Inspired by Injustice, Politicians Speak Boldly on Race
American politicians, from Republicans in South Carolina to President Barack Obama, are increasingly addressing issues of race in frank terms, spurred by a series of racially charged incidents across the ｃountry, the rise of "black Twitter" and the strength of the "Obama coalition" of white liberals and minority voters.
Hillary Clinton will address a black church on Tuesday in Florissant, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb near Ferguson — her second racially themed speech in four days.
South Carolina Republicans on Monday called for the Confederate flag to be removed from the state's capitol ground amid an aggressive protest movement in the wake of the killing of nine black people at a church in Charleston by a man who held racist views.
And Obama invoked the n-word in an interview that aired on Monday, urging Americans to deal with structural racism.
"Some of the problems that have manifested in the last year….have become much more high profile in the second term so President Obama has no choice but to act," said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University who has written extensively about racial politics.
In all these moves, both Democratic politicians and some Republicans seem to be following the moves of the activists who emerged in the wake of the death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson police last year. This new generation of activists, many of whom are African-Americans who primarily organize online, start using the phrase "Black Lives Matter" last year, inspiring Clinton to repeat it.
In the wake of the Charleston shooting, they called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina. A series of politicians then joined that movement, from 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to Obama and now South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
"I am hopeful that these events continue to push us forward as a ｃountry to have these difficult conversations," said Michele Jawando, Vice President of Legal Policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
These new racial politics are a major shift.
In 1992, Bill Clinton ran for president determined to appeal to white voters in the South and Midwest even if it annoyed African-American voters who had been loyal to the Democratic Party.
In 2000, George W. Bush refused to call for the removal of the flag as he campaigned in South Carolina's primary. In 2008, Obama generally avoided speaking about his race.
Now, political strategists on the left say those approaches are outdated.
Democrats have largely given up winning the rural Southern voters who backed Bill Clinton in favor of the young people and minorities who voted for Obama.
"Social Media has empowered different voices and made it impossible for politicians and the media to ignore, and I think this is particularly true for African Americans. Black Twitter is very powerful and has demonstrated an ability to shape the political and media conversation," said one former senior Obama adviser, who did not want to be quoted publicly discussing his former boss' strategy.
Clinton, while taking more cautious stands on economic issues, has embraced the liberalism of Obama's supporters on cultural issues. In the early stages of her campaign, she has argued the criminal justice system disproportionately incarcerates black men and that American schools are too segregated.
"Our problem is not all kooks and Klansman. It's also in the cruel joke that goes unchallenged. It's in the off-hand comments about not wanting "those people" in the neighborhood," she said in San Francisco on Saturday to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
"Let's be honest: For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young Black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear," she added.
Obama too has shifted. Two years ago, in speech at Morehouse College, a historically black school, the president said, "Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination."
Now, the president is speaking often of the discrimination that he says African-Americans still endure.
"Racism. We are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say 'n-' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200-300 years prior," the president said in an interview with comedian Marc Maron.
Obama has already announced a series of policy changes since Ferguson, such as encouraging the use of body cameras by police and pushing cities to use more data to determine if they unfairly targeting minorities.
The president is considering other moves, such as an ｅxecutive order to 'ban the box," that would prevent federal contractors from including on job application forms if potential employees have been convicted of crimes.
Conservatives have been more reluctant to make these shifts, wary of what they cast as "identity politics." But they are responding to the new racial politics as well.
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VOCABULARY:
1. coalition - an alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states.
2. structural racism - Structural racism is the silent opportunity killer. It is the blind interaction between institutions, policies, and practices that inevitably perpetuates barriers to opportunities and racial disparities.
3. reluctant - unwilling and hesitant disinclined.
4. conservatives - a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.
5. racial politics - is the practice of political actors exploiting the issue of race to forward an agenda.
DISCUSSION:
1. What do you understand of racism?
2. In your ｃountry, are there issues of limitations of opportunities and liberties among people who are considered minorities?
3. President Obama expressed frustration on the issue of racism, do you agree with his sentiment?
