Obama: How Race Card Protects Class Privilege
Obama's speech was possibly the greatest speech on race and class in modern politics, highlighting the inextricable link between the two in America where each has shaped the other in our history. Instead of simplistic "can't we all get along" messages or [Bill] Clintoneseque statements about "strength through diversity", Obama took head on the festering anger fueling racism and racial resentment, brilliantly juxtaposing black anger and white anger and the way the privileged corporate class has exploited that racial division. The key paragraphs in Obama speech were these:
Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends...white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many...
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
What Obama has done is respected the anger and even the bigotry of many whites, but demanded that they respect the anger of blacks suffering discrimination, and asked that everyone overcome that anger and refuse the red herrings of the race card to concentrate on those who financially benefit every election from the "political stalemate" that has blocked investments in jobs, health care for all, and the revitalization of our communities.
This is the aggressive speech that I've wanted from Obama from early on, that clearly identifies the corporate source of the political stalemate that he talks about often, yet whose source he was often vague about. Put on the defensive by the attacks on Reverend Wright, whose own sermons were steeped in these issues of economic and social justice, Obama didn't just play defense but aggressively redirected the discussion against those making the attack. In an imperfect country of racial division, the corporate political class will always find offensive comments and issues to stoke racial fears, Obama argued, so the issue of Rev. Wright is almost irrelevant: To give into that politics is to let that corporate class win the political game:
We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.
Instead, Obama argues that "not this time" should Americans allow themselves to be distracted. The attacks on Rev. Wright are part of a centuries old tactic of racial fears to block reforms and he is arguing that he will fight to bring people together to take on the corporate interests that benefit from those divisions.
Obama's speech was in many ways a classic left statement of the problem of race and class in America, but he clothes it in the careful, rational language that is the strength of his charisma. If the political opposition intends to use the race card, Obama made clear today he can articulate a message that reveals the corporate privilege protected by racial division.
Nothing has given me greater hope that Obama has the rhetorical power and political will to not only win the election but fight the fights he will have to if elected to win his agenda.
"Obama's speech was in many ways a classic left statement of the problem of race and class in America, but he clothes it in the careful, rational language that is the strength of his charisma."
This is what we've been missing for so long - someone who can make an argument on the left in language that people hear.
It's so different from the risk averse, focused grouped, promise them a snack so they don't notice they're not getting dinner DLC strategy.
March 18, 2008 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just got back from the opening of the campaign office (officially, anyway) in State College, where more than 400 people crammed into a room. The speech today was on everyone's lips. The energy was incredible, the resolve renewed. Sure, everyone knows the brass-knuckle bunch on the other campaigns will try to crap all over this, but after hearing that speech today, and studying it online through two or three times, I am more convinced than ever that this man must be our next president.
It's not hero worship, it's just recognizing the best person for the job.
March 18, 2008 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
paDem, it was extraordinarily exciting to be associated with the Super Tuesday campaign here in Missouri. Getting out in my neighborhood and going door-to-door was, I think, a small reason that the ward went 53% for Obama. At the ward caucus after the election, most of the attendees were shocked that Obama won the ward.
Enjoy it thoroughly even when you're wet, tired, hungry and sore. It is well worth the effort for your piece of real estate to deliver a win for Obama. You will never forget it.
And I write this as a 58-year-old while female who has been part of a lot of campaigns.
March 18, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi, paDem. That really was an extraordinary moment last night, wasn't it? And Jay Paterno's speech was pretty damn good, I gotta say. Though, yes, the speech everyone was talking about was Obama's, and with good reason. I think we'd have to go back to RFK in Indianapolis to find a speech as bold and courageous as that. I was supporting Obama before, of course, but mostly because of the 50-state strategy. Now I'm excited about Obama qua Obama, for the first time.
And destor23 (a bit below), yeah, it would be great if you would stop calling Obama a wimp. More to the point, you should probably stop imagining that Hillary Clinton is going to give Republicans the kind of beating they deserve. I don't know what you remember from the 1990s, but I remember that Clintonism entailed triangulating with Republicans and throwing Lani Guinier to the wolves. Contrast Obama's speech yesterday with Clinton's truly wimpy speech on Guinier -- which, by the way, was also a matter of racial justice, since the issue at hand was the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act -- and you'll see what I mean. Unless Hillary is a vastly different political being from Bill (for which I see no evidence whatsoever), the real fighter in this race is Obama.
March 19, 2008 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
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December 21, 2010 3:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good observations, Nathan. I think I'm going to have to stop calling Obama a wimp.
March 18, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
On nearly every tough issue: Iraq, race, health care etc. Obama gives a sensible, reasoned and PROGRESSIVE policy. He doesn't practice oversimplification, fear mongering or pandering. That is why I support him. Clinton's policies are sensible, reasoned and progressive, but she and her surrogates do pander, fear monger and vastly oversimplify. That is why I don't support her.
I am tired not only of the Bush policies, but also of their methods to implement them. Obama offers a break from both.
