Discriminations

[NOTE: This post has been updated]

Back in the old days, b.p.c. (before political correctness), people could joke with impunity about such things as the shortest books ever written: a history of Italian naval victories, say, or a history of Irish sobriety. We can no longer do that, but if we could we should probably add a history of Berkeley humor to the list.

Peter Schmidt reported on an example of the latter a couple of days ago on a Chronicle of Higher Education blog, a report by several University of California at Berkeley scholars predicting that race-baiting would emerge as a serious matter in the 2008 presidential campaign.

The report—which lists as its lead authors Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the university’s law school, and David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy—acknowledges that no major race-baiting incidents have occurred in the presidential campaigns so far. But, based on an analysis of a dozen elections since 1983, the paper argues that appeals to racial bigotry are likely, especially if Barack Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee.

“It’s not only Barack Obama who will have to combat race-based tactics,” Mr. Edley, an Obama supporter, said in a statement accompanying the report. “Any politician who backs positions that appeal to minority voters is vulnerable.”

I’ve skimmed the report, and I urge anyone whose comedy quota hasn’t been filled lately to read it more closely than I did. If you do, let me know if you find any examples of a white politician being “race-baited” for, say, supporting affirmative action. I didn’t see any.

On the other hand, maybe what Edley and Kirp mean by “race-baiting” is simply openly disagreeing with politicians who are black or who “backs positions that appeal to minority voters.” There is more than a little evidence that that is exactly what they do mean, as indicated by the following examples they provide:

• Senator John McCain hired as campaign manager (since dismissed) the same man, Terry Nelson, who was creator of the infamous “Ford — He’s just not right” TV spot attacking U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr., in 2006. Nelson was previously political director in the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. (p.1)

• Just this fall, candidate Mitt Romney speaking before the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, said that “Barack Obama” had called for jihadists to rally in Iraq. He was referring to a videotape from “Osama bin Laden”. Later, Romney’s campaign said the remark was nothing more than a gaffe. (p. 1)

• Some of the campaigns recounted in “The Dirty Dozen” are familiar — most notoriously the “Willie Horton” attack on Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign.
  

What? You thought the Willie Horton add was about being soft on crime and criminals? Silly you.

• Some issues, especially crime, are race-card “carriers.” It is difficult to talk about getting “tough on crime” in campaigns without touching on the fact that minorities are disproportionately convicted and incarcerated for violent and drug-related crime. When a candidate decides to use crime as one of the issues in her arsenal, it is very easy to prime racial prejudice in the electorate, as the Willie Horton ad demonstrates. (p. 4)
  

The authors discuss “a baker’s dozen” of examples of race-baiting politics going back to 1984. You should read their analyses for yourself, but I was surprised, almost shocked, by how thin and unpersuasive it is. Their first three case studies represent the conventional wisdom of race-baiting in politics — their summaries follow — but I confess that I don’t even find these famous three persuasive, much less the other 10. But here are the Big Three that everyone always cites, as summarized by the Berkeleyans:

1. CORKER vs. FORD 2006, SENATE SEAT, TENNESSEE
Bob Corker (R) defeats Harold Ford The 2006 Tennessee Senate race was one of the highest-profile Senate seats of the 2006 cycle, pitting former Chattanooga mayor and social conservative Bob Corker against a rising African-American Democratic star, Representative Harold Ford. The candidates remained in a dead heat until the Republican National Committee sponsored a radio advertisement alleging Ford attended a party featuring Playboy playmates. The Corker campaign followed this successful message with an ad entitled, “Call Me,” in which a suggestively-clad Caucasian woman asks Ford to contact her. This implicit message tapped into deep-seated white fears regarding sex between races; despite significant national outcry and a call from Ford to stop the ad, Corker won with a narrow margin.

2. BUSH vs. DUKAKIS 1988, PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
George H.W. Bush (R) defeats Michael Dukakis (D)
The 1988 Presidential general election between sitting Vice President George H. W. Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis is the setting for arguably the most infamous use of race in modern presidential politics. The Willie Horton ad set a new low for the tactic of using race under the guise of “getting tough on crime,” a rallying cry for both Republicans and Democrats. In a slam against Dukakis’ record as governor, the third-party ad pictured a frightening mug shot of murderer Willie Horton, an African- American, who committed another murder while furloughed by a Massachusetts prison. The program’s purpose was defended as a useful element of corrections policy, providing an incentive for good behavior even for those ineligible for parole. The Bush camp followed with similar yet less offensive ads. Rev. Jesse Jackson decried the attacks as an ugly racial appeal, but his criticism got no traction. The Dukakis campaign failed to recover from the blow, was pulled “off-message” for weeks, and ultimately lost the election.

