The Only Winning Move

Mr. Tweedy has a post on the Gates arrest that hits all the right notes. The gist of it is that just because the press seems to know who Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is is no reason to expect every policeman to. If a cop gets a call that someone is breaking into a house and arrives to find someone doing something that very much looks like breaking into a house, it is, in fact, his duty to detain the dude - which he did. What happened from there is something that we here in Webworld simply don’t have enough information to form opinions about. Things might have proceeded according to Gates’ account, in which he showed the cop some ID and the cop refused to accept it. Things might have proceeded according to the cop’s account, where he asked for ID and Gates chose instead to launch into a political tirade. Things might also have proceeded in some other way that squares with neither account entirely. We just don’t know because we just weren’t there, and so anyone going on with any kind of certainty about the cop’s alleged racism or Gates’ alleged aggressive attitude are doing so on the basis of having chosen to believe whatever version of events is convenient for their politics. It’s an incident for the Cambridge police and Dr. Gates to sort out for themselves - possibly, but hopefully not, in court - not something for us to solve in our pyjamas on the web.

So it’s telling that so many people, including President Obama, have such certain opinions about this. President Obama thinks the police department acted “stupidly.” Which, for what it’s worth, is what it looks like to me too (I’m not a cop, but arresting the property owner on his own property does tend to suggest the cop wasn’t at his most professional) - but I do wonder why the president needs to comment on what is, as far as I can tell, a minor local incident? Is it so much to ask that the President just deal with, you know, Executive Branch stuff in his news conferences? And what’s with all the leaping to the conclusion that this was “racist?” Granted, it’s possible that it was, but shouldn’t “racist” be the kind of fighting words you save up until you’re sure? Cops are people. Harvard Professors are people (sort of). They screw up. It’s not such an exercise in stretching one’s imagination to think that one, the other, or both of Gates and the arresting officer were just having a really bad day and said/did some shit they now regret. It happens.

Matt Yglesias and people like him are, naturally, having a field day complaining about how quick conservatives are to dismiss any charges of racism by white people they hear.

Meanwhile, we see here yet another instance of one of my favorite themes on this blog. The conservative movement, which never ever ever dedicates any time or energy to the problem of racial discrimination suffered by non-whites, thinks it’s very important to draw attention to the social crisis of white people burdened by accusations of racism.

I’m not a conservative, but I guess I am one of the people he’s talking about (being a white guy who is generally skeptical of charges of racism from minorities he hears in the media), so let me answer this. The reasons I am disinclined to believe charges of racism issued by minorities without good evidence include, but are not limited to, the following:

(1) A lifetime of experience listening to trumped-up charges - it’s not only common, it’s pretty much the default. I got my education through the public school system in the South. There were more blacks than whites at my high school. Even in this school, where the student council was majority black and the student body president was black two of the three years I went there and honors and awards day was about 80% devoted to minority scholarships, absolutely every bleeding time something went wrong for a black person it was due to “racism.” You’ve heard of the boy who cried wolf? Yeah, well, this is one of the situations it covers. It isn’t to say that there aren’t real racist incidents out there. The boy in the story did eventually see a real wolf, after all. The point is just that when the vast majority of times in your life when people have complained about racism it was nothing of the sort, it does tend to dillute the credibility of the charge.

(2) A lifetime of not oppressing black people - it isn’t that I don’t have racist friends (I am aware of at least one) - it’s just that the overwhelming majority of white people that I know are not racist, do not oppress black people, and generally go out of their way to make sure that everyone is clear on just how not racist they are. Assuming that I know a representative sample of white people, it is simply impossible that the kind of systematic racism that the media likes to complain about exists anymore. Granted that I don’t know many police officers. Maybe the police are all drawn from circles I don’t travel in, and maybe those circles are just teeming with the worst kind of racism. It’s logically possible, I suppose, but it just doesn’t seem very likely. You get to a point where believing in systemic racism is a bit like believing in unicorns.

(3) A lifetime of witnessing racist attitudes in the black community - I can’t really speak for Massachussetts, but in the South black people operate under a kind of seige mentality. Black people who are friendly enough to you in class will sometimes pretend they don’t even know who you are if you pass them on the street because it’s just that uncool for them to be seen talking to white people at all around certain of their friends. This kind of attitude is completely gone from the white community, but it borders on trendy among blacks. Yes, yes, I am well aware of what the historic roots of it are. Yes, yes, I am well aware that the history of racism in America makes this kind of thing unavoidable. The point is just that given that this kind of behavior is REAL, it isn’t too hard to imagine that the same black people who won’t let their friends have white friends wouldn’t be above lying to say that a white cop had been racist when he hadn’t really.

