From the ArcaMax Publishing, Richard Cohen Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/richardcohen/s-340297-924896
George Bernard Shaw said England and America were two countries
separated by a common language. White and black Americans are in a
similar fix. Statements that one considers innocuous, the other can
consider offensive. Things have gotten to the point where Bill
Clinton, a president once adored by African-Americans, is now being
accused of racially insensitive statements. Shaw would understand.
It's not necessarily what was said, it's the way it was heard.
To my (racially) tin ear, little that either Bill or Hillary Clinton
have said this election season sounded ugly. These included the
remarks that seemed to have started it all -- Hillary Clinton's
crushingly banal observation that for all that Martin Luther King Jr.
did, it took Lyndon Johnson's presidency to enact a monumental civil
rights act. The context was clearly her contention that despite Barack
Obama's soaring rhetoric, it took good old experience (like hers) to
get the job done. Who could possibly object to that?
Lots of people, it turned out, many of them African-American. Obama
himself called the remark "unfortunate." My own ears heard nothing
untoward and when I mentioned that to an African-American colleague,
he said -- to my utter surprise -- that he initially took the remark
as a swipe at King. I was flabbergasted. Who would take a swipe at
King? A Democratic presidential candidate would have to be criminally
insane to do such a thing.
It hardly seemed possible, but things went downhill from there. Bill
Clinton suggested that Obama's victory in South Carolina was akin to
Jesse Jackson's, lo these many years ago. Kapow!, as they used to say
in the comic books. Again, allegations of insensitivity and/or racial
provocation. I confess I heard something different, but this time I
appreciated the complaint -- an alleged attempt to racially pigeonhole
Obama. The former president may have meant no such thing but in
Obamaland, Bill Clinton is widely believed to always know precisely
what he is saying -- too cunning a politician not to always know the
impact of his words. Maybe so, but his recent record or bloopers,
errors and rhetorical pratfalls suggests otherwise.
The grievance concerning Bill Clinton was enunciated last week by Rep.
James Clyburn, D-S.C., a senior African-American legislator not known
for extremist statements. He called Clinton's remarks "bizarre" and
said that even back in January, he "thought the president was saying
things that would anger black voters and he should chill out." What
Clyburn might be suggesting is not that Clinton himself had picked up
some racist bug but, like some sort of political Typhoid Mary, he was
spreading a disease to which he himself is immune.
This is what is believed by adherents of the
Clintons-will-do-anything-to-win school of thought. I myself have some
doubts. The Clintons will do almost anything, but not something that
will stain their immortal political soul. They have to know that
running a racially tinged campaign would give both of them a
historical asterisk that will dog them into posterity.
Years ago, Georgetown University linguist Deborah Tannen wrote a
best-seller, "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in
Conversation." Its thesis was that men and women employ the same
language but, somehow, hear it differently. George and Ira Gershwin
put it somewhat differently: "You like tomayto and I like tomahto" in
their "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Tannen made her point with
acute observations. The Gershwins did it with Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers dancing on roller skates.
What is true for men and woman is just as true for blacks and whites
and, probably, minorities of all kinds (recall the Woody Allen
character in Annie Hall who mishears the word "Jew" when a passerby is
saying, "Did you?"). The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor,
seemed to make precisely that point in his speech to the NAACP in
Detroit. "The black religious tradition is different," he said. "We do
it a different way." That "way," as he now knows, made for an awful
sound bite.
Barring some unforeseen event, Barack Obama will be the nominee of the
Democratic Party. That being the case -- and also as long as the
nomination fight continues -- race will be an issue, stated or not, in
the presidential campaign. For that reason, it's incumbent on Clinton,
Obama and, of course, John McCain to not only watch their language but
-- maybe more important -- to watch their reaction to the language of
others. We could be on the verge of a great moment of racial
acceptance. It sometimes seems that only our common language stands in
the way.
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Richard Cohen's e-mail address is cohenr@washpost.com