March 18, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I generally skip over Nathan's posts, because they're predictable recitations of standard leftist tropes. Which isn't to say he's always wrong, just that he's rarely interesting.
In this case, though, I'm taking the time to comment because of the rather insidious argument that Nathan lays out. One of the dangers of Barack Obama's rhetorical style is that his embrace of universal aspirations allows listeners to hear their own particular views in his sweeping language. In this case, Nathan managed to listen to a long and complicated speech on race, and come to the conclusion that Obama is nothing more (or less) than a standard-issue American socialist, aiming to unite the working classes in opposition to the capitalists, who have cynically manipulated racial tensions to preserve their own power. And I'm not putting words into his mouth. He writes that the speech is a "classic left statement of the problem of race and class in America," that's merely been dressed up "in the careful, rational language that is the strength of his charisma."
Here's irony for you: Nathan Newman's take on the speech is pretty much the same as the National Review's John Derbyshire, who after offering his own racist and intemperate analysis yesterday, slept on it and arrived at this conclusion this morning: "Obama's just a red-diaper baby with a nice smile." The only difference between the two seems to be that Newman applauds what Derbyshire condemns.
Of course, they both make the same mistake. Left and right, they share the same essentializing view of the world, in which we're still locked in a struggle between capitalism and socialism. Those who articulate moderate views are either in denial, or more probably, merely "clothing" their actual ideas in language that will prove palatable to the masses. Neither seems capable of engaging with the substance of what Obama had to say as if he actually meant it.
Obama's not trying to wage class warfare, or to unite the workers against "the corporate political class." His vision of our society is at once more nuanced and more compelling than that. He weds a call for us to "insist on a full measure of justice" to a plea that we take "full responsibility for own lives" - neither ignoring the larger forces that oppress many Americans, nor allowing them to excuse our own failings. He doesn't insist that race is irrelevant or a distraction, that the only real divisions are economic; he acknowledges our need for community, but argues that communities need not compete against each other, that the path to the fulfillment of their separate aspirations lies through cooperation and the embrace of a shared vision. Nathan believes that the speech was an assault on "corporate privilege protected by racial division." I would submit that it was a call for unity, which finds Nathan's class warfare as repellent as racial struggle.
March 19, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, John Derbyshire and I did agree because we read the same speech. But Obama was clearly talking about how the divisions over race have been a roadblock to political changes and how those with economic privilege have taken advantage of those divisions for their own benefit.
THere is no way to read the speech in any other way, nor any way to understand Obama's affinity with Rev. Wright. Yes, Obama argues that he's sees more opportunity for political change and more successes for black American than Rev. Wright has in recent decades, but he also has been clear that "unity" is not something you can naively wish into existence -- a point he said in his speech -- but must be built on understanding the way race has been used by the elite to stop that unity.
Obama was an Alinksyite organizer and his speech comes right out of that tradition of understanding both the obstacles to unity -- of race, of class and political paralysis -- with his own charismatic bent articulating how to move forward. But the analysis is quite recognizable and brilliant in its own right.
March 19, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Defining Obama as an Alinskyite is no more intellectually honest than assuming that he shares all of the views of Jeremiah Wright. Both men were clearly influential in molding his views, but Obama has also repeatedly made it plain that he departs from each of them in some crucial ways. He uses ideas drawn from Alinsky and other leftist thinkers, from Wright and the traditions of the black church, and from a great many other strains of American thought besides. It's the synthesis that's unique and meaningful, and to focus on just of those strands is to miss the forest for the trees.
I don't dispute that Obama articulated a critique of corporate power and influence, nor that he asked Americans to find common ground in their material interests. But it's as if you and Derbyshire both skimmed over the speech, pausing to read only those passages you expected to find, and discarding the rest as an artifact of Obama's charismatic delivery. He fuses the standard leftist critique of corporate power with a stress on personal responsibility and an abiding faith in the power of shared hopes. And neither of you account for that.
Obama's is a vision inflected with nuance. He's argued before that "although government will play a crucial role in bringing about the changes we need...Each of us, in our own lives, will have to accept responsibility." Neither his faith in government nor his stress on personal responsibility for problems too often dismissed as structural derive from Alinsky. If Obama stands for anything, it's for the power of shared hopes and aspirations. In the end, he's issuing a call for us to "believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union." He's not asking people to consider their material interests alone; he's asking them to consider what they believe about themselves and their nation, irrespective of where their own financial interests may lie, and where they hope it will be in a generation's time.
March 19, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You nailed it, FlyOnTheWall. That's what I heard too. Got home from work last night and there was Obama on CSPAN. In my entire life, I've never heard anyone in public life talk like that. I heard him call for a shared America where we look at each other and see ourselves instead of an unapprehendable Other. He brought me to tears. I like the way my candidate fights! He fights truthfully and calls our better selves to go to the fight with him. We will be lucky to get him for our 44th President. I'm just not sure we are that lucky. People fall for distractions too easily. Generally, we seem to be mired in a notion of fighting that looks more like a brawl steeped in deceit and personal destruction. That's our national idea of "tough." Sad.
