The Rutherford Lawson Blog

It seems as though in this election season we have hit the trifecta of “ism’s”. There have been accusations of racism where Obama is concerned, sexism where Clinton is concerned and most recently ageism where McCain is concerned. The mistake we make is lumping these three together. I see them as distinctly different.

In a class by itself is racism. The racist often has no acquaintances of the “opposite” race. His or her racist beliefs are grounded in stereotypes, what they’ve seen on TV or some extrapolation from the behavior of a select few to the larger group. Barack Obama’s candidacy shows how little racism relates to reality. He does not match negative stereotypes of African Americans. He is more like the so-called average white person than many of the white folks who discount him based on race. Racism, especially in the context of this presidential election comes up utterly absurd.

Sexism is a different animal entirely. This is not to say that sexism is defensible. It is not. However most males have had a woman in their lives. Men form their attitudes about women not only based on stereotype but very much based on behavior of role models. How did their mother behave towards them? How did their father treat their mother? How do they get along with their wife, daughter or sister? Mike Barnicle, columnist for the Boston Herald, has himself in hot water because he said several months ago that Hillary reminds every man of his first wife at probate court. Was this a nice thing to say? Certainly not. But it stems from Hillary’s then shrill manner reminding Barnicle of women he knows. The ways in which men and women relate cut deep into the male psyche. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy was an emotional trigger for many men. The women in our lives have behaved in ways that serve as context for Clinton’s behavior. This form of sexism is based on behavioral experience and cannot be accurately compared to racism based on total ignorance. (It should be added that there are other forms of sexism that do compare with racism. Assumptions about women’s mental and physical capacity, or what role they should play in life are equally offensive and irrational as racist assumptions. But much of the so called sexism suffered by Hillary related to behavior and how that behavior fit into the context of how men relate to the women in their lives.)

Now we come to ageism, a whole other bag of fish. To say, based on a number, that any random individual is incapable of being a good presidential candidate is absurd. The trick with applying the age issue to McCain is that it fits. It is not ageism, it is the accurate recognition of the role age plays in McCain’s candidacy. We can put aside the fact that he shuffles when he walks and that he doesn’t cut the most convincing presidential figure. Heck, FDR was in a wheelchair. Where McCain’s age seems to play a more relevant role is in his beliefs. The man is stuck back in the 60’s. How he can make occupation of Iraq equivalent to occupation of Japan or Germany shows that he does not understand the current situation. He is applying old models to new circumstances and he does not see the mismatch. He is rightfully “confused” between Sunni and Shia because he does not recognize that the Iraq instability is not the old Korea/Germany model of communism/socialism. It is not a social problem, it is a religious problem. McCain does not get it.

Does this mean that any candidate of McCain’s age would be similarly unable to move into the 21st century? Of course not. Being old does not mean you can’t stay current. However, in McCain’s case I think it does. For McCain, his age, where he has been and what he has seen have limited his ability to be effective.

So, while we acknowledge and examine ageism, racism and sexism in this presidential race, let us not oversimplify the matter. They are not the same phenomenon, neither in their root causes nor in their application to the various candidates.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Back in January, I was troubled by the results of the New Hampshire primary, not because I could pinpoint racism as the cause of Obama’s loss but because our country’s cloudy record on race relations muddies the waters on such an evaluation. There is always some doubt when a black man loses a contest whether race played a role or not. Even when, as in West Virginia, some 21% of those polled said race played a role in their vote, what does this mean? Could race have played a positive role? Personally, I doubt it, but the pollster’s question allowed the answer to be ambiguous.

There is another factor which muddies the waters in West Virginia, Kentucky and other Appalachian areas. Obama did not actively campaign in either West Virgina or Kentucky. This I believe is a huge tactical error. You cannot win if you don’t play. The only way to isolate racism as Obama’s stumbling block is to remove other possible factors. “I didn’t get to know him so I didn’t vote for him.” This is a perfectly valid excuse, even if in some cases it masks a more sinister motive.

For Obama to be true to his role as a unifier, he has to reach out to all audiences including those he expects will reject him out of hand. Let’s be clear, Obama’s campaign workers have encountered blatant racism as they work the streets on his behalf. Still, this cannot deter Obama. He must go to every hamlet in this country spreading his message of One America. He needs to tell the folks in poverty stricken white enclaves that he is not so different from them. He was not born rich. He was not even born exclusively black. He has lived the “white experience” in this country as much as the so called “black experience”.

