NYT's Bob Herbert accuses McCain of a nasty style of race-baiting.

'Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.'

'The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, 'Harold, call me.' ...

'The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It's driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches - a man who obviously does not know his place.'

Tad Devine, speaking to the WASHPOST, says it's imperative Obama push back (on the race topic).
'Race is a central fact in the campaign. I think it's inescapable,' said Tad Devine, a strategist for Sen. John Kerry's campaign in 2004. 'It's smart to push back and push back hard. He's got to make sure that people's antennae are up and that the McCain camp cannot be allowed to send messages to people who are receptive to those messages.'