desertrain10
New member
I talked about these questions, and the political realities behind them, with Melanye Price, assistant professor of Africana studies at Rutgers University and the author of The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race (2016)
What follows is an edited version of our conversation.
Jenée Desmond-Harris: Throughout his presidency, Obama has faced frequent criticism for shaming or condescending to black audiences — qualifying statements about structural injustice with generalizations about individual failings — in a way that he doesn’t when speaking to nonblack groups. Is that an accurate assessment of what’s happened over the past several years, in your view?
Melanye Price: Yes. In my book, I talk about how when Obama discusses race in particular, he tells these stories about how, “This is the way we can come together as Americans,” but then he gives an extra little slight against black people. He talks about discrimination and systemic racism all the time, but it is often mixed with a need to say, “But we need to remember, white people have feelings too,” or “We need to remember black people have lazy cousins who don’t like to do anything.” It’s not that he doesn’t do the first part, it’s what he tags on the end that often gets him in trouble.
There’s always “We [African Americans] also need to think about what we’re doing” or “We can’t let anger and cynicism get the best of us.” He has to make it seem as though the stuff that’s the rational response of racism is actually part of the problem. When you do that, what you essentially do is let white people off the hook. Because they get to say, ‘Well, black people do crappy stuff, too” — without the understanding that it’s not as powerful as what they’re doing.
In the beginning, this served a very important purpose. Even now, he only does it in front of black audiences. He never goes to a group full of white people and says this crazy stuff about their “Cousin Pookie.”
JDH: But of course, these remarks are in front of black audiences but they’re in speeches everyone will hear, right?
MP: Right. It’s a trick. What it does is, inside the room, you have all these black people clapping because they’re excited to have a black president — and maybe they do also think their Cousin Pookie is lazy! It’s not like all black people disagree with him — so he actually is doing something where he connects with them in a kind of weird way, like “I understand you, we’re all here together.”
But then it’s being broadcast all over the word, and that’s not how other other people hear it. They hear, “He’s not afraid to tell black people they need to get up and do something.” It actually serves a dual purpose to tell black people get it together. I have no way of knowing whether he actually believes that. But what I believe is that black people were willing to go along with that “tough love” because they felt like he was going to also advocate for them.
JDH: Is there a reason to believe that Clinton, while she’s campaigning, and if she is elected, will be able to speak more freely, or in a less qualified way, when she speaks about racism’s role in American lives?
MP: Yes. Hillary won’t have to do what Obama does. Her issue is going to be, if she talks about gender, she’s [accused of] playing the gender card. But if she talks about racism, although some people will see it as pandering, they won’t see it as her trying to advocate for a group that she’s a part of. There seems to be this longstanding fear among white voters in particular that when they vote for black candidates, that they may actually be actually voting against their own interests. She won’t have to deal with that.
Barack Obama is one of the first people who has been able to overcome the inability of whites to vote outside of their own race. That’s why we don’t have as many officeholders who are black in statewide office. Whites have historically been reluctant to vote across racial lines.
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/9/12405574/clinton-doesnt-criticize-black-people-obama
What follows is an edited version of our conversation.
Jenée Desmond-Harris: Throughout his presidency, Obama has faced frequent criticism for shaming or condescending to black audiences — qualifying statements about structural injustice with generalizations about individual failings — in a way that he doesn’t when speaking to nonblack groups. Is that an accurate assessment of what’s happened over the past several years, in your view?
Melanye Price: Yes. In my book, I talk about how when Obama discusses race in particular, he tells these stories about how, “This is the way we can come together as Americans,” but then he gives an extra little slight against black people. He talks about discrimination and systemic racism all the time, but it is often mixed with a need to say, “But we need to remember, white people have feelings too,” or “We need to remember black people have lazy cousins who don’t like to do anything.” It’s not that he doesn’t do the first part, it’s what he tags on the end that often gets him in trouble.
There’s always “We [African Americans] also need to think about what we’re doing” or “We can’t let anger and cynicism get the best of us.” He has to make it seem as though the stuff that’s the rational response of racism is actually part of the problem. When you do that, what you essentially do is let white people off the hook. Because they get to say, ‘Well, black people do crappy stuff, too” — without the understanding that it’s not as powerful as what they’re doing.
In the beginning, this served a very important purpose. Even now, he only does it in front of black audiences. He never goes to a group full of white people and says this crazy stuff about their “Cousin Pookie.”
JDH: But of course, these remarks are in front of black audiences but they’re in speeches everyone will hear, right?
MP: Right. It’s a trick. What it does is, inside the room, you have all these black people clapping because they’re excited to have a black president — and maybe they do also think their Cousin Pookie is lazy! It’s not like all black people disagree with him — so he actually is doing something where he connects with them in a kind of weird way, like “I understand you, we’re all here together.”
But then it’s being broadcast all over the word, and that’s not how other other people hear it. They hear, “He’s not afraid to tell black people they need to get up and do something.” It actually serves a dual purpose to tell black people get it together. I have no way of knowing whether he actually believes that. But what I believe is that black people were willing to go along with that “tough love” because they felt like he was going to also advocate for them.
JDH: Is there a reason to believe that Clinton, while she’s campaigning, and if she is elected, will be able to speak more freely, or in a less qualified way, when she speaks about racism’s role in American lives?
MP: Yes. Hillary won’t have to do what Obama does. Her issue is going to be, if she talks about gender, she’s [accused of] playing the gender card. But if she talks about racism, although some people will see it as pandering, they won’t see it as her trying to advocate for a group that she’s a part of. There seems to be this longstanding fear among white voters in particular that when they vote for black candidates, that they may actually be actually voting against their own interests. She won’t have to deal with that.
Barack Obama is one of the first people who has been able to overcome the inability of whites to vote outside of their own race. That’s why we don’t have as many officeholders who are black in statewide office. Whites have historically been reluctant to vote across racial lines.
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/9/12405574/clinton-doesnt-criticize-black-people-obama
