Dean Makes Racial-Political History
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Dean Makes Racial-Political History
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Dean Makes Racial-Political History
The Black Commentator, December 11, 2003
Howard Dean's December 7 speech is the most important
statement on race in American politics by a mainstream
white politician in nearly 40 years. Nothing remotely
comparable has been said by anyone who might become or
who has been President of the United States since Lyndon
Johnson's June 4, 1965 affirmative action address to the
graduating class at Howard University.
For four decades, the primary political project of the
Republican Party has been to transform itself into the
White Man's Party. Not only in the Deep South, but also
nationally, the GOP seeks to secure a majority popular
base for corporate governance through coded appeals to
white racism. The success of this GOP project has been
the central fact of American politics for two
generations -- reaching its fullest expression in the
Bush presidency. Yet a corporate covenant with both
political parties has prohibited the mere mention of
America's core contemporary political reality: the
constant, routine mobilization of white voters through
the imagery and language of race.
Last Sunday, Howard Dean broke that covenant:
"In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it
in a shameful way -- by dividing Americans against one
another, stirring up racial prejudices and bringing out
the worst in people.
"They called it the 'Southern Strategy,' and the
Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon
pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using
phrases like 'racial quotas' and 'welfare queens' to
convince white Americans that minorities were to blame
for all of America's problems.
"The Republican Party would never win elections if they
came out and said their core agenda was about selling
America piece by piece to their campaign contributors
and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in
the hands of a few.
"To distract people from their real agenda, they run
elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting
us."
Dean's Columbia, South Carolina, statement is equal in
political import to Lyndon Johnson's framing of the need
for affirmative action, in 1965. Prior to Johnson's
Howard University address, no sitting or potential
President since Reconstruction had drawn the straight
line that connects racism and poverty:
"Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes
and many of its cures are the same. But there are
differences -- deep, corrosive, obstinate differences --
radiating painful roots into the community, and into the
family, and the nature of the individual.
"These differences are not racial differences. They are
solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality,
past injustice, and present prejudice. They are
anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a constant
reminder of oppression."
A defining moment
Not since Lyndon Johnson vowed to harness the power of
the federal government to redress the historical
grievances of Black America has a potential or sitting
President made such a clear case against racism as a
political and economic *instrument* -- and even Johnson
failed to indict corporate interests, or anyone in
particular, for wielding race as a political weapon.
Howard Dean points the finger straight at executive
boardrooms, and directly implicates members of his own
party in the coded conspiracy.
"Every time a politician uses the word 'quota,' it's
because he'd rather not talk about the real reasons that
we've lost almost 3 million jobs.
"Every time a politician complains about affirmative
action in our universities, it's because he'd rather not
talk about the real problems with education in America
-- like the fact that here in South Carolina, only 15%
of African Americans have a post-high school degree."
At Howard University Lyndon Johnson established a
muscular, principled, historically-rooted rationale for
vigorous affirmative action as national public policy.
Johnson then announced "a White House conference of
scholars, and experts, and outstanding Negro leaders --
men [sic] of both races -- and officials of Government
at every level. This White House conference's theme and
title will be 'To Fulfill These Rights.'"
Johnson spent the better part of the next three and a
half years forcing legislation through Congress to
"fulfill" those rights, as broadly demanded by the Civil
Rights Movement.
Bill Clinton -- the ridiculously dubbed "Black"
President -- began his 1992 campaign by staging an
ambush of Sister Souljah to impress white males,
dedicated his second term to elimination of "welfare as
we know it," and ended his tenure with a purposeless
national "conversation on race" that went nowhere by
design.
Howard Dean has taken history in his hands by hitching
his ascendant campaign to a straightforward, anti-
corporate message that does not pander to white racism.
He presents whites in the South and elsewhere with the
only principled choice they should be offered: to vote
their interests, or vote for their bosses' interests (if
they are lucky enough to have a job). Although corporate
media called Dean's statement his "southern strategy,"
it is in fact the only position that holds out any hope
for a national Democratic victory in 2004 -- whether
enough southern whites emerge from their racist "false
consciousness" or not.
The December 7 speech is a clear and definitive break
from the lethal grip of the Democratic Leadership
Council, the southern-born, corporate-mouthpiece faction
of the party. The DLC's favored presidential candidate
is Senator Joe Lieberman, its most illustrious
personality is Bill Clinton, and its most prestigious
founding member is none other than -- Al Gore.
Gore's endorsement of Dean should be viewed as head-
swiveling proof of the bankruptcy of the DLC's white
"swing voter" strategy. The DLC-Emeritus has effectively
jumped ship.
