Kevin Drum kind of shocked me. He's a guy I have seen discuss race issues and come off pretty damn well. So when he responded to Ezra Klein thusly
I'm not sure this is really fair. First off, is there really a storybook version of civil rights that says we've overcome all our race problems in America? If there is, I haven't heard it....
Actually, if there's a real media myth about race, I'd say it's this peculiar suggestion that everyone thinks we've put race behind us. But no one thinks that. That's why we keep talking about it.
I was taken aback for a minute. Then I remembered...we don't really agree on what a race problem is. Not Mr. Drum and I specifically, but "white folks" and "Black folks." To white folks, race problems are "problems we have because people of other races are here." To Black folks, race problems are "issues we have because people are biased against us."
Every Black person in the country knows the fairy tale. We hear it regularly, or, if Republican, pitch it regularly. But even white folks will recognize the long version, which is "we've overcome all our race problems, except those caused by Black people whining." It's an appealing myth to many...the most expedient solution to white folks' race problems would be if Black folks just stopped complaining. As a result we are ALWAYS challenged to derive each case of racism deductively, definitively, from first principles. And yes, we keep talking about it, but most of the conversation is about whether or not we should shut up.
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I suspect Mr. Drum is a
I suspect Mr. Drum is a Hillary partisan.
well,
Well, in truth Mr. Drum voted for Obama and has continued to tout his preference for Obama over Hillary.
That's why I was surprised.
That's why I was surprised. Per what he writes he gets it pretty well; I just have to remember there WILL be misaligned perceptions, even between allies, as the discussion develops.
That is what keeps it
That is what keeps it interesting.
Okay, so let's have the race
Okay, so let's have the race conversation already...
The Discussion About Race I Need To Have Before...
I have been alternately musing and laughing about how many brothers and sisters who had been collectively identified as being in the post-Civil Rights generation thought that we, as a nation, would get through this presidential election without talking about race. I'm willing to bet that Obama certainly did but how many black folks in his age cohort and below thought so?
Pt I don't know if Obama
Pt
I don't know if Obama was so naive that he thought that race would not be discussed. He might have held out hope that it wouldn't be discussed. According to his memior, race was at the core of how he viewed the world and influenced all the important choices he made in life. The insights about race contained in his book have not made their way into his campaign speeches until recently. I reckon he decided to ride out this "post-racial" bandwagon to see how far it would take him. Having been raised by white grandparents who fed him a lot of wishful thinking about race, I think Obama understood the power that this wishful thinking can have over whites who desire to erase this country's ugly racial past from their memory. Obama eventually learned the myth about his grandparents' supposed color-blindness but recognized the power of its appeal.
pt, come on, now. I don't believe for one minute
that Obama thought he could get away with NOT discussing race. I just think that he thought it would come before the GENERAL Election. But, not discuss race...not even the most hopeful of Obamaholics could have thought that. He put it off as long as he could. But, I'm sorry, he's way too smart to have thought it would never come up. If only because he would deal with Republicans, he knew it would come up. The Dogwhistles by the Clintons is what probably threw him.
No, I thnk Obama thought
No, I thnk Obama thought that it would not come up in a way that he would ever have to directly address. If the dogwhistles from the Clintonistas threw him then he did not think it would come up. Hell hath no fury like a white liberal who believes that a black person is not being sufficiently deferential to his or her desires.