Affirmative Hope

Rick Kahlenberg has a thoughtful piece in Slate on how Obama could and should repudiate affirmative action based on race, thereby winning over white working-class voters. Rick, among others, seem to believe this is a very real possibility.

I've met Rick in passing, read some of his work, and am friends with one of his former research assistants. I disagree with Rick's attempts to pit race against class vis-a-vis affirmative action, but he is deeply committed to social justice and has contributed enormously to the debate on affirmative action and educational equity.

Yet, at a minimum, Obama seems to at least support affirmative action in response to historical discrimination and at higher education institutions, and I think Rick and others might be misunderstanding Senator Obama's views and rhetoric.

For example, Rick favorably cites Senator Obama's South Carolina victory speech:

So far, at a rhetorical level, Obama has been masterful in favoring a strong civil rights agenda while forcefully rejecting identity politics. In South Carolina, the crowd chanted "race doesn't matter," and Obama thundered: "I did not travel around this state and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina."

Senator Obama is thoughtfully weaving an argument that our lives are mutually intertwined throughout both his speeches--including this one--and his policies. I think we take Senator Obama too literally when he makes this argument however. He is not actually colorblind. I have zero doubt that he saw racism and racialized disparities in South Carolina. Recall, for example, that he has said,

I self-identify as African American - that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it.

Obviously he understands quite clearly that people are treated differently based on their race.

But note that he didn't deny that; not in South Carolina or anywhere else. In his South Carolina victory speech, he said he didn't see a "Black South Carolina" or a "White South Carolina." He sees one South Carolina. And he's right. But that doesn't mean he didn't notice racial disparities--though he might well "see" absolute and individual disadvantages first and relative and group inequities second.

His supporters who chanted "race doesn't matter" at his victory speech are also right in a sense that requires some explanation. Do they believe that racial profiling doesn't exist? I would doubt that. But if you or I are told by someone, "I can't vote for Barack because he's black," we might reasonably say "Race doesn't matter." It's not that we believe that statement in a universal sense, or even in the sense of it actually not mattering, but more in the aspirational sense of "Barack's race shouldn't matter to you when you consider voting for him." My sense is that supporters in South Carolina at his victory speech were essentially responding to attempts to divide us, instead chanting in support of Obama's view that we are one people, one nation, and we are our brother's keeper, as he likes to say. Sen. Obama seems to argue that our sense of community should not stop at our profession, our town, or our race, but rather that we need a renewed sense of belonging to an American community if we are to successfully tackle the daunting challenges we face. And I for one absolutely agree.

It's also worth bringing up a fantastic speech Senator Obama delivered at Howard University last fall with a focus on race and class, which included this paragraph:

Like Katrina did with poverty, Jena exposed glaring inequities in our justice system that were around long before that schoolyard fight broke out. It reminds us of the fact that we have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, non-violent offenders for the better part of their lives - a decision that's made not by a judge in a courtroom, but by politicians in Washington. It reminds us that we have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from. It reminds us that we have a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting civil rights violations is trying to rollback affirmative action programs at our college and universities; a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting voting rights violations is to look for voting fraud in black and Latino communities where it doesn't exist.

I have to wonder if Rick or many others who believe Barack opposes or might oppose consideration of race in the interest or racial equity have actually read or heard this speech.

I wouldn't hold my breath on Senator Obama repudiating affirmative action that considers race. And as far as class-based affirmative action goes, I've yet to hear of any liberal or progressive opposed to it. I'm all for it. It's a puzzling question as to why it should replace race-based affirmative action though. My sense is that Senator Obama understands these false choices, whether around immigration, affirmative action, or the criminal justice system.

It seems to me that race doesn't matter to Obama in the sense that he cares about people of all races equally, which means that a criminal justice system that condemns huge swaths of a race to indefinite disadvantage must be changed at the same time that an economic system that devastates the communities of another race must also be transformed.

I for one will be stunned if Senator Obama essentially says to the white working class, "Your problems in accessing college can be partially addressed by eliminating race-based preferences and substituting class-based preferences." Doesn't it seem like expanding Pell Grants, controlling college costs, increasing high school graduation rates, etc... (all essentially effective efforts with universal appeal) would be more up his ally? But who knows;? I could be wrong.

[UPDATE: The New York Times has a nice piece out today on Obama and race.]
[UPDATE II: The Chronicle of Higher Education has a Q and A with Obama from last year up on its website, and it includes some of the Senator's thoughts on affirmative action.]