Few quick things –

–I think we agree that, in the end, it’s not that big of a deal. I just happen to think it would be worthwhile for Obama’s campaign to address it, given the nature of the comments, the fact he admitted it in print and the fact that the media is starting to re-print it a lot. I very much respect that you would apply the same criteria to a white candidate.

–We do still disagree as to how bad the comments are. I read the passage not as being conflicted, but as being conflicted about Obama’s mother. He resolves this by excepting some whites from his anti-white viewpoint, not by rejecting said viewpoint (at that age, anyhow).

–I, like you, would rather ask “what’s the best policy?” than “is this to the left or right of the American public?” Unfortunately, when discussing a candidate rather than a scholar/pundit, the latter question is the pertinent one. The discussion about Obama concerns his electability (whether he can convince people he’s good for America) more than his correctness (whether he IS good for America).

–I have written about allegations of white racism. Often, however, I challenge the assumption that any negative comment toward a minority is racism, and look for other possible explanations (being careful, of course, not to assume that all negative comments are NOT racism). I wrote about the media’s reflexive acceptance of the George Allen fiasco (http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/2006/09/sabato-tells-full-truth-never-heard.html), covered the anti-Harold Ford ad for The American Spectator (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10541) and came down rather hard on Michael Richards (after initially mistaking the routine as bad comedy, http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/2006/11/cosmo-kramer-actor-uses-racial-epithet.html).

Thanks,
Robert

If you want to critique Obama’s policy positions and voting decisions, please do so, I would like to read it (by the way, thanks for the link to your article on implicit racial preference…I missed that one). I have read your ideological denunciations, and they are not that interesting to me, honestly. I am the sort of person who asks “Why?”, you know, who wants to know exactly and in great detail why things happen and why people believe the things they do. No one has any obligation to answer to me, of course, but I think it would be nice, and much more relevant to both of us than simplistic descriptions and stereotypical descriptions of their beliefs and ideologies. I like to read actual pieces of normative analysis; I’m weird like that I guess.

To answer your question…I wouldn’t care that much about the young white candidates’ statements, it would be a trivial thing. If it was all I could know about them, it might be more important, but if I could look at what can be known of their life, their thought, and their policy decisions in detail, and determine that they have little to know racial preference, then I don’t know that it would matter at all.

Also, your use of the example of David Duke (whose writings and political career I admit to not having studied in detail, or even as much as I have Obama; which isn’t that much anyway) is pretty silly, if not obscene. Even if Obama had been a radical Black Panther and black nationalist and still openly advocated such views, the analogy would still not be close to apt, since as you recognize he is a member of a minority identifying with a people historically oppressed and currently institutionally discriminated against by an overwhelming majority. I think that should make some difference in our assessment and the seriousness with which we take examples of juvenile but self-conscious racial stereotyping.

Finally, since you recognize that you might very well have racial prejudice, and certainly are prone to make quick partisan characterisations (both of which are quite forgivable, and at least one of which I have been and am plenty prone to myself), what do you make of the fact that you are worried about Obama’s possible past racism and have written in a national magazine about it but have not ever written (as far as I can tell…I am not familiar with the entire body of your work) about those of major white conservative or libertarian candidates? Have they never, even as adolescents, made statements that can qualify as mild sorts of racism? And wouldn’t it be a more significant exercise, since white racism towards blacks is and has been a more deadly and destructive force in American history, and thus might warrant more exposure?

Anyway, thanks for the prompt responses, and though I think we kind of understand each other and this discussion may not be important enough to spend so much time on (in my opinion), I am sure we will encounter each other later, and honestly, I look forward to discussing things with you and reading your posts when I get the time.

I hope you get your apology.

You never did answer the question though. If the tables were turned, and a white person admitted that, as he grew up, he learned to say racist things, wouldn’t you expect a direct disavowal of this attitude? Wouldn’t you want him to come out and say, when I was young I believed X, but I’ve renounced that?

You can certainly make the case that black anti-white sentiment is more understandable than white anti-black sentiment — in many or most cases I’d agree — but for the office it doesn’t matter. A president must represent all Americans, and we have to choose the person best fit to do that. If he’s unfit for understandable reasons, that’s still unfit.

By the way, if Obama does make such a statement in the next few weeks and makes this whole discussion moot, I will laugh my butt off.

Best.

