Racism and the Election

Earlier this year a number of organizations joined together to form the 2004 Racism Watch project to draw attention to racism in this year's Presidential elections. The organizations, representing a wide range of constituencies and interests, vow to expose candidates that resort to racist imagery and policies to get elected, a practice with a long history in American politics.

Racism within U.S. institutions, law and culture is deeply imbedded in the history and reality of the United States going back to the 17th century. And we still have a long way to go. We can see that by what is being said and not being said during the current Democratic and Republican Presidential campaigns.

President George W. Bush acts as if everything is just fine, and we all love each other in this wonderful land of hope and opportunity united against the evil terrorists. Democratic Presidential hopeful John Kerry, on the other hand, does talk about affirmative action, black voter disenfranchisement, the idea of "two Americas" and possibly other racial justice issues, but from the reports I've heard, only before black audiences.

But race and racism may become a more public part of the debate before Election Day. There are reports that the Bush campaign is preparing a TV commercial using statements of Rev. Al Sharpton as a foil to undercut Kerry. And Kerry, under pressure from black Democrats, may see the need to take stronger public positions on racial justice.

There is a sordid history going back to 1968 of the two major parties consciously using racism during Presidential campaigns. It was in 1968, with the dramatic spread of the black freedom movement all over the country and uprisings in the cities, and with the emergence of George Wallace running an overtly racist American Independent Party campaign, that the Richard Nixon campaign made a conscious decision to completely abandon the Republican Party's anti-slavery roots.

As recently as 1956 Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower had received the support of 39% of the African American electorate, and, in the words of scholar Manning Marable, "at the time there was a strong liberal wing pressuring the White House to take bolder steps on racial policy." But 12 years later the major issues for Nixon were "law and order," getting "welfare bums" off the dole, and opposition to school desegregation through busing.

The Democrats were "better," but far from good. Clearly responding to Nixon's landslide re-election victory in 1972 against liberal George McGovern, the Democrats nominated Georgia governor Jimmy Carter in 1976. Among the controversial statements made by Carter during his campaign was his use of the phrase "ethnic purity" to describe white enclaves and neighborhood schools. He also used the phrases "alien groups," "black intrusion" and "interjecting into a community a member of another race." The Democrats learned to use racism in order to compete for white votes at the polls.

Ever since, a pattern has been followed regardless who the two parties put forward as candidates. The Republicans are out front with their racial demagoguery to the extent necessary for them to win, as in the use of the infamous 'Willie Horton' ad in 1988. The Democrats are weak in their responses or, in some cases, outright copycats. Bill Clinton, for example, in the words of author Kenneth O'Reilly, "calculated that he could not win in 1992 unless he [publicly criticized] Sister Souljah to bait Jesse Jackson [at a Rainbow Coalition conference], put a black chain gang in a crime control ad, golfed at a segregated club with a TV camera crew in tow, and allowed that search for a serviceable vein in [retarded, African American, death row inmate] Rickey Ray Rector's arm."

This history is what brought the 2004 Racism Watch project together. The coalition of groups are committed to draw attention to the expected use of race baiting in the election this year, while working to mobilize a strong progressive vote in communities of color and to defend the right to vote against expected attacks.