PLAYING THE RACE CARD

Do you remember where you were when you first heard the term “Playing the Race Card?” Sure you do. You were sitting in front of your TV memerized by the case against O.J. Simson. James Darden accused Johnnie Cocoran of play an Ace of Spade or trump card, in other words playing the race card, when the defense brought up Mark Fuhrman’s racist comments and use of the word “nigger” during the trial. From then on… it was a trial about race, not murder.

The New York Post claimed that Hilary Clinton played the race card when she dismissed Barack Obama as a candidate who will have a hard time winning support from ‘white Americans.’ Clinton Stated; “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,’ she told USA Today in an interview published yesterday. She referred to an Associated Press story on Indiana and North Carolina exit polls ‘that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.’ She added, ‘There's a pattern emerging here.”

Did Geraldine Farraro play the race card when she stated “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept," Ferraro said. When did black men get lucky?

What about Senator Obama’s assertion that Republicans were going to try and make the public afraid of him, because he “doesn’t look like those other presidents on the dollar bill.” I’ve even been accused of playing the race card by employers when I went to them to discuss issues I was having with co-workers?

It appears that both blacks and whites can use the “race card.” The Urban Dictionary asked it members to vote up or down on definitions of “Race Card.” The following definitions came in first, second and third, respectively

639 Up 161 Down “ what "certain folks" like to cry when they don't get their way. Awe.....that shopkeeper won't keep the shop often after closing time for me to shop...I'm going to cry the race card!!!”

551 Up 64 Down “Calling someone racist, even if they aren't, just to get away with something. Jalen played the RACE CARD and all the charges were dropped.”

353 Up 84 Down “When a minority in America (and more recently, Caucasians) try to call foul on a situation that is detrimental to them and say the situation is racially discriminatory. Now, whether it is or not is irrelevant, as such stories are taken as gospel. Because the black woman didn't win in "The Apprentice", she pulled the race card. Miguel had the lowest work rating in the company took 5 personal days in a row and came into work drunk. He was fired, but because he went to the ACLU and pulled the race card, he has his job back.”

Here is the lowest rated definition: 59 Up 167 Down A term that has been misrepresented in recent years to represent what some Black people do when given a raw deal. The original term, from the French, "Carte Blanche" (WHITE card) was used to mean something akin to "I run everything" and was just another euphemism for white supremacy.

George Dei, Karumanchery, et al claims in their book that Playing the Race Card, a term used to “devalue and minimize claims of racism.”

Senator Barack Obama is the first ever African-American in the 400 year history of our country to be nominated by a major party to run for president. And everyone including the party who nominated him is pissed off! Everybody’s wondering; what happened? And what are we gonna do to if we can’t get rid of him. The press has gone wild, scrutinizing his every word, action, thought. Cable TV has all guns blazing minute by minute; no second by second accounts of Obama. Who is he, what is he, where is he? I’ve never seen anything like it. So the county has a black presidential candidate and what in God’s name are we going to do. John McCain has decided to play on the one thing that always works; our fear of each other. He running ads the question his religion, patriotism, race, and yes posibility that he could be the “AntiChrist.”

What is this, thing, that seems to be ground into our American DNA. This sticky mess called racism that we can’t seem to shake. Recent accusations, surrounding the presidential election, of one party or another playing the race card, have moved me to take a look at the new zietgeist on race which makes it unclear just who the victims.

One thing is for sure, America has two obsessions, and it’s not baseball and apple pie. Something far more seductive, an addiction we can’t kick. Like strung out junkies we’ve become a ghost of a country refusing to let go of our addiction to race and sex. In this post we will discuss race. Every decision, every move we make on any given day, in any given moment, begins with how we feel about race. We fool ourselves when we deny it. We try to hide our obession like a junky trying to hide his track marks, by shooting up between his toes. But our every action, give us away. It’s the shadow on the wall beside us. We don’t have to think about it, or do anything to make it happen it’s ingrained in the very fabric that makes us Americans. To deny our racism would be to deny our Americanism. From the moment we are aware of who we are, we are aware of what we are.

We think about race when looking for a home, if whites see too many blacks in the neighborhood it is immediately scratched off the list for this has to be a “bad” neighborhood. Where we go to eat and socialize. I was sitting in a swanky black night club in Detroit, across the street from the Greektown Casino, when a group of whites came through the door. Initially they asked for a table, but then you could see their eyes slowing moving around the bar taking everything in. Once they got a good look around the bar and noticed that there were only three other whites in the place, they changed their minds and left. Conversely when I’ve gone out with white aquaintances to a “white,” sports bar or bar with too many pick-ups outside for my taste, I’ve made an excuse to take a rain check.

