WOULD HE END AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

Liberals made cynical by the election and re-election of George W. Bush argue that there's no way the American electorate would ever put a black man in the oval office. The thinking goes that the country is just too racist to countenance a minority in a major position of power, that the so-called 'red states' are too enthralled with their own messianic and white vision of Christian hegemony to even consider electing a black man president, even if he did go to Harvard. These liberals are wrong.

It's easy to understand why they'd feel the way they do. Bush's active disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida in 2000 certainly seems to suggest that, at a minimum, the Republican leadership at the state and local levels would do everything they could to ensure a Republican victory. But in the end it's the voters who decide and elect our officials, not the political elite of the governing party, and polls from 1996, over ten years ago, already demonstrated that America was willing to vote for a black leader. Colin Powell, who at the time declined to run, consistently polled better than either Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, sometimes by margins as great as 5-8 points. How can this be? I thought our 'red states' would never allow a minority candidate to win?

I think we need to give the American people some credit. Fundamentally, Americans desperately want to believe in the American ideal of a diverse and ethnically just society. It doesn't mean they're always willing to elect officials who feel the same way, or that they don't sometimes fail to live up to their own professed ideals. But the reason the American model has been so successful at integrating other cultures into our own, the reason I'd argue why we don't have the kind of homegrown Islamic terrorism we see in Britain for instance, is that the the message of America as a place of real opportunity for people regardless of their race or ethnicity has a robust vitality to it, even if in reality our country has a long way to go before we achieve the kind of social equality we prematurely claim to already have. Despite our Katrinas, our Sean Bells, despite our Rodney Kings and the embarrassing confederate flags flying above certain state capitals, Americans want to believe in egalitarianism, they want to at least think we live in a tolerant country. They believe in the democratic principles of the Constitution, in the idea of a 'country of immigrants' that values hard work and effectiveness over the color of ones skin. If the right candidate comes along, and assuages certain, admittedly racist, concerns, I think a black man can easily win enough white votes to become president...and Barack just may have an ace up his sleeve to help him pull the whole thing off.

So the whole blogosphere is buzzing about a comment Barack made regarding affirmative action. Here's what happened during an interview when he was asked on ABC's This Week if he thought his own children should benefit from racial preferences:

On affirmative action, Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, said he thinks that someday when his two young daughters apply to college, they “should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged” and there is nothing wrong with that.

“I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and been brought up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed,” he added. “There are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling.”

Obama said that “if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.”

What's significant of course is that it seems Obama is suggesting a switch from traditional race based affirmative action to a more class-based system that would give assistance to poor whites as well as to poor blacks. To me and many others,
this could be the kind of brave and singular policy position that separates him from the rest of the Democratic contenders, and which positions him in a place to secure not just the poor white vote, but also the middle/upper class white vote that harbors the soft racist fear that Obama's an angry black man. Look, this idea of the black man out to punish white America for its racist transgressions is one that, rightly or wrongly, strikes fear into the heart of many moderate to slightly right of field Americans. If Obama bucks the paleo-liberal establishment and rejects affirmative action, he'll score huge points with moderate whites as someone who clearly won't let their race interfere with their principles. In the end, that's all certain parts of white America want to be assured about. As racist an idea as not trusting a black candidate who is justifiably upset by racial inequality is, you can win as an African-American candidate if you tack to the right on precisely the issue of your race. No other democratic candidate could pull this off without losing the black vote as Mickey Kaus reminds us. Obama could do it simply because he's black.

Now, while it's a great strategic move politically, is it morally right to include white racist 'concerns' into your political calculus? I'd argue you have to if you're serious about winning. Play the game, get power, change the game. You certainly can't change the game if you lose...

Another equally important question then becomes whether or not replacing affirmative action with a class-based alternative is the right thing to do. Right or wrong, affirmative action has grown increasingly untenable as it breeds all kinds of white resentment. A class based alternative still redresses political inequality, but it does so in a way that alleviates racial tensions, and for that alone it bears some merit.

Can Barack do it? If he plots the right course, yes. It remains to be seen whether or not Obama will elaborate on his ostensibly spontaneous remarks and incorporate them into a larger policy that rejects affirmative action. But if he does make this a part of his platform, he just might wind up making history.