I saw something, a sort of trivial aside in today's New York Times story on Obama's Indiana strategy that got me thinking. Here it is:
For the last year, advisers had been reluctant to highlight him playing basketball, thinking it could raise racial stereotypes or make him look less serious. But in Indiana, where basketball is sacrosanct, Mr. Obama scored four baskets and his team won the 20-minute game, a far better showing than his much-derided bowling outing in Pennsylvania.
Think about that for a second: His advisers worried that if they showed him doing something he's apparently rather good at, playing basketball, it would reinforce stereotypes.
You know what? They're right. And that bothers me in this way. This campaign on the Dem side is one of firsts, certainly. And a lot of the "racism" and "sexism" that's been alleged throughout this campaign I think stems from the fact that this is a situation without precedent, in a media environment that thrives on gaffes and misstatements. In short, no one knows that they're doing, at least in regards to race and gender sensitivity. And I think there have been those who have exploited that fact to their political end (as an Obama fan, I would point to Bill Clinton, with the caveat and acknowledgment that I am viewing these statements through my own bias).
Anyway, to boil this down, here is my question, or concern, or whatever you want to term it: We're supposed to say that race won't affect this campaign. That's politically correct. But it's factually ignorant. Race (and sex, for that matter) has already affected and in fact infused the campaign. Repubs in Mississippi and North Carolina are already running shameless, racially tinged ads. There will almost certainly be much more of that in the general, especially in the deep south, where the GOP's southern strategy is still very prevalent. And we saw this divide in parts of Ohio and Penn as well.
Question: How do we defeat this? Obama has tried, and I believe genuinely so, to cast his campaign as post-racial. But I don't know how he can effectively do that. There are whites who won't vote for a black man, even otherwise staunch Democrats.
This isn't concern trolling. I fully support and have given money to Obama for America, and will continue to do so until November.
Rather, I'm really curious as to how this elephant in the room can be, I guess you might say, tranquilized. Thoughts?