Gates-Gate: Why Obama Always Gets Race Wrong

Posted by: Tristan

Far from being “post-racial”, President Barack Obama has had a mixed history when it comes to race.  This is often because his initial perceptions are wrong, so he has to reverse himself.  Far from nuance, Obama brings a clumsiness(to put it charitably) to the topic of race which would be unthinkable for any white politician save his Vice President, Joe Biden.

When Obama first faced the topic of race on the national stage, he faced the revelation that his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a racist loon.  Being Barack Obama, his instinctive response was to face the problem with a speech.

Greatly anticipated, Obama gave a speech so electric, Chris Matthews said it caused a “thrill going up his leg“.  Obama clarified his relationship with Rev. Wright.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

So, just so everyone is on the same page, Obama says that:

A) Obama won’t disown his racist pastor.

B) Obama holds his racist pastor as closely as he does his white, racist grandmother.

Two days later, Obama gave a radio interview to Philadephia’s 610 WIP, where he further clarified his perception of his racist, white grandmother (and other “typical white” people).

“The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know – there’s a reaction in her that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”

So given a couple days to think about it, Obama thinks:

C) Typical white people are just instinctively racist.

A little over one month later, Obama announced that he was leaving Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, effectively disowning the Reverend Wright (which raises the question of how closely he held his now late grandmother…and the black community).

So after all that, the answer was actually:

D) None of the above. Drop the antisemetic, racist nutjob like I should have done 20 years back when I first met the guy…

Could we write a news story on race without mentioning a charlatan or two?  Of course not, so the next chapter in this story includes Jesse Jackson.

“See, Barack [has] been talking down to black people . . . I wanna cut his nuts out,” Jackson said.

What Jackson was referring to specifically we have no idea, but maybe he realized how quickly Obama would use and discard the black community, given how easily he threw his grandmother under the bus and disowned Rev. Wright.

Obama surrounds himself with people whose viewpoint on race was framed in the 1950s and 1960s and it’s apparent that he shares such a perspective.  When speaking of race, as he did at his inauguration, his primary message is always how bad it was back then, followed by what I’ll paraphrase as “but it’s a little better now.  We have lots of work to do.”

“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

Even when he made his “typical, white person” remark, his follow up was intended to lessen the blow.

“We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that’s pretty powerful stuff.”

The problem with this circle that Obama has grown up with that apparently they’re all still living in the 1960s.  Obama appears to try to bridge the beliefs of ’60s radicals to the 21st century real world.  He fails to embrace the concept of the post-racial America that his election is supposed to signify because his beliefs, at their roots, are still tied to the time when he was born.

One only has to examine the end of the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s Benediction at the inauguration to see a prime specimen of an individual who’s still fighting “The Man”.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Analysis

Obama seems incapable of reconciling the beliefs in unending racism that he has been surrounded with since embracing radicalism in college with the success of his own political career.

When placed on the spot, as he was Wednesday night, his gut instinct is to blame racism. When this makes the situation worse, he’ll stick to his guns…and then reverse himself.

At Wednesday night’s press conference, Lynn Sweet asked Obama a question about the Gates arrest.

Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you? And what does it say about race relations in America?

Obama premised his answer by stating that he didn’t know all the facts, so he was giving an answer based more on his own biases than what he knew about the actual incident.

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Friday morning, the Obama administration was standing by his words, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying that the criticism of the President’s remarks were politically motivated.

“I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain,” Gibbs fired back at reporters, referring to Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election. “If I’m not mistaken.”

In a move that demonstrates that while Obama will wait until he’s had two strikes before making the right move, Obama finally conceded to Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley and the Cambridge police union late Friday.

Taking the briefing-room podium just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident with Gates behaved “stupidly,” Obama conceded that he erred in his “choice of words.”

Obama said he spoke to James Crowley, the sergeant who arrested Gates, “and I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer…and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.”

“In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.

But, the president said: “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Prof. Gates out of his home and to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Prof. Gates probably overreacted as well.”

While it takes a lot to overcome decades of ingrained bias, most of America has done it, so hopefully Obama can too.