So yes, I take charges of racism with a big ol’ grain of salt. And the fact that so many people - including the president (albeit obliquely) - are shouting racism about an incident that they can’t POSSIBLY know enough about to support any such conclusions, just confirms that I’ve adopted the right policy here. Show me some evidence, folks. Otherwise, fuck off. Shouting racism at every possible opportunity only makes it less likely that we will believe and respond to those incidents where it’s really happening and really needs to be addressed. This Gates incident is not news.

Ward Connerly’s latest target, I’ve just found out through a friend who lives there, is Nebraska, where he is behind the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative - officially known as Measure 424 - a voter initiative that would amend the Nebraska state constitution to prohibit racial preferences in government hiring and award of benefits such as contracts or scholarships.

What follows is the text of an editorial that appeared in yesterday’s Lincoln Journal-Star opposing the measure, interspersed with my comments.

Initiative Measure 424 on the Nov. 4 ballot would strip away important tools for preserving equal opportunity in Nebraska.

The Journal Star editorial board recommends a vote against the proposal.

On its face, the proposed amendment seems harmless enough, perhaps even laudable.

“Perhaps even laudable.” I love it. On its face, the bill is exactly what the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s demanded, and yet it is merely “perhaps even laudable.” It’s symptomatic of the increasingly convoluted nature of the arguments that have to be marshalled to defend Affirmative Action that its proponents are no longer even sure whether they stand for equality of opportunity.

The ballot advises voters that the amendment would “prohibit the State, any public institution of higher education, political subdivision or government institution from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, individuals or groups based upon race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in operating public employment, education or contracting.”

The crux of the debate is whether giving “preferential treatment” is justified in order to meet goals such as giving an equal chance to ethnic groups that are underrepresented in universities and in some workplaces, or to create a more stimulating academic environment and a more effective work force.

That strikes me as an eminently fair characterization of the issue. Kudos.

If the ability of universities and employers to grant preferential treatment, or to consider race when making hiring or admission decisions, is eliminated, college classrooms and work forces are likely to become less diverse.

Actually, the evidence doesn’t bear that out at all. Minority enrollment rates in California since the passage of Proposition 209 (another Connerly project) have generaly stayed the same, and in fact minority graduation rates have increased significantly. Admittedly, some of the increase in graduation rates no doubt owes to drops in representation (minority enrollment is about the same throughout the system, but it is somewhat lower at the state’s two top schools: Berkely and San Diego). But the point remains that passing the Affirmative Action ban has not hurt anyone’s opportunity to receive a competitive university education.

“The playing field is still not level; extreme pockets of poverty and inequality exist…,” University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken and Creighton President John P. Schlegel wrote in an op-ed column published in the Journal Star. “The proposed amendment seeks to exclude and divide, and it will limit opportunity and access to those who need it most.”

This kind of language is simply offensive. Yes, it is true that pockets of economic inequality persist - but what does that have to do with race? Surely poverty in the white community is every bit as unfortunate as poverty in minority communities? More to the point, if it’s a drag on opportunity from poverty you’re concerned about, then you have no enemy in Measure 424 as the measure does not prohibit preferences for the underprivileged, nor, in fact, does Connerly personally.

Proponents of the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative have a poor record of presenting their proposal fairly and accurately. Petition circulators did not always accurately inform signers on the nature of the petition, for example.

An ad hominem. So what if petition circulators didn’t go the extra yard to explain the point of the proposal? Surely voters should adopt or reject a proposition based on the law it seeks to create (or strike) and not on the effectiveness of the communication skills of its proponents? An idea is not responsible for the people who hold it. People who vote on the measure register an opinion about the proposal itself, not the people who circulated it.

Most recently, proponents contended that admission of minority students who had lower LSAT scores than some white students was evidence of “discrimination.” Wrong. Scores on the LSAT are not the gold standard for determining whether a candidate is qualified. They are only one criterion, and a nonobjective one at that.

Yes, but they also happen to be the most important criterion, and for that reason are the most plausible source of evidence for an argument that there was pro-minority discrimination. But the real issue here isn’t whether or not discrimination occured. Rather, it’s whether it should be legal for it to occur in the future. Arguing that proponents of the measure have their facts wrong about past discrimination is a way of dodging the real issue - which is whether it would be OK for the University of Nebraska Law School to accept a less-qualified applicant over others on no other basis than that he was a member of a minority group. The Journal Star needs to come clean and say that it believes that this is justified - in effect, that it supports certain types of discrimination.

As Dean Steve Willborn of the NU Law College put it, “We can better discuss foreign affairs if we admit students from other countries. We can discuss agricultural policy better of we have students from rural Nebraska and we can better discuss alleged race-based police practices if we admit African-Americans.”

