About two weeks ago, a news producer for one of the television stations in Sacramento called to ask me, “Will Barack Obama be our first black president?” I didn’t write about this at the time, because I was a bit freaked out and didn’t want to make sport of someone I don’t know. But the time has come to tell the story.
I was taken aback by the question itself, I have to admit. I first sputtered something like, “Um, it’s too soon to know.” And then I gathered myself and launched into a minutes-long discussion of race as a social construction, focusing especially on the Phipps case and Omi and Winant’s ideas about racial formation. I elevated the discourse, in other words. And I was in rare form, offering a rock-solid lecture to a keen audience of one. It was gripping. Producer Man (PM) was gripped.
So gripped that he didn’t say a word until I paused for breath. Then PM interjected, “No, I mean, hasn’t there already been a black president? I mean hasn’t there been a president with black blood.” I started hemming and hawing: “Oh, black blood, well, hmm.” Until, finally, I said, “I don’t mean to be rude. Really, I don’t. But where did you say you’re calling from? Because you sound like a white supremacist, talking about blood purity.” And that really took him aback. He was no longer enthralled by the subtlety of my disqusition. “No,” he sputtered, “I’m not white [well, okay then]. I’m just saying that Obama has black blood. But he’s not the first, right? He won’t be the first black president?” “That’s all I’m saying,” he added rather more angrily than I considered necessary. To which I inquired, “You’re talking about Clinton?” “Nope,” came his answer, “I mean Harding. Didn’t Harding have black blood?”
I caught my breath, laughed, and said, “Dude, Harding was white. That rumor was a smear used by his political opponents. There wasn’t any truth to it.” And that was that. Or so I thought. But then I started wondering. Not if Harding was African-American. But where the stories to that effect had originated. John Dean (yes, that John Dean), in his biography of Harding, notes that rumors of African-American ancestry swirled around Warren G. (as his homeys called him) during his childhood. Later, Harding’s father-in-law, desperate to break up his daugter’s relationship with young Warren, amplified the charges. And finally, Harding’s political oppononents did run with the lies, including during Harding’s campaign for the presidency.
So, here’s the thing: last night, in the wake of Obama’s huge victory in Wisconsin, the great Ogged of the great Unfogged wondered: “One question now is what else the Clinton’s will try to use against Obama, or whether they have something up their sleeve for the debates?” I have no idea what the answer to that might be. But I do know that if Obama is the nominee — we still aren’t there yet — we’re going to start hearing a lot more questions like PM’s: supposedly innocuous queries about the man’s racial identity, often with a subtext of whether he “shares our values.”
And don’t look now, but the great Katherine points out that it’s already happening. Over at National Review Online’s squalid gossip rag, the corner, super-classy Lisa Schiffren is wondering about “Obama’s Political Origins.” You see, it’s not really about race at all. She just want to know why Obama’s white mother would have had sex with his father, a black man. And the answer? Communism! Simple. Honestly, that’s her argument. White women, in Schiffren’s experience, didn’t make babies with black men unless there was a reason, usually politics, especially radical politics:
Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.
Let’s be clear about two things. First, Schiffren’s still in touch with some of the “mixed race” people who grew up in her ‘hood. Make no mistake about it: some of her friends are beige. And second, she talks to these people even though the unions that created them weren’t “natural.” In short, she’s an open-minded person with “mixed race” friends, unnatural friends to be sure, but friends nevertheless. Well, she doesn’t actually allow that they’re her friends. But she’s in touch with them. Which is nice. You could even say it’s mighty white of her. But that might be gratuitous.
Beyond that, after admitting that she has no idea how Obama’s parents actually met, Schiffren points to another article, from the fair and balanced site, Accuracy in Media, noting that, in Hawaii, the Obamas “had close relations with a known black Communist intellectual.” Then, after explaining that the Commie in question, Frank Marshall Davis, “mentored” Barack Obama in some way, Schiffren arrives here:
Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise about how Senator Obama’s mother, from Kansas, came to marry an African graduate student. Love? Sure, why not? But what else was going on around them that made it feasible?
And here:
It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution.
Before finishing up with a flourish:
Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.
Let the games begin. Oh, and I got another phone message from PM this morning. It seems that he wants to talk again. Maybe because I was so helpful the last time. It almost makes me feel bad for Warren Harding. Not that there’s anything wrong with having “black blood.” But a black Communist? Now that’s worth investigating.
