Race and Politics in South Bend

On Sunday, while we were discussing the topic of some folks protesting Barack Obama’s commencement speech and honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, my wife asked me if I thought racism had something to do with it. I took her question to mean an inquiry about whether or not people who didn’t like Obama for some reason explicitly involving race were using another issue as a means of expressing their dislike for him. I responded with a no—that I didn’t think it was racism and that the same folks who have expressed these concerns about Obama have done similarly for white folks as well. Then, later that day, I got to thinking about it …

On the surface, I agree with my earlier comment. I don’t think this is explicitly an issue of race. However, upon further thought, I think it does involve racism and can be instructive about how racism is conceptualized and discussed. Here’s what occurred to me:

I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that it has been and continues to be an easier path for a black politician to have a chance to run for president as a Democrat than as a Republican. That’s based on my sense of how Democrats and Republicans are perceived and how they present themselves in terms of how they represent black constituencies and issues of significance to those constituencies. I’m not meaning to inject my own political leaning there. While personally I do believe that Democrats tend to be better than Republicans at recognizing and addressing issues of significance to black men and women, I have plenty of criticisms of how Democrats handle these issues in addition to criticisms of how Republicans handle these issues. So, my argument here is not based on who actually does represent black interests better. Rather, I’m arguing that within popular consciousnesses, Democrats tend to be aligned much more fully with black candidates. Certainly, some black candidates have run for office as Republicans (J.C. Watts, Michael Steele, Lynn Swan, Ken Blackwell and Alan Keyes (who was among the protestors at Notre Dame this weekend) come to mind); however, the path to the possibility of presidential candidacy has tended to be more associated with the Democratic Party. So, then, it seems to be little surprise that Obama ran for and was elected president as a Democrat.

As the presidential candidate of the national party, he is also expected to maintain the party platform. This is as true of Democrats as it is Republicans and it tends to be especially true on the issue of abortion. It’s quite doubtful that at this moment in American history any Democrat could gain the party’s nomination for president while advocating a pro-life position and it’s just as doubtful that at this moment in American history any Republican could gain the party’s nomination for president while advocating a pro-choice position. One only needs to look at the lengths that Rudy Giuliani went to in 2007 and 2008 to distance his own pro-choice stance from what he might do as president. It’s quite conceivable, then, that Obama’s own private position on abortion could range anywhere from falling right in line with the party position to veering slightly from it to differing quite widely from it, and that, as a Democrat, he is asked to maintain adherence to the party’s position regardless of his own personal feelings.

Putting these two together, then, the protests of Obama do involve racism. They do so in that they help perpetuate a system that continually closes off opportunities for minorities (in this case African Americans). In this specific case, saying someone does not deserve honor based on her or his stance on abortion is not explicitly excluding a person based on race. However, when we look at the structure of contemporary United States politics, there is definitely an argument, based on what I have just described, that saying someone like Obama does not deserve honor does perpetuate exclusion of African Americans. If we work with the assertion that a black candidate has a better chance to run for president as a Democrat and the assertion that a Democratic candidate for president my maintain a pro-choice position, then a position that holds the candidate’s position on abortion against that candidate—particularly when tying it to what is defined as “honorable”—does significantly contribute to the reduction of opportunities for black men and women. In the process, it does reinforce racism.

Perhaps this is too many suppositions on my part. Maybe I’m assuming too much about the ability of a black Republican to run for president or about what is asked of candidates on both sides in terms of their abortion stances or about the degree to which Obama might differ in private opinion from the party position. I’ll concede that I am working a bit from supposition, but I’ll also argue that I have not made any assertions here that I think are particularly egregious and that the suppositions that I have made do appear to have significant basis in reality. I’ll also argue that they do point to a broader point about racism that needs to be a much fuller part of the discussion of issues of race in the United States. That point is that racism is a system of advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and lacks of opportunities, rights and denials of rights. Racism is not just explicit exclusion on the basis of racial identity. It’s a much deeper structure in which differences in status and opportunity that were established long ago continue to be reinforced and perpetuated. It’s deeply embedded into the everyday lives and activities that constitute United States society. And I believe we need to be much more willing to be cognizant of how deeply everyday things that may on the surface seem to have little to do with race do involve perpetuation of racial inequities at deeper, more complex levels. Obama’s public position on abortion is at least in part a product of the complexities of American politics. Idealistic pronouncements of the character and honor of an individual based on her or his position on abortion fail to recognize the significance of the political system in affecting those positions. In the process, they fail in adequately attending to the complex political realities of the ways that racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination work and in acknowledging how structures of society that are based in these forms of discrimination must be managed and negotiated as individuals seek opportunities.

As someone who is a self-described moderate on abortion, I believe those critical of the position of Obama and the Democratic party on abortion should continue to vocalize these criticisms. I would even say that what I have argued here does not suggest that they should not protest in favor of what they believe is right. I would, though, ask these folks to consider the many different kinds of ramifications of their protests and the statements that they have made about Obama and others in their protests. Indeed, while I do not agree with Obama on everything, one of the things that I very much like about him is the interest in opening up dialogue on various issues that he appears to promote. I believe that Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame showed this quality once again—a quality that seems to put him in stark contrast on so many levels from his predecessor, whose administration seemed time and again to paint folks who disagreed as dishonorable, unpatriotic, and many other similar terms, rather than as compatriots in dialogue with honest and important differences of opinion with which they should engage.

In the end, I believe that both sides have a point about abortion. This is an issue of life and how we define what is a life worth protecting. At the same, though, this is very much an issue of women’s rights and individual civil liberties. The problem, as Obama himself suggested in his commencement speech, is that so often the rhetoric of both sides seems unwilling to engage the other side in meaningful dialogue, unwilling to accept that the other side has an important point to address, and unwilling to work with the other side in addressing this issue. In the end, I also believe that looking at abortion from a myopic view that does not recognize the complexities that inform positions of individuals and politicians when it comes to this issue is entirely inadequate and inappropriate. This is exactly why I do not like the way in which abortion is used as the sole means of judging a candidate’s acceptability. To the many conservative Catholics out there who vote for Republicans simply on the issue of abortion and who have even at times called for excommunication of politicians who are pro-choice, I would ask how they even vote at all. After all, the Catholic Church has come out in opposition to the Iraq War, the death penalty, and any number of other things that Republicans support—many of which also involve issues of “life.” You, my conservative companions, must have some sort of complex way of justifying all of those things in order to vote on the one issue of abortion alone. Would you like me to demonize your views on abortion and other issues or would you rather I try to understand them? If you picked the first option, then how can you ever hope to change anyone’s views or at least have people listen to you with consideration for your views? That would be seem to be the antithesis of what is being advocated in that scenario. If you picked the second option, then how can you in good conscience not extend that same kind of treatment to the very politicians whom you demonize for their positions on abortion, as if they, too, don’t have to negotiate the same tricky, complex world of contemporary American thought and politics that you have to negotiate in order to come to your own positions?