Still Waiting for a New Age of Racial Amity

(National Review Online)  Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern

---

Weren't we supposed to enter a new age of tolerance with the election of Pres. Barack Obama?

His half-black, half-white ancestry and broad support across racial lines suggested that at last Americans judged each other on the content of our characters - not the color of our skin or our tribal affiliations.

Instead, in just 18 months of the Obama administration, racial discord is growing and relations seem to have been set back a generation. Black voters are galvanizing behind Obama at a time of rapidly falling support. White independents, in contrast, are leaving Obama in droves.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has claimed that the loosely organized tea parties include "racist elements." The National Council of La Raza has ripped the state of Arizona for its new anti-illegal alien legislation. Jesse Jackson characterized aspects of the multi-million-dollar bidding war to acquire basketball superstar LeBron James in terms of masters and slaves. Pundits are arguing whether the extremist, racist New Black Panther Party is analogous to the Klan.

In turn, a number of Americans want to know why - nearly a half-century after the Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, and Great Society programs - some national lobbying organizations still identify themselves by archaic tribal terms such as "colored people" or "La Raza" ("the race") when it would be taboo for other groups to adopt such racial nomenclature.

Indeed, race seems to be the subtext of almost every contemporary issue, from the soaring deficit and government spending to recent presidential appointments and the enforcement of existing immigration law. In times of growing deficits, white people are stereotyped as being angry over supposedly paying higher taxes to subsidize minorities, while minorities are stereotyped as being mostly on the receiving end of entitlements.

Why the escalation of racial tension in the supposedly post-racial age of Obama?

First, Obama's reputation as a racial healer was largely the creation of the media. In fact, the Obama campaign had a number of racially polarizing incidents that probably would have disqualified any other presidential candidate of the past 30 years.
His two-decade apprenticeship at Trinity United Church of Christ under the racist and anti-Semitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright has never been adequately explained. Obama indulged in racial stereotyping himself when he wrote off the white lower-middle class of Pennsylvania as clueless zealots clinging to their guns, religion, and xenophobia.

Obama also characterized his grandmother as a "typical white person" when he implied that her supposed fear of young black males symbolizes the prejudices of the entire white community. Michelle Obama did not help things when, in clumsy fashion, she indicted America as "just downright mean" - a nation she had not been proud of in her adult life until it embraced the hope and change represented by her husband's candidacy.

Such campaign trash talk did not stop during the first 18 months of the Obama presidency. The race-baiting Van Jones - the short-lived presidential adviser on "green jobs" - should never have been appointed. Then, the president himself criticized Cambridge, Mass., police for acting "stupidly" when they arrested his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

Then there was the outburst of Attorney General Eric Holder, who blasted America as "a nation of cowards" for not talking more about race on his terms. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was almost obsessive in referring to herself as a "Latina." She also suggested that her racial background and experiences made her "wise" in a way white male colleagues could never be.

Recently, Obama appealed to voters along exclusionary race and gender lines - not traditional political allegiances - when he called upon "the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008."

Yet the country passed the old white/black divide years ago. We are a racially diverse society of Asians, blacks, Hispanics, whites, and mixtures of all that and more. In a world of conservative Cubans and liberal whites, race is no longer necessarily a guide to politics.

Who now, exactly, is the racial "Other" deserving of special consideration in hiring and education? A half-Punjabi immigrant whose father owns 500 acres? A three-quarters Puerto Rican who just arrived in New York? A Korean-American son of an orthodontist? The African-American children of a Cabinet official?

The more the president appeals to his base in racial terms, the more his appointees identify themselves as members of a particular tribe, and the more political issues are framed by racial divisions, so all the more such racial obsession creates a backlash among the racially diverse American people.

America has largely moved beyond race. Tragically, our president and a host of his supportive special interests have not.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.





