A note of caution on the much-hyped “other race speech” out
tonight at the Daily Caller, Drudge, and Hannity: It looks bad for
Obama, but it’s not worth going overboard. I tip my hat to Tucker
Carlson for digging this up, and to Hannity for giving it an
airing. But I have now watched the whole speech while comparing it
to the “prepared remarks.” And, while it is clear there is a more
racial subtext, largely through tone and accent and body language,
than there already was in an edgy-but-not-totally-over-the-edge
prepared text, there are only two places where Obama’s ad libs were
truly objectionable. One was in reference to my great hometown of
New Orleans, and it is deservedly getting attention both because
Obama’s claims were either downright false or wholly misleading and
also because he hinted (but, note, did not actually say) that New
Orleans was getting treated differently for racial reasons. It was
obnoxious — but not as obnoxious as Carlson and
Hannity made it out to be, not when in total context. The second
was in a gratuitous addition, after saying that “America will
survive,” of the words “black folks will survive.” Indeed, it was
one of the only explicit mention of race, and it was race-baiting,
pure and simple — but also brief, and not pounded home in a
hateful way.
Other than that, I thought the speech was the usual mix of
leftist claptrap with some banalities and some points that were
well aimed and expressed. Yes, if a white politician had suddenly
started sounding “rednecky” while talking to a white rural crowd,
and had combined it with a text as racially edgy in the “white”
direction as Obama did in the “black” direction, it would have been
treated as a major racial scandal because it would have been
assumed the intent itself was to foster race hatred. On the other
hand, certain allowances for edginess always have been allowed to
black speakers before black audiences — a slight double standard,
to be sure, but one that slavery and Jim Crow provide at least
semi-reasonable excuses for, and one that is less damaging than
actual policies (quotas, etcetera) that enshrine discrimination
into law.
Even allowing for the double standard, I think Obama went over
the line. But it wasn’t so far over the line that it’s an obvious
slam-dunk to, say, a 30-year-old single professional woman in a
Cincinnati suburb. But if conservatives go overboard in talking
about it, without other context, the Cincy woman could react
AGAINST the right for making her confront something she doesn’t
want to confront, that upsets her own internal narrative about who
Obama is without quite providing enough evidence to fully overcome
that narrative. It’s the blame-the-messenger syndrome about which
we must beware.
Now, in light of all sorts of other, wholly legitimate, issues
involving the Obama team’s approach to racial matters, this example
if put into sober and proper context might actually change the
mind, in our direction, of that proverbial Cincy single. But our
tone must not be shrill — and we can’t rely on this video alone,
because it is only mildly damning, not overwhelmingly so.
In coming days, I may attempt the sober but hard-hitting
contextual approach I recommend above. Watch this space. But for
now, we should neither ignore this nor overhype it, but just
quietly and firmly insist that it provide part of the
picture of Obama’s real nature.
