Race

No, not the nuts thing, the other thing, AOL News has it:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word during a break in a TV interview where he criticized presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News confirmed Wednesday.

The longtime civil rights leader already came under fire this month for crude off-air comments he made against Obama in what he thought was a private conversation during a taping of a "Fox & Friends" news show.

In additional comments from that same conversation, first reported by TVNewser, Jackson is reported to have said Obama was "talking down to black people," and referred to blacks with the N-word when he said Obama was telling them "how to behave."

You stay classy, "reverend" Jackson. Somehow I just can't quite picture MLK saying anything close to this, so is it alright to say that Jesse Jackson just needs to go away? As a an average white person, it's obviously not my call, but those in the media and in the black community keep giving him a platform. Yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News. The illegitimate child should have been the death knell, if not the hymietown incident. But somehow Jesse keeps coming back.

If the very least that comes out of the Obama rise is an upgrade in the leadership of the Black community, it will have been worth it. But first, everyone has to agree that Jesse is over.

Well even though John McCain will absolutely not get the black vote this year (as if!), the NAACP convention is in Cincinnati, a must-win state, so it's a two-fer. The free media coverage alone makes it worth the trip, even if he doesn't get a single black vote. From the Columbus Dispatch:

Another high-ranking Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that appearing before a predominantly black audience from which the Republican presidential candidate has a scant chance of getting votes is designed to earn McCain points with moderate white voters.

McCain dismissed such conjecture: "I know why I'm going," he told The Dispatch last week. "I'm going to tell them that I will be president of all the people."

McCain said it is important for him to "go to places where there may not be a lot of Republican votes," and he rejected notions that black voters can't be swayed because of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, soon to be the first black presidential nominee, in the race.

Whoever this high ranking Democrat is, he's absolutely right. Whatever this is, it's not about the black vote. As Republicans have demonstrated through the last two presidential elections, they do not need the black vote. But McCain can score some free media coverage, make some points by saying "well I tried!" and appear open-minded, reasonable and sensitive on racial issues. These last things won't hurt him with the majority of white voters, who think of themselves as having all of those attributes.

I've long thought that the NAACP would be better served by splitting their support more into both parties, with the result that both parties would take them more seriously. The NRA should be a model for them, as the Democratic governor Strickland is an NRA member and won their support. But with Obama on the ticket, there's a snowballs chance in hell of that happening this year.

Yesterday, both John McCain and Barack Obama addressed the annual League of United Latino Citizens conference in Washington D.C. At 15% of the population, Latinos are now the country's largest minority, and, as a consequence, the presidential candidates are working hard to secure the lion's share of their votes. Latinos also represent the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. voting population, so you can expect the courtship to become a fixture in American politics.

Back in 2004, George W. Bush won an estimated 40% of the Latino vote. But if the Daily Standard's Matthew Continetti is right, this time around, things might not be so good for the GOP. Attending yesterday's speeches in D.C., Matthew reports...

On July 1, at the Mayor of Denver's annual state of the city address, a local singer named Rene Marie stood before the crowd, eager to hear "The Star Spangled Banner," the US' National Anthem.

Instead, she sang this:

Dear Racists,

Good afternoon. How's it going? That's a rhetorical question, but part of the reason I'm writing to you is that things are going really well for you. According to a new Washington PostABC News poll, you guys and gals are in a position to swing this year's election.

In that Washington Post/ABC News poll, 3 in 10 voters say that race will influence their votes this coming November. From The Washington Post:

As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice...on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.

Now, I want to focus on the white racists here, because I think we all already know who all the black people are voting for. Wink-wink. Besides, at 11% of the electorate, 34% of black people doesn't even cover the margin of error.

Listen, I'm not here to try to get you to change your ways, or stand around singing Kum-Ba-Ya. No, I'm just here to tell you that, whether you're the kind of deep-fried, bone marrow racist who sits around thinking up new slurs like "moon cricket" because the standard ones just don't have the palette required to express your special kind of hatred, or you're one of those closeted racists who relies on shifting social norms to get your piece in, Barack Obama is the candidate for you.

Today, CNN posted an opinion piece by Jason Caroll that questions how we should term Barack Obama's racial identity. Given Obama's white mother and his black father, Caroll logically concludes that Obama falls under the new census category "multi-racial."

A dispassionate, logical approach to racial identification, what could be controversial about that?

This is an issue that has sparked debate not only in our newsroom, but also among my friends and family. Most Americans see Obama as a black man, and he identifies himself as a black man. But there are some who will argue that by labeling Obama as a "black candidate," we are all ignoring a vital and legitimate side of his life.

