Race and Politics

by Scott H. Payne

With all of the talk about some of the questionable messaging coming out of the 9/12 tea party protest, Rush Limbaugh’s commentary about the Belleville High School bus incident, and Jimmy Carter’s condemnation of the most vitriolic of criticism of President Obama, it has become more than evident that we are not in the midst of post-racial era of American politics. If that’s the case, how then do we have a constructive discussion about the interaction of race and politics in American life?

On Friday I explored that question with Reihan Salam and the League’s own Jamelle Bouie. Check out the audio below the fold.

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Tags | Jamelle Bouie, politics, race, Reihan Salam

1 comment

1 Mike at The Big Stick { 10.12.09 at 7:19 am }

Lots of good points made here. I’ll touch on one for now:

As to the importance of integrating minority communities that are currently homogenous…I agree with Jamelle that this is a necessary step. The example I will give is the recent flooding we had here in Louisville. One of the areas that was most heavily impacted was our West End which is majority African American. The reason that they were impacted more greatly than the East End which is more affluent and majority white is because the West End is heavily urbanized with very little greenspace (rainfall has a much harder time being absorbed in a setting that is mostly covered in concrete.) In addition there was just more rainful in that area according to totals published the next day. Unfortunately because this area is a homogenous minority community the response from residents was that this happened because they are black and their neighborhood has been neglected by the city in terms of sewers, etc. The truth is that the sewers haven’t been updated anywhere and white residents of other areas of the city that are heavily urbanized suffered just as much, not to mention the University of Louisville campus and the main branch of our public library. Both of those suffered millions in damages and I don’t think there is any contention that they are neglected institutions.

The point I’m trying to make is that when you have minorities, already sensitive to the perception of racial inequality, choosing to live in non-integrated settings, when things happen that have no real connection to race, the blame is still placed there.