Mountains and Molehills

A particularly bright and insightful person asked us this week if we found the criticism over Hillary Clinton’s latest racist slip to undermine the Obama campaign’s stated intention to be a different kind of campaign – that is, one that does not seek to magnify every slip by an opposing candidate. It’s a point worthy of consideration.

First, as our friend recognizes, spending time analyzing Clinton’s comments in this space is not the same as the Obama campaign making political hay out of it. Our job, as we see it, is to provide some perspective that our readers may not have gleaned from the mainstream media or from their own analysis. In fact, most of the criticism of Clinton’s comments about “hard working Americans, white Americans” from this past week came from media pundits and bloggers rather from the Obama campaign itself.

Second, it is one thing to capitalize on an isolated “slip” and quite another to point out a communicative act that is indicative of a trend in one’s campaign. Clinton’s remarks clearly fall into the latter category. In the context of “fairy tales,” MLK needing a white politician to accomplish something, Jesse Jackson winning South Carolina, praise for black men who know their proper place, and Geraldine Ferraro’s suggestion of affirmative action in the presidential race, the latest comment carries more substantive weight than what Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe offered on Sunday’s Meet the Press.

First, let’s take a look at McAuliffe’s explanation of Clinton’s comments. We will then go back to the original statement to see if we can accept it as valid.

When Russert played the audio clip of Clinton’s remarks and asked about it, here was McAuliffe’s initial response:

First of all, Tim, as you know, she was quoting an AP story. In fairness, she was quoting what had been written in the AP. Both candidates have put together terrific coalitions. What Hillary was talking about is the coalitions that she has been able to put together that has allowed her to win Texas and Ohio, a lot of working-class folks have come out. I'm not saying that Senator Obama can't win that at the end of the day. But, you know, we have been both proud of what we have brought to this table. . .

At this point, McAuliffe continued his rationalization for Clinton staying in the race, deflecting the substance of the question. One might notice, however, that besides falsely putting the words in the metaphorical mouth of the Associated Press, McAuliff did not at all address the questions about racism implicit in the answer. Russert pressed:

But when she uses a phrase, “hardworking Americans, white Americans,” Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco…she's saying that white Americans are hardworking Americans. A lot of African-Americans took great offense at that.

To which McAuliffe responded:

Yeah. Well, and that's not what she meant. And she was quoting the AP story and could--literally, nobody has worked harder, as you know, than President Clinton... Tim, listen, both Clintons have worked their whole life on civil rights issues; Hillary, her entire life, has been working on issues, on education, on health care. They both have been out there fighting hard. This is the end of a long campaign.

And back to rationalizing her continued presence in the campaign. McAuliffe fails to offer exactly what she did mean. She was NOT quoting the AP story, and the old “I have supported equal rights for black folks all my life” argument has nothing to do with the fact that she clearly implicitly associates “hard-working” with whites. This is consistent with a study conducted in 1990 by Linda Williams, where she found that whites in her study tended to attribute positive characteristics such as “intelligent,” “strong leader,” “knowledgeable,” “hard-working,” “gets things done,” “experienced,” and “trustworthy” more often to white candidates than to black candidates. Further, it is consistent with all of the work that has come from the Implicit Associations research at Harvard (go here to take the Implicit Associations Test yourself to see your level of subconscious bias).

And hold on a sec: "literally, nobody has worked harder than President Clinton. . .on civil rights issues." Is he serious? LITERALLY. So Bill Clinton has worked harder on civil rights than Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisolm, Al Sharpton -- Barack Obama, even! We have one of two possibilities here: 1) McAuliff really thinks that Bill Clinton has "literally" worked harder for civil rights than each of these people, or 2) McAuliff meant that he worked harder than any other white person, which, besides being highly arguable, is further indicative of the notion that his reference point is whites and whites only (he'll let us know if he's including people of color when he speaks of "anyone").

