More whining and warnings from Michael Tomasky
I was just recalling how, about a year ago, my country was swept upin a spasm of self-congratulation. Not only had Barack Obama broken aseemingly insuperable historical barrier in winning the presidency, themedia told us, but “we” had as well. We had overcome centuries ofgruesome history and proved to the world that America could live up toits promise.
The US press in those days duly reported but tended to downplayevents that told the opposite story. The footnote, for instance, thatthe white supremacist website stormfront.org temporarily went dead on 5November, the day after the election, because it was so inundated withrequests for membership. And the tale about the Maine convenience storethat started an “Osama Obama Shotgun Pool” inviting customers to bet onthe date Obama would be shot, and saying: “Let’s hope we have a winner”.
These were treated as isolated events, and maybe they were. Theimportant thing was the people had spoken, and they’d given proof thatAmerica wasn’t that kind of country any more.
A year later, we’ve seen an epidemic of hatred against the presidentthat I think is safe to call unprecedented. Bill Clinton and George WBush were hated—but not quite like this. When we have a pastor, areal-live Baptist minister in Arizona, devoting a sermon to explainingwhy the president should “melt like a snail” (and he was explicit—hemeant Obama should be killed), we’ve reached a new point. Obama, it wasreported over the summer, receives 30 death threats a day, three orfour times the number issued against Bush. And I think it can’t be justa coincidence that you will almost never see him give a speech out ofdoors, the middle of a heavily guarded military base (Fort Hood)providing a recent and rare exception.
We’re not supposed to talk about race as a motivator for these kindsof things in this country. There are some decent reasons why. First,it’s said, the anger felt towards Obama—among the “tea party”contingent, for instance—is in the main ideological. Let me be clear: Iagree with this. It is in the main ideological. What a lot of the restof us see as salvaging hundreds of thousands of jobs and averting a fardeeper crisis by taking steps to bail out General Motors, Chrysler,Citigroup and Bank of America, they see as socialism. Fine. It’s a freecountry, as we like to say.
Second, race is hard to talk about because it’s unquantifiable. Ifan incident occurs that looks as if it might be a hate crime butcontains shadings of ambiguity, we can’t say, “Well, that act had rootsthat were 61% economic and 39% racial”. Likewise with Obama hatred. Andif something can’t be measured, it’s hard even to argue about, letalone agree on.
And third, I do think it’s fair to say that, at this point in UShistory, most individuals aren’t racist, at least in any blatant way.Most white people, especially from middle age down, may have a blackfriend or two, or at least co-workers with whom they get along fine.When conservatives complain that they feel they can’t make criticismsof Obama without being called racist, they have a point, and on anindividual level I have some sympathy with them.
But here’s the thing that most media discussions of race miss. Ithas to do with the difference between the individual and the crowd.
The tea partiers are about 98% white. I went to the 12 September teaparty march at the Capitol building. I saw many thousands of people. Ispotted about a half dozen Asians, three or four Latinos, and one blackperson. All the rest were white. Look at the videos from the town hallsover the summer. Virtually all of the angry people are white. Look,indeed, at the Republican party. It’s almost entirely white. Yes,Michael Steele, a black man, is its chairman. But he was obviously astrategic and even cynical choice (made after Obama was elected) andwas not culled from the ranks of numerous available black Republicans,because in truth there are hardly any.
Add to this the fact that it is a central article of faith forAmerican conservatism that the whole business of diversity is nothingbut a racket, forced on them by liberal elites. I can’t think of onemeasure meant to ameliorate America’s hideous history of racialdiscrimination that conservatives have supported. Literally not one, inthe 50 years we’ve been trying them.
This is the Obama-hating crowd. It’s deeply conservative, and it’sabout 98% white. And the thing about crowds is that they develop apersonality of their own that is not merely the sum of individualparts. A crowd is an organism that grows in its own way and tends to beled and excited by its extremes. It can mutate into being racistwithout many or even most of the individuals in it being so.
It can be a danger, as we’re often reminded, to overstate thesethings without that magical “proof” we’re always looking for. But thegreater danger rests in understating them. Americans resistoverstatement because we want to reassure ourselves we’re a goodcountry at heart. But history has more often proved on this topic thatwe’re not. We’d do well not to forget that.