Kerwick: "Obama as 'Race-Baiter'"

A recent opinion piece regarding Barack Obama's patriotism, submitted by About.com guest writer Jack Kerwick was provocative enough to spur Race Relations Guide Tom Head to write an insightful response.

As the first in a three-column package on the mixed messages coming from the Obama campaign, "The Patriotism of Barack Obama," was bound to generate a response from somewhere. Today's second installment, "Barack Obama as Race-Baiter", will no doubt provoke even more dissention.

If you really compare how race is being discussed by each of the campaigns, however, it's tough to argue with Kerwick's logic. Regardless, I'm sure many will try.

Which is good. This kind of reasonable, healthy debate is sorely lacking in political discussions these days. All too often, dialogue between supporters of competing candidates degenerates into name-calling and hurt feelings.

And while we're on the topic of name-calling, "race-baiter" may very well be seen this way, and there is no hiding its negative connotations. But when it appears that someone is discussing race simply as a strategy to dare someone else to offer comments, what can you call it? It's obviously "baiting" of one sort or another, and "race-baiting" is the only term that seems to fit. There's a difference between name-calling and using appropriate terminology.

So, when reading Kerwick's commentary today, try to bear in mind that his opinions are not racist. Kerwick simply offers a thorough explanation for the politically correct ambivalence to racial politics that many non-whites see coming from John McCain's campaign in this election.

From the column:

... I have not been a fan of McCain, and I have no interest in becoming an apologist for him now. But it isn’t McCain who is going to exploit inter-racial tensions by striving to milk “the race card” for all that it is worth. This is an enterprise over which Obama and his proxies will be able to claim a monopoly.

For decades, the Democrats have labored tirelessly at impressing upon the American mind the notion, now deeply embedded, that the Republican party harbors racial animus toward blacks and other racial minorities. So, for fear of perpetuating this fiction, McCain and the Republicans want to avoid like the plague not only playing “the race card,” but the topic of race altogether. Obama and the Democrats know this, and so they know equally well that if race is going to be an issue in this campaign, they can’t wait for the Republicans to raise it.