The origins of how we define race in America are not especially pretty. Historically, the offspring of couples from different races (i.e. children of male slave owners and their female slaves) were always afforded the lack of rights and privileges of the darker skinned parent, and therefore denied inheritance claims and social standing. Socially, however, light-skinned blacks enjoyed an elevated status within white America, to a point. While viewed as less threatening than those with darker pigmentation, light-skinned blacks still faced brutal discrimination when push came to shove. In the end, while white America was less threatened by lighter skin, it often regarded the presence of any "black blood" as a disqualifying factor.

While the Democrats will make history no matter who wins their nomination, Republicans are stuck in the past on a big issue: diversity within the party. As Politico points out, it's been six+ years since the GOP has elected an African-American governor, senator or House member. And here's a stat that floored me:

Only four black Republicans - (former Oklahoma Rep. J.C.) Watts, former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, former Connecticut Rep. Gary Franks and the late Illinois Rep. Oscar Stanton De Priest - have been elected to Congress since Reconstruction.

And the streak isn't going to end any time soon. Of the tiny number of minorities running as Repubs in '08, none are expected to even come close to winning.

It was only three years ago when the RNC's then-chair Ken Mehlman unveiled an ambitious plan to recruit minority candidates and voters and transform the face of the party. What happened? Well, nothing. It was apparently just a PR stunt that went nowhere. J.C. Watts said: "I've never gotten the impression that it was institutionalized."

Many Republicans admit that the lack of diversity is a problem, but in a party with no shortage of problems it's not even close to the top of the list. As one party insider put it: "the party is so broke and distracted that wooing strong minority candidates is a luxury it simply cannot afford right now."

Opponents of Barack Obama have made much of the fact that he gets 90% or more of the black vote, many going so far as to term them "racist." It's a popular refrain on these pages. The logic, apparently, is that 90% of black people vote for Barack Obama, therefore, they must be voting for him just because he's black.

Of course, until this year, white candidates have gotten about 99.44% of the white vote. Does that make them racist? Some of them, to be sure. The story that doesn't get told, though, is of the white voters who support Barack Obama. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of Obama's support comes from white voters.

Satirist Tom Fitzsimmons has the story of one such voter. From Dailykos:

I, a fair skinned lad of Irish-Jewish descent, am voting for Barack Obama because he is Black. Notice how I capitalize 'Black'? I really mean it.

I grew up in a Black neighborhood. Before the neighborhood had transformed into a 'ghetto' though, I had gathered a few ideas about Black culture on my own. Way back then, you may remember, it was called 'Negro' culture and this was my young analysis of that; It was a beautiful, humble religion led by Sidney Poitier, Jesus and Martin Luther King.

Tom's reasons for supporting Obama defy quick summation, but it definitely goes beyond the standard dismissal employed by Republicans and Obama's opponents: White Guilt.

Patrick J. Buchanan, MSNBC's Senior Political Analyst, author and all-around "save the white race from annihilation and extinction" advocate comes closer and closer to losing it completely.

Buchanan, whom I had profiled in some detail here, has turned into the white man's foil during this primary season on MSNBC. Always quick to point out the problems with Obama's capture of the lunch bucket crowd and how he can't get out the white vote, Buchanan has warmed to Senator Clinton for becoming the "everyman" that he feels is necessary to capture the race for the Dems. The more Obama wins, the more agitated Buchanan becomes.

I'll set up the video below as I had seen the whole thing live and this clip, while great, does not capture what set Pat off.

This immediately followed John Edwards' endorsement of Obama last night. The subject of conversation with Pat, Matthews and Andrea Mitchell was if anyone thought that Edwards would help Obama capture the working-class white vote. The exit polling on race as a basis for voting in WV was astounding. When asked if race was an important factor for their candidate of choice, Clinton voters answered 85% that race was an important factor - far higher than any primary before.

The Obama campaign doesn't talk about it much, but will admit when pressed that they started this process knowing that there was a small, but not insignificant, segment of the population that just will not vote for an African-American.

Running just below the surface in the campaign and in the media, is the undercurrent of racism still to be found in pockets around the country - rural, urban and suburban. While Senator Obama's message is inclusive and pan-racial, the workers on the ground have felt the sting that the campaign itself does not wish to highlight and the media has mostly ignored.

The Washington Post today has some harsh stories of field workers, phone bankers and surrogates having doors slammed in their faces, being called the most derogatory of racial terms and physically threatened.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."