–I’m aware that Obama’s public statements tend to follow race-neutral platitudes (who could forget “there is not a white America and a black America…”). As you mention, he doesn’t seem to have addressed his past racism (and bad-mouthing whites is racism no matter how you cut it). I think that if he expects whites to vote for him he’ll have to do so explicitly; you can disagree on how whites will react.

–I’ve written about implicit association tests at length: http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=1332

–By liberal I mean he wants the government to play a large role in “social justice” but little in reforming personal behavior. As my TWS article shows, he’s pro-abortion rights, pro-racial preferences, etc. etc. Despite his moderate rhetoric, he is far to the left of the average American, so much so that interest groups often rate him 100 or 0, not in between (check out the link from the TWS article detailing his ratings from said groups).

–Libertarian-leaning conservative means I want the government to play little role in the economy, and a moderate-to-little role in reforming behavior.

What you seem to be saying, if I understand you correctly, is that you have doubts about Barack Obama’s views on race, and wonder if and how much they have changed since childhood. I wonder if you have read the book you quote from, or many of Obama’s other writings and seemingly detailed and nuanced (for a politician) statements on race [3]. I was able to find copies of both, and although I have only had time to skim them, it is not hard to see not only from the passages in the books themselves discussing race but even from passages you quote that your concerns are probably not well-founded. For instance, Obama’s first book was a personal memoir, meaning an exploration of his life and how he came to where he was at the time (just having graduated from Harvard Law), and thus directly implies nothing about his current views (leaving the question basically open, I suppose). His current views on race are perhaps detailed for the public more than those of any almost other politician or candidate, in his most recent book and elsewhere. So it is hard for me to understand where you are coming from in asking Obama specifically to prove to you and everyone that he and his views on race have evolved since his childhood, and even since writing Dreams from my Father. He has written and spoken as much or more than at least the vast majority of candidates on the subject, and though as far as I’m aware he hasn’t directly apologized for his high school comments, it is hard to see how that is of great importance. As Obama would argue, race is still very much an issue in our country despite the partial breakdown of strict racial stereotypes that has been acheived largely through popular struggle against unsatisfactory and unjust aspects of the status quo. The positions of every candidate and politician should be available in detail to the public, as Obama’s are, even if they are not politically useful [4].

You wrote, in response to some selected passages from Obama’s personal memoir (which was written before he was in politics):

“Excellent — I wonder which whites in American politics, or even in America at large, are today excluded? Also, family-values Americans won’t be too thrilled that he identified with a father who left when Obama was 2, had multiple wives at once and sired eight children with several different women.”

There are two implicit assumptions in this rhetoric that I think it more than appropriate to object to:

(1) Obama’s views may well not have changed substantially since his childhood.

(2) If young Obama identified more with his father’s race than his mother’s, this implies that he also identified and even now identifies with his father’s absentee-ism.

I think it is clear that both of these assumptions are pretty much false, especially the second, which was one of my key points in the original comment, to which you did not respond. As I mentioned above, all one has to do is read what he wrote and interpret it in a reasonable, straightforward way.

Now to the subject of Obama and the accusation of racism, as well as the issue of ‘racial identity’. If you say that Obama is a racist because he once said something that kind of qualifies as a (particularly understandable and juvenile) kind of racism, then you might as well just say everyone is a racist, which isn’t implausible on this understanding of the term. You point to sociological research indicating that ‘mixed-race Americans often end up identifying with one race or another’. That’s not implausible either, though it is hard to see how this is exactly so in the case of Obama. You may or may not be aware of some research currently being conducted at Harvard on implicit social cognition, ‘Project Implicit’, where participants take tests revealing roughly the extent to which they associate race with violence and other generally negative traits and behaviors (there are tests for gender and other factors as well that can be taken at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/). The results are interesting, but not that surprising given the historical and ongoing difficulties of race in America. An overwhelming percentage of the population are to a significant extent implicitly racist (for the record, I made it into the 17% who have little to no racial preference, but didn’t fare as well on gender tests, showing moderate implicit gender bias). Other studies [5] suggest that nearly eliminating such implicit racial bias can be acheived through conscientious and careful thought, the kind that comes from maturity as an adult. In Obama’s case, we might say that as an angst-ridden teen he had moderate preference for blacks over whites, but that through careful thought that came with maturity (and showed early, as he recounts in the passage you cited where he thinks of his white mother and feels that his racial overgeneralizations are false) he eliminated that bias, as much as a person can. From what I have read of your writings on Obama, you would certainly agree that he gives all the appearance of an extremely mature and conscientious person. Why then, exactly, would one seriously consider ideas such as those presented or implied (as far as I can see) in that part of your post?

