The Enduring Foolishness of Racial Politics

October 15, 2008

The Enduring Foolishness of Racial Politics

With only a few weeks to Election Day, racial politics has reared its pathetic head as pundits attempt to decipher poll numbers and audience comments at political rallies. It seems silly to imagine that adults in America may vote along racial lines but it should come as no surprise. Many people on the ideological margins of society vote irrationally. In fact, voting along racial lines says less about racism than it does about the lack of mature civic responsibility among voters who are indifferent to the nation’s common good.

While using race as an ultimate criterion for supporting or rejecting a candidate is equally unjustifiable and shallow, the possibility of doing exactly that is one of the trade-offs of being free. Positively, freedom permits us to choose a candidate according to important issues such as his or her positions on abortion, the role of government in meeting the needs of the poor, foreign policy, and education. I am happy to live in a country with this type of liberty rather than a regime where I have no role in choosing leaders to represent me.

When I hear African Americans, Latinos, and Asians lament, “It’s 2008 and racism still exists in America,” I want to shout, “What fairytale were you reading that said racism would ever cease?” One of the historic tenets of Judeo-Christianity, along with many other religions, is that evil exists in the world. As long as people lack the moral formation to escape it, there will always be racism.

What is most alarming about the media’s recent displays of racial politics is that many American voters do not have the civic virtue to put their personal racial views aside for the sake of what is best for the nation. Race does not determine a person’s position on issues. Do Maxine Waters and Condoleezza Rice think alike simply because they are both black women? Shallow voting is the art of the imperceptive.

In light of the gargantuan issues facing the nation—the conflicts in the Middle East, the nationalization of American banking, transitions in our use of energy, new international partnerships among socialist regimes in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and the multi-layered issues in Africa—we should be embarrassed as a nation for the world to see people downgrade the presidential election to gene preferences.

What Americans must embrace is their responsibility as virtuous citizens concerned about the common good. This means that we put non-essential issues like race aside, to choose a candidate with the character and competence necessary to offer leadership on the pressing issues of our times.

For example, which candidate has the wisdom to understand that championing economic liberty in the market has historically proven to be the best way to create wealth and lift people out of poverty? Which candidate champions justice embedded in a rule of law that keeps corruption, power, and greed in check?

Which candidate has the humility to know that neither he, nor any other small group of central planners, has enough knowledge or expertise to use government to manage the lives of 300 million people? Which candidate has the courage to fight for human life? Which candidate has the personal integrity to encourage trust and cooperation? In light of these critical questions, who cares about the candidate’s race?

The term Bradley effect (after 1980s California gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley) describes the phenomenon whereby white voters actually cast ballots for white instead of black candidates in greater numbers than earlier polls indicate. As we approach November, questions surrounding a potential Bradley effect pale in comparison to the possibility that many people will vote according to irrational criteria in general. We could call this the potential “foolishness effect.”

May truth and reason prevail in the coming weeks, so that both campaigns and the media will keep in front of voters the candidates’ principles and policies— rather than talking points befitting high school yearbook senior superlatives.

Comments

Cliff Washington: cliffordw00@email.phoneix.edu

Dr. Bradley--thank you for one of your best articles I have read. I read it over twice.
With this level of insight & truth both fair and balanced, I wonder what would it take to get the folks at FOX News to have you on the very same shows they have had YOU on in the past, to have you back to discuss this issue? Then not to stop there or point fingers--also have you go on CNN, CNBC, BET, MTV, CMT, ABC, NBC, CBS and the networks I left out of this list. Then you need to speak to the candidates themselves both presidential and vice presidential candidates of both major parties and those most closet's to them. They ALL have interjected race, skin color and gender into the race at some level over the past 30 days or last 30 minutes depending on the level. The question becomes: “as a nation of individuals, where do we go from here”? We can never defeat the enemy that seeks to harm us as Americans, until we defeat the enemy within, “racism”. This is but one black man’s opinion!

Dean Potter:

I believe the race issue permeates all bias in differance to equality of anyone subject to the view of non-acceptence in our world. What you do to least of me, you do to me. Bible quote.

Tracy Jue: juetm@juno.com

This article does an outstanding job outlining many questions to based an intelligent vote on the presidential candidates. I also agree that racism will always exist because evil exists. Recently though, I see America focusing on the huge shift in policies for our country that Americans are associating the presidential candidates with extreme images of the polices with hatred. For example, Americans that oppose Obama and his views have correlated him with Nazism (fascist). Or discussing Sarah Palin credibility. I am deeply concerned that Americans are caught up in the dramatic images of the candidates and forget to set that aside and focus on the issues the article summarizes to make an intelligent vote in a few weeks.

Pauli: paul.fry@flexresourcing.com

Great article. Your point that racism is primarily a moral problem is pertinent, esp. since liberals define morality differently since many deny that objective evil exists. Thus racism and all other evils become *purely* a matter of ignorance for which a politically correct education is a 100% cure. If this were the case, then the statement "“It’s 2008 and racism still exist in America" suddenly makes sense. If I think your name is spelled "Antony" rather than "Anthony" that's an example of ignorance. If I hate you because your name is Anthony that is quote a different issue altogether

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C. Stanley Morton: csmorton6399@msn.com

In all due respect to Linda Rice Johnson, daughter of the late pioneer African American publisher John H. Johnson and now CEO of the company (Ebony, Jet), I sense some of the very kind of racialize politics in her recent endorsement of Barack Obama (see Ebony Nov. 2008) that Anthony is writing aoout. While she does cite concerns such as economic problems, education, affordable health care, and the Iraq war, she believes Obama has "brilliant and innovative views on the issues (that) have been more in line with the thinking of Black America". She goes on to say, "His message of change and his "audacity of hope" have energized the entire country in ways never seen before, resonating across the land, convincing our nation that each of us should believe in the possibility of a new kind of politics. Aside from the tangible, concrete changes that could come from an Obama presidency, his victory will prove that possibilities are unlimited for those who dare to dream. With his election we can, without hesitation or apology, tell our children that anything is possible. Even becoming president. At this critical moment in history, Black America-and much of the nation-are on the verge of realizing a long awaited dream, a Black man in the White House." I have quoted her at length so no one could say I am taking this out of context. I was alive when Martin Luther King was shot and when Bobby Kennedy said there could be a black man in the presidency in 40 years. But that was 40 years ago. That dream is nowhere near as important as it seemed to us then. The issues now before us call for someone who has the "character and competence necessary to offer leadership on the pressing issues of our times" (see above). Race must be incidental. Yes, I am glad as a black man that a black man can be a serious candidate. But his character and competence must determine whether he or she is included or excluded, not his or her race. Besides, the fact that we can tell our children they can be whatever they want to be (given what is humanly possible and what they are gifted for) need no longer be proven. Linda Johnson's company has proven that already. Can we be mature and responsible voters, concerned with the common good, is what must be proven now.

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