Black Like Whom?
Like it or not,
African-Americans have inherited a historical exemption that allows them to
employ racial pejoratives freely and even playfully. But the exemption has been
strained to breaking point in Flytrap, as black intellectuals struggle to
explain why the African-American electorate supports Bill Clinton so much more
vigorously than the white one does.
Harvard
sociologist Orlando Patterson conjectured reasonably enough on the New
York Times op-ed page that black voters rushed to Clinton's aid because
they feel historically vulnerable to invasions of privacy like those committed
during the Starr investigation. Novelist Ishmael Reed stepped closer to an
incendiary line, writing in the Baltimore Sun that the African-American
affinity for Clinton stems partly from the fact that the president has "a black
style" and even "walks black." Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison crossed into the
fantastical when she wrote in The New Yorker that Clinton is "blacker
than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime."
Explaining what she meant by "blackness," Morrison listed single motherhood,
poverty, saxophone playing, and an uncontrollable desire to eat at McDonald's.
Emboldened by this example, white liberal playwright Arthur Miller suggested on
the Times op-ed page that Clinton's "blackness" resides in the fact he
came from "a broken home" with "an alcoholic mother."
The deconstruction of so-called "blackness" might pass
muster as a parlor game, but it's lame as political analysis. The notion that
blacks cleave to Clinton because he does the pimp walk, eats fried chicken, and
reminds them of unwed motherhood trades on noxious racial stereotypes and
implies that African-Americans lack the ability to make rational political
decisions. It also shortchanges the White House, which conducted a brilliant
campaign to court black voters directly.
Any
pollster worth his paycheck knows that political approval ratings are based
almost entirely on economic concerns. By that standard, African-Americans have
done better under Clinton than under any president back to and including
Nixon--whose enlightened policies on urban aid and public health surely qualify
him as the "blackest" president of all time. This point is borne out in this
week's poll results from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in
Washington. For the first time in a Joint Center survey, black people were more
likely than whites to report that they were better off financially--by a margin
of 51 percent to 31.5 percent.
Clinton's favorable ratings among the black
elderly (100 percent) are astonishing given that this group disapproves
strongly of the death penalty, which Clinton supports with gusto. These voters
have given Clinton a pass on this issue, telling him that he can burn the
criminals he wants as long as black economic fortunes remain good. Combine
those fortunes with Clinton's support of affirmative action and his
appointments of blacks to Cabinet positions--and 12 years of Republican
assaults on equal opportunity--and it should come as no surprise that blacks
are enthusiastic about this president.
The White
House helped itself with a brilliant outreach campaign that went around the
sometimes surly Congressional Black Caucus and reached black voters directly
through their ministers and churches. The office that carried out this plan was
officially called the White House Office of Public Liaison--but was more
colloquially known as the Office of Negro Affairs. Alexis M. Herman ran this
effort so well that she was later named secretary of Labor. While at the White
House, her job included bringing in powerful black ministers, who were more
than happy to take photo opportunities with Arkansas Bill. They prayed and ate
with him and prayed some more. Clinton returned the visits in triplicate, with
church appearances that cemented his support--while enhancing the reputations
of the ministers he visited. When Torquemada arrived at the White House gate,
black ministers--many of whose church services are broadcast on
radio--unleashed a torrent of appeals on Clinton's behalf. Faced with a surge
among its constituents, the Congressional Black Caucus scrambled to the front
of the parade.
Clinton's church visits were more than singing and chicken
dinners. He delivered his toughest talks on welfare from church pulpits. He
realized intuitively what many Democrats and the Republicans have always failed
to see: that the black middle class is prime conservative timber--angry about
crime, intolerant of social pathology, and deeply scornful of the traditional
welfare system. Given how this strategy paid off--pleasing both conservative
whites and the black middle class--Republicans like George W. Bush will surely
duplicate it in 2000.
Black people, particularly
black Southerners, have endured political contempt for so long that many of
them have come to assume that any white person who treats them with respect
must somehow be black under the skin. But the claim that Clinton has a "black"
way of being not only goes too far but is also sociologically imprecise.
Clinton is a Southerner, like his hero Elvis; what that means is that they both
grew up close to black people, with open access to black culture, a lot of
which is synonymous with American pop culture. The Baptist churches in the
South were segregated--but they sang the same hymns and preached the same
sermons. Given that all African-Americans have Southern roots, Clinton's
personal style and patterns travel easily from one black community to another.
In short, he is more comfortable in a room of black faces than any American
president before him. This is what Toni Morrison and others were trying to say
when they described him as "black."
