Online at: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7655/

Race Baiting from Left and Right

By Joel Wendland
Archives - Dates and Topics 2008 – online October 1 – 31, 2008 click here for related stories: racism, civil rights and equality

10-31-08, 10:09 am


AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka speaks to steelworkers in July.
Get ready for it. The signs are already there – and not just from the Republicans. Leftists, like Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch.org has gotten into the act.

First the Republicans. An e-mail forwarded to some Florida Republicans by David Storck, who chairs the Florida's Hillsborough County GOP, clarified the "the threat" as he sees it. In all caps, Storck wrote:
"HERE IN TEMPLE TERRACE, FL OUR REPUBLICAN HQ IS ONE BLOCK AWAY FROM OUR LIBRARY, WHICH IS AN EARLY VOTING SITE.

I SEE CARLOADS OF BLACK OBAMA SUPPORTERS COMING FROM THE INNER CITY TO CAST THEIR VOTES FOR OBAMA. THIS IS THEIR CHANCE TO GET A BLACK PRESIDENT AND THEY SEEM TO CARE LITTLE THAT HE IS AT MINIMUM, SOCIALIST, AND PROBABLY MARXIST IN HIS CORE BELIEFS. AFTER ALL, HE IS BLACK--NO EXPERIENCE OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS--BUT HE IS BLACK."

In Strock's world view African Americans aren't real Americans and they threaten those of us who are. There is even a hint here that Storck views African Americans as unthinking and responding to Obama only because of his race. Storck even seems to suggest that the people who support Obama who are not Black, do so because they have been duped by feelings of guilt or patronage due to his race rather than any sense of accomplishment on his part.

While this has been the general tenor of the McCain-Palin campaign all along, Storck got a little too obvious about, put it in all screaming caps, and forwarded his feelings to some people who decided to turn it over to the press.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis also stirred the racist stew when he told Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne that supporters of John McCain are racists and that many Michiganders are racists as well. As such they will refuse to vote for Obama simply because of his skin color. "Racism, like sexism, is not something people admit to. When they have five or six reasons, it's usually for another reason they don't want to mention," Dionne quoted Anuzis as saying

Anuzis gave no explanation for how he and his party has been working against racism and trying to educate McCain supporters about the evils of racism. He did, however, seem excited that McCain might be swept to victory by it. Far from making a biting social commentary on American society, Anuzis merely attempted to legitimize racial sentiments that may influence supporters of John McCain.

The most stunning incident, however, may have been the Pennsylvania Republicans efforts at race-baiting in the truly disturbing story of the McCain staffer, Ashley Todd, who claimed to have been attacked by an African American man for supporting McCain. When the Pennsylvania McCain campaign pushed the story only later to be embarrassed that it had been invented, the racial component of their campaign no longer seemed so subtle.

I recommend that Americans prepare themselves over the next few days for one of the nastiest race-baiting presidential campaigns since the Reconstruction era.

But it hasn't only been Republicans who have gotten into the act. Self-proclaimed "leftwinger," Alexander Cockburn, who edits CounterPunch.org, in a recent diatribe against Obama, insisted on this: "Those who claim that if he were white he would be cantering effortlessly into the White House do not understand that without his most salient physical characteristic Obama would be seen as a second-tier senator with unimpressive credentials." Cockburn admitted to seeing nothing of value in Obama's candidacy or in his program.

Like Anuzis, Cockburn gives pretense at incisive social critique but only reveals a deep harbor of race-based animosity. Otherwise, why not attribute Obama's rise to his successful challenge to entrenched interests in the Democratic Party, his brilliant campaign built on the small donations of millions of Americans that has generated new political involvement in ways that current third party candidates only fantasize about, or his political identification with the interests of working families in ways unseen in decades? Why, for Cockburn, does the last 21 months of Obama's life come down to his skin color alone? At least Republicans attribute Obama's success to the eloquence of his oratory. Cockburn can't even give him that.

A truly positive, if mostly untold, part of this story about race and the elections has been the role of the labor movement in fighting the influence of racism on the working class. In West Virginia, white miners fought off racist influences and stood with Obama. In Pennsylvania, it is possible to argue, and correctly I think, that labor has been the determining force in convincing white working families that Obama is identified with their interests and that race should not be a factor in their choice. The same can be said for Michigan and Ohio and even in Southern states where Obama may be swept to victory.

If this were all that happened as a result of this election, this successful battle against the influence of racism, the struggle would be worth it. I am, frankly, puzzled about why Cockburn, who often expresses good political opinions, can't see that.

See a video with the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka discussing the need to fight the influence of racism here:



--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.


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