In any case, Tim Russert stayed on point:

Here's a report from the New York Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton played the race card as she dismissed Barack Obama as a candidate who can't win support from `white Americans.' ... The `white Americans' remark drew a swift rebuke from some superdelegates, and private dismay from several Democratic" party "officials who said they're concerned about reuniting the factionalized party. Muriel Offerman, a North Carolina superdelegate who has not disclosed her choice, said: `That should not have been said. I think it drives a wedge, a racial wedge, that's not what the Democratic Party's about.' ... Massachusetts [undeclared] superdelegate Debra Kozikowski said: `That's distressing. ... I'm not even sure how to respond to that. I'd like to think that it was not intended to be what it sounds" "but... it" "sounds like trying to split the country down the middle.'" Those are undeclared superdelegates responding to Hillary comments about race.

Uh oh. How is McAuliffe going to respond to all of THAT? How ‘bout with:

And you know what? I can put up 30, 40 more superdelegates who will say, you know, talk about what the Clintons have done on the race issue. First of all, I hate that even race is even in the--we should not have it. We shouldn't have race, we shouldn't have gender. We ought to talk about who can do the best job uniting this country, moving us forward, dealing with health care, getting our troops out of Iraq fast and safe, creating jobs, dealing with the mortgage crisis. That's what this campaign has been about, in fairness. We had 23 total debates through the process, a lot of issues being discussed and let's make sure we stay back focused on the issues.

Ok, so let’s make sure we’re clear here. If you know people who think what she said is racist, but I know people who think it’s not, it’s a wash and therefore not racist. Got it.

Most important, though, the white guy wishes race wasn’t an issue. How nice. How novel! “We shouldn’t have it,” he says. “Can’t we just forget about this whole messy race stuff – it makes me so uncomfortable to have to deal with the realities of racial inequality and the fact that my candidate is garnering support by tapping into existing racial animosity (the type “antipathy” for folks unlike themselves that Obama was so criticized for noting last month in San Francisco).”

Finally, McAuliffe argues at the end of this statement that we should be sure to “stay back focused on the issues.” By this, we presume, he means issues such as those he just mentioned above. But he didn’t just say THOSE issues, he called those issues, THE issues, which means that he does not think race IS an issue – not only that it he wishes that it weren’t. In other words, “people” are trying to make this an issue when it is not. And who are those “people?” Not the hard working white Americans, of course – they, like the rest of us, are ostensibly past race and view everyone equally.

McAuliff’s argument is deflective and insulting to anyone who cares about racial injustice as a real and important issue facing America. But more than that, he is off mark from what Clinton actually said. Let’s take it apart. Here is the quote:

There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working--hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. ... I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.

It is very important for us to listen to her comments, not just read them. (Again, you can do that here). Listen for when Clinton 1) interrupts herself (to make a correction) and 2) uses a vocalized pause to buy some time to think.

1) She interrupts herself after “working” to change it to “hard working.” Why the importance of the modifier? The suggestion is that she’s not being supported by all Americans who have jobs (who “work”) but by those who work “hard,” which implies jobs that require physical labor or repetition and do not pay particularly well. These jobs are most often held by Americans without college degrees. She is absolutely correct that she has been doing well in part of this demographic – whites who meet these qualifications. But there is a disproportionate amount African Americans who are without college degrees and are therefore “hard working” and she has not gotten their support (though she has done well with Latinos of all economic groups). So the interruption and clarification helps to narrow down the base of her support, distancing her from the so-called “intellectual elites” that make up a portion of Obama’s base.

2) But the second clarification comes as she wrestles – as so many of us do (Ever notice how when white folks talk about “blacks” or “African Americans” they often say those words quieter than the rest of the sentence?) – with how to insert race into the conversation. One can hear her hesitation as she flips through her mental Rolodex to see if there is another word or phrase to convey the same message: “. . .and how the, you know, whites. . .” The “you know” here is not a question, but a vocalized pause that at once affords her an opportunity to search for a substitute and brings the listener into her thought process by using second person “you.” By stating that we “know,” she implies that it is factual. “Everyone knows they’re white, so I’m not a bad person for bringing it up.”

