What it means is that while I acknowledge race is an issue in the country and will be for some time, Martin Luther King's vision was for a discussion and reality that transcended race, when race was a non-issue. That is what I think Debra Dickersion writes about -- and it is ultimately what I think MLK's vision was. best regards, Steve Clemons

By the way, I read Washington Note every day since Josh turned me on to it. I think its prolly when you first launched. I thought your Obama article yesterday was interesting. My post was not meant to be snarky.

My guess is I have to click all your links to understand what you're talking about. You don't normally write this way. Usually, you lay out the core of what you mean when you post.

Ok. I'll start trolling through your links.

I'm curious how to get beyond race... Without bleaching chemicals that is.

Troll_Bait

If race was a non-issue, Obama wouldn't be the only African-American in the US Senate.

Mrs Clemons, thanks for the response. My major concerns in this "post-race" debate is that it covers up an open wound. Let me try to put this in perspective. I think that we attempt to believe that things have been dealt with, hen they really haven' Take the response that many women had to the appearance of MSM ganging up on Hillary Rodham Clinton. There was a glaring bias that was perceived, that went undetected. We don't talk about women's issues. We accept that gender shouldn't be a factor in the Presidential election. But gender is an issue!
On another level, I was bothered by a gay satirist on Bill Mahrer's show this weekend who went out of his way to ridicule Christians. He pointed out that the Old testament said that gays should be stoned to death. None of the apparent Evangelical Christians that he had on the video clips had a clue about what he was saying. He ridiculed the fact that they selectively accepted Biblical tenets. Now, I could point out that the reason that there are Federal Appeals Courts and a Supreme Court is that there is debate about how the supreme legal document of the US, the Constitution, should be interpreted. There is not a "single point of view on the Bible or the Constitution. Despite my irritation, I could understand why he was so angry. What is the big deal about gay marriage, etc. among Christians. But, we really don't talk abut gay issues in detail either.
Similarly, when it comes to race, we want to be "post-race" before we have actually had a honest discussion about race. Any discussion that is more than superficial is playing the race card. Dickerson, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter may write books and articles that soothe the soul, but they do not represent main stream African-American thought. We are not yet "post-race"

If we could even maintain the same political standards of integrity of Dr King, that would be a vast improvement. Unfortunately, speaking specifically about the WHITE side of the equation, and in particular focusing on those whites who, back in the 50s and 60s would have been in the broad mass base of the Civil Rights movement, making it so that mainstream politicians could hardly have NOT come forward with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act etc. The problem is that there really isn't anyone to take the illusions of THESE Americans to task, as, say Dr King did with Moynihan and others. (Moynihan returned with what he was peddling after King's death, reflecting the gap that was left).

Today, there are some leaders in the struggle, which continues -- with the particular fact that median black income in 1973 (I recently read) as a percentage of median white income was A LOWER PERCENTAGE than in ~2007! Whites seem very happy with the "progress" being made, but insist that of course, there are "still" problems and that there is much to be done, blah blah blah. But other than enabling voices (like that of John McWhorter -- who has blogged on TPM Cafe at least once) who are much spotlit in the media in our era, there is a lack of even exposure and often of awareness of other voices. Personally, I would very much like to see Cornel West and other African American scholars who are NOT in the McWhorter vein also blogging here, alongside and IN ADDITION to figures like John McWhorter.

In short, although my own academic knowledge is hardly profound in this area, and of course, being white, my understanding of the issue (as other whites should acknowledge) is necessarily in some ways limited, I do discern a lack of the kind of leadership that Dr King and other Civil Rights leaders (in an era when it was more fashionable to embrace egalitarian social ideals full-throatedly) provided to WHITES as well as to blacks.

Rather than moving "beyond" King in a positive way, I see much retrogression, particularly among white liberals, who were led down a garden path of cynicism by the inordinate focus on things like forced busing. Even seemingly very progressive whites have, often unwittingly, imbibed of the post-Civil Rights era backlash -- a backlash different in many ways but paralleling the rise of Jim Crow after the Reconstruction -- and imagine as progress developments that are hardly anything of the sort.

Obviously, it would seem that responding to this retrogression on many fronts requires MORE THAN just 'going back to King' and other key historical figures like Malcolm X and DuBois, but rather drawing from them in finding creative ways of pursuing liberation, including getting "beyond" the whole politics of "beyond King".

well---as always---Hillary has it covered.

