By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
We hear stories frequently about students who are told by classmates — and sometimes by their teachers — that President Obama is being criticized unfairly by conservatives “because of his race.” The best answer to this claim may be to simply point out to them that conservatives are supporters and admirers of Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, and Thomas Sowell — and leave it at that. It should close the case.
But people on the left sometimes do not leave it there. They will reply that conservatives who admire black conservatives such as Thomas and Rice do so only because they agree with them ideologically. It is a curious response: It concedes that conservatives who admire these African-Americans do not use race as the yardstick for their opinions about an individual, but their ideas and the “content of their character” — precisely as Martin Luther King called upon us to do. That should close the case, too.
But there are others on the left who make their case about the racist motives of Obama’s critics in a manner that deserves a more methodical and thorough reply than merely pointing to black leaders held in high esteem by Americans on the right.
An example was a column in the February 26 issue of Commonweal by the magazine’s editor-at-large Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, entitled “Obama the Other.” In it she concedes that “not all criticism of Obama is racially motivated.” But then adds, “But a lot of it has been, plainly and shamelessly so, and that fact is important to recall as we enter a new presidential campaign.”
The question is whether Wilson O’Reilly has a point. Is “a lot” of the criticism of Obama racially motivated? Obviously, some of it is. I have seen the ugly cartoons on the Internet that depict the Obamas as gorillas. But do they represent a significant segment of those who oppose Obama? I say they do not. Judging all conservatives by these angry caricatures would be like judging all blacks by the diatribes of the modern Black Panthers who talk openly of killing white women and children. Anyone who examines mainstream conservative magazines and websites will find the opposition to Obama based on his policies, not his color.
If Wilson O’Reilly were writing to condemn only the racist fringe on the American right, there would be no reason to take issue with her. Indeed, her column would be of little interest in that case. Everyone knows that nuts are nuts. The problem is that she takes aim at a broad spectrum of the American right.
I offer as evidence her accusation that Peggy Noonan relies upon “appeals to racial suspicion and resentment” when writing about Obama. It is hard to get more Republican mainstream than Noonan.
Noonan is a Wall Street Journal columnist, frequent guest on the television talk shows, and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Wilson O’Reilly charges Noonan with questioning the “content” and “fullness” of Obama’s patriotism, by hinting to her readers that it might not be “white enough.” She describes Noonan’s views of Obama “as frankly racist as any birther conspiracy theory.”
Pretty strong stuff. What did Noonan write to deserve such treatment? Wilson O’Reilly points to a column Noonan wrote wherein she questioned whether Obama’s version of patriotism has ever led him to get “misty-eyed” over the achievements of the “Wright Brothers, D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford.” Or whether Obama’s pride in the United States is limited to achievements in “racial fairness.”
Wilson O’Reilly finds this speculation deplorable. She asks, “Why should Obama’s feelings about D-Day or the Wright Brothers be suspect?” She ponders openly if Noonan is implying that Obama does “not value the things that are truly ‘American’” because of a “distinction between the black American experience and the full American experience.”
Wilson O’Reilly’s line of thinking is curious. She writes as if left-wing Americans do not harbor an animus against the American national experience and the heritage of the Christian West. But they do. It is what makes them men and women of the left. They are proud of their rejection of what they call the racist, sexist, homophobe country they used to call “Amerika” back in their counterculture days.
One could make the same observation about the views of Bernardine Dohrn, William Ayers, and the pasty white radicals who lead the Occupy Wall Street crowds that Noonan made about Obama’s views. Race has nothing to do with it.
New Left theorists depict the United States as a country rooted in racism and imperialism, and in need of a radical transformation. Virtually all the prominent New Left theorists are white. If Noonan were writing about them she would be justified in questioning whether they have the same affection for the United States as the people Obama once described as “clinging to their guns and their religion.” It would be fair game to bring up these things if William Ayers were running for political office. The voters would deserve to know what makes him tick. Why should it be different with Obama?
I would wager that Noonan would ask the same questions if she were writing a column about Bernard Sanders, considering his radical left-wing past. Should she be accused of anti-Semitism if she did that? (Liberal Democrats should be careful before they say yes. As I write these words the Clinton campaign is launching a barrage of stories and pictures about Sanders as a young radical protester. Do they want to accuse the Clintons of anti-Semitism?)
Obama’s autobiographical writings make clear his youthful affinity for what he called “hipsters and Third World radicals,” as well as the advice he received from the openly Communist Frank Marshall Davis. As a young married man he joined the church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, where sermons castigating the United States were routine. Wright’s theology is rooted in black liberation theology, which portrays the United States as an evil force in history.
Why shouldn’t Noonan, or anyone else, be entitled to bring up these things in a discussion of Obama without being accused of racism?
My hunch is that Wilson O’Reilly knows that, knows she is being unfair to Peggy Noonan, but is seeking to make her bones in the world of the liberal powers-that-be in the media and the academy. People can say silly things, sometimes ruthless things, when they are social climbing.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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