No doubt that’s true, but which part of this initiative forbids the NU Law College from accepting such students? It is the height of fantasy, not to mention racist and condescending toward minorities, to assume that lack of affirmative action programs will mean a complete absence of such students, or even that it means they will not be present in the critical numbers required for the aforementioned discussions to occur. More to the point, if the idea behind recruiting people on the basis of background is to facilitate discussion, then why are the numbers in the programs’ stated goals always tailored to the percentage the groups in question make up of the population rather than to meeting the critical threshold required for holding classroom discussions? Sorry pal, but calling a social justice program an educational tool doesn’t make it so.

There has been considerable debate on what the proposed amendment to the constitution would specifically do to hiring and college admission practices.

The best answer probably is that no one really knows for sure.

Sneaky. It’s true enough that no one knows “for sure,” but Nebraska at least has the benefit of looking to the experiences of those states that have already passed similar initiatives as the basis for a well-informed guess. Since none of those states have experienced catastrophic setbacks in diversity, there doesn’t seem to be much cause for concern.

Lawsuits are sure to follow if the amendment passes. The ballot language even invites it, stating, “A cause of action for violation would be created.”

A wiser course of action is to protect the ability of employers and university officials to make fair decisions on hiring and admissions.

In fact, no one is threatening the ability of employers to make whatever hiring decisions, fair or otherwise, they choose. The initiative only prohibits the government from making hiring and admissions decisions that are discriminatory. There is nothing novel here. Governments habitually require more political oversight of their hiring and admissions decisions precisely because they are public institutions shared by all, rather than private entities owned by a few with whom customers can refuse to trade if there is something they find objectionable about their business practices.

A wide variety of Nebraska organizations, ranging from the Lincoln and Omaha Chambers of Commerce to the Nebraska State Education Association to University of Nebraska Board of Regents, opposes the measure.

The Journal Star editorial board stands with them. So should you.

Lovely - the Argumentum ad Populum - or, in plain language, “all the other lemmings jumped off the cliff, so should you.” What’s especially amusing about it in this case is that’s it’s even misleading: over 60% of Nebraskans support the initiative, regardless of party affiliation.

So let’s summarize. The arguments against Measure 424 seem to consist of: (1) some patently untrue scare-mongering, (2) a misrepresentation of what the bill does and doesn’t prohibit, (3) an ad hominem, (4) an irrelevant tangent about LSAT scores designed to lead the reader away from the truth that the paper supports the kind of discrimination they are claiming never occurred, and (5) a crude bandwagon appeal. Pretty shabby, if you ask me.

Today’s “if you don’t vote for Obama you’re racist” poll comes from Standford University via Yahoo! News. Apparently some white Democrats harbor negative attitudes about blacks, and this might hurt Obama in the election.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He’s an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation’s oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

Yeah - but here’s the crucial question we’re leaving out: do those views extend to each and every black, or do these white Democrats and Independents make exceptions for - well, exceptional blacks? You know, like the kind that goes to Harvard Law School, wins a seat in the Senate and then goes on to come out on top of a well-qualified field of applicants for the Democratic nomination for president, one of whom was actually next in line by party tradition. I’m just asking, because I seem to remember growing up in the 80s that the number one show on TV for most of that decade was The Cosby Show, and that a lot of its fans could be described as whites who harbor “negative views about blacks.” In fact, if I’m not mistaken, that show continues to hold the record for largest number of consecutive seasons at #1 (5 - a record it shares with All in the Family). The catch was that Cosby studiously avoided all of their stereotypes. You know, kinda like Barack Obama is doing now.

So what are these “at least partly negative” views that “40 percent of all white Americans hold?”

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can’t win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey…

That’s racism, is it? This is the kind of thing that keeps people from voting for presidential candidates? Really? Because I can think of several negative adjectives I associate with white people, and I don’t really consider myself a self-hating white. Hell, I can think of several negative adjectives that accurately apply to me personally, and I’m one of those happy people who generally likes himself. In fact, I can promise you with a great deal of certainty that more than a third of all black Democrats and Independents also “agree with at least one negative adjective about blacks.” Indeed, I think it’s fair to say that by this standard everyone pretty much hates everyone.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that “if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.” Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn’t.

Try harder like Obama tried harder, you mean? Be just as well of as whites like Obama is, you mean? And since when is it a “latent prejudice” to have this opinion? Something explains the disparity between black and white income levels (and Asian income levels - which are higher than white income levels - for that matter) - and the idea that blacks don’t try hard enough is as plausible an explanation as any of the others, as far as I can tell. Certainly it’s more plausible than “blacks continue to be the victims of racism” in a nation which, in addition to constantly bombarding its citizens with anti-racism lectures and prohibting racial discrimination in hiring by law, bends over backward to see that minorities are admitted to and can afford university. In any case, the fact that people who agree with that statement are less likely to back Obama (by an unstated and probably statistically insignificant amount, but never mind) is hardly proof of racism. All it means is that the other group - the people who think there is some other explanation (almost certainly SYSTEMIC RASICM) for the income disparity - will feel more obligated to vote for the black candidate to “give him a chance.” Because really, we can look at the support discrepancy with either spin, you know. If the one group is “less likely” to vote for Obama then the other group is ipso facto more likely to do so, and we might as well ask what explains their eagerness as what explains the former’s reluctance. So all this really tells us is that the people who designed this survey don’t consider this kind of pro-black discrimination to be “latent prejudice.”

