For this newest entry in our blog, we need look no further than our own fine city of Atlanta, where, this year, a new mayor will be elected in the fall. Some, like me, view this is a chance to get new leadership in the door—to break a power structure that has thrived on cronyism for a long time; to get someone in the mayor’s office who can fix the budget; who can address a recent and disturbing property crime increase; to ensure a water supply for residents, since Lake Lanier is being taken away; and to promote the city in a real way. (The current mayor has been kind of a mixed bag. She’s leaving us all with a faint feeling of disappointment, possibly as a result of very high expectations.)
In fact, things have been trending in the direction of a break from the old guard—which has frightened a group calling itself the “Black Leadership Forum,” which recently disseminated a message written by two Clark Atlanta University political science professors espousing the “Black point of view.” Apparently, the black agenda is—not to put too fine a point on it—all about making sure a white mayoral candidate (of which there is only one) is not elected mayor. Never mind the issues—the important thing is that the mayor is black. Period.
I’m not joking. The link is here.
What’s more, when the authors—the two Clark Atlanta professors—were revealed, they refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong about what they wrote. Here’s a quote from their joint statement:
The recent suggestion that it is somehow racist to highlight an agenda that promotes the interests of African American voters is patently false. It is a red herring that polarizes debate about electing the most qualified candidate for Atlanta’s next mayor.
The need for African American voter and taxpayer interests to be addressed by all candidates is just as legitimate as it is for candidates to respond to issues raised by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Stand-Up, Central Atlanta Progress or any Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU). . . We stand by our belief that “a black agenda would enable African American interests to be respected by any administration.” The interests of African American voters are just as legitimate as other Atlanta voters, and the notion that we must apologize for highlighting those interests is absurd.
* * *
Dear Esteemed Professors:
I urge you to set aside your vested political interests for a moment for the sake of progressive racial relations, intellectual honesty, and decency. What you have said is tantamount to what a lot of white people said in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It is racism, pure and simple. You may glean this from a simple exercise: substitute the word “white” for the word “black” and the words “Aryan American” for the words “African American” in your message. Read it back. Think hard. Swallow hard. Then apologize.
Here’s an example:
Original:
“1. The view that the times are too serious to stand on the sidelines is absolutely correct from the perspective of a black mayor at all cost. In fact, if a white candidate were to win the 2009 mayoral race, it would be just as significant in political terms as Maynard Jackson’s victory in 1973.”
becomes:
“1. The view that the times are too serious to stand on the sidelines is absolutely correct from the perspective of a white mayor at all cost. In fact, if a black candidate were to win the 2009 mayoral race, it would be just as significant in political terms as [analogy fails here—but really gosh darn significant].”
I ask you this: what would your reaction have been to a leaked memo promoting “white interests," a “white mayor at all costs” agenda, and the promotion of a unified “white” front in order to tank any and all black candidates? More than charges of racism, which would be true, wouldn’t the greater charge be that such an agenda misses the point? We’ve got a lot of problems in this city. We don’t need another one—racial tension.
Also, please do not confuse a “black agenda” with your own entrenched political interests—you call the government of the city from 1973 on—and these are your own words—a “Machine.” Well, maybe it’s time for this particular political machine to be traded in—cash for clunkers. It’s time for a new political order in the city, a not exactly post-racial order but one that is not driven by race, but by solutions to problems.
I voted for Barack Obama (who is half-white / half-black) because I felt he was the right leader for our country, at the right time, with the right ideas. Why did you vote for him? Because he is “black?” Do you really think that the election of a white mayor today would return Atlanta to pre-1973 race relations? C’mon. We know what it’s about—power, and the retaining of it. Just be honest.
* * *
Probably the most disturbing thing about this whole affair is that this memorandum was propagated by two professors at a college. These are the people who are supposed to open our kids’ minds? Expose them to new ideas? I urge Clark Atlanta University to suspend both of them post-haste. These are not the kind of mind goblins we should be exposing our young people to.
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3 comments:
I think the issues here are more complex than they at first seem. Many black people, with some good reason, feel that if their political representative is not black, then that person cannot truly represent them. To feel that way, one must feel as though racism against black people is rampant and constant, as well as quite subtle, and perhaps imperceptible even to sympathetic non-black people. If anti-black racism does work that way, then these people may be right to support a black candidate at all political costs. Maybe. At least we can understand why they do it.