[Update: Reading Henry at Crooked Timber, I realize that Belle Waring has posted on this already. Which offers me the chance to reiterate that I heart Belle Waring. But not in a creepy way. At all. Really. And Crooked Timber’s okay, too.]
67 comments
February 20, 2008 at 12:19 pm
The Velvet Howler › Blog Archive › Lisa Schiffren: Worst Person of the Day
[…] a better analysis, check out Edge of the American West’s post. If you choose to read the original Schiffren article, I would suggest keeping Stuff White People […]
February 20, 2008 at 12:29 pm
asl
Now that Obama is arguably the presumptive Democratic nominee, we’ll see racists crawling over the place like the zombies they are. But people already know Obama is black. His wife black. His children black.
Is anyone decided to support Obama going to care if Harding had black blood which would make Obama the second black president. Or if Obama’s parents met when mixed-race couples were stigmatized, and maybe even communist!
Before you ask how many people would believe these ridiculous racist allegations, you have to ask how many people would care even if they were true.
February 20, 2008 at 12:34 pm
asl
Question marks are hard.
Is anyone decided to support Obama going to care if Harding had black blood which would make Obama the second black president? Or if Obama’s parents met when mixed-race couples were stigmatized, and maybe even communist?!
February 20, 2008 at 12:35 pm
AWC
In the 1950s, segregationists similarly alleged that Eisenhower had black and/or Jewish forebears.
Oddly enough, some Afrocentric _black_ historians adopted this reasoning during the same period. In 1965, Joel A. Rogers wrote _The Five Negro Presidents_, suggesting that Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding, and Eisenhower all had “black blood.” While Rogers may have been mistaken about this and many things, his mission was to question the existence of color purity and indeed the notion of race itself. So your PM’s perspective doesn’t necessarily lead to supremacist conclusions.
February 20, 2008 at 12:53 pm
grandmofftexan
As I mentioned at crookedtimber, this means four or eight years of rat-wang racists marching out of the closet and into the bug-zapper.
As hurtful as it may be to some, I’m going to enjoy this. It’s going to be impossible any longer to hide the racist substructure of the American right, impossible to talk about a “colorblind society.”
.
February 20, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Greg Miller
As hurtful as it may be to some, I’m going to enjoy this. It’s going to be impossible any longer to hide the racist substructure of the American right, impossible to talk about a “colorblind society.”
I couldn’t agree more. The National Review is, of course, the perfect vehicle for this, since Buckley and associates started the rag defending the Klan and massive resistance of white southerners in the name of order and states rights.
Not that this is in anyway related to this post, but when is any reporter gonna ask St. McCain about his association with Charles Keating?
February 20, 2008 at 1:48 pm
urbino
Does everything at Buckleyville always come down to race and Communism? I mean, seriously, didn’t they get the memo that voting rights passed, and the Soviets lost?
OTOH, I suppose Schiffren could’ve done worse. When you start by asking why a white woman had sex with a black man (voluntarily, and everything!), there’s a good chance your answer is going to go there.
I suppose that would’ve been unserious. As opposed to, you know, her actual answer.
February 20, 2008 at 1:54 pm
ari
If find the good people at National Review refreshingly consistent. Segregation Then, Segregation Now, Segregation Forever!*
* A paraphrase.
February 20, 2008 at 1:54 pm
PorJ
In all fairness, you should point out that Schiffren got slammed on her own blog for the ridiculous post. It is as stupid as it looks, even to some in the National Review crowd.
February 20, 2008 at 1:56 pm
eric
voting rights passed, and the Soviets lost
But so much can be undone, with time and effort.
February 20, 2008 at 1:56 pm
urbino
Lurking Communists Then, Lurking Communists Now…
February 20, 2008 at 2:05 pm
ari
Thanks, PorJ, that’s helpful. Because, as I noted in the post, I found the Schiffren piece through the comments section at another blog I frequent.
February 20, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Anacher Forester
If you believe in evolution, archeology and science in general then we all have “black blood” in our veins. Frankly I wish I had more of it. I’m a little too white for my own good.
-AF
February 20, 2008 at 2:07 pm
urbino
But so much can be undone, with time and effort.