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn’t be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites’ views.

This is an issue I would really like to see discussed more, in fact. To put it in perspective, I am an atheist, and polls show that atheists are the group that faces the most voter prejudice - much more so than blacks (who, according to this poll, are more acceptable than Jews and women, actually). Even knowing that, I am a long way from knee-jerk supporting any atheist who gets a major party nomination. Far from it - while I admit it would favorably dispose me toward the candidate, he would still have to have basic economic competence, real knowledge of the Constituion and passable leadership skills to get my vote. I would support a Muslim capitalist over an atheist socialist any day of the year. And on that basis, I can say without hypocrisy that it’s racist of blacks to vote for Obama just ’cause he’s black. And of course, it is racist - and I would really appreciate a more prominent mention of that fact in the press, given that the press apparently considers it “racist” when as many as 40% of white Democrats can find some negative English adjective in their vast English vocabularly that might just apply to blacks. Instead, we get a one-sentence nod, and that only in the context of making an excuse for it.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

In fact, I doubt race is even a measurable factor “driving Democrats and Independents away from Obama.” Probably what is driving Democrats and Independents from Obama is some combination of (a) he’s an inexperienced, say-nothing gasbag without a single fresh idea, and they feel their intelligence has been insulted watching this by-the-book social democrat make speeches under a “Change” banner and (b) McCain just so happens to be the least by-the-book Republican candidate in living memory. So you have an unusually weak Democratic candidate coming out of a bruising primary running against a highly qualified Republican who also happens to be the one Republican who most appeals to Independents and Democrats. I’m really not seeing the big mystery here.

Even if we did buy that simply believing that blacks need to work harder and complain less amounted to racism - which I do not for a minute believe - it’s hard to imagine that this attitude among whites would be a problem for Obama. For a racial rabble-rouser like Jesse Jackson who made a career out of complaining, sure. But for Obama? Obama is the Cosby Show candidate. He’s a black whom whites can relate to. The presidential candidate who happens to be black, rather than the black presidential candidate, if you take my meaning.

No, the only reason Obama isn’t currently crushing McCain is because he sucks. Because whatever he says about being for “Change,” his platform is run-of-the-mill vintage 1970s Democrat, and the fact that the press can’t see through that doesn’t mean the rest of us are so easily fooled. Because whatever his supposed speech-making skills, it isn’t too hard to see that he’s mostly talking to the already-converted. And because even McCain’s hugely inexperienced and reckless VP pick is more experienced and a less reckless choice than Obama and his 2 years of non-attendance in the Senate. From where I sit, the more interesting question is why McCain isn’t crushing Obama. Given the article I’m quoting, I don’t think it would be impertinent to suggest that maybe one of the reasons is because Obama is young and black.

There’s some sloppy thinking on affirmative action over at The Monkey Cage. The entry takes issue with Andrew Sullivan’s assertion that the racial resentment a lot of whites feel toward blacks is the “the poisoned fruit of that poisonous, if well-intentioned, policy of affirmative action.” Monkey Cage’s Phil Klinkner responds that white resentment has been going on a lot longer than affirmative action has been around - noting that, for example, President Johnson (the other one) vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 on the grounds that it would benefit blacks more than whites, even though all it was doing was extending basic citizenship rights to blacks in all states. Well now.

If that seems like an unconvincing example of “resentment” to you, join the club. Klinkner is asking us to believe that the resentment whites feel on seeing blacks get fast track admission with full funding provided to top universities on inferior academic qualifications merely because of race is the same “resentment” that whites felt on seeing blacks get the equal contract rights that come with full citizenship at the end of the Civil War. Rubbish, obviously. It is a feeble mind that cannot make this distinction, and a dishonest one that will not make it. Which of the two Klinkner is does not interest me. The point is that this kind of “commentary” on race is disingenuous and counterproductive.

It shouldn’t need pointing out that Andrew Sullivan’s aim in writing that affirmative action is culturally “poisonous” was NOT to say that whites were hunky dory with blacks until affirmative action came along and pissed in the pool. Hardly. Sullivan, like every educated person everywhere, is well aware that there were crippling racial tensions in this country long before there was affirmative action. He is not saying that racial tensions showed up as soon as affirmative action reared its ugly head, but rather that affirmative action breeds a special kind of resentment that postpones the day when these tensions will have subsided. Far from solving the problem it is trying to fix, affirmative action puts yet another hurdle on the path to racial reconciliation, albeit unintentionally.

