Race and Politics Articles
General Articles
The Republican Resurrection
Rich, Frank. New York Times, March 23, 2008
"What impressed me most was not Mr. Obama's rhetorical elegance or his nuanced view of both America's undeniable racial divide and equally undeniable racial progress. The real novelty was to find a politician who didn't talk down to his audience but instead trusted it to listen to complete, paragraph-long thoughts that couldn't be reduced to sound bites...[but] as violence flares up again in Iraq and the American economy skids, the issues consuming the Democrats are Mr. Wright and Geraldine Ferraro, race and gender, unsanctioned primaries and unaccountable superdelegates. Unless Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton find a way to come together for the good of their country as well as their party, no speech by either of them may prevent Mr. McCain from making his second unlikely resurrection in a single political year."
The Big "What If?"
Kennedy, Randall. Washington Post, September 14, 2008
"I hope that I'll take to heart the wisdom offered by two of my students. 'Obama losing,' one wrote, 'would be hurtful, but it still spells substantial progress. . . . Change WILL come -- the wheels have been set in motion.' Declared the second: 'Sometimes you have to believe in the change before it comes (and in the face of its apparent defeat) for the change to be possible.'"
Damsel in Distress
Noonan, Peggy. Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2008
"The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender."
Overkill and Short Shrift
Herbert, Bob. New York Times, May 3, 2008
"Most of the electorate understands that the U.S. is in sorry shape, which is why more than 80 percent of poll respondents say we’re on the wrong track. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has nothing to do with any of that. The idea that his nonsense may shape the outcome of this election is both tragic and absurd."
White Women Begin to Turn Away from Hillary Clinton
Lightman, David. McClatchy, April 13, 2008
Like many women over 50, Paula Houwen was eager to vote for Hillary Clinton for president. Today, though, Houwen's no longer a Clinton fan. "I do not like the way Hillary Clinton has run her campaign," she said. "These are Democratic women who waited all their lives for a woman president, but Hillary is not turning them on," said polling analyst Clay Richards.
Here We Go Again
Smiley, Jane. The Huffington Post, April 12, 2008
"I know that [Hillary] and Bill Clinton are corrupt to the core, and that I should have never expected anything better of her. But, please, any of you angry white women who still support this craven shill, don't mention it to me...Barack Obama tells the truth about conditions as we know them."
Indiana Legislators Endorse Obama
"Indiana, north, south, east, west, middle. Black, white, Hispanic. Urban, rural. We cross all of these spectrum. And with those kinds of demographics that Indiana possesses, those are precisely the democgraphics that will make Barack Obama the next president of the United States."
Issue of Race and Responses
Barack Obama's Speech on Race
New York Times, March 18, 2008
Text as prepared for delivery of Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.
The White Working Class: Forgotten Voters No More
Harwood, John. New York Times, May 26, 2008
Mr. Teixeira argues that Mr. Obama’s standing with working-class whites may be artificially low in the wake of his skirmishing with Mrs. Clinton. “Yes, he has a problem,” Mr. Teixeira said. “But it’s a solvable problem.”
Obama's Strength Among White Voters
Sullivan, Andrew. The Atlantic, May 3, 2008
"The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February."
Race and American Memory
Cohen, Roger. New York Times, April 17, 2008
"For nations to confront their failings is arduous. Why does the Holocaust, a German crime, hold pride of place over U.S. lynchings in American memorialization? It’s time for the country to ask itself some hard post-jingoistic questions and allow the memorialization of its darkest chapters."
Richardson Plans Obama Endorsement
Jeff Zeleny and Patrick Healy. New York Times, March 21, 2008
"Mr. Richardson...sent word to the senator that he was inspired and impressed by the speech, in which Mr. Obama called for an end to the 'racial stalemate' that has divided Americans for decades. Aides said the endorsement was locked down over the following two days."