True. But for Schiffren to bring that notion into this conversation to excuse continuing to fight long-past battles, she has to give up the conceit that she’s just analyzing a campaign, not re-voicing the old, “The dark people are subverting the country!” racism.
February 20, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Vance Maverick
What, Ari, you don’t read The Corner regularly??
This stuff is so depressing. Hip putdowns of white people (like Stuff White People Like, or Anacher Forester’s comment above, are nearly as depressing, though obviously not serious in their effects.
I hope you have the stomach to keep responding to Producer Man. I can see that it might be tempting to go nuclear, e.g. by remembering some other times and places when it was important to count fractions of “blood”….but then your comment probably wouldn’t make it through the editorial process.
February 20, 2008 at 2:37 pm
ari
Honestly, Vance, I have the sense that I should read the Corner or Redstate or Volokh more regularly than I do. And I try to take a look at one or the other on a daily (more like semi-daily) basis. But I fail as often as I succeed. When I do visit those sites, I never look at the comments. Because that’s where the free-range crazy can get a bit overwhelming. Just like here! You see, there are no red state or blue states, there are just the United States of America. Or something like that.
February 20, 2008 at 2:49 pm
urbino
Clearly, Warren G. did have some black blood.
February 20, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Jamie T.
Wow, someone says the racists will start rearing their heads and Bill O’Reilly goes and drops a ‘lynch party’ reference on Michelle Obama. The political discourse is devolving back to 1920.
February 20, 2008 at 4:08 pm
charlieford
I like her implication that his parents’ politics is relevant to Obama himself. I recall Joe McCarthy persecuted an army private because his father subscribed to a “communist” magazine. Old habits die hard, I guess.
February 20, 2008 at 4:11 pm
urbino
Of course, according to the Review, McCarthy was right. He’s a habit they don’t want to kick.
February 20, 2008 at 5:59 pm
kenmeer livermaile
I’m waiting for bumper stickers saying things like: MCCAIN: THE DARK WHITE MEAT.
February 20, 2008 at 6:18 pm
charlieford
urbino, good reminder. Outside the asylum, it’s the commonest of common sense that if even Ike despised McCarthy, he was clearly a con-man and sheister. But how do they defend him? As far as I know, he never uncovered a single actual communist agent. Or am I wrong?
February 20, 2008 at 6:55 pm
urbino
Ask, and ye shall receive.
February 20, 2008 at 7:55 pm
andrew
If I remember the Bedford series book on Plessy v. Ferguson correctly, Homer Plessy was – if one were to insist on using percentages or fractions – 7/8 white and had a reasonable chance of passing as white. But he and his allies arranged for him to be arrested in the whites-only car and one of their goals was to challenge not just segregation, but the idea of race being determined by blood proportions. No doubt this strategy was planned out by a Soviet Communist time travel advance team.
Also: This film is historically, if not all that artistically, interesting.
February 20, 2008 at 8:09 pm
ari
I see books like that, Urbino, or the Shlaes book on the New Deal, or Malkin on internment, and I can’t help but consider the filthy lucre I could pull in by writing craptastic revisionist nonsense based on cherrypicked evidence and outright lies.
I think I could produce an “engrossing” biography of Nixon, clarifying the great man’s love of democracy and kittens. Or maybe it’s time to rehabilitate Bull Connor, who was actually a staunch advocate of civil rights and a friend of the black man (no soft bigotry of low expectations for old Eugene). Come to think of it, Ulrich Phillips had it right: slavery was terrific, the field hands were never happier than when they were picking cotton, and freedom put frowns on their faces. So: Up With Slavery!
I suppose the question is, what kind of advances are these people getting? And how much, exactly, is my soul worth?
February 20, 2008 at 8:19 pm
charlieford
M. Stanton Evans, of the Intercollegiate Review and editor of the Indianapolis Star. Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
February 20, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The Constructivist
Somebody oughtta tell Ishmael Reed. Or maybe he’s just having fun with that thing in Mumbo Jumbo. Is Obama Jes Grew? Is McCain an Atonist? I judge my political candidates by fictional conspiracy theories, myself!
On a factual note–with all that implies–what about Alexander Hamilton? Did he have ancestors who would have been considered at the time to be or identified as…?
February 20, 2008 at 8:56 pm
teofilo
On a factual note–with all that implies–what about Alexander Hamilton? Did he have ancestors who would have been considered at the time to be or identified as…?
