Obama's speech

I heard large parts of Obama's speech on race from 03/18/08, which was titled "A More Perfect Union". Juan Cole has helpfully provided the YouTube video and the full text at his blog.

I see it as a very good thing that Obama is engaging the issue. In terms of the Presidential race, he had to do something like this sooner or later because the Republican smear machine is already cranking out all sorts of reminders to the base that Obama is a scary, scary black man.

And in a broader perspective, he's challenging the public to focus on our attitudes and practices around racial issues. Whether it will be more successful than Bill Clinton's attempt to have a "national dialogue on race" remains to be seen.

What's missing is the other side of the picture, i.e., a leader respected and admired among most conservative whites who will confront white racism and talk about it in as frank terms as Obama described signs of racial prejudice among African-Americans. Including specifically the ugly role that white Christian fundamentalists have played and still play in promoting white racism. Someone like a John McCain, for instance.

Even some of the more prejudiced whites can look at Obama's speech and find something to compliment in it, i.e., his criticism of other blacks. Because white people find it very tempting to believe that the only real race problem is that blacks need to learn to "get over it".

So Obama took a big step yesterday toward neutralizing some of the racist sleaze campaign against him. It won't stop. If he wins the nomination, he'll have to fight that battle all the way to Election Day and beyond.

But whether some new level of progress to be achieved on racial questions depends primarily on whether white Americans are sufficiently able to think and act about race-related issues in a new way. Cutting the crap about how black people should just "get over it" might be a good start. Thinking a bit about how our racial assumptions may have helped mislead so many people to believe that conquering and occupying an Arab country would be a cakewalk also might do some good.

Gene Lyons takes a stab at it in Ethnic delusions cloud Democratic primary 03/19/08.

You can judge for youself how well he succeeds. I wish Molly Ivins were still around to share her thoughts on the subject with us. The same goes for Steve Gilliard.

I just mentioned specifically the rightwing noise machine's role in spreading racial themes. That does mean we should let the Establishment press off the hook for their own role in the process. Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby has been tracking the way our dysfunctional press corps has been treating the race issue during the Presidential campaign, as in this 03/19/08 post.

Tags: barack obama, racism