Month: July 2008

Clearing The Bar

by Chris Bodenner
In response to my post on McCain opposing affirmative action, a conservative blogger wrote:

[McCain] has now realized that if anything it is white men, not women and minorities, who are discriminated against.  Nevertheless, he isn’t setting up any affirmative action programs for us—he’s just restoring a level playing field.  I think we can all agree that all the old injustices and inequalities have disappeared. This is another instance of ‘tough love.’
…
If Obama is elected, will he prove that African-Americans are now on an equal par with white Americans and can be assumed to have no disadvantages?  If so, that’s a point in his favor. How can all those kids growing up in ghettoes claim to be at any disadvantage any longer if America elects an African-American president? …  If we could eliminate all this talk about racial inequality, it would be much easier for white men to get jobs.

His take is unfortunate on so many levels.  First, the primary motivation for ending racial preferences should be the advancement of minorities — by restoring personal agency, raising expectations, cooling racial resentment, avoiding the stigmatization of AA in the minds of many.  If race-based AA were replaced by class-based AA, perhaps the country could lower racial strife and still provide help primarily to African Americans (who are disproportionately poorer because of centuries of institutional racism).

Second, the idea that "all the old injustices and inequalities have disappeared" is absurd.  Structural inequalities formed by hundreds of years of slavery and segregation don’t disappear in a generation or two, and there will always be some lingering racism.  But with legal discrimination in the U.S. now abolished, and with a general sentiment of goodwill towards racial opportunity in mainstream America, the question is whether those inequalities are insurmountable without lowering the bar.  While Obama is still vague as to whether the answer is "yes," he is unequivocal about the end of widespread, institutional racism:

[The views of Rev. Wright] expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America. … As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

The right-wing blogger asks, "How can all those kids growing up in ghettoes [sic] claim to be at any disadvantage any longer if America elects an African-American president?"  This dim line of reasoning is similar to the one examined in a recent CNN report, "Could an Obama presidency hurt black Americans?" The article (which was brilliantly lampooned by Larry Wilmore of The Daily Show) suggests that white America will see an Obama presidency as an excuse to ignore racial inequality. While some people like the blogger may do so, the innumerable dividends of a black president would far outweigh them.

Lastly, the right-wing blogger is hoping an end to racial preferences will make it "much easier for white men to get jobs." While equal treatment is a high virtue, the main concern with affirmative action shouldn’t be the plight of the white man, but whether AA actually hurts the people it was formed to help.   

As a side note, I always find it interesting when right-wing Republicans extol "tough love" without seeing the irony of their own kind of patriotism.  They rail against liberals like Obama for being critical of U.S. foreign policy, addressing it’s historical sins, or talking about America in any way except blind, pampered patriotism. Obama’s "more perfect union" patriotism is the real tough-love patriotism.

(Peter Beinart wrote a brilliant piece last month about the philosophical divide between liberals and conservatives on patriotism.)

The Rest Is Detail

By Patrick Appel
Marc’s take on the candidates’ Iraq convergence:

It’s been an article of faith among some analysts that the two candidate’s prescriptions for Iraq would converge, and now they have. Obama’s residual force size depends on conditions. McCain’s comfort with a 16 month timeline depends on conditions. Good news: American policymakers basically agree on what to do. So instead of who is right — really, that’s a matter of pride — the question really becomes: whom do you want as commander in chief as U.S. troops withdraw?

McCain’s Challenge

by Chris Bodenner
McCain just endorsed an anti-affirmative-action referendum in his home state of Arizona. ABC reports:

"I support it," McCain declared when asked about the referendum. "I do not believe in quotas… I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I’ve always opposed quotas." McCain has long opposed quotas but his new support for ending affirmative action programs which stop short of quotas puts him at odds not only with Democratic rival Barack Obama but also with the Arizona senator’s own views in 1998. Back then, when the legislature in McCain’s home state of Arizona considered sending the voters a measure to end affirmative action, McCain spoke out against it calling it "divisive."

