Playing the race card

— It was only a matter of time before the supporters of Barack Obama would begin to accuse his opponents of racism.

Maureen Dowd fired one of the first salvos, somehow translating Joe Wilson's boorish "You lie" outburst into "You lie, boy." For people like Dowd, white Southerners have kept their Klan robes in the closet for just this moment.

Paul Waldman followed up in American Prospect magazine, ingeniously explaining that it really isn't socialism or liberalism that so many of us oppose-who, after all, could be against such sweet things?-but the indignity of a black president seeking to impose socialism or liberalism.

Apparently, the election of Obama came with some exceedingly fine print, something to the effect that disagreement automatically equals racism. Either enlist in the Obama brigades and support his proposals or you stand convicted.

That no prominent conservative has, to my knowledge, uttered a single racist thing about our president, that the criticisms of his agenda has been expressed purely in terms of policy differences and that many conservatives actually were proud of his accomplishment somehow doesn't factor in.

Part of the race card's appeal stems from how easy it is; the charge can instantly discredit any opposition, so the difficult task of mounting a defense for the administration's proposals becomes unnecessary.

There are, however, some pitfalls. The first is the logical task of explaining how a nation that had overcomerace to the extent necessary to elect our first black president has somehow since then become so suffused with racism as to obstruct his agenda.

The simpler explanation, the one that contains assumptions more appropriate for discourse in a democratic society, that a drop in a particular president's approval ratings might have something to do with his policies, is summarily rejected by the likes of Dowd and Waldman.

There is the question of whether the race card constitutes a new, leftist form of McCarthyism, one that might backfire on its practitioners just as the original did. Tarring with an indiscriminate brush might lead lots of well-intentioned white folks to take umbrage and penalize the Democrats at the polls next year. As nasty as racism tends to be, it might be equally nasty to be falsely accused of it.

Within this context, it is possible that liberal Democrats, to the extent they allow their frustrations to lead them down the race-card path, could end up painting themselves into a very tiny corner, in effect seeking to abolish political disagreement and to equate moral purity on racial manners with acceptance of liberal orthodoxy.

The thought even occurs that electing another black president might be made more difficult if doing so implies the abolition of dissent. Unprincipled resort to the race card might become a bigger obstacle to racial progress and reconciliation than residual forms of white racism.

Democracy requires openness to survive. If debate can be entirely shut down by charges of racism, what, then, is left of the democratic process? If actual evidence of racism isn't required, by what decision rules are we to differentiate between opposition that is legitimate and that which is motivated by racist intent?

Or is that precisely the point, to allow liberals to selectively and expediently decide which opposition is acceptable (presumably very little) and which isn't (presumably most)? Is the goal to create a "chilling effect" by reminding potential critics that they'd best prepare their defense against the racism charge beforehand?

It is possible to conceive of a world in which the race card, combined with the related liberal use of the strictures of political correctness, essentially delegitimizes any criticism of liberalism. A choice could be presented in which one either goes quietly with the leftward lurch or risks having the racist tattoo cut into his forehead.

Is the intention here to create a new kind of political environment in which principled conservatism of the kind that could naturally be expected to oppose leftism becomes forbidden?

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Free-lance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial, Pages 89 on 09/27/2009

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