Race After Obama: Redefining the Issue to Make Solutions Possible. By Daniel Henninger
http://www.wsj.com/articles/daniel-henninger-race-after-obama-1427324959?mod=hp_opinion
Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz took it in the neck from all sides for asking his baristas to chat up half-awake customers about race in America. Mr. Schultz, however, is merely one voice in the conversation on race, which since the Ferguson shooting and Selma’s 50th anniversary has settled on American politics like winter in the East, harsh and unending.
While much of it is predictable or discouraging, others are trying something really new—a positive point of view. We start with the discouraging words.
The nomination of Loretta Lynch, the black federal prosecutor from the Brooklyn district, has elicited comments about her delayed confirmation vote in the Senate.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar.”
North Carolina’s Rep. G.K. Butterfield, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus: “I think race certainly can be considered a major factor in the delay.”
These two members of Congress are saying some Senate Republicans, five decades after a bipartisan vote passed the Civil Rights Act, are opposed to Loretta Lynch because she is black.
When the president of the United States was asked if race was playing a role in the delayed nomination, Mr. Obama replied, “I don’t know about that.”
Eric Holder said, “My guess is that there is probably not a huge racial component to this.” He added that “this is really just D.C. politics.”
A fair parsing of these comments by the president and attorney general also suggests the possibility of racism among Senate Republicans.
Mr. Obama could have said, “No. I do not believe race is an issue in the Lynch nomination.” Instead he said, “I don’t know about that.”
Mr. Holder could have said it was all about Washington politics. Instead he said the racial component “probably” isn’t “huge.”
Others, whose work doesn’t require them to look at all of American life through the keyhole of politics, have different ideas.
Appearing on “The Daily Show” a few weeks ago, the hip-hop singer and actor Common discussed race relations with Jon Stewart. Common had just won the Academy Award, with John Legend, for the title song to the movie “Selma.”
“We all know racism exists,” he said. Then he said, “Let’s forget about the past as much as we can and let’s move from where we are now. How can we help each other? Can you try to help us because we are going to try to help ourselves, too.”
The popular rapper ASAP Ferg said something along these lines in an interview with National Public Radio last week. Rephrasing ASAP Ferg’s words is a tricky proposition, so the interview itself remains the best source for his thinking on race. He did say he thinks the charge of racism has become a cult: “I think it’s a cult-like thing . . . Because whoever is pushing this agenda of people being racist, they like, ‘Yo. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Yeah. Yeah.’”
In an interview with Oprah last April, music producer Pharrell Williams talked about a “New Black” movement, which he says “doesn’t blame other races for our issues.”
At Vanderbilt University last week, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith said every black person in America should vote Republican in one election: “You [black voters] have labeled yourself ‘disenfranchised’ because one party knows they’ve got you under their thumb. The other party knows they’ll never get you and nobody comes to address your interest.”
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As the Obama presidency ends, the status quo on race is in a bad place.
If media coverage reflects reality (a limitless “if”), the country’s racial polarization is as bad as most people can remember. Ferguson, Staten Island, the Brooklyn cop killings, the Oklahoma fraternity—a visitor from Mars might conclude next to nothing good has happened since Selma. On the surface of politics, the left browbeats the right in a bleak, zero-sum standoff.
In some conservative circles, a school of reduction holds that the black vote is gone and the Hispanic vote is a waste of time. The future lies in reanimating the 1980s voting bloc of Reagan Democrats that Ted Cruz identified his campaign with this week.
But just as there is black opinion talking now about getting past the Sharpton race cult and extending a hand, some of the Republican Party’s presidential candidates are doing the same thing.
Rand Paul,Jeb Bush,Marco Rubio and Chris Christie, in words or with policies (such as Gov. Bush’s early school-choice program), have sought minority support. Gov. Christie has done a lot of town halls in black neighborhoods across New Jersey, and in 2013 got 21% of the state’s black vote. Shaquille O’Neal did commercials for Mr. Christie.
The race issue will remain after the Obama years. Emerging now is a desire to redefine this subject in ways that make it available to solution.
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