Stay the course
Where does this leave Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich?
Exactly as they are, preaching the same social
democratic, anti-racist, pro-peace message as before,
for as long as their energies can sustain them. Dean's
political leap would not have been possible in the
absence of Sharpton's energetic Black candidacy and
Kucinich's principled, progressive white voice from the
Left. At this historic juncture they dare not go
anywhere. Dean has picked up the torch that Sharpton and
Kucinich have been carrying and they must stay in the
race to make sure he doesn't set it down. By persevering
in pressing the Left edges of the Democratic envelope,
the "Two Civilized Men" created the political space for
Dean to make his historic break. Although we cannot
expect either candidate to rejoice in the frontrunner's
actions, Dean's leftward march is also *their* victory
over the DLC, and they must defend it -- against Dean
himself and his newfound allies, if need be.
On the anti-war front, Dean continues to waffle on the
nature and length of the Iraq occupation, which makes
him an apologist for American Manifest Destiny. Kucinich
and Sharpton are the only candidates who call for
unequivocal withdrawal. Their job is by no means over.
Sharpton's singular mission remains the same as when he
first declared for the presidency: to present himself as
the Black candidate. African Americans are
sophisticated, and understand the value of a
demonstration; many will vote for Sharpton as a way to
make the weight of their electoral presence unmistakably
felt. A substantial proportion of Black primary voters
will choose Sharpton over any white man, including one
with a progressive racial platform -- a good result
under present circumstances, and one we expect in South
Carolina, February 3. (South Carolina Black Rep. James
Clyburn has endorsed his congressional colleague, Dick
Gephardt.)
Only two people can shut the window that Howard Dean
threw open for the national Democratic Party, last
Sunday: Dean and Al Sharpton. Dean's Black advisors,
especially Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., must caution
the former Vermont Governor that their presence in his
camp does not convey Blackness to the candidate. He must
respect and acclimate himself to Sharpton's mission.
Sharpton must remember that he is not running for King
of the Blacks, but is essentially acting as the lead
Black organizer in the progressive wing of the
Democratic Party. Dean's December 7 statement would
certainly not have been written without Sharpton in the
race. *That* is a great victory of the Sharpton
campaign, one that may shape the future of the nation.
Indeed, Sharpton could have vetted Dean's speech, which
reads very much like the distilled product of A More
Perfect Union, the book written by Rep. Jackson and
Frank Watkins, Sharpton's former campaign manager. The
same river runs through it, the historical currents that
also informed Rev. Jesse Jackson's speech to South
Carolina State University at Orangeburg, last week.
"The big fight in this state should be trade policy and
the Wal-Martization of our economy," said Jackson, the
local Times and Democrat reported. "The challenge is to
get South Carolina to vote its economic hopes and not
its racial fears." Most low-income Americans are white
and "they work every day. They work at Wal-Mart without
insurance. They work at fast-food places. They work at
hospitals where no job is beneath them, where they don't
have insurance, so they can't afford to lay in the beds
they make . . .
"The challenge for South Carolina is to move from racial
battleground to economic common ground to moral high
ground."
Those sentiments spring from the Black Political
Consensus. Howard Dean is attempting to get the
Democratic Party -- and himself -- in step. That's how
history is made.
With absolute certainty that the corporate media have
thoroughly misreported, mangled and incompetently framed
Howard Dean's December 7 speech, we have republished it
in full, below.
>From the Official Howard Dean Weblog, December 7, 2003
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/002565.html
Restoring the American Community
The following remarks as prepared were delivered this
afternoon by Governor Howard Dean in Columbia, South
Carolina:
In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it in
a shameful way -- by dividing Americans against one
another, stirring up racial prejudices and bringing out
the worst in people.
They called it the "Southern Strategy," and the
Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon
pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using
phrases like "racial quotas" and "welfare queens" to
convince white Americans that minorities were to blame
for all of America's problems.
The Republican Party would never win elections if they
came out and said their core agenda was about selling
America piece by piece to their campaign contributors
and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in
the hands of a few.
To distract people from their real agenda, they run
elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting
us.
But these politics do worse than that -- they fracture
the very soul of who we are as a country.
It was a different Republican president, who 150 years
ago warned, "A house divided cannot stand," and it is
now a different Republican party that has won elections
for the past 30 years by turning us into a divided
nation.
In America, there is nothing black or white about having
to live from one paycheck to the next.
Hunger does not care what color we are.
In America, a conversation between parents about taking
on more debt might be in English or it might be in
Spanish, worrying about making ends meet knows no racial
identity.
Black children and white children all get the flu and
need the doctor. In both the inner city and in small
rural towns, our schools need good teachers.
