Defining Our Role

In the past two years, we have received our fair share of critical comments. THIS WEEK, though, a new trend has emerged: some of our most thoughtful readers have begun to question (publicly and privately) our commentary. We are thankful for their honesty – thankful that they felt comfortable confronting our assertions and trying to keep us grounded.

Two things might account for this shift, and they are not mutually exclusive. First, it might be that conservatives have been so effective in pushing a position that any racial messages in the campaign are the “fault” of progressives and the Obama campaign so that our friends are beginning to panic about the possibility of losing moderate white voters. Second, it might be that we have veered off the path that we have set out for ourselves. Accordingly, we thought it appropriate to sketch out how we perceive our collective role – not just in this critical election period, but in general.

Before doing so, however, we want to direct your attention to a poll that was released this week by the Associated Press, in cooperation with Yahoo! News and Professor Paul Sniderman of Stanford University. Unlike most tracking polls by news organizations, the AP employed an elaborate instrument and used sophisticated analytical techniques on a very large national random sample (N = 2, 227). Results show that “[d]eep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close . . . [O]ne-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.” The AP story on the poll continues:

The poll suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about 2.5 percentage points.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one-third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

This is consistent with our research, as well as research from others who have been studying implicit associations and the potential effect of implicit racial messages.

The attack ads that have been produced take advantage of these deep-seated predispositions about African Americans. Whether that is the intent of the McCain campaign or the third-party sponsors of the ads is irrelevant to us. The point is that the messages, while they may have been leveled against a white opponent, will be more effective because Obama is black. We feel that it is our responsibility to continue to point this out as it occurs. Here’s why.


The Project on Race in Political Communication

In 2001, we set out to put forth an ambitious agenda to fill gaps in social science research on race, language and politics from an interdisciplinary angle. Shortly thereafter, we decided that students, other scholars and media organizations (as well as other interested persons and parties) might benefit from having a central place to go for historical information, updates on our work, and occasional analysis. We launched the RaceProject.org website in 2002 to provide that service.


THIS WEEK IN RACE

By 2006, we realized that we could reach a broader audience by applying scholarly principles to current events. We began this weekly blog in September of that year. Since then, there have been a number of other excellent websites and blogs devoted to explorations of latent racism (we are particularly impressed with the efforts of the folks at "Stop Dog Whistle Racism"). While it is true that we have been preoccupied with the presidential election as of late, our focus is much broader. If Obama wins, readers can feel confident that we will continue to follow attacks on him that activate racist predispositions. Irrespective of the outcome of the election, we will continue to bring forward elements of popular culture and news that reside at the intersection of politics, language and race.


Seeing the Big Picture

A reporter from the North Central College campus paper emailed Stephen about the comments exchanged on last week’s blog. She asked: What is your response to the blog being referenced as "about being anti-republican"?

Here is Stephen’s response (with hyperlinks added for TWIR readers):

A primary goal of the Race Project is to conduct research on race, language and politics and use what we learn to better understand racism so that we can move closer to racial equality. That is not a value-neutral position, but neither is it partisan. My blog writings are designed to explain the way racist and racial messages operate; we have been critical of both Democrats and Republicans over the two years that the blog has been up. While we do not endorse candidates, our feeling is that given not only Barack Obama's background, but his attitudes about race (expressed in his writings and his historic speech this past March), we as a nation would do more to address issues of racial inequality under his leadership than under John McCain's. The truth is that since the 1960s, neither party has gone out of its way to make progress on this issue. As a nation, we have largely swept under the rug the most important questions that still remain (disproportionate poverty, incarceration, lack of educational opportunities, joblessness, access to health care, etc. in communities of color). Progressives have expressed concern about the issue, but conservatives have by and large either argued that it does not exist or argued that it is up to people to pull themselves out of difficult conditions (ignoring the systemic barriers that lead to these conditions). Not since Jack Kemp in the late 1980s has a prominent conservative offered a specific strategy to rectify racial inequality (see our exchange with Professor William Voegeli in last month's blog for more on this issues). As a result, it is not surprising that we appear to be "anti-Republican" at times. For us, though, it's not about party or even this election specifically; it's about the bigger issue.

She also asked:

Do you think blogs such as these will have a positive effect on this year's election (as it pertains to more people becoming knowledgeable and aware of this campaign and politics in general)?

