Race and the McCain Campaign

What the McCain campaign is doing with race sickens me...all the more so because I think it's working. The men and women working for both campaigns (but especially the McCain campaign which has lots of veterans of the Bush years) are experienced professionals. These are people whose job it is to understand the effects ideas, words, and images will have on the American voting public. So if you think there was one trace of innocence and naivety in McCain's recent accusation of Obama playing the "race card" or his commercial featuring Obama interspersed with images of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, think again. For all the progress America has made since the 1960s, there is still racism remaining. But that racism has morphed, from the white superiority movement of the 1960s, to a feeling of anger at African Americans, who many perceive are the beneficiaries of undue advantages in job-hirings, school admissions, etc, and are simultaneously the causes of much of urban blight and crime. If you ask the average American man or woman whether whites are superior to blacks, I think the answer you will get is a resounding no. However, if you put a white family in a black neighborhood, those car doors are going to be locked, and if you show a white man, a black student in an elite school or institution you can bet there's going to be whispers of affirmative action. It's for this reason that some Black leaders (Shelby Steele for example, have argued against affirmative action in general.) The McCain campaign officials, aware of this underlying resentment, are willing to capitalize it for political gain. There are no accidents of the campaign trail of the 21st century, only hidden motives, dirty politics, and the willingness to create disunity and dishonor for political victory.