Charles, the points you've been making about BHO the last few months are well taken. But ultimately I can't agree. I've been thinking about the "is voting for BHO anti-racist?" debate through the lens of the following anecdote:
My grandfather died last year, but if he was alive, I'm pretty sure he'd have supported BHO. My grandfather was a racist, but not in the conventional, outright bigoted sense.
One of the most vivid memories I have of my grandfather is that I remember him talking about his support for the admission of a the first black man to his country club: The black head coach of a very popular and successful university basketball team applied to be a member and the straight-up bigots at the country club were all flustered. My grandfather thought this was silly, because in his opinion the black candidate was a "great guy -- no gold chains, or zoot suits, or a bunch of jibber-jabber." This struck (and strikes) me as a patently racist statement. It betrayed such a deep racism, in fact, that I just can't see how his support for admitting a black member to his country club was, in any way, an "anti-racist" gesture. At the same time, it's hard to say that his mere willingness to dine and golf in the presence of a black person didn't constitute an advancement of some sort.
Nevertheless, racial attitudes like my grandfather's -- while relatively "progressive" for white people of older generations, I suppose -- aren't going to generate much sympathy for structural racism. On the contrary, they seem to ignore it and obscure it in a way that traditional bigotry doesn't.
I contention, I guess, is that my grandfather's racial attitudes were pretty similar to the kind you'll observe amongst the average white Obama voter -- progress of a sort, maybe, but hardly "anti-racist," no matter how charitable you want to be.
-WD
^^^^ WD, I appreciate your high standard of anti-racism. You may be a bit hard on your grandfather. His relatively mild anti-racism was perhaps an intermediary position that may have played a role in moving the whole social scale when it mostly consisted of beliefs like the other country club members. Afterall, in the longer run as your grandfather's offspring you represent a big move of the whole range in the social structure.
In reading what you say, it occurred to me, as well, that membership in a golf club is one or two orders of magnitude less in importance than President for the average American. I guess a question getting at this might be "Would your grandfather have voted for a Black person for President of the USA ?
I'm sure there are some voting for Barry who have the same attitude as your grandfather, but it seems possible that many have a belief more like yours. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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