Is Obama Insensitive to Uneducated Whites?
by tdaxp ~ April 12th, 2008
Politico links to this story about Obama describing uneducated whites to a much more fortunate audience. Uproar follows, predictable. Weekly Standard (which naturally wants the more liberal and more probable of the Democratic candidates to do poorly) is shocked. Daily Kos (which naturally wants the more liberal and more probable of the Democratic candidates to do well) is shocked anyone cares.
Here’s the story which reported Obama’s statement:
Mayhill Fowler: Obama: No Surprise That Hard-Pressed Pennsylvanians Turn Bitter - Off The Bus on The Huffington Post
These qualities of hospitality, patriotism and endurance are exactly what Californians need to hear about Pennsylvanians. And when he spoke to a group of his wealthier Golden State backers at a San Francisco fund-raiser last Sunday, Barack Obama took a shot at explaining the yawning cultural gap that separates a Turkeyfoot from a Marin County. “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”Obama made a problematic judgment call in trying to explain working class culture to a much wealthier audience. He described blue collar Pennsylvanians with a series of what in the eyes of creamy Californians might be considered pure negatives: guns, clinging to religion, antipathy, xenophobia.
Senator Obama’s statement generated heat for the following reasons, in combination
a) he described a less fortunate group to a more fortunate group
b) his description describes a legitimate grievance of the less fortunate group
c) his description attributes attitudes stereotypically seen as positive within the less fortunate group as a result of the legitimate grievance
Obama’s statement is thus no more or no less than if Senator Clinton had described blacks to San Francisco backers as follows:
“You go into some of these inner cities in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of ghettos in the Industrial North, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each succesive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising they get bitter, and they cling to their single mothers or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
I assume that if Clinton had said this Daily Kos would be a lot harsher and Weekly Standard would be a lot softer. I could be wrong, but I assume a lot of outrage over this is manufactured.
(For comparison, take Obama’s pastor, who if he was associated with Hillary Clinton would be a Grand Wizard in a political branch of the Klan.)
April 12th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Obama’s response:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188566.php
I don’t really disagree with anything he said. Seems like another manufactured outrage.
April 12th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Tongue in cheek explaination of Obama doing damage control
http://exurbanleague.com/2008/04/12/obama-does-damage-control.aspx
April 12th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Ouch, there’s not really a way out of this one… Number C) is pretty insulting no matter how you slice it. I’m surprised Obama would commit such an obvious gaffe.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Obama sees rural whites the same way Lenin seen Ukrainian Peasants. But just imagine if a white politician said something similar about poor inner city blacks. He or she would probably be facing jail time?
But as I’ve said before, Obama will do more for white interests than any President in the last 80 years. The argument for affirmative action, racial quota’s, minority set-asides, and all around complaining will be over.
That’s why, while I love when he says his anti-white rhetoric, at the same time I wish he could keep his hatred for white people bottled up for a while. He’ll never get elected if he keeps this up.
So if any Obama campaign people read this blog, tell Obama to keep his hate speech to himself until the election is over. After that, let er’ rip.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:51 am
“Obama’s statement is thus no more or no less than if Senator Clinton had described blacks to San Francisco backers as follows”
And maybe that is why we need to be more open about the issue of race.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129584
I find this article more representative of Obama’s racial views, and I am surprised that, despite the fact I sent it to you, you never mentioned it since it answers many of the questions you had of him surrounding AA policy.
April 13th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Adrian,
Largely agreed. Obama made an insensitive remark, but it’s clear what he meant. In the same way, if Clinton had said something analogous, supporters of Obama would be “outraged” while supporters of Clinton would defend her in the same way.
historyguy,
heh
This is one of Obama’s problems — when he compares his grandmother’s bodily fear to Obama’s anti-American speeches — and then defends her as a “typical white person” — it’s easy to see condescension where there is only paternalism.
Adam,
I don’t know this for sure, but I think its probable to say that Obama “code switches” regularly, adjusting his speech to the community he is addressing. What Obama said was doubtless regarded as a true statement of fact by the community he was addressing (San Francisco liberals).
Not so by many others, clearly.
Seerov,
As I’ve said before, I don’t see how rationally or politically the success of a son of an East African immigrant argues against affirmative action for descendants of slaves taken from West Africa.
Obviously differences in cultures and family history. Additionally, I’m assuming West Africans are about as different from East Africans genetically Orientals are from Caucasians.
Jeffrey,
The articles paints Obama as a well-spoken liberal supporter of affirmative action, who also wants the government to address other social ills, as well.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Interesting commentary/perspective from “Wretchard” Fernandez at Belmont Club:
“Yee-haw”
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/04/yee-haw.html
And more than a few the comments below that are quite noteworthy in their own right.
April 13th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
[...] Is Obama Insensitive to Uneducated Whites? [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
“As I’ve said before, I don’t see how rationally or politically the success of a son of an East African immigrant argues against affirmative action for descendants of slaves taken from West Africa.”
One of the arguments in America for AA is that white people are too racist and won’t hire blacks unless forced to. If a black man becomes President of the US, then this argument is moot. The fact that “typical-racist-Nazi-whites” will vote a black into office proves that this argument is nonsense.
“Obviously differences in cultures and family history. Additionally, I’m assuming West Africans are about as different from East Africans genetically Orientals are from Caucasians.”