3. HELMS vs. GANTT 1990, SENATE SEAT, NORTH CAROLINA
Jesse Helms (R) defeats Harvey Gantt (D)
The 1990 North Carolina Senate race against former Charlotte, N.C. mayor Harvey Gantt marked the first time well-established social conservative Senator Jesse Helms used racist tactics directly against an African American. Gantt’s strong biracial support and successful fundraising, most of which came from outside the state, created a formidable “New South” candidate. Trailing significantly in the final weeks because of criticism of his record on education and the environment, Helms shifted the focus of the campaign by releasing the “White Hands” advertisement. The ad derided racial quotas by depicting a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter. Gantt’s campaign went on the defensive against the charges and never regained the ability to shift the message away from racial issues, ultimately losing to Helms.

Let’s take these in turn.

1. Corker – Ford 2006. I understand the argument about the “deep-seated white fears regarding sex between races,” but I still regard it a stretch to view this attack ad as race-baiting. Aside from the question about whether those “deep-seated fears” are still prevalent, I think any candidate in Tennessee would have been open to identical criticism for attending a party featuring Playboy playmates, and that criticism doesn’t become race-baiting simply because the candidate is black.

2. Bush – Dukakis 1988. Was this ad really “the most infamous use of race in modern presidential politics”? Was criticizing Dukakis’s decision to furlough Willy Horton really a “tactic of using race under the guise of ‘getting tough on crime’”? How do they know the apparent concern about crime was only “a guise.” Oh, I know. It’s because the ad featured a Republican attacking a Democrat, and everybody knows — certainly everybody in Berkeley — that when Republicans talk about crime they “really” mean race. Crime, as we’ve seen they believe, is only a “carrier” for the real concern, race.

3. Helms – Gantt 1990. It has become an article of faith that the infamous “White Hands” ad that “derided racial
quotas by depicting a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter” was a mean, nasty, racist tactic. But was it? I may be a minority of one, but I don’t think so. First, if you’re curious, go take a look at the ad itself, here. It accuses Harvey Gantt of supporting “Ted Kennedy’s racial quota law.” Supporters can argue that affirmative action does not necessarily amount to quotas, but they can’t reasonably argue that it never does. If it is a “racist tactic” to oppose affirmative action, is it similarly a racist tactic to support it?

Helms also made the list for his 1984 Senate race against Jim Hunt:

Hunt’s broad-based popularity as governor positioned him to stave off a strong competitor, but Helms’ recasting of the race in racial terms served him well. Helms frequently called on voters to choose between “the two Jesses” by portraying Jesse Jackson as the opponent in ads and speeches; the campaign distributed buttons with Helms’ image labeled, “Our Jesse.” These inflammatory comparisons, combined with Helms’ fear-based rhetoric that “blacks want it all,” aggressive fundraising, and appeal to moderate voters gave Helms a surprising and close victory.

Did Jesse Jackson not support Hunt? Is criticizing affirmative action necessarily “fear-based”?

The remainder of the “baker’s dozen” are considerably thinner examples of racism even those above.

Patrick Buchanan, for one example, is criticized for emphasizing “extreme positions such as ‘returning to American values” in New Hampshire in 1996. Kirk Fordice, for another, is criticized for calling for “prison reform via returning inmates to the ‘cotton fields ...[to generate] a cash crop that would compensate victims for their crimes’” in Mississippi in 1991. Tom Tancredo, in his Colorado Congressional race in 2006, “capitalized on the fears of threatened whites by using ideology rather than political strategy to shape his platform.”

Assuming this report is not an exercise in political humor, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the authors regard any opposition to black candidates or white candidate who “backs positions that appeal to minority voters” as “race-baiting.” Demanding preferential treatment based on race is fine; objecting to it is racist.

Apparently aware of the weakness of this argument, the authors also resort to some fall-back subterfuge. One is that the race-baiting is often transmitted through “implicit messages.” It’s hard to see how “race-baiting” can be “implicit,” but never mind. And regarding “implicit” racism:

Racial rhetoric can be embedded in standard conservative rhetoric. Some issues that have racial overtones resonate for moderate whites, such as welfare reform and affirmative action issues. These issues are often presented to voters through the prism of economic, rather than social conservatism.

Since concern about crime is merely a “carrier” for racism, etc., do the authors really believe only that “[r]acial rhetoric can be embedded in standard conservative rhetoric”? [italics added] Can they distinguish examples where it is embedded and where, amazingly, the “standard conservative rhetoric” is free of racism? Do they believe it is ever free of racism?

And here’s another humorous policy prescription:

Democrats need a real counter-attack to accusations of being soft on “reverse discrimination.”

Aside from the fact that there is no such thing as “reverse discrimination” — a policy is either discriminatory or it’s not — this isn’t bad advice. It would be good for Democrats (why only advice here for Democrats? Doesn’t that make this a partisan document?) to be able to explain why discriminating on the basis of race is not discriminating on the basis of race.