Beyond America's Original Sin
Cohen, Roger. New York Times, March 20, 2008
"There are things you come to believe and things you carry in your blood."
From the Washington Post:
"In so many ways, Obama's speech was remarkable: ambitious, lofty, gritty, honest and unnerving. In tone and substance, and in the challenge he laid down to the country about the need somehow to move beyond the racial stalemate, it was the kind of speech Americans should expect of a presidential candidate or a president."
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"With his brilliant speech on race relations yesterday at the National Constitution Center, Barack Obama showed why his campaign for president has the aura of a mission."
From the New Yorker:
"This speech should provide skeptics with a clue or two about why many of us are grateful for the opportunity—an opportunity that I, for one, never imagined might come along in what's left of my lifetime—to support a Presidential candidate like Barack Obama."
And from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
"As an example of contemporary oratory, it was stunning. As political rhetoric, it was designed to do far more than damage control and, in the end, distilled the essence of his candidacy. If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination in the most unlikely campaign in American history, chances are good that his Philadelphia speech will have been a watershed moment."
The Race Dialogue
Editorial. News and Observer, March 20, 2008
"Obama turned a test of his own resilience as a candidate into what could be the beginning of a dialogue on a subject most politicians try to avoid -- the racial divide in this country. Democrats have been proud of their support for civil rights, of course, and have enjoyed overwhelming support from black voters for decades. The 'black vote' has typically been part of Democrats' strategizing, although black leaders on occasion have felt that support was taken for granted."
Black, White & Gray
Dowd, Maureen. New York Times, March 19, 2008
"Overriding aides who objected to putting race center stage, he addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics."
The Blight That Is Still With Us
Herbert, Bob. New York Times, January 22, 2008
Before Obama's speech, Herbert writes that no politician (Clintons or Obama) is willing to address the issue of race head-on.
"Where the Confederate flag still flies on the grounds of [a State Capitol, such is one] disturbing example of how difficult it is for people of good will to dispose of the toxic layers of bigotry that have accumulated over several long centuries.
Obama and Race
Kristof, Nicholas D. New York Times, March 20, 2008
"Barack Obama gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960, and it derived power from something most unusual in modern politics: an acknowledgment of complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides. It was not a sound bite, but a symphony."
A response to this article: "Good article, but you missed something. Why didn't you reveal to your white readers (like myself) WHY black communities in the U.S. had/have this belief that AIDS was a government plot against them?
Certainly you must know about the government's secret medical experiments on blacks in the past. Heck, Bill Clinton just offered the nation's apology not too long ago for that. Seeing as how this topic is of such recent history, it's no surprise that a group of people, targeted in this country as they have been, would be highly suspicious of white people and white-led government."
Groups Respond to Obama's Call for National Discussion About Race
Rohter, Larry, and Michael Luo. New York Times, March 20, 2008
"The speech Senator Barack Obama delivered...has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube and is being widely e-mailed...some around the country were responding to Mr. Obama's call for a national conversation about race. Religious groups and academic bodies, already receptive to Mr. Obama's plea for such a dialogue, seemed especially enthusiastic. Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work, and churches were trying to find ways to do the same in sermons and Bible studies."
Radical Love Gets a Holiday
Vowell, Sarah. New York Times, January 21, 2008
"In 1983, Ronald Reagan signed a bill honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday. Reagan opposed it, but back then, in the olden times of checks and balances, the vote by 338 representatives and 78 senators establishing the holiday threatened certain veto override."
Obama Urges U.S. to Grapple With Race Issue
Zeleny, Jeff. New York Times, March 19, 2008
"His candidacy had been successful in predominantly white states and in largely black states, but he conceded that the nation's racial divisions remained firmly ingrained and that black anger and white resentment was rarely interchangeably understood. [The subject of race relations] had to be approached in a way that was really something of substance."
The full story behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright's 9/11 sermon
Martin, Roland S. CNN, March 21, 2008
"As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I've been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on."