By Victor Davis Hanson:
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online

[myth1958]

It's mighty white of Mr. Hanson to arbitrarily declare we've solidly entered 'post-racial' America. Wow. And he's sure for certain that President Obama is shedding white voters, whilst attracting black voters because of his focus in matters racial: taking a black man's perspective. I'd say Mr Hanson has misled us, coloring his dialogue with predictable right-wing claptrap: "the country passed the old black/white thing years ago." "America has largely moved beyond race." Really? Not by statistical means. Black graduation rates are twice as bad as white. Economic power - ownership of large businesses - lags far behind white, as does representation equally in politics. Overrepresentation by blacks in our prisons: more black men in prison than in college. Overrepresentation in unemployment - significantly higher among black Americans. Pervasive stereotyping in advertising and media portraying back women a hyper-sexual and black men as, well... hyper-sexualizing them, too.
Such facts - rather than Hanson's speculations - are the reality; the end result of centuries of social, legal and immoral conduct towards black Americans that a few years of coverage by the Civil Rights Act and election of Obama are not going to rectify. Hanson and other American apologists need to let black folks tell them when we're truly living in a post-racial society. By then, this discussion won't matter.

[Dreadnut]

Racism = ugly. There's no getting around it. The apologies and obfuscations of the racist left put up alot of window dressing on the problem but fail, indeed avoid, the core issue of white paternalism. Treating the African American demographic as the colored auxiliary of the Democratic party and parading Obama around like a prize pet poodle won't do any service to race relations anymore than the "tea baggers" they claim to abhor.

[omnibus66]

As long as there are hate-spewing organizations like the Tea-Partiers, right wing church groups, Fox News, and The Republican Party, we will have rampant racism. All of these hate Obama for one reason and one reason only. Welcome to what used to be The United States of America. The melting pot has become a boiling cauldron.

[ken1dall]

Sounds like you get your news from CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and Obama himself. You really have to look to find the real story.

[91786]

Obama went to this racist ministers church for over 20 years-- thats over 1000 Sundays:

"White folk done took this country," Wright said. "You're in their home, and they're gonna let you know it." "You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk," he said. "And if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble." The civil-rights movement, Wright said, was never about racial equality: "It was always about becoming white . . . to master what [they] do." Martin Luther King, he said, was misguided for advocating nonviolence.

[imnho]

Hanson is to clever by about half. He has a lot of anger towards minorities and it shows.

[Simifanene]

Our President is a man of the times. He's black and white with a great big Hawaiian heart. He?s an American who has lived as a white Hawaiian as a boy and a Chicago south side black man as an adult. His boyhood was a pleasant racial mix, but probably confusing,
Raised by his white mother, uncle, aunts and grandparents his inside was white. Black friends in Hawaii we?re few if any. There?s very few black humans living in Hawaii, very few. He was the minority of minorities but treated as a little white boy growing up with Hawaiian and the Hawaiian Japenese, philipino?s, Samoan?s, Tongans who make up the majority of Hawaiian citizens. They all blended well.
It must have been a real shock, when he left Hawaii as a young man to attend collge on the mainland. The racial slurs must have hit him then. He met a black girl from Chicago and they married and moved to the south side of Chicago. Chicago?s south side is a hundred percent black. Living there for years he leared the black way of life that has combined with his white Hawaiian life.
He knows all of us, and represents all of us. He knows what we think of each other, and how it feels to be black, white and Hawaiian. He?s a part of all American?s. He?s the rainbow man that?s leading the world over the rainbow to a better place. Give him a chance Republicans. Don?t be obstinate towards him because he is the man that could bring the whole world together. Aloha Mr. President, keep bringing our troops home as you are. Keep us out of the mini depression Bush left us in. Take us into the diginet age as a great leader, that makes our future a place over the rainbow, where all people are a part of the rainbow.

[-SkirtLifter-]

FYI, you can avoid those pesky ? question marks by NOT using Microsoft Word for spell check.

[Berkeley-SkirtLifter]

I don't believe America has moved beyond race issues. I don't believe we are capable of moving beyond race.