Sullivan’s point is not only valid, it is empirically correct to anyone who cares to do an honest survey. Agree with it or not, it is surely the kind of position that people should be able to advance in public policy debates without being compared to Reconstruction-era politicians by the likes of Klinkner. Indeed, the surest sign to me that affirmative action was never really about racial equality is the fact that people like Klinker feel the need to argue the way they do.

Mike Gallagher has a column on Townhall today called Jesse Jackson Takes One for the Team”. It makes the probably-not-too-controversial assertion that Jackson’s “accidental” comments about wanting to cut Barack Obama’s nuts off weren’t accidental at all.

By now, you’ve probably seen the video or heard the audio that features Jackson, in a creepy whisper, say to the man sitting next to him that he wants to turn Obama into a eunuch. He did so while sitting in a TV studio with an earpiece in his ear, a microphone clamped to his body, bright lights shining on him, and a camera staring into his face.

I smell a rat.

Yeah - me too. But not the same one that Gallagher’s smelling.

So then we’re left with a solitary, logical question: why would he purposely do such a thing?

The answer is painfully obvious. It helps Barack Obama.

Huh? How?

Well, apparently by giving Obama plausible deniability with regard to Jackson. Jackson is a polarizing race-baiter, Obama’s been having trouble with white voters over the Rev. Wright fallout, and so this allows him to distance himself from the affirmative action industry a bit. Sounds plausible, right? Well, right up until the part about Jesse Jackson putting his career on the skids so that Obama can get a couple of cheap points.

Is it possible that Jesse Jackson is such a media tramp that he’d actually fabricate a situation like this?

You’d better believe he is.

Of course Jackson is “such a media tramp” that he’d get recorded saying something like this on purpose. That’s not even a question. The question is whether “such a media tramp” is willing to be the bad guy. Somehow I don’t think so.

Here’s the faulty assumption:

He may not like the fact that Obama has clearly distanced himself from the race-mongering “reverend.” But I can promise you that Jesse Jackson isn’t going to campaign on behalf of John McCain any time soon. As a self-described, self-proclaimed voice of black Americans, Jackson surely wants Obama to win.

Actually, I’m not sure about that at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure that as a “self-described, self-proclaimed voice of black Americans,” the last thing Jackson wants is for Obama to win. We’re giving Jackson way too much credit assuming he’s really in all this for black people at this late date. There’s no doubt in my mind that he started off sincere, but whether he still is 40 years on is a completely different issue.

Let’s face it, the race struggle is over and equality won. There are still pockets of racists here and there to be sure, and there always will be. But the overwhelming majority of Americans are now willing to share neighborhoods with black people, to hire qualified black people, to admit them to the colleges they’re qualified for, to put them on the Supreme Court, date them, party with them, and - crucially - vote for them for president. This is post-racial America, and Barack Obama proves it. Which means Jesse Jackson, Rev. Wright, Al Sharpton et al are about to be out of a job. If Barack Obama wins the presidency, it’s going to be awfully hard for Jackson and cohorts to continue to make the case that they’re relevant.

If Jackson’s still sincere about equality, then that he’s irrelevant is exactly what he’s been waiting all his career to hear. He’ll pull out all the stops for Obama, cheer when he wins, and then pack up his bags and go home. Heh. Yeah, I don’t see it happening either. Which is the same thing as saying that I don’t think Jesse Jackson is sincere anymore. At some point along the line inertia took over. He’s been playing the race card for 40 years, and it’s been a lucrative business to be in. No one familiar with Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition can honestly be under the impression that it targets only those corporations and industries where there is endemic prejudice against blacks. No - it operates more like Canada’s HRCs. Which is to say, it automatically assumes any complaint of racism brought against a company by a minority is true, and the only way to keep it off your back is to go much further than reason requires setting up affirmative action programs to address the “problem.” No one has done more to promote black victim culture than Jesse Jackson. He’s not sincere, he’s not a friend to black people, he isn’t interested in equality … and he doesn’t want Obama to win.

So forgive me for being cynical, but I think Jackson intended that little “slip-up” to damage Obama with black voters. I agree with Gallagher as far as saying the slip-up was probably intentional, but the sinister plot here isn’t one of allowing Obama to distance himself from Rainbow/PUSH. At the very best, it’s a reminder to Obama to come knocking at his Don’s door a bit more often. But I’m guessing it’s even worse than that: it’s an outright attempt to sabotage the campaign.

You can’t, I suppose, have a giant sporting event without a requisite amount of nonsense. The link goes to an article entitled “Anti-Racist Film a Big Success.”

