Without denying racism in the Republican Party, let's always be clear about what is plainly racist and what is not. (Having spent some time with white middle-class Obama activists in recent weeks, I am disturbed at their classist tendency to automatically interpret any working- or lower-class's person's reluctance to support Obama as proof of underlying racism.)
Second, the Republican side has no monopoly on racism. Some Obama supporters seem to be sadly tinged with their own significant degree of anti-black prejudice.
Listen to the following exchange, recently recounted in the New York Times, between white voter Veronica Mendive and white Obama volunteer Cathy Vance:
Ms. Mendive: "I've never been around a lot of black people before. I just worry that they're nice to your face but then when they get around their own people you just have to worry about what they're going to do to you."
Ms. Vance: "One thing you have to remember is that Obama, he's half white and he was raised by his white mother. So his views are really more white than black really."
So "black views" are bad but they can be avoided overcome if a black person is raised by good whites, according to an Obama volunteer.
Great.
According to Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer, Vance "went on to assure Ms. Mendive that she was so enamored with Mr. Obama the person, that she failed to notice the color of his skin anymore" [2].
White supremacist attitudes and language live on in the hearts of a volunteer canvassing for Obama.
Then there are the lovely sentiments of Kimi Oaks, a "prominent community volunteer" and apparent Obama supporter in Mobile, Alabama. According to Times reporter Adam Nossiter, Oaks is "pleased by Mr. Obama's lack of connection to African-American politics."
Oaks spoke to fellow whites at a local church and with approval of how Obama "doesn't come the African-American perspective - he's not of that tradition." For good measure, Ms. Oaks added that "He's not a product of any ghetto" [3]. How's that for high, racially tolerant praise?!
Wow.
STANDARD REPUBLICAN RHETORIC
Third, a lot of what the Republicans are saying about Obama is precisely what they'd be saying about their Democratic opponent if he or she was white.
"She is a leftist." "He's too liberal." "She's weak on national security." "He's a traitor." "She's insufficiently American." "He's an ally of terrorists." "She's an egregious bleeding-heart tax-and-spender whose coddling of the poor will bankrupt the country." "He's too European." "She's a latte- and/or wine-sipping elitist." And so on.
These are the sorts of things (along with the implicit sense that their opponent is too close to blacks) Republicans have been saying about Democratic presidential (and other) candidates for as long as I've followed U.S. politics. We'd be hearing all of this from the GOP if the Democrats were running Hillary Clinton and/or John Edwards.