Human kind has always segregated itself along racial, tribal or religious lines. In prisons, inmates ALWAYS self segregate.

The formation of the USA was an experiment in gov't...an attempt to govern via a set of principles rather than family, tribe, religion or race. Probably the first nation ever born on principle not tribe, religion or race.

America has always contained racially divided entities (self segregated groups). It amazes me that thru the decades, America has supported racial divisions e.g. Black Caucus, Native American Tribes, Black Colleges, La Raza, China Towns, Affirmative Action, etc. (White sub groups not allowed)

America has always supported dividing people by religion, and still does.

The support of the aforementioned racial self segregation has always propagated under the pretense that White majorities have the advantage and minorities need "bonus points" to keep up with Whites. The constitutional principle of freedom of religion has fostered divisions based on religion.

We can NEVER avoid human nature, the natural force to self segregate. It will always be. Self segregated sub groups are not necessarily evil, bad, or something that should be fought. However, some are bad. I think the New Black Panthers are an example of a bad self segregated entity. I think the KKK is bad and its existence should be discouraged.

I think Christians, Jews, Native American Spirituality, Muslims and Atheists are 'acceptable sub groups'. But when a sub group further self segregates along racial lines (KKK - White Christians or Malcolm X style Black Muslims) things get dicey. The danger lies in the existence of racially divided sub groups, self segregating under the pretense of 'acceptable sub groups'.

As a country, we need to figure out what sub groupings we support and which ones we don't. When a sub group forms along acceptable lines, yet is clearly a hateful sub group, we need to shine a light on the reality of their motivation. If a group of White Supremacists is posing as 'Christians' this sub grouping should be discouraged. A Muslim group that further self segregates into all Arab or all Black Muslims, can be bad.

If a group self segregates along racial lines, but accepts various religious beliefs, or allows a sprinkling of other races, it might not be a bad thing. If hate for others is a motivation for self segregation, this clearly should be fought.

Bottom line: Human Nature allows for self segregation. It's normal. We simply need to have the sense to distinguish between hateful negative segregated entities and normal healthy Human sub groups. Do we as Americans have the wisdom to make these value judgments? I really don't know.

[pw08-2009]

Berkely-skirt-lifter,

I can't believe that I actually agree with you on this one, but I do. I will add that I think everyone is capable of helping others' on a one-to-one basis, but that we're all really "racists" (for the lack of a better term) at heart...meaning, we stick to our own groups/people first. So when someone get's up here and calls everyone racist, I have to laugh because we all are, if we're being totally honest.

[magicwolf1]

Hanson has embraced the new intellectual racism, but such are too clever for their own good, as the racist hatred is transparent.

[enwr77]

In what America does this writer reside? The election of African American Presidents gets rid of racism. He did not win 100 percent of the vote. If the Civil Rights Movement and passing of Title VII and the previous anti-discrimination laws did not get rid of it, how could the 2008 election do so? The main reason it is still here is because of conservative views. If you conserve, then you keep what is already there.

Those who are not the recipients of racism, speak in an obvious ignorance. No hating your oppressor is not racism.

[mec6951]

It's always so refreshing for white people to tell black people how they should think, feel, and act. Try walking a mile in the other persons shoes before you hand out advice.
By the way folks- affirmative action actually has done more for white women than for any other minority group so it's not just limited to black people.
Anyone who thinks racism is mostly a thing of the past, come to Springfield, IL and you'll find it's largely alive and well with no end in sight.

[amerilatino]

mec, let me tell you something, the American Anglo Foghorn-Leghorn complex isn't limited to blacks in the U.S.; in Puerto Rico and wherever they're allowed to in Latin-America, they've shamelessly pounded on folks front doors, peddling snake-oil political and religious propaganda on the hard-sell for decades, telling folks how their cultures are all wrong. Do you still wonder why the natives shrink their heads for trophies in the Amazon?