Traverse City Record-Eagle

Our Views

THE ISSUE:

- Race still prevalent in politics

Our view:

- King's 'dream' far from realized

January 15, 2012

Editorial: Racial politics alive decades later

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If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today (his 83rd birthday), he would probably be talking as much about folks like Pamela Geller, the bizarre leader of an anti-Muslim hate group, as he would the economic and social challenges still facing African-Americans.

But he'd probably be kept busier still fielding questions about the gaggle of Republicans seeking the party's presidential nomination, some of whom have made remarks concerning race and black Americans that range from goofy to blatant -- or something in between.

Some comments can probably be attributed to the foot-in-mouth disease that afflicts almost anyone who has been on a campaign trail nonstop for six months or more.

Sooner or later a candidate's desire to differentiate himself from the pack will lead him or her to say something truly stupid or simply trip over his own tongue. But when a candidate's default speech tends toward racial remarks, that's something to pay attention to.

Here's a sampling.

• Ron Paul. The Texas congressman has been on the hot seat for a series of articles in a 1992 newsletter under his name that included racially charged comments, such as this one: "(W)e can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in (Washington, D.C.) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." In a 1996 interview, Paul told the Dallas Morning News the statistic was an "assumption" one could gather from published studies.

Paul has recently said he didn't write those articles (though how they appeared in his newsletter remains a mystery) but in that 1996 interview he personally repeated and defended some of the most incendiary claims.

Also in 1996, he told the Houston Chronicle that his comments on blacks contained in the newsletters (apparently they were his comments after all) should be viewed in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." That makes it all better.

There's more. He defended statements in an Aug. 12, 1992, newsletter calling the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, a distinguished black congresswoman from Texas, a "moron" and a "fraud." Calling a political opponent a "moron" is OK in some circles, but he just had to add that "her race and sex protect her from criticism."

• Rick Santorum. In Sioux City, Iowa, Santorum singled out blacks for getting assistance through federal benefit programs; he told a mostly white audience he doesn't want to "make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

As CBS pointed out, however, just 9 percent of Iowans on food stamps are black but 84 percent are white. And nationally, 39 percent of welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic.

But the default stereotype? Blacks who expect a handout.

• Michelle Bachmann. Before she dropped out of the race, the Minnesota congresswoman claimed that black children and black families were better off during slavery. That, of course, is when they could be sold, whipped and split up as a family.

This is the same Michelle Bachmann who, in discussing the nation's racist history, claimed the "founding fathers" were battling slavery -- more than 80 years before the Civil War and despite the fact that many of the "founders" were slave owners.

• Herman Cain. The black businessman and lobbyist, who led the GOP pack for a few weeks until a number of women came forward to say he was a serial sexual harasser and philanderer, also played the race card.

As pointed out by columnist Clarence Page, Cain told CNN that blacks had been "brainwashed" into not "thinking for themselves" and that the Democratic Party was a "plantation" for black voters, apparently echoing Bachman's belief that slavery was the "good old days."

It's easy to imagine King would be disheartened -- but probably not surprised -- that so much of the nation's political discourse is still mired in race more than 40 years after his assassination.

His "dream" is far from realized.

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