So while it is true that harping on a small “slip” is the sort of politics-as-usual that the Obama campaign has emphasized (and that millions have embraced), this incident does not fall into that category. She has talked about this particular racial dimension of the contest since the Texas and Ohio primaries. Her surrogates have used it a number of times since her support among African Americans slipped (the Iowa caucuses). There is a clear pattern that demonstrates that no matter how much Clinton and her husband, the former president, may have “worked” for issues of concern to African Americans, she is not somehow above racism anymore than the rest of us. What we hoped would have been different, however, is that she recognized that and worked hard to avoid using it to her political advantage.

Three research assistants from The Project on Race in Political Communication presented original social science research at North Central College’s annual Rall Symposium for Undergraduate Research this week. We present their paper titles and abstracts below.

The RaceProject welcomes undergraduate and graduate students who wish to get hands-on research experience working on issues of race, politics and language. Interested students should contact either of us by visiting the RaceProject main page.

The Digital “Hood”: Effects of Racial Priming on Online Argumentation

Mark Jenkins

Recent research on online argumentation primarily centers on the outcomes produced by the discussion. There has been a push to explore the potential effect on an individual’s civic participation as a result of having access to new media sources. Democracy is believed to be weakened by the threat of selective exposure and the lack of concrete identity in the online world. However, there have been few studies that have looked at this issue through a racial lens. By using Daniel Canary’s Manual for Coding Conversational Argument (1989) and viewing racial and political content on the new media source YouTube, I examine basic and often unfiltered arguments between individuals to gauge the level of racial discourse in an online forum of a user-submitted video featuring 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“George Bush Doesn’t Care about Black People”: An Analysis of the Presidents Who Did “Care” about Black Americans

Ann Fisher

Of the forty-two presidents whom Americans have elected into office, only seven have made executive orders or proclamations with the attempt of advancing African Americans in American society (Lincoln, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, L. Johnson, and Nixon).I do not examine what these presidents did to enhance the lives of African Americans, rather what they could have done to have an even greater effect on racial equality. Using scholarly literature from race theory, psychology of leadership, racial communication and public opinion, I examine environmental constraints, options available to presidents, and ultimately, action. The result will be a greater understanding of the reasons for the statistical inequality within the United States and the role American presidents have played.

Ethical Ideology Influences Judgment of Employees Returning from FMLA Leave

Elizabeth Konrad

The current research examines how employees who take FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) are perceived by their manager upon return from leave. The FMLA was enacted to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave after the birth of a child or to care for a sick child or parent. In this study, we look at how the ethical position of the manager, as measured by Forsyth’s (1980) EPQ, impacts how the employee is perceived. Participants in this study were asked to imagine that they were responsible for a firm during a critical time. They were told they had an employee who needed leave and were asked to evaluate that employee upon return from leave. The results indicate that individuals with low relativism and high idealism scores were the most negative in their evaluations, particularly when organizational problems occurred in their absence.

Additionally, Gwen Bowman, another RaceProject research assistant, participated in the Rall recitals of student scholarship.

Ballade by Albert Perilhou

Albert Perilhou was born in 1846 and died in 1936. He was a French composer and one of his most famous pieces is “Ballade,” composed in 1903. Ballade is French for ballad. A musical ballad is a piece with one movement which includes dramatic and lyrical narrative qualities. In fact, medieval ballads generally featured an upper voice and two lower voices. This theme is reflected during the Allegro sections the very expressive runs spanning the range of the flute. The beginning of the piece starts out in a slow Lento section. The introduction is very dramatic, further echoing the qualities of a ballad. The transition into the Allegro section is very abrupt. The Lento sections are song-like, with a distinctive melody. This melody from the beginning Lento section can be heard throughout each phrase, and the melody returns at the end.