Stephen replied:

I have no illusion that the blog I write will have much of an effect on this election. Despite some healthy debate, most of our readers are already sensitive to these issues (or have become sensitive to them by reading our blog each week). In that regard, TWIR is an echo chamber of sorts. The fact is that because of the way the power structure is set up in America, and because white folks generally are not bigoted and like to believe that they have no racist predispositions, the deck is very much stacked against Obama. Most messages that take advantage of racist beliefs are subtle, so white folks do not see them as relating to race. When we or others point it out, folks generally think that we're "looking for racism" or are being overly sensitive. This has happened to Obama on a number of occasions during the campaign, as well. The problem is that if he (and we) ignores it, the implicit racist message will be effective, but if he (or we) points it out, it is he (or we) who is accused of "playing the race card." White folks would like to believe that we're "past race" in America because they have black friends or do not have conscious prejudiced thoughts. As a result, it is very uncomfortable to talk about race at all, and even more uncomfortable to admit that a message was particularly effective because of one's latent racism.In short, we feel that our job is to continue to help folks to understand how powerful systemic racism really is by pointing out the myriad ways it works. There is no doubt that we'll continue to get criticism from those aligned with the right when we expose messages from their side (as we've been doing with Republicans) and those from the left when we expose messages from their side (as we did repeatedly during the primaries with respect to Hillary Clinton's campaign).

Breakfast of Racists

An example of a racist message that preserves plausible deniability occurred earlier in the month at an event sponsored by Focus on the Family. The Values Voter Summit, like many conferences, invited vendors to come and sell their wares to an audience that is presumed to be interested in what they have to sell.

One of the vendors featured a box of waffle mix with Obama’s likeness on it. Besides the caricature of Obama and the obvious link to Aunt Jamima, there are mocking references to Obama supporting “illegal aliens,” a picture of Obama in a turban, and a rap song (in hip-hop vernacular) about Obama’s “waffling.” (See details and an interview with the vendors here.)

Some of our most thoughtful and respected friends disagreed with our early analysis (which we posted on the RaceProject.org Facebook page) because they believed either that the box was attacking, but not necessarily racist, or that Focus on the Family had no responsibility for the product.

Our response is that the box is clearly racist, irrespective of whether the vendor intended for it to be so. Here’s a similar example.

In 2006, African American candidate Harold Ford, Jr. ran for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. Like all black candidates running in majority-white districts, his election would rely on a significant number of white votes in addition to any minority support he would receive. The Republican National Committee ran a humorous ad against him (see below) that, in part, featured a white woman who claimed that she “met Harold at the Playboy party,” asking at the end (after the disclaimer, for Ford to call her. In fact, Ford had attended a Super Bowl party at the Playboy mansion, so while the woman was fictitious, the tone of the ad was clearly tongue-in-cheek, and therefore not inaccurate. However, the fact that the woman was white and Ford is black is not inconsequential. In a country that is still largely uncomfortable with interracial relationships (and even more so in the South), such a suggestion plays into deep-seated resentment about black men’s sexual prowess, and the need to protect white women from them. (The woman, by the way, is pictured from the shoulders up, with no visible clothing, even though she is on the street.)



In short, the ad was not inaccurate (as one could argue is the case with some of the claims on the Obama waffle box), but was more effective because Ford is black. The ability to deny that race is involved is not only not an effective claim that there is no racism, but it is, in fact, crucial to a racist message to work at all in the 21st century. (Though see Fox News Channels Neil Cavuto's comment from earlier THIS WEEK that lending money to "minorities and risky folks" is a disaster.)


In Solidarity

One of the reasons that progressive movements and activists have trouble is that they are constantly having wedges driven between them. We are not activists (we don't work that hard), but neither are we neutral bystanders in the struggle for social justice. Further, we understand that activists look to social scientists and other scholars for information relating to their work. We will not be providing any answers, per se, of how to defeat racism. We leave that to our readers and our students. Our role, as we see it and have defined it, is to help others to understand the myriad ways racism works to perpetuate white privilege and maintain racial inequality.

We invite our friends to continue to hold our feet to the fire. We do not want to stray from our mission. However, we believe that vigilance is more in order now than it has been for some time because 21st century racism is not nearly as recognizable as 20th century racism was. We do not wish to “find” it where it does not exist, but neither will we allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of satisfaction that explicit racism is out of vogue. On that point, as we noted in an earlier post, Obama’s selection as nominee (whether he wins or not) is likely to allow explicit racism to resurface since whites can feel confident that discrimination is gone once and for all as a result of this notable event.