Race Matters
Some of the best comedy available today is on the 24 hour “news” stations. Perhaps not the best stand- up comedy, but certainly comedy of the absurd.The latest CNN/Opinion Research poll indicates that 7 out of 10 people surveyed avowed that race is not an issue for them in this year’s presidential election. CNN dutifully reported this under the guise of being news. I guess in order for this to actually be news we must first define what “news” is.
A Chicago television station used to use the line “It’s only news the first time you hear it”. What they were trying to say was, it has to be new to be news. I, on the other hand, have always held to the contention that it has to be true to be news. If what I hear the first time is false then it is hardly news. The old “If your mother says she loves you, get third party confirmation” kind of approach. Maybe the days of checking and rechecking a story are behind us. It was just one of the casualties of 24 hour news stations desperate to fill each minute with stories big and small. There simply isn’t time to check much less recheck a story. Another casualty was facts. News today is far more conjecture then fact and often news is simply reporting what somebody else reported and how they reported it.
I believe the “news” story of this poll is a prime example of this. I will concede that a poll was actually taken and will not contest the results of 7 in 10 claiming race was not an issue. No need for a recount or to check for hanging chads. Now, if you want to make the taking of this poll and the results given as news then so be it. But to report these results as being factual or showing them as true public sentiment and making that the news story, well that’s where I get off this bus.
I am sorry to burst this euphoric bubble, but race is an issue. It has been an issue for all of recorded history. It is an issue in small insignificant actions and it is certainly an issue in a major issue like electing the president of the United States of America. No matter how far we have come toward reaching racial equality or how far we go in the future, race matters. It is an issue for blacks, it is an issue for whites and it is an issue for any other race you want to pick.
If you don’t believe me take a look at an NFL football game or MLB baseball game. Don’t look at the field, look at the bench. Look at who sits with who when there are no assigned seats. Just a heads up, it would pretty much be a waste of time to look at an NBA bench or a PGA player’s lounge as they both have about the same level of diversity.
Go to any highly integrated college. Don’t look at where the students sit in class, look at where they sit and who they sit with in the cafeteria or the student lounges. The word kindred is defined as: close to somebody or something else because of similar qualities or interests.
Look at these few examples or possibly hundreds of others to see that definition of kindred in action. Feeling kindred is not a black thing or a white thing, it is a fact in every race and probably every species on the planet. Why do we feel the need to deny it? Perhaps because we have been browbeaten into believing that this natural feeling is somehow wrong or evil.
The most glaring proof that race matters is the fact that this poll was taken in the first place. The latest results I have heard indicate that Barack Obama is carrying 97% of the black vote. I would honestly expect nothing less and I can’t imagine who the other 3% of blacks are voting for. Maybe the Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. But please don’t waste your time trying to convince me that race is not an issue in this overwhelming majority of black support. I am in no way damning or condemning it but I think it’s safe to say that, with the exception of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who may lose their prominence as top dogs in the black community, black people want a black man to be president. Barack Obama would carry 97% of the black vote if he was running against Abraham Lincoln.
Most blacks will say that they are supporting Obama because of his policies and not because of his color. There may indeed be support for his plan to “redistribute wealth” as it takes money earned by some people and in the spirit of Robin in da Hood gives it to people who have not earned it. But the overwhelming issue is that they feel a kindred bond to this man because he has dark colored skin. The fact that his mother was white and that he was raised outside the black community doesn’t matter. He looks like they do and that’s enough.
The second glaring proof that race matters is that Barack Obama said as much. He made every effort to point out that he doesn’t look like any of the presidents on our currency. The reality is that neither does John McCain. But Barack Obama wasn’t talking about facial features or hair style. He was talking about race. He was addressing race head on in an effort to include race as an issue, not exclude it.
As has been the case for most of his political if not adult life, race is perhaps one of his strongest allies. It rallies black voters and liberal white voters and prevents whites from making any sort of personal attack for fear of being called racist. You can see that the McCain campaign has tried to attack Obama on his relationship with Bill Ayers, a white radical, but has completely abandoned any attack on his 20 year relationship with Reverend Wright, a black radical. The reasoning is simple. You can publicly attack a white man because of the things he has said and done with relative impunity but you run some pretty high risks of being accused of racism by doing the same to a black man. It matters not if the attack is truthful or justified. It invokes an almost reflex reaction that is both immediate and impossible to defend against. The reason is simple, race matters.
The corporate world learned this years ago. Don’t believe me? Take a look at any television commercial with an interracial cast. Look at which character is dumb or klutzy or out of touch and which character is smart and helpful. Corporate America knows that if there is even the slightest hint of something that could possibly be construed as racist they will be overwhelmed with negative press coverage and remain in the jackpot until a bigger story comes along. Or at least until they cut a deal with some prominent black leader’s family to, let’s say, own a major beer distributorship as an example. If it matters in how you feel about your air freshener or your fast food cheeseburger or your can of beer, it certainly matters in how you feel about your presidential candidate.
The fear of being perceived as racist is present in every aspect of our daily lives because race matters. If it didn’t matter, nobody would care. Race matters to white voters as well. It matters to the liberal whites who carry a sense of self-deprecation for the past wrongs of slavery and segregation. It matters to the racist whites that would never vote for a black man regardless of his credentials or qualifications. It matters to whites that have been unfairly passed over in favor of lesser qualified candidates because their race doesn’t fit with the racial quota systems and alleged affirmative action programs. And it matters to the every-day white people who simply do not feel the kindred spirit for blacks that they do for other whites.
Race matters and is indeed an issue in countless situations both large and small whether we like it or not. And until we are willing to accept this very basic fact and address it from both sides of the racial spectrum we will be doomed to continue to live in the make believe world of snatch and grab journalism where the pretense of improved racial understanding is as superficial and meaningless as the response to a pollster’s question.