There were rumors at the time, and the belief that he did is apparently common in the Caribbean to this day, but according to Chernow there’s no real evidence for it.
February 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm
rootlesscosmo
Ari: combining this temptation with the recent Neglected Figures thread, I nominate for rehabilitation the late Leander Perez of Plaquemines Parish, LA, whom I saw on TV referring to “We Shall Overcome” as “the international Communist hate anthem.”
February 20, 2008 at 9:02 pm
urbino
But. But. But he did 6 years of research, and if that doesn’t prove something, I don’t know what does.
I can’t help but consider the filthy lucre I could pull in by writing craptastic revisionist nonsense
I hear you. I could do the same, writing explanations for how this whole “separation of church and state” thing was actually invented by the Salem witches, with help from Charles Darwin’s closeted lesbian ancestress. (I think that’s the only explanation David Barton hasn’t covered, yet.)
Say what you will about deeply inculturated conservatives, they do have money to spend. Oodles of folks are making tidy nest eggs selling them all manner of conservative-affirming bric-a-brac.
After all — and I’m not kidding — whole conservative worlds have to be created; that includes books (on every subject at hand, plus fiction), music, tv, radio programming (from talk radio to Paul Harvey to Contemporary Christan), magazines, websites, documentaries, anthropologies, psychologies (J. Dobson’s first calling), cosmogonies, whole educational curricula, schools and colleges (I’m an alum of several), etc., so forth, and so on. You can very easily go from cradle to grave without ever encountering in any real way, much less engaging, any non-conservative thought, and scads (perhaps millions) do.
It is an entire alternate universe, and I’m not sure the one this blog, its authors and readers, and, hopefully, yours truly inhabit has really comprehended that, yet.
February 20, 2008 at 9:06 pm
urbino
My stuttering opening was aimed at charlieford 8:19.
Where did all you other people come from, all of a sudden? Did a meeting just let out?
February 20, 2008 at 9:37 pm
andrew
This reminds me that I was going to try to come up with an answer to
back when I started that blog I’m neglecting. Maybe I still will. (But it might not be for a few weeks; also, I don’t quite remember the answer I was in the process of developing.)
February 20, 2008 at 10:11 pm
eric
Speaking of Keating, someone at the NYT remembers. I wonder what page this runs on?
February 20, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Vance Maverick
A1 (link won’t last). I share Josh Marshall’s perplexity.
February 21, 2008 at 6:38 am
charlieford
Speaking of David Barton, I have a (fantastic) student who begged me to let her buy me one of his books (or cds, or videos) and to study it. I told her I’d read one of his books if she’d read an equal number of pages of things I gave her (I think I’ll rely on primary documents, perhaps those Barton refers to) and if we can get together and talk about it. Due to some pressing commitments of a committee kind that have suddenly exploded (ah, General Studies, what a lovely field for hairbrained pedagogical schemes thou art!) we haven’t started yet. Anyone have any experience with this kind of intellectual mentoring?
February 21, 2008 at 6:53 am
Dave Snyder
charlieford,
Check out Ed Brayton’s blog, “Dispatches from the Culture Wars” (hosted by scienceblogs) for extended discussions about Barton. Very good stuff there. Think he has archived sections.
February 21, 2008 at 7:19 am
charlieford
Thank you Dave. (Btw, Eric and Ari, have you thought about a forum or something, where folk could inquire of one another about books, videos, issues of teaching, etc? Or is there a place where that’s done already elsewhere?)
February 21, 2008 at 8:47 am
eric
have you thought about a forum
You mean, other than the comments section? I think if you ask here, you’re quite likely to get a good answer. If you don’t, email me or Ari and we can post your question on the front page.
We’re limited to how much we can customize this, as we run it off WordPress.com, which by design offers only a few options, so as to keep it stable. It is free, though.
February 21, 2008 at 8:52 am
urbino
Anyone have any experience with this kind of intellectual mentoring?
A little, but not in the same context. FWIW, I think you’re taking exactly the right approach, in sending her to the primary sources that Barton mischaracterizes and/or selectively quotes. It both informs her historically, and shows Barton for what he is.
