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Obama and the national conversation we are not having

By Jack M. Balkin

I hope everyone took note of the recent WaPo story about Obama volunteers running into some very ugly racial attitudes in states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I think President Bush gave an interview reported same day in the LA Times in which he said that race wouldn?t be an issue in the campaign unless the press made it an issue. I?m afraid the President along with the rest of us are about to receive a lesson about the persistence of bigotry and racism in a significant (though presumably minority) percentage of the voting public. The continuing political relevance of racial attitudes many think extinct is not news if you live, as I do, in Louisiana. Race relations in New Orleans (recently highlighted by Katrina) and Louisiana (highlighted by the case of the Jena Six) have been terrible for years. Here are a few thoughts informed by my southern experience on the national conversation we are not having and will likely never have.

Of course I?m referring to the national conversation that some expected to follow after Obama?s much analyzed March 18 speech on race in Philadelphia. That was never likely because the speech was occasioned by something that was essentially personal to Obama rather than an event that affected the nation as a whole. But the campaign to follow will focus the interest of most citizens. You might think this should have already occurred given record turnout, media interest, etc., but the nominating process is inside baseball compared to the upcoming carnival of the general election.

So it is likely there will be more incidents that will remind Americans who are paying attention that all is not well with race relations and the state of racial justice in this country. Aside from President Clinton?s one effort to get a conversation started in the context of affirmative action, there hasn?t been any presidential leadership on these issues for decades. But could the Obama candidacy be an occasion for improvement? My Louisiana experience cautions against it.

When a conversation or dialogue on race is mentioned, I always think about an experience I had shortly after moving to New Orleans in 1989. Sometime in the early 1990s, the local paper, the venerable Times-Picayune, ran an impressive series of special reporting on the state of race relations in the city. It sparked so much public reaction that the paper ran a second series composed of letters to the editor and other public comments. Overwhelmingly, blacks thought New Orleans had a serious problem with race relations. Overwhelmingly, whites thought discussing problems of race made matters worse. I would describe the white reaction as more indifferent than hostile. Their attitude seemed to be: what?s the point?

I can only dimly imagine the frustration I would feel if I thought that a conversation on race relations would make a material improvement in my life or the lives of my fellow citizens but it turned out there was no one interested in sitting down on the other side of the table. Many scholars and other people of good will have a lot invested in theories and practices of democratic deliberation, discussion, dialogue, and conversation. But they don?t work unless all parties are willing to engage. If racial trouble flares for Obama, blacks (and others, including many young people) will want to know why, after all this time and all the progress the country has made. And they won?t get much of an answer. Just the silence of indifference.

Full post as published by Balkinization on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).