white house dragged back into racial fray

8/9/2019 White House Dragged Back Into Racial Fray

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White House Dragged Back Into Racial Fray

This week's controversy over Shirley Sherrod was areminder that race is still a volatile subject in America.Sherrod was fired from the Agriculture Departmentafter an Internet video falsely suggested she hadshown racial prejudice against a white farmer. She'sbeen asked to return, but ever since the incident, theObama administration has been facing questionsabout its response to this and other issues when race

is a factor.

The Obama presidential campaign tried hard to avoida focus on race, but sermons by the candidate'spastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pushed the issue to thefore. "Not 'God bless America' — God damnAmerica," Wright said in another video that rocketedaround the Web.

"I suppose the politically safe thing to do would be tomove on from this episode and just hope that it fadesinto the woodwork," candidate Obama said at thetime.

Instead, he delivered a high-profile speech in

Philadelphia in March 2008, saying, "Race is an issuethat I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore rightnow." The U.S. has been stuck in a racial stalematefor years, he added.



"Talk show hosts and conservative commentatorsbuilt entire careers making bogus claims of racismwhile dismissing legitimate discussions of racial

injustice and inequality as mere political correctnessor reverse racism," he said.

That speech helped make candidate Obama intoPresident Obama. But a month after he took office,another frank discussion of race was received verydifferently. This time, the speaker was the nation'sfirst black attorney general, Eric Holder, at a JusticeDepartment Black History Month event.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as anethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have alwaysbeen and — I believe continue to be in too manyways — essentially a nation of cowards," he said.

The White House was furious that with one artlessphrase, Holder turned everyone's attention back toissues of race and away from the president's agenda.

Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, who iswriting a book about race and the Obama presidency,says any time race becomes the issue, Obamastands to lose.

"He doesn't want a lot of explicit race talk, becausewhen there's race talk, people get anxious," Kennedysays. "When people get anxious, there's more conflict.



And he is on the electoral losing end of thatarrangement."

The White House got a powerful reminder of this ayear ago when the president said police acted"stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr., a blackHarvard professor, outside his Cambridge, Mass.,home.

When a reporter asked Obama about it, a presidentialnews conference that had been about health careveered off into talk of race.

And this week, again, an incident spawned a nationalfuror because race was involved.

Though the president signed two major bills into law— financial regulation and unemployment insurance

— the Sherrod controversy dominated the news.

"I don't think the president was under any illusion that— and I think has said as much — that his electionalone would change long-held views," presidentialspokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The Congressional Black Caucus put out a formal callthis week for a national dialogue on race. PresidentClinton also tried to start such a dialogue once,without much success. Minyon Moore, politicaldirector in the Clinton White House, said she doesn'tblame Obama for taking a different approach.



"Maybe his challenge is not to talk about it as muchas it is to do something about it," she says. "And

maybe the time that he has spent trying to get ahealth care bill passed, the time that he has spenttrying to get finance reform, the time that he has spenttrying to build an education system that willincorporate all of God's children, maybe that is theway he is speaking to closing the racial gaps."

And maybe Moore will be right about deeds matteringmost in the long run. But for now, incidents like thisweek's will continue to remind the president how raceis an issue the nation can not ignore.

white house dragged back into racial fray

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