Paula: What do you think about the tendency to label someone racist based on a particular comment or singular behavior? Is one slip of the tongue enough to make someone a racist?

 

 Robert: I do not think it’s fair to label someone racist based on a particular comment. In fact, I see a racial gap over the meaning of allegations of racism. Not just a gap in what blacks label racist and what whites label racist (that gap is understandable). But a gap between what it means when a black person calls someone else’s speech or act “racist” vs. what white liberals and others think that means. I was mad at Bill Clinton for being racially insensitive in his wife’s campaign against Barack Obama. Clinton, from all that I read, just seemed to have contempt for Obama and simply could not believe that this young upstart would dare to compete against his obviously more qualified wife.

I’m choosing my words carefully because I hesitate to say Clinton was “racist,” because the term is so explosive and because the word has been recklessly thrown around. But suffice it to say that I was disappointed and angry that Clinton, the white politician who has connected with black Americans on a visceral level more than any major white leader of the past few decades, seemed to exude such contempt for a man who represented such a breakthrough for the people who have been among his strongest supporters.

As angry as I am, I was dumbstruck to learn about Clinton ‘s interview with ABC News, where he says, “I am not a racist.” I’m thinking to myself, what? I never thought he was a “racist.” I thought he engaged in a possibly racist behavior, and racist behavior, like other behavior, occurs on a continuum. And it is often impossible to determine with confidence if a racist interpretation of an action is the right one. A polarizing Bill Clinton is not a member of the Klan or anything close to it. I think black people say racist things against other black people. I don’t label them as “racists.” I wrote the review of Clarence Thomas’ memoir and I labeled a key action of his grandfather “racist foolishness.” I don’t believe his grandfather was a general negative force for black people, quite the opposite. But this one action was needlessly demeaning of black people and devastating in its consequences on young Clarence.

When black people accuse someone of racist behavior, they don’t mean, the person is deeply driven by, intoxicated by, the poison of racism and dislike of blacks. It’s more a matter of labeling a specific action. The strange irony here is that having an action labeled as racist isn’t the horror among blacks that it seems to be among white liberals. I don’t want Clinton to deny that he is a racist. I want him to deny and explain his actions during the campaign (and I don’t believe all criticism or even most of Obama is racist). Clinton’s denial that he is a racist person shifts responsibility away from the issue at hand, which is his actions during a awkward, heated, historic campaign in a racially polarized America.

This reminds me of the issue of self esteem. The psychologists say some people “globalize” a setback. In fact, minorities have this problem in academically high pressured situations. If I fail this calc exam, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t study or I don’t know calculus at this point in the term. Instead in the global jump, it means I am dumb and worthless and have always been dumb and worthless.

I sense that white liberals assume blacks are globalizing when we’re not. There is an interesting gender-race distinction here. People don’t globalize allegations of sexism (maybe they should) as they do allegations of racism. I am absolutely sure that sexist language comes out of my mouth on occasion, and I am sure that sometimes it’s a lazy error, sometimes it reflects a deeper troubling view that I need to work on. But I don’t globalize this. I don’t think that therefore everything I say and think about women is “sexist.”

I see the harm this globalization thing does. Clinton is feeling defensive? I mean I want him to feel a little bad. But I don’t think any black person in America thinks Bill Clinton gets up in the morning trying to figure out how to hurt black people.

 

Paula: Well, I think you’re being a little disingenuous here. It’s one thing to say that you don’t think Clarence Thomas’s grandfather was racist, it’s another to say that you don’t think some white guy who makes a slip is. I mean, these are not symmetrical cases. And the fact is that Clinton is saying what he’s saying because he senses that he’s been seen as — indeed, called — racist for his remarks during the campaign.

I agree with your point that there’s a difference between being racist to the core and engaging in occasional (often unconscious) racist behavior — but isn’t that precisely a distinction that minority groups have made it difficult to delineate? I mean the backlash against political correctness has been a backlash against the notion that any little infraction or innocent remark that could be construed otherwise gets blown up and labeled as some sort of massive slur. What you’re saying reminds me of how the psychologists tell mothers to talk to their children when they misbehave. You’re not supposed to say: “You’re bad'” but rather: “I love you, but I don’t like your behavior.” The idea is to separate the behavior from the child. Maybe we should engage in race talk like this: “I know you’re a good person, but I do not like the racist slur that just came out of your mouth.”

As for your point about a tendency not to globalize a sexist remark, this is possibly true (though there were periods when that was done). The difference here may be that women generally have to live intimately with men who engage at least some of the time in sexist behavior, so the possibility of universalizing is just too much of a strain to keep up.

 

Robert: Just as women generally have to live closely with men, black people have to live and work with white people. The black-white relationship isn’t as intimate as the male-female relationship. But blacks have to deal with white politicians, judges, lawyers, school board members, mayors, teachers, police officers, supervisors, coworkers, and we can’t afford to reject every white person who says something we find offensive. (There are people who do this, but they are profoundly foolish.) I dare say black people vote enthusiastically in every election for various white politicians who have at one time or another said something some blacks found offensive. I think this is something white liberals and politicians need to keep in mind.

But you’re right: black folks and other minorities have used the term “racist” imprecisely on the one hand and recklessly on the other — so much so that the word has lost some of its real meaning even as the label “racist” retains the ability to stigmatize people. This needs to change and none too soon. The specter of Bill Clinton denying what I don’t think is at issue — that he is a racist person — tells me that something is woefully wrong here. Wrong that he feels he has to defend his personhood, and wrong as well that in the very process of doing that, he has dodged the specific behavior in question. This strikes me as a classic example of lose-lose. I hope that Obama, if he wins, can help blacks and whites reframe this entire discussion, so that we can move past this frustrating, maddening, demoralizing impasse.

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