The Race Trap
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(Editor’s note: We recently published a long piece titled America Is Over, laying out what we believe is the dangerous state of our democracy. You can find it here. The following story stands alone, but may be best appreciated as a sidebar to that piece.)
hen Joe Biden was campaigning, he promised his first nominee for the Supreme Court would be a black woman. He kept that promise. When that nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was announced she was met with this challenge from KKK cheerleading captain Tucker Carlson: show us your LSAT (legal SAT) scores! This was racist and sexist and certainly something he did not demand previously from nominees Bret Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett. Wonder why that was?
Did Carlson not realize how awful this was? How demeaning? OF COURSE HE DID. That was his entire reason for bringing it up. Because once you can get Democrats outraged about race…you’ve increased chances for Republicans to win elections. Once you can label Democrats the “party of race,” you nullify attention paid to everything else Democrats stand for. And in the process, you force many independent white voters to throw up their hands and stay home on election day.
Similarly, did the dumb and dumber of GOP politics (Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham) not realize how stupid and disrespectful they were in assailing Jackson on non-relevant issues like affirmative action…critical race theory…and something called “racist babies”? OF COURSE THEY DID. That was the whole point. This nonsense had nothing to do with Judge Jackson or her qualifications. It was a signal to the race base of their party—and a way to turn off wavering independents. In short, it was all a way to win elections.
I believe there is a simple (yet controversial) way for liberals and mainstream media to fight this race baiting.
Stop talking so much about race. It’s not helping. It’s hurting.
I’ll explain, but first I want to state my own views on the subject.
ere’s what I believe. First, the original sin of America is slavery. Second, racism continues to be the connective tissue that binds together all of the current iteration of the Republican party. The GOP exists today to reverse racial progress. It’s actually the only thing they have to propose. And third, every positive step that can be taken to break down the structures of discrimination should be taken.
This is the existential battle fought throughout our history. Equality is the essence of America; it’s our foundation. But right now, it can feel like we’re moving further away from equality. That may seem like even more reason to raise voices and keep crying “foul.”
But it’s not. And here’s why:
Complaints about discrimination are exclusionary. Specific grievances from any victimized group by definition apply only to that group. From everyone else, you can only hope for empathy.
Empathy is a finite resource. On a global scale, you can feel sorrow for Ukrainian refugees, victims of school shootings, or abandoned puppies. On a personal level, a friend may bemoan a broken transmission, the overbearing new boss, and a badly sprained ankle. On either level, there’s a limit. Because the bottom line is this: people will always care most about their own issues. That’s human nature. So repeated laments from any aggrieved group will soon fall on deaf ears. Those aggrieved populations are using up too much of the oxygen in the room. The more realistic approach is to talk about what applies to all, not what applies to some.
Talking is not the same as doing—far from it. People who rely on phrases like, “we can never allow…,” or “we need a national conversation”, or “people need to understand…” are just wasting breath. These talkers seldom have anything to propose. Yet you can hear and read them all day long.
On the other hand, Joe Biden recently signed a bill making lynching a federal crime. You probably didn’t read or hear about it on the news. This law is ridiculously overdue. But it wasn’t talk—it was action. The focus needs to be on action.
Furthermore, often the accepted narrative on discrimination contains errors. For example, here are three connected directly to race:
According to many pundits, Biden’s victory was won by black voters. It’s true his Presidential bid was sinking until Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina) gave him his full-throated support in his state’s primary. In fact, a large turnout by black voters carried the day. But that trend did not hold through to November. In fact, the percentage of blacks voting for the Democratic candidate in 2020 dropped three points from Hillary Clinton’s share four years earlier. The reasons are open to debate. The fact isn’t.
It has become almost mandatory to talk about “communities of color”—as if they were a singular thinking-and-voting monolith. It’s simply not true. One of the least talked-about factors in race relations is animosity between Blacks and Latinos. There is tension there, and it isn’t new. But in terms of the vote, 2020 made the divide impossible to ignore. While 90% of black voters still supported the Democratic candidate, Latino voters jumped by eight points into Donald Trump’s camp. That was historic. It was the largest shift by any voting group ever recorded in successive elections. A lot of words have been written in attempts to explain this. I won’t be shy in suggesting that part of it may be simple fatigue and resentment from Latinos, hearing black spokespeople repeat their own specific grievances over and over. In any case, there is no conformity in “communities of color,” at least not when it comes to the vote.
Even within specific groups, there is seldom uniformity. While some impassioned protestors shouted, “defund the police!” in the wake of the George Floyd murder…they parted company with the clear majority of residents of the black community. That majority decidedly did not like the implication of the police going away.
Similarly, the 2020 Latino vote was splintered. For example, in Florida Trump got 56% of the Cuban vote…but only 31% from Puerto Ricans.
To think all this doesn’t really matter is misreading the room. To think constant focus on race doesn’t rankle is to minimize a broad swath of mid-America and much of the white working class. Complaining too much to them causes this kind of grousing: “Yeah…you think you’re the only ones got’s problems?”