I’ll try to find a genetic map. I’m not sure why this matters anyway?
April 13th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
OK, I found a chart showing ethnic distances between groups and it is not true that “West Africans are about as different from East Africans genetically as Orientals are from Caucasians.” Check out the first article and go down a bit you’ll see the chart.
http://www.amren.com/ar/1999/10/
April 14th, 2008 at 3:49 am
“The articles paints Obama as a well-spoken liberal supporter of affirmative action, who also wants the government to address other social ills, as well.”
Which AA? Racial or social class based?
April 14th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Also, from Webster:
Main Entry:
affirmative action
Function:
noun
Date:
1965
:an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women; also : a similar effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons
Fact is, no matter who it is legally defined, AA is a broad term that doesn’t refer specifically to this or that program, whether is by racist quotas or programs that react out to communities that are otherwise not pushing their youth towards higher education.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:11 am
*whether “it be” by
April 14th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Seerov,
Perhaps, but it’s a rarely used argument. The ones I actually hear are that racial diversity is a good even without extant racism (for instance, the University of Michigan cases) or that the unique experiences of African Americans require giving them an additional “helping hand.” Neither of these require the existence of racism among whites.
Regarding genetic variation within Africa, cannot find a specific cite at the moment (I’ll continue looking if you want) — both Weber et al. 2000 [1] and this web comment [2] also refer to it. My point is that east and west Africans are so differnet and so many scales, and more specifically African Americans and west African immigrants are so different, that there’s little point in using the success of on member one as a basis for changing the benefits allocated to the other.
Regardless, it’s hard to imagine you won’t see the same charges of “Tokenism” leveled against a President Obama as you have Associate Justice Thomas, Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, etc.
All in all, the idea that an Obama presidency would result in less affirmative action strikes me as evidence-less wishful thinking.
Jeffrey,
Both, though I was, in line with common usage, using “affirmative action” to refer to the existing system of racial preferences that discriminate primarily in favor of blacks, somewhat in favor of hispanics, somewhat against whites, and strongly against jews and asians, in the United States.
[1] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_200010/ai_n8924238/pg_5
[2] http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/from_crotchgrabbing_to_demogra.php#comment-530840
April 14th, 2008 at 10:29 am
You should always tailor your message to your audience, but insulting those not present stopped being a good idea about the time the telegraph was invented.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
How are Jews and Asians being strongly discriminated against?
April 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
What bothers me about his comments is that a presidential candidate of the US describes gun ownership and religious worship as vices to people struggling under hard economic times, the implication being that if those rural folk would just let go of their association with guns or religion and trusted government, their economic situation would improve. I don’t like that any leader would be so limited in vision that they would see gun ownership or religious worship only in the context of a place people go to for hope. Such a vision is disconnected from mature understandings of either gun ownership in rural America or people with religious beliefs.
He is the only man in the country who could even imply that liberties protected by the Bill of Rights are a vice that stupid Americans hold on to and still expect to be president. That he said it isn’t just silly or strange, it’s revealing in a not so good way.
I think I’m too GenX to understand the racial element here. I don’t recall religion or gun ownership being exclusively a white thing when I lived in rural Arkansas. Both were part of the social environment of the community, regardless of race, albeit in different ways.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
“that there’s little point in using the success of on member one as a basis for changing the benefits allocated to the other.”
I’m talking about political rhetoric here. As the economic opportunities for working class whites becomes even more bleak due to mass immigration, technology, outsourcing, and AA, the opportunity will arise to use this for propaganda reasons. Arguing that “diversity is good” is already laughable but even more so when people can’t find employment.
People also argue for AA to “correct past wrongs.” But no one has ever provided a metric that will alert us to when these past wrongs are corrected. We’re (whites) running out of time. We need to end AA in the next 15 years or we’ll lose the voting numbers to do so. If there’s one thing that whites agree with across party lines its AA. Every state that had an anti-AA referendum, has voted against AA. Even the so called “liberal” states. And this isn’t just old timers, young whites also reject AA. But if we wait too long it will be too late, and life will look like something out of Dr. Zhivago.
The two most important laws to be corrected before whites become a minority is ending AA and reinstating the right to freedom of association. In fact, I would be willing to pay slave reparations if we could correct these two defects.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Adam,
True. It was a faux pas on Obama’s part.
Jeffrey,
From Epenshade & Chung (2005) [1]:
“African-American applicants receive the equivalent of 230 extra SAT points (on a 1600-point scale), and being Hispanic is worth an additional 185 SAT points. Other things equal, recruited athletes gain an admission bonus worth 200 points, while the preference for legacy candidates is worth 160 points. Asian-American applicants face a loss equivalent to 50 SAT points.”
I trust you’ll be able to find your own reference for affirmative action’s racial discrimination against Jews.
[1] http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf
Galrahn,
This goes to what was weird about Obama’s line: he was describing attributes, all with negative connotations to his physical audience, as deriving from legitimate grievances. But some of that list has positive connocations to many of his would-be voters (gun ownership, religion, etc.). So either Obama’s insulting the values of others, or else explaining away both the good and bad of others as the result of economic circumstances and institutional molding.
Either way, a misstep.
Seerov,
You’re arguing against a straw-man. Go back to the University of Michigan law school decisions — the justification for affirmative action (at least among liberal elites) is diversity and equality, not redress of grievances.
[1] http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf
April 14th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
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