Once Obama gives his all to places like West Virginia and Kentucky, we may then re-examine to what degree racism plays a role in their political choices. Sadly, the conclusion may be the same but at least the effort to bridge the gap will have been made.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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One alarming statistic out of the West Virginia primary was that some 21% of those polled said that race played a role in their voting decision and some 85% of that group voted for Hillary Clinton. Now, the immediate response of social conservatives is to ask why I am not disturbed by the 95+% of black voters that Barack Obama typically gets. Very simply, I do believe there is a difference between a large group of people voting for someone vs a large group of people voting against someone.  Most of the blacks who vote for Obama do not do so because they don’t want a white in the White House. The historical devotion of blacks to the Democratic party, which has always offered up white candidates, supports this. With Obama, they are voting for a black, not against a white. The same cannot be said for 17 or so % of the white folks who voted against Obama.

What troubles me much more than the numbers is our inability to dig underneath them. After every primary, we are left with the cold numbers and left to draw our own conclusions but do we ever really get any closer to a productive discussion about the possible racial issues behind the numbers? One of the things we hear a lot from the pundits is that it is a generational thing. The idea being that young folks today know better than to be racist. First, I think that it is somewhat of a myth. The old song from the musical South Pacific, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” still holds true today. As I look at some of the West Virginians featured on the evening news saying “I don’t want no more Husseins” or “we’ve had trouble with blacks”, I do think that perhaps they have younger relatives who are mortified to see their kin represented this way in the media. But there are lots of other young folk who know nothing better than the mental rot being fed to them by their older relatives. Their generation will carry racism into the future.

So it is not sufficient to blame our current racial divide on generational differences and implicitly suggest that we don’t need to do anything cos once all the old bigots die off, we’ll be a free nation. The current presidential race highlights how imperative it is to begin a serious national discussion on race. Some of the West Virginians quoted saying nonsense this week, are surely “God fearing” church going folks. What is their minister telling them every Sunday that leaves them so wary of blacks? What are the educational and government leaders telling them? Why are these people not being inundated with a positive message that makes their racism seem absurd to them?

What is special about this moment is that we can look at a leader who has such a complex racial background that he makes clear, by just existing, that we all have much more in common than we have apart. Barack Obama’s candidacy provides us with a ready excuse to have an open, productive and enriching conversation about our differences, and how those differences make us stronger. I suppose my great fear is that our country will pass up this opportunity. We will allow the ignorant to remain trapped in their ignorance. We will continue to make laws to change behavior but make no attempt to really change hearts and minds.

The time has come to not just stand pat on the statistical questions. After the pollster asks “Did race play a a role in your vote?”, the next question must be “why are you a racist?”

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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There are many who say it’s time for Hillary Clinton to get out of the Democratic presidential nomination race. I am not one of them. It is not time for her to get out but it is time for her to get up. Her campaign always manages to find its way into the gutter and now is the time for Hillary to lift the campaign up and end her race for the 2008 nomination with dignity.

Her latest statement to USA Today hardly served this purpose.

“There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again and how the whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me and in independents, I was running even with him and doing even better with Democratic-leaning independents. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.”

Putting aside the implication that those who are voting for Obama are not the “hard-working” Americans, the fact that she claims she has the white vote nailed down is just shameful. Not only is it polarizing (a specialty of Hillary’s going back at least 16 years), it is condescending and pandering at the same time.

This is what I would like to hear from Hillary Clinton:

“I do not want the vote of any American who votes for me because they do not want a black man in the White House. If you are supporting me because you do not want a black man in the White House, then please, do not vote for me. It goes against everything I have worked for throughout my political life.”

If Hillary cannot muster the courage to call for racial reconciliation in this country, even at her own political peril, then she should indeed get out of the race.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Barack Obama has essentially sewn up the Democratic nomination and therefore, from my perspective, he can afford to be a bit daring.

