by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n The election of the biracial Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. Instead, that dream is becoming a tribally polarized nightmare \u2014 by design, and intended to assist in the reelection of Barack Obama.<\/p>\n Consider the increasing obsession with the term \u201cwhite\u201d (as in versus \u201cblack\u201d), along with the old standby charge of \u201cracism\u201d \u2014 nearly all of it emanating from the president\u2019s surrogates and celebrity supporters. Upon the announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney\u2019s vice-presidential pick, almost immediately Donna Christensen, the non-voting congressional delegate from the Virgin Islands, tweeted: \u201cWait a minute! Are there black people in Va? Guess just not w Romney Ryan! At least not seeing us. We know who\u2019s got our back & we have his.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGot our back\u201d \u2014 compare the Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith\u2019s video appealing to African-Americans to cover the president\u2019s back \u2014 of course implies that Paul Ryan is a veritable racist who by virtue of his skin color and conservative politics will stab blacks in the back. In that vein, Mia Farrow, viewing the initial Romney\/Ryan rally, offers, \u201cCamera pans crowd: whole bunch of white people.\u201d<\/p>\n Here is what Melissa Harris-Perry, the weekend host of MSNBC\u2019s\u00a0Hardball<\/em>, said of Paul Ryan\u2019s referring to the Declaration of Independence:<\/p>\n The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence. I\u2019m deeply irritated by their notion that the \u2018pursuit of happiness\u2019 means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say “God and nature give us our rights, not government,” that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the postmodern world of Ms. Harris-Perry, which is the world of Barack Obama, what we say has no innate meaning apart from our class, race, and gender.<\/p>\n Expect the Ryan selection in the next few days to spawn a new flurry of \u201cwealthy white man\u201d invective in a manner that two Clinton-Gore tickets, a Gore-Lieberman ticket, and a Kerry-Edwards ticket never did.<\/p>\n Yet there is no indication of a new racism on the part of conservatives or Republicans. Herman Cain \u2014 until dismembered by media accusations \u2014 led the Republican primary field for weeks in the polls. Michael Steele ran the Republican National Committee for two years. Allen West remains the Tea Party\u2019s most popular politician. And many polls showed that Condoleezza Rice was the favored vice-presidential candidate among the Republican faithful. George W. Bush chose two African-American secretaries of state. That post has not been held by a white male since the ancient days of Warren Christopher.<\/p>\n Yet when Romney goes to Poland, Cokie Roberts hypothesizes that he is angling for the votes of Polish-Americans. Louise Lucas, a Virginia state senator who identifies herself as part of the Obama \u201cTruth Team,\u201d not long ago blurted out: \u201cWhat I am saying to you is Mitt Romney, he\u2019s speaking to a segment of the population, who does not like to see people other than a white man in a White House or any other elected position.\u201d According to Ms. Lucas\u2019s logic, if Obama in 2008 won 43 percent of the so-called white vote, and 97 percent of the African-American vote, then there lingers a suspicion of white racism, of prejudiced individuals who are voting on the basis of racial identification rather than the issues.<\/p>\n Among the many unhinged things that the majority leader of the United States Senate, Harry Reid (D., Nev.), has said, the creepiest is his most recent editorializing about a possible Mitt Romney victory in November: \u201cThe day after the election 17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they just bought the country.\u201d In 2008, Barack Obama raised about $800 million, well more than double the amount raised by John McCain. Were there any \u201cangry old white men\u201d who helped Obama gain such a substantial edge in money-raising?<\/p>\n Not long ago NBC\u2019s Brian Williams asked Mitt Romney to confirm or deny that he was going to pick \u201can incredibly boring white guy\u201d as his running mate. In the world of Brian Williams and Harry Reid, \u201cangry old white men\u201d and \u201cboring white guy[s]\u201d refer to suspect conservative others, never themselves, who win exemption from blame for their natural propensities because of their bumper-sticker liberalism. Imagine the fate of any pundit, politician, or media person who talked in stereotyped terms of \u201cwealthy black men,\u201d \u201cincredibly boring black guys,\u201d or \u201cangry old black men.\u201d<\/p>\n This latest round of acrimony follows the accusations this spring of tea-party racism, mostly from members of the Black Caucus. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), remember, claimed that Republican primary candidate Rick Perry advocated a jobs program that was one \u201cone stage away from slavery.\u201d Representative Andr\u00e9 Carson (D., Ind.) leveled the charge that the Tea Party wanted to lynch blacks from trees. In February, Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) exclaimed, \u201cI saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens [at the California state Democratic convention]. Don\u2019t ever let me see again, in life, those Republicans in our hall, on our screens, talking about anything. These are demons.\u201d<\/p>\n A\u00a0number of celebrities have joined the \u201cwhite\u201d-labeling chorus. The legendary actor James Earl Jones opined: \u201cI think I have figured out the Tea Party. I think I do understand racism because I was taught to be one by my grandmother. My grandmother was part Cherokee, Choctaw Indian, part black, she hated everybody, and she taught all of her children and grandchildren to be racist, to hate white people and to distrust black people.\u201d<\/p>\n The popular actor Morgan Freeman, who for years resented racial identity politics, weighed in last fall on the supposedly new epidemic of white racism: \u201cWhat\u2019s, what does that, what underlines that? \u2018Screw the country. We\u2019re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we\u2019re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.\u2019\u201d More recently Freeman ventured into the field of racial genetics and decided that Barack Obama was not a \u201cblack man\u201d after all: \u201cFirst thing that always pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier for him, they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white \u2014 very white American, Kansas, middle of America.\u201d Freeman then said, \u201cThere was no argument about who he is or what he is. America\u2019s first black president hasn\u2019t arisen yet. He\u2019s not America\u2019s first black president \u2014 he\u2019s America\u2019s first mixed-race president.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Rock in incoherent fashion has sounded off a lot recently about race. Of Obama, he said, \u201cIf I want to talk to him, I can call him. Dude, being the first black\u00a0anything<\/em>\u00a0sucks.