I am sure that Obama in one sense identifies with the historical and contemporary struggles of African-Americans, even though he has said that he has not experienced most of what many African-Americans do (being from a family with much higher than average economic status, and not the descendant of slaves, as many African-Americans are), which he details in The Audacity of Hope, mentioning people such as Martin Luther King Jr. and others. In this, it is hard to see how he is much different than I or any other white American might be, though his experience and knowledge might make his passion and dedication deeper (certainly he has struggled with the issues of race more than I, and probably more than most politicians and national leaders, for whom it may not have been an issue growing up).

A few more comments are in order. You say that you discuss what you refer to as Obama’s ‘far-left’ voting record in your articles, which I read. I agree with you, and should not have implied that you did not mention or link to his record. Also, you do discuss important issues (or issues I deem important anyway) much of the time, and there is value in much of what you write. What I say, however, is that you appear not to have made any written attempt to analyze his votes and policy decisions on ethical or political grounds [6], citing simplistic partisan reasons as your critique, if that is what it was intended to be (it is amazing how many arguments in opinion journals consist almost solely of saying basically “s/he’s a such-and-such”: ‘conservative’, ‘right-wing nut’, ‘liberal’, ‘leftie’, ‘leftist’, etc. - as if attaching a vague political label to someone refutes their ideas without further comment). There are a million ways in which we manage to keep avoiding the real issues and “missing the point”, and I think you may have done that here. Also, I am not sure I understand your argument that Obama’s ‘demeanor’ is in conflict with his voting record. You say at the end of this post that Obama seems like ‘a decent if extremely liberal man’. I don’t know if you mean to imply that a person who espouses ‘left-leaning’ ideas can’t be decent, reasonable, and popular? Obama is not a dangerous fellow, and I don’t think his ideas (as I understand them) are dangerous either because they are ‘left-leaning’. Martin Luther King Jr. was way more radical [7].

Anyway, what precisely is a ‘liberal’ or a ‘conservative’ or ‘a libertarian-leaning conservative’? What are the specific philosophies here and how do they play out in practice and compare, epistemologically and ethically, to other ideologies with distinct flavors from different times and places? These are questions for political philosophers, but everyone must provide an answer, either explicitly or implicitly. If we are putting things on paper, I think it reasonable that they be explicit, at least in this context.

Lastly, though I may give the impression of being a ‘leftist’ or a follower of some other ideology, I do not find the issue so simple, and I do not think you do either. It is easy, for the sake of economy, to attach quick labels to others, and even to our selves…I know how this is. I have been discussing the work of Noam Chomsky recently, but mostly because I am studying his work a lot at the moment, and I do find it useful, though I recognize that he often puts things in a way that is meant to provoke, and many of his statements would be qualified by scholars in the fields he writes and speaks on. His writings do, however, touch on a large number of topics in a lot of detail, and, if nothing else provides good sources and references (he and Edward Herman’s two-volumes of The Political Economy of Human Rights provide a wealth of information on topics that do not receive much coverage elsewhere, like the massacres in East Timor). The more specific criticisms of his contentions are hard to assess without further reading of his arguments and the literature in the areas he speaks about. That said, what am I, ideologically? I like to joke that I am a passionate Discussant; that is, I love to talk about it. I am probably best characterized (if I am to be characterized) as a sort of progressive or ‘radical’, in the original and more technical sense of the word: I want to address the “root” of human problems, and I think that root is in the responsibilities of people including myself, and so real progress comes when I and people in general can come to take more control over our lives and live autonomously. One thing I share with Chomsky and his favored thinkers (Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and some anarchist thinkers like Bakunin and Kropotkin) is ‘anarchism’ as an ideal, that is, the world we should work towards is one free from unnecessary coercion and control. In terms of modern political philosophy, I am deeply interested in and think the work of people like Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin, Nussbaum, etc. is brilliant, but I hardly know ‘where to stand’ exactly on the issue of the state (I also have a copy of Friedman’s ‘Capitalism and Freedom’ on my shelf I am waiting to dive into). I probably find more common ground with those who think of themselves ideologically as liberals than those who think of themselves as conservative, but this is not always the case, and I find American liberalism as it’s conceived popularly and by many political leaders as problematic. Anyway, this is a discussion for another time or post. I hope you’ll excuse my length and references, I know that is not standard procedure for blog comments.