When I was in medical school in the Bronx, one of my
first ER patients was a 13-year-old African American
girl who had an unwanted pregnancy. When I moved to
Vermont to practice medicine, one of my first ER
patients was a 13-year-old white girl who had an
unwanted pregnancy.
They were bound by their common human experience.
There are no black concerns or white concerns or
Hispanic concerns in America. There are only human
concerns.
Every time a politician uses the word "quota," it's
because he'd rather not talk about the real reasons that
we've lost almost 3 million jobs.
Every time a politician complains about affirmative
action in our universities, it's because he'd rather not
talk about the real problems with education in America
-- like the fact that here in South Carolina, only 15%
of African Americans have a post-high school degree.
When education is suffering in lower-income areas, it
means that we will all pay for more prisons and face
more crime in the future.
When families lack health insurance and are forced to go
to the emergency room when they need a doctor, medical
care becomes more expensive for each of us.
When wealth is concentrated at the very top, when the
middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and
poor grows as wide as it has been since the Gilded Age
of the 19th Century, our economy cannot sustain itself.
When wages become stagnant for the majority of
Americans, as they have been for the past two decades,
we will never feel as though we are getting ahead.
When we have the highest level of personal debt in
American history, we are selling off our future, in
order to barely keep our heads above water today.
Today, Americans are working harder, for less money,
with more debt, and less time to spend with our families
and communities.
In the year 2003, in the United States, over 12 million
children live in poverty. Nearly 8 million of them are
white. And no matter what race they are, too many of
them will live in poverty all their lives.
And yesterday, there were 3,000 more children without
health care -- children of all races. By the end of
today, there will 3,000 more. And by the end of
tomorrow, there will be 3,000 more on top of that.
America can do better than this.
It's time we had a new politics in America -- a politics
that refuses to pander to our lowest prejudices.
Because when white people and black people and brown
people vote together, that's when we make true progress
in this country.
Jobs, health care, education, democracy, and
opportunity. These are the issues that can unite
America.
The politics of the 21st century is going to begin with
our common interests.
If the President tries to divide us by race, we're going
to talk about health care for every American.
If Karl Rove tries to divide us by gender, we're going
to talk about better schools for all of our children.
If large corporate interests try to divide us by income,
we're going to talk about better jobs and higher wages
for every American.
If any politician tries to win an election by turning
America into a battle of us versus them, we're going to
respond with a politics that says that we're all in this
together -- that we want to raise our children in a
world in which they are not taught to hate one another,
because our children are not born to hate one another.
We're going to talk about justice again in this country,
and what an America based on justice should look like --
an America with justice in our tax code, justice in our
health care system, and justice in our hearts as well as
our laws.
We're going to talk about making higher education
available to every young person in every neighborhood
and community in America, because over 95% of people
with a 4-year degree in this country escape poverty.
We're going to talk about rebuilding rural communities
and making sure that rural America can share in the
promise and prosperity of the rest of America.
We're going to talk about investing in more small
businesses instead of subsidizing huge corporations,
because small businesses create 7 out of every 10 jobs
in this country and they don't move their jobs overseas
-- and they can help revitalize troubled communities.
We're going to make it easier for everyone to get a
small business loan wherever they live and whatever the
color of their skin.
We're going to talk about rebuilding our schools and our
roads and our public spaces, empowering people to take
pride in their neighborhood and their community again.
We're going to talk about building prosperity that's
based on more than spending beyond our means, a
prosperity that doesn't force us to choose between
working long hours and raising our children, a
prosperity that doesn't require a mountain of debt to
sustain it, a prosperity that lifts up every one of us
and not just those at the very top.
The politics of race and the politics of fear will be
answered with the promise of community and a message of
hope.
And that's how we're going to win in 2004.
At the Democratic National Convention in 1976,
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan asked, "Are we to be one
people bound together by common spirit sharing in a
common endeavor or will we become a divided nation?"
We are determined to find a way to reach out to
Americans of every background, every race, every gender
and sexual orientation, and bring them -- as Dr. King
said -- to the same table of brotherhood.
We have great work to do in America. It will take years.
But it will last for generations. And it begins today,
with every one of us here.
Abraham Lincoln said that government of the people, by
the people and for the people shall not perish from this
earth. But this President has forgotten ordinary people.
That is why it is time for us to join together. Because
it is only a movement of citizens of every color, every
income level, and every background that can change this
country and once again make it live up to the promise of
America.
So, today I ask you to not just join this campaign but
make it your own. This new era of the United States
begins not with me but with you. United together, you
can take back your country.
