Deggans on CNN Sunday Talking Obama's Race Speech

Howie Kurtz must be desperate on an Easter Sunday.

How else to explain the Washington Post media critic's invitation for your truly to join him on his CNN show Reliable Sources at 10 a.m. Sunday to discuss media coverage of Barack Obama's speech on race?

I was unfortunately sidelined by the whole wisdom tooth thing when he actually gave the speech -- though watching it through a haze of Novocaine and Oxycodone was a novel experience -- and in the days since, I've been struck by a few things.

TV, of course, manages to trivialize everything. so it is no surprise that much of the TV coverage I've seen has trivialized this landmark speech. Still, much as I hate to agree with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on anything, I do think he's right when he says this particular issue turns on anger. (Here's a great piece on that issue)

Until now, Obama has found success with many types of white voters by avoiding the Angry Black Man Syndrome. But when I think scares some white people about Obama's ties to Jeremiah Wright isn't the specifics of what he's said -- white and black preachers have said similar things about America since the days of Elmer Gantry. What scared some white voters is Obama link to a typically angry black man.

Until now, Obama has always met talk about race issues with the same kind of cool reserve William F. Buckley brought to discussions of conservative values. This is the communication mode much of America accepts best. It's the way Dick Cheney sold us all on the Iraq War; big ideas presented calmly and with an air of authority.

But Wright is all the things which scare some white voters and anger others. He's aggressive, angry, wild-eyed, full of conspiracy theories about race and loud contempt for the institutional racism which dogs our political system. If you were to bloodlessly list all of his arguments, more folks white and black would likely agree with many of his points. But it's all in the presentation, these days.

Ironically, Hillary Clinton has often suffered from Angry White Woman Syndrome in her run for the White House, disregarded and marginalized by some commentators as emasculating, shrill, shrewish or an example of the b-word because she is a powerful woman expressing opinions powerfully. Now, she's benefiting a bit from seeing that show shoved on Obama's foot.

Given that no one has suggested any of Wright's rhetoric has influenced Obama's policies or initiatives, I'm not sure what all this has to do with the job he'll do as chief executive. Instead, it says much more about our own tangled dysfunctional attitudes on race and anger than anything either Democratic candidate actually stands for.

Watching me try to fit all this commentary into a two-minute segment on CNN is bound to be entertaining. Here's an interesting clip where Chris Wallace actually takes Fox & Friends to task for its unfortunate and distorted discussion of Obama's speech on race.

   

Comments

Or they could ignore how McCain lashed out at Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, only to cozy up to them once he began his campaign.

You remember them - the ones who think homosexuals and Jews caused 9-11 and have damned us to hell.

It's much more fun to talk about Obama's pastor being taken out of context though, I'm sure. Desperate times...

[Oscar]

Of course there are double standards; there are always going to be. If Obama said Iran was helping Al-Quada like McCain did, they would run him out of town. Or if Hillary said the average white person comment it would similarly be over.

Each candidate is going to have to make their own case for the job. Baseing their perceptions on how other people are judged is stupid. This working the refs strategy is lazy.

[Justin]

I think what everyone is forgetting is that "hate speech is hate speech", no matter how you justify it. Listening to people say that this is how pastors in Black churches rouse the congregation and address social injustices is just ludicrous. The pulpit is no place for "GD America" or "USKKKA". More of a circus-like atmosphere, if you ask me. And the ring leader is a hate monger. Let's not color this all rosey and call it what it is...hate speech.
If video clips surfaced of a pastor from a unabashadly self proclaimed Eurocentric church Hillary Clinton or John McCain attended claiming the "Black man is a devil" or "GD Africa", the Black world would be in an uproar and looking for the candidates head. Double standards, plain and simple.

[louise scott]

I was very impressed by your contributions on CNN this morning. Why don't we see more of you?

[Oscar]

The thing that impressed me most about Obama's speech was not what he said, but the fact that he did not shrink from talking about it. When Mitt Romney gave his talk on being a Mormon, and then only mentioned the name of the mormon church one time, he treid to spin his faith. Obama seems like he embraces his heritage, mixed as it is, and is not ashamed.

That pride in his culture and in himself may be the thing that scares off voters and former Republican congressmen now MSNBC hosts more. And that says a lot more about them than Obama.