Peter

[1] I refer specifically to the article in The Weekly Standard, and your contributions here at BNN.
[2] TheRationale.com; I don’t know if I’ve read you before
[3] see chapter 7, The Audacity of Hope
[4] see the 2004 Introduction to the reprint of Dreams from my Father
[5] for popular discussion, see Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink or http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27067-2005Jan21.html
[6] I found some good blog discussion on some of Obama’s voting and policy record at ObsidianWings http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html
[7] in his criticism of the Vietnam War, for instance, and in his ‘democratic socialism’

Let’s put it this way: David Duke (or for that matter, Robert Byrd) runs for president. As Duke has in public statements and while running for Louisiana office, he says he’s renounced his past views. You agree with him otherwise. Do you vote for him? After all, the only thing that matter is his stated stances on issues!

Of course, Duke’s racism ran deeper (KKK leader vs. angry teen), and he kept it until an older age. That’s why I say Obama should simply address the statements he made in his writings, and be clear he was talking about past beliefs he no longer holds. I think voters could (and should) look past it then. But it’s amazing to me how people are willing to abandon all principle as soon as someone they agree with (in this case, a liberal Democrat) confesses to doing something wrong.

It’s absurd to, all of a sudden, act like a politician’s behavior and admitted prejudices count for nothing.

–I didn’t say he needs to get over race — in fact, I said he has to make decisions about race as president. He needs to look at the issues and his experiences in a detached manner and decide what’s best for America. I did said he has to get over his animosity toward whites, an animosity so strong that in his past he’s identified as black when he’s only half so, and so strong he and his friends insulted whites. There is such a thing as black racism.

–If you don’t think a politician’s personal attitudes toward vast swaths of the American population matter, you’re delusional.

–I made no allegation that he hasn’t gotten past that and now trusts whites (the notion, however, that succeeding in higher education involves respect for whites is laughable if you’ve ever set foot on a college campus). I said that, if he wants me to believe that, he will have to forcefully and purposely make the point that he’s changed his mind since he insulted whites with his friends. He hasn’t said such a thing, so far as I know.

–This is most definitely not a personal attack. I made it perfectly clear that, given Obama’s history, it’s understandable how he’d have reacted that way. The question is whether he still reacts that way, and whether we want that in a president.

–And they’re called links, my friend. I discussed the far-left voting record in the links, and if you want that discussion, click them. It’s easy enough on these Internets thingies. (”Back in the Weekly Standard article, I argued that this demeanor is itself inconsistent with his far-left voting record.” Can you read? See, THAT’S a personal attack.)

–We don’t need pundits to call him a racist. He called himself — at least his past self — one in print.

–This is a news blog, and right now, Obama’s past is in the news. The second a different issue is in the news, believe me, I’ll have something to say. Somehow, at that point, I’m sure you’ll hate whatever I said just as much as you did this post.

–Finally, few people write as often on those “issues that matter” as I do. On my blog and in my professional writings I’ve frequently covered race, racism, poverty, crime, inequality, etc. Maybe not from the Noam Chomsky perspective you seem to prefer (though I held a three-month internship at The Chicago Reporter), but it’s certainly there.

I am sure, since Obama spent years at Harvard Law and now in politics, that he doesn’t have serious issues with trusting white people, as you suggest (though awareness of the tendencies toward racism in whites and people in general is justified). And since he seems to have a healthy family, and did not of course ‘identify’ with his father’s behaviors with respect to family (the quote said that WHEN HE WAS GROWING UP he identified more with the RACE of his father, not the fact that his father left; and also, just because he identified more then doesn’t imply that he does now - so you have missed the point entirely, for ideological reasons).

I actually hope that if Obama does run, this nonsensical smear campaign won’t continue, and we’ll actually be able to have a national discussion of the issues, where candidates clearly explain their understanding of problems and explicitly state how they want to go about solving them. That would be a real election. Instead, we’ll probably hear discussions of things Obama thought when he was young, vacuous accusations about “family values” (an example of which is seen here)…hell, I bet a few pundits will even accuse him of being a racist and bad for black America (these pundits will be both white and have a history of questionable statements and views on race themselves). All of it could be avoided if people just shut up and talked about issues that might matter to most people in the country, like poverty, injustice, race relations and civil rights, the war, trade, terrorism, etc. Will you please try to do that next time, Robert?