Charges of flip-floppery aside, I think this could be a big opportunity — or liability — for Obama.  Though he’s long supported affirmative action, his campaign has signaled that he’s open to the idea of replacing race-based AA with class-based AA.  In an ABC interview last year, Obama said AA should be a "diminishing tool" for achieving racial equality. In his Philadelphia speech, which was framed around working-class racial solidarity, he specifically acknowledged the "anger" and "resentment" AA has caused.  If he were to call McCain’s bluff and come out in support of phasing out racial and gender preferences, Obama could erase a potential wedge issue for the fall. But his response today was less than encouraging:

"I think in the past [McCain] had been opposed to these kinds of Ward Connerly referenda or initiatives as divisive. And I think he’s right. You know, the truth of the matter is, these are not designed to solve a big problem, but they’re all too often designed to drive a wedge between people."

But hasn’t he acknowledged that AA itself is divisive?  It probably wouldn’t be tactful for Obama to backtrack on his opposition to Connerly’s initiatives, but Obama could respond by making some sort of grand gesture in favor of reforming AA.  I’ve always thought that Obama, with his symbolic story and "Yes We Can!" rhetoric, will be the president to end racial preferences (a policy that has to end at some point, whether you support it or not).  Who else would have the political and moral capital to do so?

What About The Bribes?

by Chris Bodenner
During the past week’s debate over what should be credited for lower U.S. casualties in Iraq (the surge of 30K additional troops, the Anbar Awakening, MacFarland’s clear/hold/build strategy, etc.), there was little discussion about the U.S. policy of bribing Sunni leaders to tamp down violence.  I’ve asked my foreign-policy friends about the current scale of such bribery and its impact on the decreased violence, but they shed little light.  Among the few pundits who did broach the subject this week were Wes Clark and Juan Cole.  The latter wrote:

Proponents are awfully hard to pin down on what the "surge" consisted of or when it began. It seems to me to refer to the troop escalation that began in February, 2007. But now the technique of bribing Sunni Arab former insurgents to fight radical Sunni vigilantes is being rolled into the "surge" by politicians such as John McCain. But attempts to pay off the Sunnis to quiet down began months before the troop escalation and had a dramatic effect in al-Anbar Province long before any extra US troops were sent to al-Anbar (nor were very many extra troops ever sent there). I will disallow it. The "surge" is the troop escalation beginning winter of 2007. The bribing of insurgents to come into the cold could have been pursued without a significant troop escalation, and was.

Beyond the question of how the bribery’s impact could be clouding the debate over McCain’s judgment on the surge, how much of a wild card will these bribes be when the U.S. pulls out of Iraq?  I imagine bribes can be a smart, short-term tactic to elicit the support of undesirables.  But over the long term, regular payments seem like a cure for the symptoms of unrest, not the underlying disease.  If insurgents are suddenly yanked off the dole, how much will violence flare up again?  And will those funds come back to bite us if they’re used for weapons against our troops or allies?

The Internet Aesthetic

Cars
By Patrick Appel
Artist Ian Cook uses RC cars to make paintings of other cars. Here is what the artist has to say:

"I wanted to be an artist from a young age and decided that to be successful I needed something completely unique," said Ian. "I’ve always been mad about anything with wheels and I figured that using cars to paint cars would capture peoples’ imaginations, so I experimented at home by driving some remote control models through paint."

Cook’s artwork strikes me as representative of a lot of the art making it’s way around the web. I’ve been trying to understand how and why art on the Internet varies from art in galleries. Artwork that succeeds on the net is usually strange, clever, humorous, or technically stunning. But cheap visual tricks or processes are often rewarded to the same degree as well reasoned and thoughtful work. Though I’m not convinced this is necessarily a bad thing, pondering the Internet aesthetic (perhaps best encapsulated by a blog like BoingBoing) makes me wonder about how the Internet will impact the greater art world as the web becomes increasingly dominant as a cultural force.