February 21, 2008 at 11:06 am
charlieford
Okey-doke. Thanks. There are times one has a question that arises tangentially from a discussion, such as here, and one would usually prefer not to clutter the comments with off-topic or unrelated stuff. But I understand the technology imposes certain limitations.
February 21, 2008 at 11:47 am
ari
We’re all for off-topic questions. Really, scattered is good. Within reason, I suppose.
February 21, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Cala
I’m still trying to figure out how this could have been a plot to stir up discontent American blacks when his father was Kenyan and they were living overseas.
February 21, 2008 at 2:11 pm
ari
If you try and make sense of the argument, the terrorists win. Duh.
February 21, 2008 at 4:50 pm
urbino
Yeah, Cala. Why do you hate America so much?
February 22, 2008 at 1:21 pm
PorJ
Does this qualify as an apology from Schiffren? (“In particular, I overstated the connection between hard-Left politics and interracial marriage in the early 1960s, which I regret.”) If so, its pretty lame….
February 22, 2008 at 2:19 pm
ari
So lame as to be insulting. That sort of non-apology apology is pretty silly. I understand its uses in politics; in “journalism” not so much.
February 29, 2008 at 2:07 pm
John Huerta
Obama is no Commie at all,But Hillary Clinton is,especially when she Defended Her Iraq Vote to go to war while at the Same time She opposed The War,that to Me sounds like a Candidate of Confusion representing The “Femocrats” i think that a Candidate who runs like that Dosen’t Deserve to be President.
February 29, 2008 at 2:11 pm
charlieford
Commenters who write like that don’t deserve to be present.
February 29, 2008 at 2:18 pm
silbey
But He Clearly Has Something Important To Say, As Evidenced By All The Capital Letters.
February 29, 2008 at 2:27 pm
bitchphd
If there were a third party called the Femocrats I would so totally vote for them.
February 29, 2008 at 2:33 pm
ari
We could start one.
February 29, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Vance Maverick
What do you mean, “we”?
February 29, 2008 at 2:36 pm
ari
I know you’re an anti-Semite. But are you saying you hate women as well? Because, if so, I’ll have to renounce and reject your support here and now.
February 29, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Vance Maverick
I would certainly support such a party. But how could I (or you) found or even join it?
February 29, 2008 at 2:41 pm
eric
What if you spelled it “Femme-ocrats”? Would that help you join, Vance?
February 29, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Vance Maverick
Sign me right up! These mainstream parties are so tediously butch.
February 29, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Vance Maverick
See also.
February 29, 2008 at 2:47 pm
eric
See also.
Yikes.
February 29, 2008 at 2:58 pm
bitchphd
how could I (or you) found or even join it?
Well, the chicks have been backing the guys for a long long time now. I don’t see why y’all couldn’t repay us for a while.
February 29, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Vance Maverick
I, for one, welcome our new * overlords.
February 29, 2008 at 3:43 pm
ari
The only position for a man in the Femocrat Party is prone.
February 29, 2008 at 5:09 pm
eric
I’m failing to find a way to say I find that funny that doesn’t disgust me.
February 29, 2008 at 5:17 pm
ari
You flatter me.
March 3, 2008 at 8:58 am
John Huerta
In your article on Barack Obama”First Black Communist President”I Don’t Believe you one Bit that Barack Obama nor His Father were Communists at all This is a distortion of Barack Obama’s record,even more I hope that Hillary Clinotn nor John McCain would ever believe you Guys because What you are doing is McCarthyite tactics and I Don’t like it.
March 3, 2008 at 9:15 am
ari
John, I was kidding, being ironic, highlighting a loony attempt to paint Obama as a Communist. Also: we’ve moved your comment from where you put it to this spot, where it makes sense.
March 3, 2008 at 9:19 am
charlieford
“McCarthyite”? Oh, right–as in Charley McCarthy. Absolutely. Hey, while Mr. Huerta’s adjusting his tin-foil-hat, can I just make a confession of my own? I look forward to the day when computers will be outfitted with something like those breathalizers that keep the intoxicated from starting their vehicles. You know, key-pads that can determine if you need your meds adjusted before they’ll let you write? Just a thought.
April 8, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Most underrated president? « The Edge of the American West
[…] asks: who’s the most underrated American president? His answer? Warren Harding, about whom we’ve already talked. My answer? Let me get back to you. Wait, how about John Quincy Adams? Or maybe Bill Clinton? On […]