The pundits and most everyone else in the mainstream media has written off Obama’s chances in West Virginia and Kentucky. They don’t fit his demographic. My advice to Barack: it’s time to get down. Actively campaign in West Virginia and Kentucky, and don’t do it on the economy; don’t do it on the war. Do it on race! Be bold and say the following to the voters of West Virginia and Kentucky:

“The media says that Hillary Clinton will win by a landslide in your state. They cite your economic situation, your education and yes, your race as the reasons you will not vote for me. Even Hillary says that I cannot win the white vote. So, I ask you, citizens of West Virginia and Kentucky, do you really want to be defined by the media? Are you content to have them paint you as hopeless bigots who are in the pocket of Hillary Clinton? I’ve been accused of being elitist. What could be more elitist than Hillary and the media taking your vote for granted? There’s no way you’ll vote for me because you are backward, cash poor, poorly educated white folks. Is that characterization alright with you? Don’t let the folks who want to pigeon hole you define you. Forget about my being “post racial” and transcendent. Show America that you are post racial and transcendent. Show the pundits that we can shake their preconceptions upside down and that we can change America.”

That’s right. I say, now that Obama truly has the momentum, let’s take the gloves off, put this racial stereotyping of voters on the table, and make it clear to West Virginia and Kentucky that they have been pegged as totally predictable. I think that is Barack’s best chance at keeping Hillary’s lead in these states to single digits.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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I do NOT want to be one of those folks who immediately points to racism when Barack Obama loses a contest. There were a number of factors that contributed to Obama’s narrow loss to Hillary, Tuesday night. On the other hand, I never completely trusted all the polling numbers we’ve seen over the past few days.

As recently as 1988, Dartmouth College had to convene a student council on racial tolerance because several Caucasian students harassed an African American professor. This is an Ivy League institution we’re talking about here. It’s the only Ivy League school to my knowledge that has a documented track record for racial problems. So whenever I read the polls, I kept thinking about Dartmouth. 20 years is not so long ago. Clearly, for some reason, New Hampshire voters chose to tell the pollsters one thing and then vote another.

As my wife reminded me, winning a caucus and winning a primary are two different things. Your “vote” in a caucus is public. If you don’t follow through on what you’ve been telling everyone, you look like a hypocrite. Since primary votes are private, you can look politically correct in public and then let your biases take over in the voting booth.

Once again, our country’s long tradition of racism is hurting us. Not because we know Obama’s defeat was due to bigotry; we don’t. It’s the doubt that is so troubling. Our country’s racial history muddies the waters, hence we will never know when Barack is rejected for the issues or when he is rejected for the color of his skin. How sad.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

As I sat in front of my television last night and rejoiced in the Iowa caucus victory of Barack Obama, I had a sudden nightmare vision. I flashed back to October of 1995 when crowds of African Americans were shown celebrating the acquittal of OJ Simpson on murder charges. I then pictured white Americans watching African Americans rejoice in Obama’s victory and I wondered, will they draw a parallel, however ill conceived it might be?

The black community, at least partially, rejoiced in OJ’s acquittal because it symbolized that a black man could get away with murder if he had enough money, just as so many whites before him had done. Still, the image of cheering crowds of blacks (not to mention the verdict itself) must have created a real credibility problem for white folks. “Could black people really be that crazy to be happy that OJ got off?”

My fear is that these same white folks might see blacks rejoicing Barack’s victory and have their own flashback. On some unconscious level will whites eventually reject Obama because they can’t tell the difference between the positive enthusiasm Obama generates in the black community vs the crazy enthusiasm generated by the OJ debacle?

Perhaps the Iowa win is evidence that Barack truly has transcended race. Perhaps now, when white folks see black folks excited about Barack, they’ll say “yeah, I understand and I like him too.” Maybe Obama’s message of unity will win the day. We can only hope.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

I’ve watched a decent bit of coverage lately on the Jena Six and what astounds me is how casually the newscasters set up the story by telling us that someone was sitting under a “whites only” tree and then they elaborate on the latest update.

Excuse me? For me the story ENDS at the mention of the “whites only” tree. What kind of foolishness is that in 2007 America? The events that followed are not the news here. They are the consequences of the news. The news here is that in 2007, we still have communities who believe they can label a TREE for white people. The news here is that some 40 years after the heyday of the civil rights movement, there are pockets of society where such blatant (and stupid) racism is still tolerated.

Forget the inequities behind how whites and blacks were treated in the aftermath of this “tree incident”. Let’s get back to the root of the issue! Trees exist for anyone to sit under if they want to. There are no whites-only trees!

Respectfully,
Rutherford