Connect the Dots 101

“Joe Biden has just announced Aunt Jemima as his VP pick,” according to Barry Presgraves, the Republican mayor of Luray, VA.

Old-school racism is alive and well and still a thigh-slapper in some circles. In retrospect—and amid calls for his resignation—Mayor Presgraves recalculated the political cost and deleted the post from his Facebook account.

Republicans, however, don’t hold a monopoly on racism

George Stafford’s July 16th column “Can’t we all just get along” is an object lesson in a similar tone deafness among some white Democrats that threatens to dampen enthusiasm for the party among Black voters in a must-win presidential election against Donald Trump in November.  

The title of the column itself is unfortunate. “Can’t we all just get along” was Rodney King’s plea for peace on the third day of the LA riots in 1991 that followed his videotaped beating by the LAPD. Scant weeks after the murders of George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor and many others, abuse at the hands of the police just isn’t funny. 

“…Russian, Brazilian, Turkish, Botswanan or other hacking aside…” Stafford goes on to say.

One doesn’t need to be an English teacher to understand how “Botswanan” works in this series. Russian hacking was real and serious. At the other end of the spectrum….Botswanan.

Before it began to be taught more widely as the renowned religious, cultural and center of the 14th century West African empires of Mali and Songhai, “Timbuktu” was just another funny name from the continent of the bizarre and the ridiculous. Same thing here. 

Sexism and racism exist along a continuum— death at one end; the silly and the goofy at the other. The constructs are based on and reinforce whatever myths needs to be served at the moment— lack of capacity, lack of importance or a grab bag of threats to a whole range of interests. One of the irony of so-called identity politics is the assumption that “the race card” and the “woman card” were invented and most likely to be played by people of color and women to advance their own interests. Not how it works.

The overwhelming support of Black women in South Carolina saved Joe Biden’s candidacy. 

Why, then, does George Stafford think that consideration of a Black woman as a vice presidential selection is a “‘must do’ requirement,” a demand that will be “dictated to” a presumably reluctant Joe Biden and result in the “screwing up” of “our victory” against Donald Trump?

Ticket balancing is nearly as old as the Republic and the selection of a running mate is one of the few highlights of modern political conventions. Before her limitations were revealed, the choice of the telegenic Sarah Palin by craggy old John McCain was considered to be a clever move to attract women and a younger demographic. Why is that calculation different when it comes to Black women?

And “our victory?” Black people—Black women in particular—are the backbone of the Democratic Party. Unlike “Reagan Democrats” and “Blue Dog Democrats” and “swing voters” and “soccer moms” and “suburban moms” and “blue collar workers” and white male voters, they never need to be wooed away from the GOP. They vote Democratic or stay home. 

The loyalty of Black voters to the party is such that it is derided by conservative African Americans as “working on the Democrat plantation.”

Contrary to the anecdotal impressions and the empirical reality of Black support for the party, Stafford  believes that Biden’s refusal to name a Black woman running made would result in “all the women and all the African Americans” voting for Trump. 

Putting aside the puzzle of whether black women count as “women” or “African Americans” (see below) is the silliness of assuming that (White) women, more of whom voted for Trump over Clinton, and African Americans, who voted overwhelmingly against Trump, even belong in the same bucket. 

There is also the assumption that members of both groups are single issue voters and that race and gender—pardon me—trump everything else. Women and African Americans are apparently not sophisticated enough to recognize their own best interests. By this reasoning do all Black people support reparations and prefer Kamala Harris to Elizabeth Warren? (No.) 

What is the Black point of view on the threat posed by the Chinese to international navigation in the South China Sea? Or technology transfer? Or are those issues just for the White grownups in the party to resolve?

No one is better than Black people at evaluating the threats faced by Black people. As Malcolm X said in “The Ballot or the Bullet” “[t]he time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone.”

Black people knew Dixiecrats for who they were and—despite the efforts of right wing nuts to saddle the post-1964 Democratic Party with their legacy—know which party has inherited their animus against black people. 

Black people were fully aware of how Hillary Clinton the Yalie began dropping her g’s when she was campaignin’ in Pennsylvania against Barack Obama and exactly what Bill Clinton was after with his Sister Soulja moment. Joe Biden’s reliance on racist stereotypes in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act is a reminder of how far he has needed to evolve. 

None of this has meant that the Clintons should not have been the preferred candidates against Bush or Trump nor that the hopes of everyone who believes in rescuing America from the Constitutional, moral and public health disasters of the Trump administration do not rest with Joe Biden.

When candidate Trump famously asked “what the hell African Americans had to lose” by supporting him, the short answer was and remains “everything White people have to lose plus a greater likelihood of dying from complications to Covid-19 or being shot by the police.”

On Election Day, are Black people—any Americans, really—expected to take more seriously President Trump’s order to fly flags at half-mast to commemorate the public service of John Lewis or the all talk, no action tweet?” 

“All talk, talk, talk. No action or results. Sad.”

“Ain’t I a woman” (sometimes “Arn’t I a woman”) is often attributed to abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth as a line from a speech given to a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. According to Princeton scholar and Truth biographer Nell Painter, however, it was more likely concocted in 1863 by a  Frances Gage, a White abolitionist who also seems to have doctored the diction to make Truth seem more “authentic” to her audience of White middle-class women. 

The point of the invention was to highlight the absence of Black women in discussions on women’s rights and the tendency to focus on Black men in discussions on 19th century slavery. Its unintended effect was to be just another example of White interlocutors taking liberties with Black autonomy.

We are all complex beings.

In 21st century America neither women nor Black men or women need interpreters. They can speak for themselves. The paternalism of Democrats like George Stafford is a relic of the past.