Obama is black but he’d better not say so

It is now politically incorrect to call anyone a racist, even if they are. But how can you tell anymore? Those who used to be identifiable as black racists now have white friends and white racists have black friends.
I know a black guy in North Carolina who often drops in for a chat with his neighbor, who is a local Grand Dragon in the Klan. Seriously! So doesn’t that give the Grand Dragon plausible deniability of racism?
I know a Chinese woman whose best friend is black; but she doesn’t particularly like black people. In fact she doesn’t particularly like Chinese people. Is she a racist? Race is a really touchy subject all over the world right now.
I do a lot of international blogging and a man from Amsterdam, who I had come to know as quite racially liberal, was very offended because I referred to him as white. I had seen his photo. He is white.
A woman from Copenhagen was similarly outraged when I told her that we are likely to understand some things differently because she is white and I black. She had no problem with my social reality being different because of gender, nationality or mode of thinking.
“I don’t see you as black. You are simply a human being, and so am I,” she wrote with seeming pride in her liberalism.
“No I am a black human being and you are a white human being. Our points of view will be different at times because of race,” I said. But the more I tried to explain the angrier she got.
We exchanged three or four emails and eventually she wrote: “Because some bad white people did something awful to you in your childhood… I am not responsible for American racism and so I’m not going to feel sorry for you. Forget it! No!”
Wow! I furrowed my brow. I had not once asked her to feel sorry for me. I have an advanced degree from an Ivy League university. I worked at the Washington Post and New York Times. How could I convince her that “good” white people had done more for me than “bad” white people had done against me?
I had books published by Random House and Doubleday. I was a flying officer in the United States Air Force, but still there are things that I have to face that a white guy of my social circumstance does not have to face. There are many, many ways that I do not get treatment equal to that of a white guy similarly placed. “You’re playing the ‘race card,’” she said. “I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
Seldom can a black person talk about racism without being accused of playing that infamous “race card.” When Obama criticized Arizona’s anti-immigrant bill, Sarah Palin accused him of playing the “race card.”
Obama is, in America’s definition, black but he’d better not say so. We can refer to him proudly as the first black president, but we cannot construct a working definition of what that might mean in the day to day conduct of his job.
He cannot say he has a different point of view on certain social realities “because I’m black,” or “because now my entire family is black, except my half-sister who has an Asian father. We see America a little differently.” Immediately, pundits will accuse him of a lack of patriotism.
The most patriotic person I know is a black ex-Special Forces guy. In business meetings he’ll blurt right out: “No one is ever going to get me to do anything that is not in the best interest of my country.”
But his patriotism is different from that of, say, Glen Beck, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, or John Boehner. He sees America as deeply flawed and unfinished. He loves America for its promise. Obama loves America too for its promise, and that’s a very valuable attitude, but he’d better be careful verbalizing it.
Could Obama dare say certain people “attack me because I’m black”? Wow! That would be the ace of spades of ‘race cards.’ If the Tea Party, other elements of the right wing, or the Republican Party are rabid with racism there is no way to say so without, well… playing the “race card.”
I got an email from a 30-something white guy who likes talking politics with a guy like me from the Civil Rights era. He is a polling and media consultants whose present specialty is working against right-wing, populist movements. He seems comfortable seeing the racial difference between us, and is not the least bit apologetic about that difference.
He wrote:
. . .this harkins back to a discussion you and I were having about “correctly framing the political discussion” I think it is this EXACT message battle that is going to play the largest role in the elections this Fall. Right now, the right-wingers are winning this battle hands-down.
Sure they are. They can rally support using code words. The million-member Facebook group praying for Obama’s death does not say it is because he’s black. Rand Paul (who asserts that private business owners should not be prevented from discriminating against blacks and other minorities) says: “I have a message from the Tea Party. We come to take our country back.” From whom. . .that n-word in the White House?
“Real Americans” is Sarah Palin code word. And her supporters know exactly who she regards as “unreal Americans.” Even if it can be argued that Paul and Palin are not racists, they certainly know how to appeal to racism.
A Harris Poll released recently found among Republicans (There are about 50 million registered Republicans in America):
• 67 percent believe Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent believe Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent believe Obama was not born in the United States
• 38 percent equate many of Obama’s actions to those of Hitler
• 24 percent say Obama “may be the Antichrist.”
How many of these 50 million are stealth racists who can be energized for political campaigns without mentioning race? Are some of the 50 million already in Congress? How many are in government jobs vital to the Administration’s success?
How many are out there in America sliding some small or large indignity or inequality into black lives, sometime with permanent or even fatal ill-effect. And if the black person complains, how many liberals will dismiss the complaint as playing the “race card.”
We know there are uncountable numbers (more than the million who signed up for the Facebook group) who hate Obama’s being President; why? because he’s… nope, you can’t say it. Therefore, you cannot openly defend him, or yourself, from stealth racism. And this makes Obama’s accomplishments as President, the new American mix that elected him, and some of the wonderful things black people are getting done seem even more incredibly to an old timer like me.