Can Obama’s speech change the national dialogue on race?
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
The Los Angeles Times has a story today on whether Obama’s speech will be able to change the way this country talks about race.
I spent some time on the phone with the reporter as well, giving my views. Here are a few excerpts:
In his recent address on race relations in America — prompted by his minister’s explosive sermons on that topic — Sen. Barack Obama declared that whites must understand the black experience in America and blacks must appreciate the white perspective. Otherwise, he said, we face a grinding “racial stalemate.”
His remarks struck a nerve: More than 4 million people watched the Democratic presidential candidate on live TV, and the speech is now a top video on YouTube, viewed nearly 3 million times.
Preachers and teachers across the country have been trying to figure out how to leverage that interest to launch deep, authentic discussions about race. In some quarters, there’s strong interest…
Carmen Van Kerckhove, co-founder of a diversity consulting firm in New York, described the dynamic this way: “Human beings tend to be really focused on their own oppression, and tend to be less interested in hearing about the oppression of others.”…
In her small beauty salon in Franktown, Charlotte Britton, 65, serves white and black customers. But Britton, who is white, wouldn’t dream of talking with them about race. Part of that is business: She likes to keep chatter in the salon light — no politics, no religion.
But the deeper truth is this: She never dreamed that anyone would want to talk about race. Until she saw video clips of Obama’s pastor sermonizing about black oppression, Britton said she had no clue that anyone other than a few hard-core white supremacists thought much about skin color.
“I thought we were past that,” she said. “I didn’t realize this was going on in the United States. In this day and age? I was shocked.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Rob Schmidt wrote:
Re “whites must understand the black experience in America and blacks must appreciate the white perspective”:
Yes. And whites also must understand the Latino experience, the Asian experience, the American Indian experience, etc. Let’s not forget that there are more Hispanics (however you define them) than blacks in the US today. That’s been the case since about 2001. (See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/21/national/main537369.shtml for more on this point.)
The 2007 “Walking a Mile” report confirmed the need to understand Indians. As it put it, “Non-Indians need to recognize and respond to the feelings, perceptions and issues uppermost in the minds of American Indians–at the levels of policy and public education. … It is not enough to know, and feel guilty, about Indians’ mistreatment in the past or even their poverty and isolation today.”
See http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2007/09/walking-miles-recommendations.html for more on this report.
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 1:32 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
I swear, sometimes, I feel like we are on different planets.
That slavery example drives me insane by the way. There’s never a mention of Jim Crow or discrimination, like we all just woke up one day and were free and there was no blood spilled and no complications.
It also shows how stunted racial dialougue in this country really is. Blacks need to get over it (hey, newsflash - once shit stops happening, I’ll be happy to stop bringing shit up), Latinos are illegal until proven otherwise, and everyone else doesn’t exist.
Instead, it’s much easier to gloss over whatever happened, say it’s past, and move forward. Obviously, it’s a lot easier if that shit doesn’t affect you…
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 3:03 pm ¶
S.A / Candian Beauty wrote:
Rob Schmidt said it perfectly .
It`s not just a black / white thing . As human beings we should always look for a common ground and try to understand/respect everyones diverse expereinces regardless of colour. I wonder how long will it take for us to stop being so preoccupied with race and make racism a thing of the past . . . . . . a couple centuries perhaps =/
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 3:08 pm ¶
Michelle wrote:
I think that when people speak of race, specifically in a 25 minute speech, and they use terms like Black and White, I don’t think it is to the exclusion of everyone else. If you want to have an intellectual debate about the issues, please so not insult people’s intelligence by attempting to embroil them in a stupid debate about semantics. Don’t you think that anyone who is willing to talk about race, on a national scale, and focus on healing, knows that we are a nation of many peoples and races, but that the structure of race in America, in fact the main reason race exists at all, is because of the demarcation of Black and White. The constitution defined those lines of Black and White and slavery institutionalized and reinforced those lines in our new and fledgling nation. In order to dismantle the entire structure, don’t people think that it is logical to start at the root of this issue? How come we can’t start at the beginning? And if that is not the best way to go about it, why can’t people at least acknowledge that it is a valid thought without accusing people of being insensitive, thoughtless or racist?
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 12:11 am ¶
Jack D. wrote:
Nicely put, Michelle. The black/white divide is a conversation starting point, not the entire goal.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 7:28 am ¶
lunanoire wrote:
I interpreted Obama’s focus on giving examples from the black and white communities a way to keep it personal and relevant to his heritage, rather than claiming to speak for the experiences of others. I thought the point of the pastor and grandmother statements were to keep it relevant to him, not to exlude people of other backgrounds.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 7:43 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:
Rob,
What the heck is the Asian Experience or Hispanic Experience or Black Experience? There’s no one definition. Different people have different experiences, even if they’re from the same ethnic group. This would depend on when they come here and what part of the country the live. The Chinese Exclusions Act which prohibited Chinese immigration to Canada doesn’t have much to do with me, directly speaking, for example. My family won’t get any compensation since they came several decades AFTER the act was repealed. How is this MY ASIAN EXPERIENCE? I’m sorry, but this has much to do with MY ASIAN EXPERIENCE as studying the culture of Roman Empire.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 8:19 am ¶
Celeste wrote:
Yes, it was only 25 minutes for petesake. It’s hard to do an ethnic/racial rolecall and not have it stretch on for days and certainly longer than the attention span of the media. If he gets elected I’m sure we’ll hear him address racial issues beyond the black-white foundation.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 8:47 am ¶
queerhapa wrote:
Not to underplay the absolute seminal role that slavery has had on race relations in this country, but if the “logical” place to start is at the beginning, wouldn’t we have to begin the conversation with the (actual and cultural) genocide of indigenous peoples?
