An awful lot of people -- we put ourselves in this category -- seem to be saying something a little more complicated than "how awful!" about the Reverend Wright's statements about America. It goes like this: "Well, I don't like how he said it, but I agree with much of what I heard him saying." That agreement wouldn't go down well with at least a third of America.
Bill Kristol calls Wright's perorations "conspiracy theory anti-Americanism." But what many of us have noticed over the past seven-plus years is that conspiracy theorists have had remarkable luck in hitting the target. When Kristol quotes Wright's statements on drugs, prisons, three-strike laws, and treating citizens as less than human, many of us nod our heads and think, "Well, yes, that's the racism we've seen all our lives in our country."
That racism doesn't go away. We can't duck it. Dan Balz describes aspects of it as he examines the demographics of the votes for Obama and Clinton. There are pockets of voters who are white male and who won't vote for Obama. Balz looks at the results in two states. Not one in the north and one in the south, but two northern, largely midwestern states.
An examination of exit polls in Wisconsin and Ohio, states with striking similarities, shows that many more working-class white men in Ohio said race was a factor in their vote on March 4 than was the case in Wisconsin. The analysis makes clear that race was not the deciding factor in the Ohio primary but did contribute to Clinton's margin of victory.
In the past week, racial issues have dominated the campaign dialogue. Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro was forced to quit the Clinton campaign after her comments about Obama and race brought sharp criticism from the senator and his allies.
On Friday, Obama had to distance himself from his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, over statements widely viewed as being anti-American. Obama has been a member of the church for two decades.
...One difference between the two states is the influence of race on voting patterns. Among white men in Wisconsin, 11 percent said race was an important factor in their vote. In Ohio, 27 percent of white men said race was an important factor. That is not enough to explain the entire difference in the voting patterns of white men in the two states, but more than enough to explain at least part of Obama's problem.
There's a whole other level of conspiracy theory in American politics that we've tended to forget about and that's racist and homophobic conspiracies. We've gotten pretty familiar with "the gay agenda" and the threats of black men to "our jobs" and "our women." Here's the racism/jobs issue:
Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Obama, said that in industrialized states that have experienced economic dislocation and job losses, the competition for jobs heightens racial tensions. "I think race is a factor in the sense that these are states that have had a decreasing number of jobs because of deindustrialization," he said.
In fact, Obama has begun to pick up more votes among white men.
Stern said Obama needs to talk more about his experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he worked with dislocated steelworkers and their families, and his own life experience.
"He needs to introduce himself not just in the broadest sense as a change agent and who is obviously very smart, but who has lived the life of a single parent, who had to take loans to go to college, who lived in communities in Chicago with steelworkers who lost their jobs," Stern said. "He has incredible credentials. He's walked more than a day in workers' shoes. But it's enormously important that he make that introduction."
But Obama needs to work faster. There's some hope that he can take away enough working-class white men from Clinton, but much less belief that he could prevail in a contest for the same votes with John McCain. Still, Obama's campaign is optimistic. It's important that he win this battle. The last thing we need is a president who has exhibited a little too much racism in her campaign rhetoric and behaviors. It's insulting to all of us, not excluding white men in Ohio, whether they appreciate it or not.
