SAN DIEGO -- Whenever
I blast Republicans for racially insensitive remarks -- whether
it's radio talk show host Bill Bennett talking boorishly about
aborting black babies, or Sen. Trent Lott saying America would
have been better off with ``Dixiecrat'' Strom Thurmond in the
White House, or former California Gov. Pete Wilson referring to
illegal immigrants as ``Pedro'' -- the blindly loyal folks on
the red team demand that I do the same the next time a Democrat
says something dumb about race or ethnicity.
No problem. Not with
politicians such as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Sen. Hillary
Clinton doing their best to stir up racial animosity to stir up
votes. Tactlessly, they even did it on the holiday set aside to
honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While others were celebrating
King's legacy of colorblindness and racial justice, Nagin and
Clinton were paying homage to an uglier American tradition: racial
politics.
The only people who
can't accept that are the blindly loyal folks on the blue team.
First, Ray Nagin
gave chocolate a bad name. He promised that New Orleans would
one day be ``chocolate'' again (or majority African-American)
because ``it's the way God wants it to be.'' Later, Nagin only
made matters worse by explaining that the way you make chocolate
-- ``a delicious drink'' -- is by taking dark chocolate and adding
milk.
Nagin later apologized,
calling his comments ``totally inappropriate'' and said that he
needs to be ``more sensitive and more aware of what I'm saying.''
Fine. But then he
wouldn't be Ray Nagin. This is the same guy who, in October, borrowed
a page from the nativist handbook when he said that his once predominantly
black city was being ``overrun by Mexican workers.''
It was surreal. Imagine
a public official trying to make the case that people who want
to do tough, dirty, thankless jobs are crowding out others who
won't go near those jobs. Of course, you hear that argument all
the time. But when Nagin took it up, the absurdity came through
loud and clear.
In addition to all
his other duties in the rebuilding of New Orleans, Nagin spends
a lot of time obsessing over the changing demographics of his
city. That's never a good sign. What's worse, while Nagin now
insists that everyone is ``welcome in New Orleans,'' when he had
his chance to spell out his vision of what New Orleans would become,
he excluded everyone but African-Americans.
What Hillary Clinton
did was even worse. When she tried to rile up a mostly black audience
in Harlem by saying that Republicans run the House of Representatives
``like a plantation ... so that nobody with a contrary view has
had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument,'' the
likely 2008 Democratic presidential contender insulted the very
people she was trying to cater to.
You know what I'm
talking about. The problem isn't so much what Clinton said --
however inappropriate -- but why she said it. Isn't it obvious?
The idea was to score cheap political points by convincing African-Americans
that any black person who votes Republican should have his head
examined. It was to remind black voters that, while other Americans
have choices to make at election time, they aren't so fortunate.
There's only one party for them -- the Democratic Party.
Democrats
always pull that stunt. A few months ago, Democratic National
Committee Chairman Howard Dean warned a Hispanic group that Republicans
were going to resort to immigrant-bashing in the coming elections.
In the 1950s and '60s, Democratic politicians used to go into
Latino neighborhoods at election time with tamales and beer. Years
later, they tried speaking Spanish and showing up with mariachis.
Now, it often seems they don't even do that much. They just take
the lazy way out and bad-mouth Republicans, hoping that Latinos
will vote Democrat by default.
Ditto with African-Americans.
Judging from her skit, we know two things about Hillary the Presidential
Candidate: she wants the black vote, and she doesn't want to work
for it the way her husband did as governor of Arkansas and later
as president.
You see, saying the
wrong thing about race or ethnicity is a bipartisan phenomenon.
Both parties do it. Both parties use loaded language to speak
in code or stoke emotions or demagogue opponents. And both parties
ought to knock it off.
©
2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune