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 8:56 am ¶
Orville wrote:
What kinds of Hispanincs are you talking about? And why are Hispanics viewed as a racial group in the USA instead of as a cultural group anyway? It doesn’t make sense to me that’s just bizarre. According to the USA census there are 23 million white Hispanics. My question is why are white Hispanics viewed as some kind of minority in America when they are a part of the white American majority. Cameron Diaz, Christina Aguilera, and Daisy Fuentes are white women not women of colour.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 10:09 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:
Orville:
Culture, perhaps? I think white hispanics are viewed the same way as Italian Americans and perhaps even Irish Americans.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 10:19 am ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:
I swear, y’all just keep a Black woman at the keyboard.:-D
I’ll address a couple of commenters’ statement…
Cynthia: I’ll let Rob defend his own statement re: “The” Black/Asian/Latino/Native American Experience. Personally, I’ve been down with Dr. Cornel West’s definition of The Black Experience as stated in his book “Race Matters” (forgive me for the paraphrase): beyond the socio-politically (and economically) enforced ugly statements and actions about and toward people with the African phenotype and genotype–and the dynamic struggle against that ugliness–it’s up for grabs. What I suspect is Dr. West’s definition can be extrapolated to other non-white groups/groups of color as well.
Now, let me bring that definition to what you said about your direct experience, Cynthia: Canada’s Chinese Exclusion Acts may not have affected you in the sense of your family not being compensated. However, what I suspect is that law enforced a societal attitude in Canada that people with a Chinese and/or Asian phenotype do not fit and, by extension, belong in Canada…an attitude, I suspect, that may manifest itself directly in your life today, like that Toronto city councillor stating that “Orientals” are “taking over” and that they work so hard that they “sleep next to their machines.” Now, you may want to offer the “that-isn’t-*me*” reasoning but that public official sure as hell meant you and folks looking like you by the virtue of stereotyping Asians in Canada as the new “Yellow Peril” and as abnormal in working habits. Sorry, but a stereotype–even a “positive” one–isn’t something I’d “woot” about because it flattens my complexity and, frankly, my humanity and the complexity and humanity of the group with whom I share my phenotype and genotype.
Latoya: I suss that you may have been rhetorical (and PO’d) when you said that:
“Obviously, it’s a lot easier if that shit doesn’t affect you…”
…but doesn’t racism affect white people as well? (Before the white commentors want to throw their javelins in the Oppression Olympics, I say put ‘em down and read on.) Whereas we people of color suffer the slings and arrows of being on the receiving end of racism, don’t white folks who subscribe to and/or act upon racist viewpoints suffer from throwing those slings and arrows? Like Senator Obama’s grandmother who admitted “her fear of black men who passed by her on the street?’ to her Black-identified grandchild? Or the white family, driven by fear, who decides to expend time, energy, and money to sell their home when they see *a* Black family move into the neighborhood? What mental maneuvering do the people who believe in this white-skin advantage have to go through every nanosecond to religiously maintain that false belief to the point that they’ll interact with people of color in bad faith (I’m thinking of some white liberal/progressives who want to run down their “of color” cred but will easily come out-the-ass with some racist statement) –in light of facts, statistics, and having a boss of color running Pepsi and a man of color running for the POTUS? To me, that *is* suffering, and it does affect white people.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 3:14 pm ¶
Eric Daniels wrote:
I don’t think you can have a rational dicussion on race in this country because it has become politcized without any moral direction, Conservatives have brillantly like Obama said in the “Audacity of Hope” made race politcal instead of histrocial so there is no frame of reference to history. King and Malcolm along with brillant black thinkers made race a moral problem and within those confines they could make the case for social reddress of histroical problems which are still here with us today.
Conservatives like Buckley and Goldwater along with Southern Politicians made racial issues politcal starting with the report of ’state of the black family’ in 1965 along with the Great Society and the crime wave of the late 60’s (along with riots and protest) with Affrimative Action and the Fair Housing acts White Ethnics along with Southern Whites gave conservatives their politcal power which they hold today.
Obama’s speech though brillant masks one great problem, as long as race is a liberal v. conservative ideal instead of right and wrong behavior then dialouge is impossible because someone who is conservative will not make race a moral issue but one of politcal advatage just like someone from the left will site historical while Americans used to 30 second soundbites will choose the conservative veiwpoint because they have mastered the t.v. soundbite of ’short and sweet’ .
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 9:06 pm ¶