Apparently, an organization called FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) has gotten permission to play a short anti-racist PSA before and after each Euro2008 event. It’s called “Different Languages - One Goal: No to Racism” and runs 30seconds long.

30 seconds to change the world. Yeah, right guys. With an atom bomb, maybe, but a video? A particularly mundane video, at that. Apparently what it shows is - hold your breath, kids - the emotions of fans of various backgrounds before a goal is scored, culminating in wild celebrations all for the purpose of showing (yes, this is an actual quote from the director) “the word ‘goal’ to be universal.” Wow - who knew? So you’re saying … give me a second, this is a difficult concept for me … that people of ALL RACES are happy when their home team scores a goal? It’s like a revelation.

Even more ridiculous is their interpretation of “different backgrounds.”

The casting process was swift but ensured a true ‘mix’ of people, both trained actors and raw hopefuls were used and a range of backgrounds represented. Buche explained: “Everything in the film is symbolic. Romanian actors represented eastern Europe, we used Dutch actors as a reference to colonial times, and Turkish actors were involved to signify their omnipresence throughout many parts of Europe at this point in time.”

So out of all of Europe’s many national and ethnic groups, we managed to get a whopping … three of them … to put in an appearance. Better still, Romania of all places is meant to represent Eastern Europe, even though it considers itself Latin rather than Slavic, The Netherlands represents colonialism, even though it’s France that regularly raids its former colonies for national team players, and Turkey, which isn’t even in Europe, is featured but mysteriously doesn’t represent colonialism, even though it too was a colonial power (and once colonized Romania, one hastens to add). Guess I’ll have to just trust them that this is “representative.”

What I’m more interested in is where I can find even a single person who thinks that people from different backgrounds experience different emotions on seeing their team score? Is Europe really this goofy? Surely the fact that all these countries bother to participate in EuroCup in the first place is evidence enough that they’re basically similar when it comes to soccer?

If there’s anything that should concern us it’s how they’re similar rather than that they’re similar. Without seeing the team each group is cheering for on the screen, we somehow know that the Turks are for Turkey, the Dutch are for Holland, the Romanians for Romania, etc. The great unifying thing about “football” is that it brings out everyone’s inner tribesman. Sure, some of the more dedicated fans can appreciate good play no matter which team it’s coming from, but the overwhelming majority of the cheering spectators know just enough about the rules to recognize when it’s time to wave their flag. If you want to fight racism in soccer, maybe what you should be doing instead is reminding everyone that it’s just a game - that Turkey is still a shitty place to live even if exactly 11 of its citizens manage to kick a regulation ball through a regulation net under regulation specifications more times than 11 citizens of an “opposing” country.

The truth is that the whole premise behind Euro is nationalistic. If it were really all about watching soccer, then Euro would just be the Champions League. The fact that there are national teams and citizenship requirements on players makes the whole affair unavoidably “racist,” or at least tribal. No 30-second ad makes up for that.

My question is, so what if it’s nationalistic? I thought the whole point of these events was to give people a safe outlet for flag-waving? Better to do it over a soccer ball than on a battle field - wasn’t that the idea? Better to fight over something like soccer that has nothing to do with reality than for real stakes, right? In some important sense it defeats the whole purpose of EuroCup to complain about racism. If you’re that dedicated to making sure everyone knows we all bleed red, as it were, then why not campaign against the very idea of national teams?

Indeed, the fact that they’re not doing just that demonstrates to me that the people behind this video know that Euro is harmless. Perhaps they have their own racist and nationalist demons to overcome, but most soccer fans don’t. There’s a tribal gene in all of us, Euro is a fun way to let it out, but humans are complex creatures, and for the most part we know which instincts are appropriate to indulge when. Euro is a time for indulging my atavistic tribal leanings (Go Germany!), and as long as I keep it confined to the pitch, no harm no foul. What Euro is NOT a time for is sanctimonious, empty preaching about invented issues. So pack up your PC bullshit and take it home and let me watch soccer in peace.

My favorite part of the article, though, is the assertion that this video is “making a huge impact.” By what measure, one wonders? The giant “Raceometer” in Brussels that measures tolerance was hovering at 7.5 until the video aired, at which point it shot up to 7.7 in under 30 seconds? Give me a goram break. There is no evidence anywhere that this video is doing anything other than annoying people. If it serves any purpose whatever, it’s probably just as a nice buffer zone for bartenders to get their tabbooks in order before the main event starts.  That’s something we accomplished just as nicely with the national anthem in the past…

Bob Herbert is a product of government education. Or at least, that’s what his knowlege of history would suggest. In a column today about how inspiring it is for Barack Obama to have gone a long way to fulfilling Bobby Kennedy’s prophecy that there would be a black president within 40 years, he gets some facts about the 1968 election a bit wrong.