Where we send our children to school, the route we take to work, the parks we walk through, movie theatres we attend, movies we see, cars we buy, food we eat, people we invite to our homes, the way we refer to one another; when telling a story we always feel the need to stop and describe the main character by their race; “yesterday, my friend Jill, whose white, fell and hurt herself. Or my husband and his best friend Charles, who happens to be black, went to the game. My sister is married to a black man, or my son is dating a black girl, etc. We have to make sure the listener knows we associate in some broad sense with the other races.

We have black churches and white churches and refer to them as such like the very idea isn’t inherently insane. Whites and blacks alike have fought over the color of Jesus Christ. Race hangs around our necks like an albatross. Like Atlas doomed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders forever. It’s a weight. A heavy weight. When will we get over it already? While the rest of the world has moved on we are still grappling with this monkey on our backs called “Race.” Of course it isn’t out in the open like it used to be, it’s gone underground. It lurks around in the corners and under the bed like the boogey man. Blacks don’t get called “nigger,” these days. They get called the “N-word,” which of course means “nigger.” Lynching has been outlawed. Now you can merely pick them up for a broken tail light, put them in jail and throw away the key.

Blacks don’t drink at separate water fountains or sit at the back of the bus; but when a black person sits on a park bench or a bus bench seat, what do the whites do? They stand. Regardless of how tired they look or how many bags they’re carrying; they will not sit down on the same park bench. It’s the little things. And the big things too, like being the only black professional at work and having everything you say and do hyper-scrutinized, never getting the memo, or meeting notices, not having anyone to step into your office and shoot the shit or never being asked out to happy hour.

But wait whites feel the sting of racism or bigotry too. Their black friends feel comfortable blaming them for every bad thing whites have ever done. You’re always feeling like you have to apologize for something, and if you try to fit in, you’re accused of trying to act black. Constantly being told you’re not cool, can’t dance, too uptight, think your better than . . . the list goes on. Blacks can be some of the worst racist you will ever meet. They hate both blacks and whites. What’s more they think they have a right to feel the way the do. It’s all very complicated. We won’t discuss it here.

We acknoweledge that we’re laden with racism that it intrudes on every decision we make sometimes unconcisously. So when someone is accused of playing the race card what exactly are they being accused of? Making up Racism?
I understand that “white guilt,” is a thing of the past, but it’s laughable to me to think that an accusation of racism or discrimination is merely an attempt to attain some undeserved advantage. I think whites have an undeserved advantage, what should I do to level the playing field? If you’re one in 1000, and 999 have stacked to the deck in their favor, should you keep struggling to make it, workin hard for the city? Should you pretend everything's okay because you’ve been given a slightly improved condition over others like you? Or should you play the trump card. The “Race Card.”

Barack Obama is the first black man to be nominated by a national party to run for president. Racism is in play. He has had to defend his citizenship, his religion, his patriotism, where lapel pins when the other candidates didn’t have to, dared on national TV to pledge his alleginace to the flag, have his wife referred to as his “baby mama,” told he only got the nomination because he’s a black man (affirmative action candidate?), been referred to as exoctic and un-American? Sometimes you just have to call a spade what it really is. In this case; I say, throw down the trump card.

Will the Real First Black President Please Stand Up!

Last week Bill Clinton was asked a direct question is Barack Obama ready to lead? Is he qualified? This was a chance for the “first black” president to pass the torch to the “second” black president by exclaiming that yes, of course, without any doubt Sen. Obama is qualified to be President. From one brother to another I give my resounding support. Instead this “brother,” fidgeted, coughed, rubbed his nose, looked cross eyed, did everything but say yes, Obama is without question qualified. He used his moment in history to state unequivocally; “I am not a racist,” which reminded this writer of Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook,” exclamation in 1974. Oh yeah, we learned that no one is ready to be President (especially Obama) and the constitution, not Clinton, determines who is qualified.

The statements were stunning to say the least. Black people loved Clinton! And we all thought he loved us! We naturally assumed that once Hilary gave up her bid for President that Bill, the “first black President,” would naturally do everything in his power to ensure that Obama was elected, right? Wrong. Clinton had done what every powerful white male or female has done for centuries, pretended to love blacks as long as he needed them to achieve his/her goals then drop us like the two dollar whores we are when being linked to us would hinder their political goals. Clinton’s statements provoked me to look deeper into the supposed close relationship between the Clintons and African Americans.