\u201d On the Fourth of July, Rock tweeted, \u201cHappy white peoples independence day the slaves weren\u2019t free but I\u2019m sure they enjoyed fireworks.\u201d Cher tweeted illiterately of the supposed Republican war on women, \u201cNo prenatal care For women who can\u2019t afford 2care of themselves& their babies & theres more ! F\u2014 THESE OLD WHITE MEN who couldnt laid.\u201d<\/p>\n In part the new emphasis on \u201cwhite\u201d takes its cue from the us\/them themes that have been voiced by the president himself and members of his administration. In 2010, Obama appeared in a Democratic National Committee video in which he urged his supporters to make sure that \u201cthe young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.\u201d Right before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama addressed an audience in Philadelphia, charging that Republicans \u201care counting on black folks staying home.\u201d He went further still with Latinos, calling on them to \u201cpunish our enemies\u201d \u2014 in the light of his opponents\u2019 \u201ccynical attempt to discourage Latinos from voting.\u201d<\/p>\n All this race-baiting follows the Henry Louis Gates incident, the Trayvon Martin editorializing, and Eric Holder\u2019s growing corpus of racial commentary \u2014 from saying America is a \u201cnation of cowards\u201d on matters of race to accusing his congressional overseers of racist payback against himself and the president.<\/p>\n For whom is this new staged anger at \u201cwhites\u201d calibrated?<\/p>\n Surprisingly, I think most likely the independent swing voters. For all the talk of softer support in minority communities, Obama will probably win huge majorities among them, comparable to those of 2008. He might increase voter turnout by revving up fears of white racism, but in general he has few worries over the minority vote.<\/p>\n In contrast, Obama will not do well with the so-called working white voters, and apparently has written them off; he has few worries that the current \u201cwhite\u201d obsession can do much more damage among the \u201cclingers.\u201d But among moderate independents, the Obama campaign is seeking to brand Romney as someone well beyond the mainstream. If the Obama labeling campaign is successful, voting for Romney will mean becoming socially unacceptable; it will be tantamount to embracing a Neanderthal sort of mindset that opposes Obama not on his disastrous economic policies but simply because of his race.<\/p>\n The key to such stigmatization is to Palinize Romney \u2014 not merely as a near-felon who lies on federal disclosure forms; not just as an international financial pirate who avoids taxes through overseas scams; not simply as a 1-percenter who has a car elevator in his house; and not even as a near-murderer who supposedly likes to fire innocent men and throw their cancer-stricken wives out into the street without healthcare.<\/p>\n Well beyond even all that, Romney must be portrayed as something like a Bull Connor or a David Duke. If Obama can stigmatize Romney voters as racists and \u201cwhite\u201d supremacists, then perhaps he can peel away 3 to 5 percent of the critical independents, who desperately fear being associated with a reactionary racist.<\/p>\n In short, until the election of Barack Obama, \u201cwhite\u201d was an increasingly rare designation. Intermarriage, integration, and assimilation were making race itself an irrelevant consideration. That notion was what Barack Obama correctly assessed would get him elected \u2014 and, now, exploding that notion is what he thinks will get him reelected.<\/p>\n It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The election of the biracial Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. Instead, that dream is becoming a tribally polarized nightmare \u2014 by design, and intended to assist in the reelection of Barack Obama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96],"tags":[12,207,1026,1036,1044,32,184,1042,93],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-8k","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":498,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/white-on-the-brain-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":0},"title":"‘White’ on the Brain–II","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner \u00a0 Every now and then someone sends me an incoherent blog posting by someone named Conor Friedersdorf, who attacks a column I\u2019ve written \u2014 usually in a way that reveals his inability to follow a simple argument. In the latest case of \u201c\u2018White\u2019 on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. Starting with his Occidental days,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-problem-last-night-was-not-just-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":2},"title":"The Problem Last Night Was Not Just Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The problem for Obama is not that his performance was disastrous, but rather that it was his normal workmanlike coasting. But this time, and for the first time, he was pitted against a skilled debater who had both the better argument and the better\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":464,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/everyones-a-white-male-but-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":3},"title":"Everyone’s a White Male–But Me","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media When 40%, not 97%, Is Illiberal One of the legacies of the Obama presidency is that \u201cwhite male\u201d as a term of embarrassment has now transcended the hothouse of the campus and gone mainstream. We are lectured by media figures, celebrities, and politicians\u00a0ad nauseam\u00a0that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Identity Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Identity Politics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/identity-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-the-hare-romney-the-tortoise\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":4},"title":"Obama the Hare, Romney the Tortoise","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The 2012 race has turned into one of Aesop's classic fables. After each new media blitz against the no-frills Mitt Romney, a far cooler President Obama races ahead three or four points in the polls \u2014 only to fall back to about even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-medias-racial-prison\/","url_meta":{"origin":516,"position":5},"title":"The Media’s Racial Prison","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton Frontpage Magazine Two incidents last week suggest once more that our confused, hypocritical, and politicized notions of race and relations will play a huge role in the presidential election. In the first, Virginia state senator L. Louise Lucas, part of Obama\u2019s \u201cTruth Team\u201d campaigning for the president\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. 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