Guess Who’s Coming to the Oval Office?
Posted October 15th, 2008 at 10:42 am by Michelle Prieb
When someone says, “race doesn’t matter” they typically say that because they a) want it to be true, b) have the luxury of it not mattering to them personally and therefore think it a non-issue or c) want to trivialize a racist statement or action. This seems to be true in the current election from the standpoint of both the candidates and the media outlets and pundits who cover them. And regardless of who wins the election, race will continue to be a part of the ugly underbelly of US culture, perpetuated both by media and by the “average American” voter, even those who vote Obama.
The current election has seen its share of nasty racial undertones in spite of pundits and reporters gushing about Obama’s historic candidacy and the progress we have made as a country. It will indeed be a proud moment if Obama is elected, but in all his post-racial glory, the election of Barack Obama will not fix race in America or in our media. In fact, it may drive race even further undercover, masking tensions, denying structural problems and dismissing cries of discrimination in a way we have not yet seen.
Very recently, racial attacks against Obama have started to become really ugly and unabashedly overt. Media outlets have been covering the recent outbursts at rallies, scratching their heads and tsk-tsking over the “isolated” cries for violence that have become the latest spectacle. Some are calling for McCain and Palin to take a stronger stance against those who make those claims and others charge them with stoking the fires of racism among White voters.
On one hand, this could appear to be the case. Essentially, the McCain campaign and the RNC have been laying the groundwork for these feelings since day one. But since their talking points haven’t mentioned race explicitly, they can claim to be surprised by the recent outbursts. Technically, surrogates and pundits (while discussing talking points from the McCain/Palin campaign) have spent the last several months “otherizing” Obama, raising questions about his patriotism, wondering if he’s too elite, asking if the “common voter” can really relate to the way he sees the world and, of course, pondering his status as Muslim or a terrorist. At a time when things look grim for McCain and Republicans in general, as the global economy dips and sways with the wind, teetering on the brink of collapse and Obama increases his lead in the polls, those who fear they will lose begin to get desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Or do they just embolden those who feel a certain way in the first place, allowing hidden attitudes and beliefs to surface?
The election of Obama may force these feelings back underground. It may make Americans feel better about themselves because in electing our first Black president they have proven their color-blindness (a phrase that is problematic in and of itself), but it won’t change the fact that Obama is only a media darling because he is exceptional. John Capone, in his post here last night, noted a comment from Larry Wilmore that brings this point home: If Obama were the one with 5 children and a 17-year-old pregnant daughter we would all sing a different tune about family and brave choices. Also consider how Obama would be perceived if he were the one who graduated near the bottom of his class in the naval academy and had a mean temper.
Carmen Van Kerckhove contends White voters should be appalled that McCain thinks so little of them that “his only strategy right now is to appeal to your basest human instincts of fear and hatred.” She calls on white voters to expect more from their candidates, as she claims Obama does by “assuming the best” about the American people. I would argue that McCain uses this strategy overtly as a last resort because although he knows it isn’t pretty, he knows that it will likely work with some voters. He also knows that in the process, those extremely ugly examples of racism begin to negate some of the more covert racially-motivated strategies they have employed all along. When McCain says race doesn’t matter it’s because he doesn’t want to own up to nasty attacks coming from his campaign or admit the biases that may influence some voters to cast their ballots against Obama.
When Obama optimistically says that race doesn’t matter in this election, he really means he doesn’t want it to matter in spite of the fact that it certainly still does. Not necessarily at the surface level for many people, like those “nutjobs” we can rebuke from the McCain/Palin rallies, but it does and it will continue to matter to most Americans, whether they be journalists, pundits, politicians or voters, for quite some time.