It was Toni Morrison who bestowed onto President Clinton his blackness, when she anointed him the “first black President.” What would move arguably the greatest novelist of our time to bestow upon an American President a white man the title of “first black president.” What had he done to become black? Did he do a reverse Michael Jackson, change his voice, and chemically darken his skin? or Go on his own experimental Black Like Me journey? No, none of the above, Morrison decided that Clinton was black because he as she stated came from a “single-parent household, was born poor, came from the working-class, and was a saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” Oh yes, his sexuality was “unpoliced,” more evidence of his blackness.

So let me get this straight, if you are born poor or out of wedlock, in his case both, eat a lot of fried chicken and can’t seem to keep your Johnson in your pants, you must be black. I have always felt that we as a people could have moved much farther and faster if we had not defined our “blackness,” in such narrow terms making it easy for anyone to join the club.

White people are freed by being defined as acting “Black,” it gives them license to do things that would otherwise be inexcusable in their own social circles. Things like being “sexually unpoliced,” however, blacks are trapped by the definition. Being black in America if you are an authentic black person means, being something distinctly different than white, being black has rules. A lot of rules. You have to talk a certain way and if you don’t your not black enough. Walk and dance a certain way, also as a Black American you can’t be a deep sea diver, because black people don’t swim or go deep sea diving, you can’t be a entomologists because black people don’t like bugs, can’t be a forest ranger because black people don’t go camping, black people don’t play golf, black people don’t play tennis etc… rules that unfortunately define us in don’ts or can’ts, rather than cans and dos. Bill Clinton, has never been hindered by such rules. Bill Clinton is not nor was he ever been black, which was why he was able to rise from that hovel in Arkansas to go to Yale, meet Hilary become Governor of Arkansas and get elected to two terms as President of the United States of America.

In any case Morrison’s proclamation led me to want to do a little research into why the Clintons were beloved by the black community as to be made honorary black people. I looked to, Steve Benen’s, 2002 article on Salon.com, asking the same question. Why do blacks love Bill Clinton? Benen’s article enumerated on Clinton’s style, and affable manner around black people, as the reason. Alexis Herman reminisced in the article, that Clinton invited her and a Ernest Green, to the Governor’s mansion and they spent the night talking about their college days. This feel good session during which Clinton treated them like regular human beings, apparently made an impression on her. Also, his trip to Africa, no other sitting President had gone, his move to Harlem, he knew the Black National Anthem and so on all superficial with little to no cost to Clinton but which made a big inroads into the black community. Clinton also appointed many blacks to serve during his administration. He fired a few too. Remember Joyce Elders? Lani Guinier? When he moved to Harlem promises were made to the area’s small black business owners, but it wasn’t until Al Gore’s policy advisor Trooper Sanders took over that things began to happen. Clinton’s coming to Harlem also sped up the Gentrification efforts which have led to more losses of black owned business not able to keep up with rising rents.

From my point of view Clinton got us (blacks) on the cheap. We stood by this “brother,” through all of his trials got him re-elected when he would have lost, stood by him during the impeachment speaking out loudly at the shear unfairness of the process. What black people found out during the 2008 primaries is that when it’s all said and done Clinton was just another white boy playing black. He jumped the tracks and went back home when the seas go rough, and in effect so did we.

With Obama, for the first time we had a dog in the fight. As soon as we knew he was a contender we jumped on the train. For the first time we were working for one of our own, blacks cut the Clintons loose and pushed Obama across the finished line. Of course now we have a really pissed off white boy on our hands. One who is extremely powerful and can use his power to help Obama or hurt him. His latest statements show that he has no inclination to help. It seems that once again blacks put their hopes, dreams, and trust in the hands of a white man playing black and got burned.

Today, Blacks are beginning to gain power in their own right. Obama proves that a black man can reach the pinnacle of white power, CEO of America. His trip to Europe confirmed that a black man could be taken seriously by world leaders and stand as a symbol of American leadership and power around the world. So the question becomes, when will black Americans stop fawning over white politicians who during campaigns try to show a level of familiarity around blacks by eating collard greens and corn bread, or making sure that we know their predilection for fried chicken, soul music, show a little rhythm or a taste for black women? When will black leaders and spokespersons who are allowed a certain proximity to white politicians stop being duped by the glamour of nearness?

The hidden meaning behind Morrison’s conferring the title of first black president onto Bill Clinton was, that this was as close as we would ever get to a black man in the white house. The shame of it is she couldn’t imagine a Barack Obama. She just never saw him coming.