March 19, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
May one dissent here?
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For one thing, the speech came too late. He gave it only after he was caught, ie, after Rev. Wright's hideous rantings were exposed.
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And Obama's equating his white grandmother's legitimate fear of black men (black-on-white crime far exceeds white-on-black crime, and even Jesse Jackson has acknowledged his fear of black men on the street) with Wright's rantings will be, and should be, deeply offensive to those who heard and thought about Obama's words.
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As should be the equivalence that Obama sets up between Wright on the one hand and the black community on the other, saying he couldn't abandon either. There are lots of black preachers who actually do speak of Jesus and love--as Obama originally said of Wright, although he seemed to hedge on that in his speech.
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Obama didn't have to choose Wright's church or one like it. But he did. I suspect it was a way of building his political base and street cred with the radical black community in Chicago, much as his relationship with corrupt property developer Tony Rezko gave him the crucial early money he needed.
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There's 20 years of the Obama-Wright relationship. MJ Rosenberg, elsewhere on this site, defends this by noting that most of have disagreements with what our holy men are telling us. True, but there are radically different degrees of disagreement. If the heart and core of any part of a preacher's sermons are DEEPLY objectionable to you, you have an obligation to speak up or walk out, just as you do in any other social situation. Otherwise, you are part and parcel of that objectionable community, regardless of any precious little qualms you keep to yourself.
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You are what you do.
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Given Obama's 20 years of sitting through some of Wright's garbage--as he admitted in his speech--his words yesterday, however eloquent, amounted in essence to an acknowledgment that he had backed himself into a corner.
March 19, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, my. Building a mythology, are you? The latest legitimate study of crime (that I know of) was by the US Department of Justice in 1999. It should be of no surprise to rational folks, that when the person committing a violent crime is white, then 74.5% of the victims are white and 10.5% of the victims are black. If the person committing the violent crime is black, then 80.0% of the victims are black and 13.6 of the victims are white.
"black-on-white crime far exceeds white-on-black crime" as you assert is true since 13.5 is 30% higher than 10.5. But it is essentially irrational.
Obama's grandmother is better served by keeping an eye peeled for the whites around her since whites will victimize her 74.5% of the time. But his grandma also comes from a more trusting generation who believe newspapers that put out the sort of irrational and emotional nonsense that you're peddling.
You are a fear-peddler. It's a favorite GOP occupation. Goodbye.
March 19, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the speech was great not only for what he said, but for how he said it. He embodied an attitude toward the problems he touched on that it's hard even to imagine anyone else could replicate: a language that is simple and direct; a personal testimony that avoids the sleazy sentimentalism that Bill Clinton would ladle on in similar circumstances. And all this is a powerful indicator of the courage that moves him.
Whether he wins or loses, the campaign has revealed to me somebody who I really hope will be a leader for a generation to come.
March 19, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brilliant speech - I agree with your post.
Talking about taking on the vested interests in racial division.
It is clear that Republican politics that Obama addressed directly, have seen some benefits in maintaining and even fostering divisions.
Perhaps one way to move the conversation beyond the core group of Obama partisans and force conservatives to actually consider the ideas, instead of dismissing them out of hand, is to confront the political advantages of division from the Black Political establishment.
That might be playing with fire.
March 19, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting Nathan but I think you miss the point. What we need to get past is thinking that discussion of Black/White as the racial discussioin is staying in the mud of the past. That particular discussion for all intents and purposes is over and done. I am sure I will get crucified for this view but overt against african americans in this nation is pretty much over. Yes, you there is still progress that needs to be done but that is really a class v class war that includes many upwardly mobile african americans and how they do or do not reach out to others of a lower class.
The racial divide that we now have is between Hispanic Americans and African/Euro Americans. Its a growing situation that nobody is addressing. You have situations all over the country where town councils made up of mostly white/black members are regulating where and how Hispanics can live and interact in the community. You have a wall/fence....whatever you want to call it being built in the southwest. Is that not apartheid of a sort? Why are we not even the slightest bit upset? Why are we not even discussing versions of "immigration" reform that will split families and cause dislocation of individuals all across our country. Hispanics are the invisible minority in all of this. Second largest population group in the nation yet...very very little representation on any major network or in movies.(unless you count the version of hispanics put forward in No Country for Old Men where they are now the "drug dealers" in the movies).
Liberals, Americans of all stripes need to get a grip on this issue. It will be the issue of the next decades as birth rates of whites and blacks continue to drop. We will face a growing need to include spanish as another national language. The electorate will become definitely more conservative with the Hispanic voice in it. Democrats are at grave danger of losing this group unless we do the things to address thier concerns.
What I am really saying is that we need to put behind us the thoughts of yesteryear. We don't live in this country in islation anymore. Its not simply black/white. We need to stop acting as if it is.
March 19, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
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