Finally, their warnings are sometimes too confusing to follow. Consider this observation:

The freedom to respond to racially sensitive rhetoric is at an all-time high. This is good and bad news for candidates. The good: We have moved beyond a time when candidates could explicitly use racial epithets and reporters might laugh it off and not report it. The bad: Any remark that is even close to being racially insensitive can set off a firestorm and make a campaign more about a candidate’s personal views on race than any policy issue.

Is “racially sensitive rhetoric” a good thing or a bad thing? I suppose it’s better than “racially insensitive” rhetoric, but I’m not sure. Would rhetoric that ignored race altogether, that spoke of crime or terrorism or unemployment or education, be racially sensitive or insensitive?

On the other hand, we shouldn’t put too much stock in any advice about rhetoric coming from Dean Edley. As I pointed out here and here, he once described Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s magisterial America in Black and White as “a crime against humanity.”

UPDATE [6 Jan.]

Writing in The New Republic last month, John Judis reported on some powerful racist attitudes that could play a large role in the 2008 campaign but that the Berkeley authors did not see fit to mention. “Hillary Clinton’s Firewall,” especially against Obama, he argued, was her strength and his weakness among Hispanic voters — 59% to 15% in a December Pew Hispanic Center poll; 55% to 6% to 1.8% for Edwards in a poll in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas, also in December, by ImpreMedia, the largest Hispanic news company in the U.S.

Although there are some “mundane,” i.e., non-racial, explanations for these numbers, Judis reports, they “may have less to do with enthusiasm for her candidacy than with a lack of enthusiasm for the Illinois senator.”

Over the last two decades, there has been evidence of growing hostility from Hispanics toward African Americans. Some of this hostility is the result of conflicts, or perceived conflicts, over politically controlled resources in cities and states. But as Tanya K. Hernandez, a professor of law at George Washington, has argued recently, it may also be a legacy of an older Latin American prejudice against blacks that has been transplanted to this country.

While this conflict passes largely unnoticed in the popular press, African American and Latino sociologists have been conducting extensive surveys in Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Philadelphia. These surveys have generally found that Latinos display more prejudice toward African Americans than African Americans do toward Latinos or than whites display toward African Americans. In the words of University of Houston sociologist Tatcho Mindiola, Jr. and two associates, “in general African Americans have more positive views of Hispanics than vice versa.”

In Mindiola’s surveys of racial attitudes in Houston, they asked Latino respondents to describe blacks. Some of the terms that most often came to mind were “noisy,” “loud,” “lazy,” “dropouts/uneducated,” “hostile,” “complainers/whiners,” “bad people,” “prejudiced,” “aggressive,” “angry,” “disrespectful/rude,” and “violent.” Only 54 percent of U.S.-born Latinos and 46 percent of immigrant Latinos approved of their children dating an African American. 41 percent of U.S.-born Latinos thought blacks had “too much power.” Half thought that “most government programs that are designated for minorities favor African Americans.”

Duke University’s Paula McClain, working with nine other sociologists, found similar attitudes among Latinos living in Durham, North Carolina. According to McClain et al., “Latino immigrants hold negative stereotypical views of blacks and feel that they have more in common with whites than with blacks.” For instance, 58.9 percent of Latino immigrants, but only 9.3 percent of whites, reported feeling that “few or almost no blacks are hard-working.”

These attitudes were not confined to working-class Latinos. Yolanda Flores Niemann of Washington State University and four other sociologists discovered among Latino college students the same kind of stereotypes that Mindiola found in Houston. Among the top ten traits that Latino college students ascribed to black males were “antagonistic,” “speak loudly,” “muscular,” “criminal,” “dark skin,” and “unmannerly.”

There have already been hints of the Clinton campaign playing what many regard as the race card, such as reminding voters of Obama’s youthful drug use and suggesting that the evil Republicans may ask whether or not he was a dealer, etc. It will be interesting to see if Clinton appeals to these Hispanic racial attitudes if her campaign reaches states with many Hispanic voters.

And finally, Judis asks,

Suppose Obama does win the nomination. Would he be hampered by Latino-black hostility in gaining the Latino vote in November 2008?

His answer:

Probably not, because of the Republican party’s embrace of a nativist agenda that stigmatizes Latinos. But as Rudolph Giuliani or Michael Bloomberg have shown in New York mayoral contests, if in the future Republicans were to abandon their nativism and nominate centrist candidates who could court the Latino vote, they might find themselves the beneficiaries of this division.

Aside from whether opposition to open borders and amnesty — or, if you prefer, an easy “path to citizenship” — is a “nativist agenda that stigmatizes Latinos,” Judis’s “Republican party” that has embraced such an agenda presumably does not contain President Bush or Senator McCain.