Race and Politics in America

March 26, 2008

With U.S. senator Barack Obama’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination, the issue of race and politics in America has reemerged as a hot topic among politicians, pollsters, pundits, and the public.

During a speech last week in Philadelphia, Obama drew added attention to the issue of race and politics when he addressed questions about his longtime association with his church’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose inflammatory statements from the pulpit on America and race, according to Obama, were “a profoundly distorted view of this country.” As he refuted Wright’s views, Obama used the opportunity for what many in the media labeled “a teaching moment.”

Obama’s speech has prompted media figures, politicians, and academics to revisit questions such as the viability of minority candidates and the future of racial relations in America. 

Historical differences

Divisions between economic classes, religious factions, and ethnic groups have existed since America’s beginning. Although the Declaration of Independence states “that all men are created equal,” the United States from its inception has fought an internal struggle over cultural and legal discrimination (including slavery) that would divide the nation, bring forth a civil war, and leave an unsettled legacy.

The abolition of slavery in 1865 did not lead to equality among races. Efforts to resolve inequalities during Reconstruction were met with resistance from “Redeemers” and other individuals and groups opposed to the advancement of an estimated four million “freedmen’” manumitted by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (The Redeemers were a pro-Southern, anti-republican political body that supported segregation laws and groups that perpetuated violence and intimidation tactics toward African-Americans.) Beginning in 1876 (and into the 1960s), hundreds of Jim Crow laws were enacted and widespread racial segregation took hold, mainly throughout the Southern states, creating further obstacles for minorities.

Political gains

Despite segregation, racial violence, punitive laws, and the dreaded Ku Klux Klan, African-Americans sought political representation and legitimacy. In 1873, the people of Mississippi, during what was known as the “black and tan revolution,” elected African-Americans to half of the state’s offices, including Hiram R. Revels (1870–71), the United States’ first African-American senator. By 1876, some 15 African-Americans had served in the U.S. Congress. Such successes, however, were rare and short-lived.

African-Americans were not the only group subject to discrimination and lack of political representation. Throughout the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, other minorities faced similar barriers to inclusion. In the western United States, Chinese immigrant laborers were subjected to violence and legislated acts of exclusion. Native Americans were stripped of their rights and forcibly removed from their culture and land. At other times in U.S. history Irish immigrants, Latin Americans, Muslims, Catholics, and Jews have faced racial, religious, and ethnic hostility. During World War II, more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and other Asian-Americans were forced into internment camps. Throughout the years following the Civil War and up through the immediate post–World War II era, few minorities were elected to office.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the nation witnessed the large-scale removal of discriminatory practices and laws. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, African-Americans, and other minorities, have attained high levels of public office, education, and income. The post-civil rights era also brought a surge in African-American involvement in politics. Today, minorities hold more elected positions than at any other period in U.S. history. Several African-Americans, including the late Representative Shirley Chisholm and the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, made runs for the White House. Two African-Americans and two women have served as Supreme Court justices; most recently the state of New York inaugurated its first African-American governor (the third in the nation’s history).

The current state of race and politics

Current poll numbers indicate Obama has a chance at winning the Democratic presidential nomination, and would be a serious contender in the November general election. Throughout his campaign, the senator has insisted that his race is irrelevant to his bid for the White House. Hoover senior fellow and prize-winning author Shelby Steele disagrees. Steele says that despite Obama supporters’ assertions that race does not matter, it is at the very core of his candidacy. "Obama's campaign pretends to transcend race,” Steele says, “but the paradox is that his campaign is all about race–and very little else."

According to Steele, the United States has not eradicated the twin specters of racism and “white guilt” over slavery. Steele contends that, despite outward appearances of competence and prominence, most African-Americans who have found success in mainstream America—politicians in particular—have adopted one of two “masks”: that of the bargainer or that of a challenger. Steele has declared Obama a “bargainer,” someone who, to gain acceptance from whites, is willing to avoid addressing America’s history of racism. “Challengers,” such as Jackson and Sharpton, obtain power by wielding racial stigma to elicit guilt from whites. The confrontational style of challengers, as evidenced by Jackson’s and Sharpton’s failed campaigns, tends to alienate most mainstream voters.

Steele posits that adopting such masks prevents minorities from evolving an “individual self.” Steele believes the major challenge facing minorities today is not to concede to predetermined racial roles but rather to “achieve visibility as an individual.”

Hoover senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson believes that politicians who continually dredge up past recriminations to excuse or explain away their own arguably racist attitudes and behaviors are missing “yet another opportunity to talk honestly about race, to hold all Americans to the same standards of public ethics and morality, and to emphasize that no one gets a pass peddling vulgar racism.”

Likewise, Hoover senior fellow Thomas Sowell contends that politicians who allege racism and inequality to be the root cause for every perceived social injustice actually end up promoting division and hopelessness among their constituents. "Why," Sowell asks, "should young blacks be expected to work to meet educational standards, or even behavioral standards, if they believe the message that all their problems are caused by whites, that the deck is stacked against them?" —Michelle Bussenius, Editor