The winner of the election was Richard Nixon, riding the G.O.P.’s soon-to-be infamous, racially polarizing and remarkably successful Southern strategy.

True enough that Nixon won the election. But was it the result of “riding the G.O.P.’s soon-to-be infamous, racially polarizing and remarkably successful Southern strategy?” Hardly. Have a look at the state-by-state results map (stolen from Wikipedia) and see for yourself.

I would assume that the “Southern Strategy” includes each of the following states: Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Ok, so Nixon won 5 of those. Admittedly, Humphrey only bagged one, but it was the Big One. No, Wallace won the South, and Nixon therefore had to look elsewhere for his general election win. And where does it come from? Conspicuously, some reliable blue states are in his column. California, Illinois, Wisconsin (Wisconsin!!!), and, arguably, Ohio, given that this was 1968. No, any look at that map will tell you that Nixon won by holding down the fort in all the typical Republican strongholds (aka All Those States in the Middle) while simultaneously grabbing some swing states and even a couple of reliable Democrat states. Sounds like a clean, non-racist win to me.

If Herbert wants to make the case that Nixon was the recipient of a lucky break in 1968, certainly he can, but he’d have to draw attention to the fact that the Democrats were deeply divided by a bitter nomination process - a process during which one of their candidates was shot (Kennedy), one appointed (the eventual nominee - Humphrey - won without participating in a single primary), and the early-on favorite - incumbent president Johnson - dropped out after nearly losing New Hampshire to an upstart (Eugene McCarthy) early in the process. The Democratic convention was plagued by violent riots and accompanying TV pictures of police beating up protestors. So yeah, Nixon got a “break,” but it was hardly because the South handed him “the racist vote.”

Then there’s this:

Thurston Clarke, in his new book about R.F.K., “The Last Campaign,” tells of the time that Kennedy was touring a Ford plant in Indiana. A white assembly-line worker refused to shake the presidential candidate’s hand, telling Kennedy, “Get your [expletive] nigger-loving presence out of here.”

Yes, cute - but misleading. Bobby Kennedy didn’t enter the primary until late - announcing his candidacy only after Eugene McCarthy came close enough to Johnson in New Hampshire to give him second thoughts. The first primary after this was Wisconsin, which McCarthy handily won. Next up? Indiana. And who won the Indiana primary? Indeed - Bobby Kennedy. So this man, whoever he was, who refused to support Kennedy on the grounds he was a “nigger-lover” can’t have been all that representative.

George Wallace also ran for president in ‘68. He was famous for standing in the schoolhouse door to block the court-ordered admission of black students to the University of Alabama. Wallace’s views on racial matters were unequivocal. His mantra was: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”

The twist we’re leaving out here, of course, is that Wallace went on to have a religious conversion in 1977, and his third term as governor of Alabama saw a dramatic increase in the number of government appointments going to black individuals after he publicly apologized to black community leaders. So enemy though Wallace may have been in 1968, in the end he made a not-insignificant contribution to racial equality. But why mention this when it would spoil the narrative?

If we’re going to talk about racists and racism, we might as well drag up that dusty old Civil Rights Act of 1965 - on the passage of which Republicans outvoted Democrats in both houses of Congress by 3-to-1 margins. These would be the same Republicans whose primaries Nixon had to win in 1968. And if we’re going to talk about racist politicians, we might at least mention that JFK - the other Kennedy who got shot - favored increases in the minimum wage law in 1957 for racist reasons. Back then, you see, “outsourcing” was a real issue too, only rather than it being a “problem” of domestic jobs shipped overseas, it was a “problem” of jobs shipped down South. So northern politicians promoted national minimum wage increases to raise the cost of shipping south by narrowing the wage gap. And here’s Senator John F. Kennedy speaking on the matter at a Senate hearing in 1957 (source):

“Of course, having on the market a rather large source of cheap labor depresses wages outside of that group, too -the wages of the white worker who has to compete. And when an employer can substitute a colored worker at a lower wage - and there are, as you pointed out, these hundreds of thousands looking for decent work - it affects the whole wage structure of an area, doesn’t it?”

So sorry, Herbert, but your facts are a bit … oh, what’s the word? … cherry-picked.

The main point, of course, is not wrong. The US has come a long way since 1968. It is a markedly less racist place than it was in the past. Indeed, we have come so far that I would argue that Obama’s race is a positive asset to his campaign this year rather than the barrier it would have been in the 60s. But at least as important as where we are is how we got here, and Herbert’s presentation of the facts about racism in politics in 1968 at least suggests he’s not giving us the whole picture.