This assessment is anecdotal. But assuming there’s some truth to it, so what? What’s the alternative?
y plea here is pretty simple. I’ll put it in the form of a question. If you are a person concerned (as I am) about all forms of discrimination, which party do you think will do more to address your concerns: the Democrats…or b) the one with Donald Trump in it?
If you answered a), your singular focus should be winning elections. Nothing else matters. And that means winning over the most voters. So, let’s look at how to do that. The obvious first step is to ask voters what they really care about—those opinions will largely determine their votes. A respected Long Island University poll conducted last September came up with this ranking:
Economy (27%)
Coronavirus (17%)
Healthcare (13%)
National Security (11%)
Climate (10%)
Race/Gender equality (6%)
Those numbers include all voters. But what about those independents? While there are roughly equal numbers of voters who self-identify as either Republicans or Democrats, it’s the larger number of independent and undecided voters who will determine election outcomes. So, how do they rank their most important issues?
Economy (27%)
Coronavirus (17%)
Healthcare (12%)
Climate (10%)
Race/Gender equality (6%)
You have to look closely to make sure that isn’t a typo. The numbers are almost perfectly identical. And if you consider the top four or five, you see they cut across every racial, gender, religious and regional divide. Those issues affect everyone. The story these numbers tell is clear, and it isn’t exactly new. Every political consultant knows the famous advice strategist James Carville dictated to campaign workers during Bill Clinton’s run for the presidency in 1992: “it’s the economy, stupid!” That focus elected Clinton, and it hasn’t lost much of its political punch since. The economy still matters most to the most voters.
If there’s a concern with these rankings because they were compiled more than six months ago, here’s what Gallup found in February when they asked voters about the biggest problems in the country:
Economy (30%)
Government/leadership (20%)
Coronavirus (13%)…
Race relations (4%)
Not much has changed. But Republicans keep throwing out the race bait for two reasons. First, they know it will rile up their base. And second, they know liberals will always take the bait. That’s the trap. Liberals can’t help but return outrage with outrage, prolonging the firestorm. And in the process, other issues get buried. Thus, voters more concerned with paying bills and protecting their kids from a pandemic stop listening altogether. It’s a massive diversion. That’s the race trap.
’ll close with three mini-profiles. The first is a friend who’s a smart guy. He successfully ran a large business. And, as a person of color, it wasn’t surprising that beyond watching his bottom line, he also made a persistent push for “diversity and inclusion.” But in the process, he made an important distinction between those two words. To paraphrase him, “diversity” is just a head count--it only measures whether you employ enough of “these” as opposed to the number of “those.” It’s controlled by management—the people doing the hiring. And yes, by itself, it’s an important metric.
But the rubber meets the road when you look at “inclusion.” Diversity doesn’t matter as much if all of the “theses” and the “thoses” just sit in separate groups in the company cafeteria. Or if they’re segregated into certain job titles within the organization. By definition, you won’t feel “inclusion” if you’re not included.
In any setting—from a single conversation to an entire country—there can’t be inclusion unless it works both ways. If any one group crosses its arms and refuses to communicate, actual inclusion is impossible.
Which leads to my second example, Stacey Abrams. She became a national hero when she fought to protect voting rights for blacks in Georgia two years ago. It’s not an exaggeration to say that her efforts are responsible for the U.S. Senate not remaining in GOP hands today. Her credentials here shine. I assume that privately, even her political foes admit she is a smart, effective, natural leader.
Currently Abrams is running for governor in her state. And race is—literally--the very last issue she mentions on her website. Before that, in order, the site lists economic mobility, educational mobility, social mobility, expanded health care, support for military families, environmental action, and public safety/criminal justice reform. Lastly, it mentions voting rights—the effort that made her famous in the first place. Publicly, her previous calling card now almost seems like an afterthought. Why? Not because she thinks it’s suddenly unimportant. But because Stacey Abrams knows that winning means finding common ground, addressing the concerns of all voters. She is being truly inclusive.
Lastly, I want to cite a person I respect enormously: Barack Obama. In 2016, he voluntarily walked into a racially charged firepit. The location was Dallas, where a couple days earlier a peaceful demonstration was underway protesting the recent fatal shootings of more black citizens by police across the country.
During the march, suddenly shots rang out from a sniper’s rifle. Before it was over, that sniper killed five police officers. The gunman admitted he acted in retaliation for the civilian shootings. To him, killing policemen was proper vengeance for other policemen killing black people.
Speaking at the memorial service for those officers, what side would Obama take? That of black victims? Or that of the police? Characteristically, he found a way to choose both:
“Can we see in each other a common humanity, a shared dignity, and recognize how our different experiences have shaped us? With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry more about joining sides to do right.”
He did not overtly talk about “blacks” or “whites” because those words are inherently exclusionary.
o be sure, many groups in America are marginalized and demonized. Their complaints are valid. But my ask is this: can we stop being goaded into a perpetual fight about race?
Let’s set aside specific gripes and focus on common goals.
Let’s stop getting trapped.
And in the process, let’s go out get the right people elected.
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