Here's how she describes it in her autobiography:
Quote:

My quest to reconcile my father's insistence on self-reliance and my mother's concerns about social justice was helped along by the arrival in 1961 of a Methodist youth minister named Donald Jones ...

Rev. Jones stressed that a Christian life was "faith in action." I had never met anyone like him. Don called his Sunday and Thursday night Methodist Youth Fellowship sessions "the University of Life." He was eager to work with us because he hoped we would become more aware of life outside Park Ridge [Ilinois] ...
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I had only vaguely heard of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, but these discussions sparked my interest.

So, when Don announced one week that he would take us to hear Dr. King speak at Orchestra Hall, I was excited. My parents gave me permission, but some of my friends' parents refused to let them go hear such a "rabble-rouser."

Dr. King's speech was entitled, "Remaining Awake Through a Revolution." Until then, I had been dimly aware of the social revolution occurring in our country, but Dr. King's words illuminated the struggle taking place and challenged our indifference: "We now stand on the border of the Promised Land of integration. The old order is passing away and a new one is coming in. We should all accept this order and learn to live together as brothers in a world society, or we shall perish together."

Though my eyes were opening, I still mostly parroted the conventional wisdom of Park Ridge's and my father's politics. While Don Jones threw me into "liberalizing" experiences, Paul Carlson [Clinton's ninth-grade history teacher and "a very conservative Republican"] introduced me to refugees from the Soviet Union who told haunting tales of cruelty under the Communists, which reinforced my already strong anti-Communist views. Don once remarked that he and Mr. Carlson were locked in a battled for my mind and soul ...

My ninth-grade history teacher, Paul Carlson, was, and still is, a dedicated educator and very conservative Republican. Mr. Carlson encouraged me to read Senator Barry Goldwater's recently published book, The Conscience of a Conservative. That inspired me to write my term paper on the American conservative movement, which I dedicated "To my parents, who have always taught me to be an individual." I liked Senator Goldwater because he was a rugged individualist who swam against the political tide. Years later, I admired his outspoken support of individual rights, which he considered consistent with his old-fashioned conservative principles: "Don't raise hell about the gays, the blacks and the Mexicans. Free people have a right to do as they dam well please."

I now see the conflict between Don Jones and Paul Carlson as an early indication of the cultural, political, and religious fault lines that developed across America in the last forty years. I liked them both personally and did not see their beliefs as diametrically opposed then or now.

I appreciate the comments of cloudy and CurtisE. I think CurtisE addresses the class issue that does affect all races. In that class battle, African-Americans and Whites are pitted against Latinos drawn to the US by jobs which may represent cheap labor in the US, but represent upward mobility to Mexican workers. The corporate moguls who enticed the cheap labor across the border laugh all the way to the bank. Business heads on both sides of the border benefit. Mexican businessmen and politicians have no interest in changing the Mexican status quo. US businessmen take in the profits gained by cheap labor and argue that change would force layoffs and higher product prices. The lower classes are trapped in cheap labor. The middle and upper classes, facing the threat of higher product prices, remain on the sidelines and do nothing. King would have told those on the sidelines that they were just as guilty as those who were enriched by the exploitation of Mexican and US workers.
Regarding class, it should be noted there is also an African-American middle and upper-class that faces economic challenges based on race. This institutional racism impacts prices paid for lodging and automobiles, as well as whether state of the art health care is delivered. While the class focus is important, so is the racial component. I think that in 2008, Dr King would have been aware of the impact of class and race. He would have been incensed that the racial barriers were still present.
In a post above, I mentioned that given the current level of discourse, I can understand why women are upset about the treatment of Sen Clinton and economic disparities, why gays are upset in general, and why Blacks are upset despite economic class. If I King was post-gender, post-sexuality, and post-race, he becomes irrelevant. None of the effected groups would be listening to him, because he has dismissed them. In actuality, King would be criticizing those who did not specifically address the issues faced by Blacks (poor ,middle and upper-class), women, homosexuals, and all impoverished people. He would be astonished that more progress had not been made. King's idea was an even playing field that transcended race and class.
"Racial politics" is really a GOP construct that we have allowed to seep into mainstream language. Poor people, Women, Blacks, Homosexuals, Latinos, etc all have valid complaints. In most cases, we need each group to identify those issues that the specific group considers the most important. Each group defines the offense, rather than having the problems identified by those on the outside looking in. We find common ground after the groups they us why they are upset.