In fact, there was at least one other serious black contender for the presidency Herbert chooses not to mention, and that was Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988. In 1988 he was even considered the Democratic frontrunner ahead of the Wisconsin primary - having pocketed five states on Super Tuesday (he would win 11 in all). Bradley effect polling shifted the momentum to Dukakis there, and the rest is history. The point is that this “historic achievement” of Obama’s is actually about 20 years old already.

What’s different between 1988 and 2008 that this time around the black guy won? Is it because Hillary is a woman and Dukakis was a man? That is, voter contraint rankings prefer minority men to white women? Misogyny trumps racism? Hard to swallow considering John Edwards was both white and male - not to mention a former VP nominee - and still didn’t manage to pull off a win. So we can’t explain the difference that way. What about by reference to the fact that 20 years have passed, and racism has declined in the meantime? No doubt that’s the explanation that Herbert would favor. But I have a different one. I think the difference between Obama and Jackson is that Jackson came across as an angry black man - more than just a little bit of a bigot regarding Jews, no less. Obama’s appeal is that he isn’t a street fighter. He shares Jackson and Sharpton’s policy concerns, no doubt about that. But he expresses himself in a post-racial way. Rather than coming across as someone running for office because he’s black and for the purpose of bettering the lot of black people, he comes across as a typical-ish left-of-center politician who just happens to be black. Obama isn’t remarkable for having won in spite of his race, he’s remarkable for having run without drawing undue attention to his race.

There are millions of white people who want to vote for a black candidate just to show they’re not racist. That’s what the Bradley effect is, after all. White people tell pollsters that they’re planning to vote for the black candidate - presumably because they don’t want to seem racist - and then turn around and vote for the white candidate instead. This causes survey polls to systematically overestimate white support for black candidates. In Obama’s case, there’s been talk of a reverse Bradley effect. That is, blacks, worried about seeming militant, tell pollsters they’re not voting for Obama and then turn around and do it anyway. Naturally, due to the secret nature of voting, it’s largely impossible to know for sure whether there is a Bradley effect or whether it’s just coincidence. But it’s plausible to me that there is one - a divide between a genuine public desire to rise above racial barriers but a private knowledge that large numbers of black people are themselves racist against white people. Speaking as a white guy myself, I’m a lot more comfortable with Obama than I was with Jackson. I suspect that Obama’s ability to win where Jackson failed (twice) has a lot to do with precisely this. White people have been itching for a black candidate to support for decades, but the pickins were slim. They couldn’t trust those that stepped forward. Now they’ve found one they sort of can.

All of which is to say that I think there is a piece missing from Herbert’s - and the nation’s - “narrative” on race and “how far we’ve come” since the 60s. That piece is that racial harmony requires tolerance from both races.

My favorite example of black hypocrisy on this point comes from my hometown of Charlotte. Interviewing teachers for the school newspaper about desegregation (which was coming up on a 20th anniversary at the time) as a high school student in the early 90s, I was surprised to learn that black students at my historically black high school lined up outside the buses bringing white kids in and just hit them as they got off. That’s not the story the way the media likes to tell it. The way the media tells it, there are always images of black students going to class at traditionally white schools under police escort to protect them from inevitable white violence. And the media reports are true - but they’re only one side of the story. Reality is that it happened on both sides of the tracks. Black students, as it turns out, weren’t any happier about us attending West Charlotte than we were about them attending Myers Park.

Obama’s where he is because - the Trinity Church controversies notwithstanding - he can talk for more than 15minutes at a stretch without blaming evil white people for everything that’s gone wrong in his life. His campaign isn’t first, middle and last about being black, as was Jackson’s. Whether that’s a reality or just an impression he gives doesn’t really matter in the image-heavy world that is politics. What matters is that it’s the first time in presidential elections history that we’ve seen a black candidate who has more to talk about than black people. That, I suspect, is the most important ingredient in this “narrative,” and Herbert and his cherry-picked facts are missing the point. It wasn’t Bobby Kennedy and Affirmative Action and the Civil Rights Act that got us here. It was a sea change in attitudes. Bobby Kennedy’s prediction that it would take 40 years for a black man to be president was accurate because he knew just what poison was built into Affirmative Action programs (having invented them in his brother’s administration), the same way his brother knew exactly what poison was built into the minimum wage. And George Wallace’s support wasn’t only about getting out the racist vote. And Jesse Jackson’s Bradley effect defeat in Wisconsin in 1988 wasn’t about white racism so much as well-grounded white fear that this angry radical secretly hated them. The truth about Obama’s win is that it’s made possible by talking like race doesn’t matter, by treating it - Cosby Show style - as … “non-issue” might be taking it too far, so let’s just say “not the main or only issue.” Obama comes across as a man and an American first and black second, and until more black politicians are willing to do that, Obama’s going to remain the only black presidential nominee from a major party. Racial harmony isn’t achieved when one race apologizes profusely and continuously and the other race consistently lays all their problems at its feet, after all.