The GLBT civil rights effort possibly offers an analogy, although since gay or trans people have not achieved any political power they still must argue in terms of bare equality rather than in terms of preserving any previous political gain, or in terms of "affirmative action." But I can tell you that a gay or trans person does not feel as though someone who is straight and ignorant (ie someone not familiar with GLBT people, meaning also not a parent or close friend or relative of a gay person and therefore not an "ally") could possibly understand the way that mainstream culture constantly and subtly alienates them, for example through media or offhand remarks at work, not to mention outright bigotry. Therefore GLBT people of many different political stripes would be tempted to support any GLBT candidate over such a straight candidate.
So whether it's wrong or not seems to come down to just how powerful and pervasive racism still is. Black Clark Atlanta professors (of what they didn't say, though there are certainly "African American studies" departments in most universities) would tend to see everything through the prism of racism.
We all hate identity politics, but political identity doesn't come from nowhere. Obama, that shining symbol of post-racialism to non-black people, would never have been elected without identity politics, which resulted in 90%+ of all black people voting for him.
(Obama does not refuse the political identity of a black person, BTW, in fact explicitly having affirmed it in several of his campaign speeches, so to call him half-black is not accurate and is in fact vaguely offensive, as it implies some natural reality to what are socially constructed categories of race.)
There is of course still the argument that the only way to battle racism in the long-run is to hew to an idealistic line of formal equality, even if you happen to be in the oppressed group. To battle racism in its own terms, then, by accepting an abject identity like "black" and voting accordingly, is to sink to the level of racists. This view may be a pollyanish view, however; as Mao said, "justice comes from the barrel of a gun."
Good comments, Mao. Lots of things to respond to.
First, because it's easiest, I must point out re: Obama that while it is true that 90% (or more) of African Americans in this country voted for him in 2008, only slightly less a percentage of African Americans voted for Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. The fact is, the "black vote" is reliably Democratic, not reliably "black." Which is quite logical considering the respective political parties' positions vis-a-vis civil rights (among other issues), and particularly in the South.
Second, I do believe that the route to a race-neutral society is to treat people in a race-neutral manner. Ultimately, I believe that it is self-defeating to treat people as "groups" rather than as individuals having certain protected rights. I recognize that, particularly immediately following the culmination of the black civil rights movement, there is a role for affirmative action to re-align certain unfair structural, entrenched interests, but there should be a strong tapering action, and I think that should be happening now.
Third, with regard to calling Obama "half black / half white"; he is, in fact, half-black and half-white. His mother was white, his dad African. I think that has allowed him to be unusally attuned to racial politics in this country and the perceptions that flow back and forth. True, that what is "black" has had more to do with appearances than genetic lineage (not that any of us really know all that much about our lineage). If you look black, you've been black and treated as such by our society. But a lot of that is also tied into Jim Crow laws and concepts; why should we not attempt to escape that box?
I suppose the real problem between me and the black professors is that I believe that the solution to racial relations has to do with treating people equally, while they hew to the view that a white man will never be able to understand a black man, so African Americans should always just support black people. This is a frustrating point of view to me, and I do consider it a racist point of view. How can it be anything else? Hence my little reversal test in the main blog.
Well, quick responses:
1) One cannot deny that Obama's black identity was crucial for him to win the presidency. 96% of black voters voted for him (Kerry was 88%), and black turnout reached historical highs, especially among black women. Many non-black "white" people voted for him, of course, but the election would have been much closer if black people had turned out at the levels they did for Kerry or for Gore (or even Clinton, beloved by the black community).
2) "half-black/half-white": I am not being hyperbolic or sensitive when I say this way of characterizing Obama's race is offensive to many people. "Black" and "white" are not biological categories; they are racial/racist categories with roots in European colonialism, slavery, and segregation vs civil rights. Their continuing use is an outcome of 1960s Black Power movements that assert and claim a negative cultural identity as a political statement; terming lighter-skinned people "white" BTW is a way of sharpening the apparent division, and a treacherous identity for any non-black American to concede. You might as well say that Obama is half-darkie/half-whitedevil, whereas you and your friends are whitedevil. Plus Obama himself asserts a "black" identity, presumably for political reasons, so the question is settled unless you refuse to take Obama's own word for it.
But as far as the overall thrust of your response - that you believe the most effective way to combat racism is to be scrupulously fair and equal all the time - is certainly a defensible point of view, and probably moreover the emerging consensus view in America. The alternative view - that formal equality will never correct racism; only a sort of defensive reverse-discrimination "affirmative action" will - is not an irrational view and is the view of the Clark Atlanta professors, which was the main point of my comment.
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