Clinton, Nagin sink low to stir up votes



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.



This story appeared in print on page F03_OPED


Comments are currently unavailable on this article

▲ Return to Top