Double Standards on Race

When it comes to race in America, it seems as if there a double standard that exists between Democrats and Republicans. For nearly all of 2009, many people accused Republicans and conservatives of being racist while also accusing some news outlets such as Fox News as being a mantra for racism. Still when word broke on Friday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that Barack Obama is light-skinned and has no “Negro” dialect during the 2008 Presidential election as he referred to why Obama could win during a private chat about Obama’s odds at becoming President.

While Reid has apologized for his comments and many Democrats as well as African Americans such as Jesse Jackson Sr., and Al Sharpton have accepted his apology. Other people particularly Republicans and even the Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele have called for Reid’s resignation. Steele went as far to say, “What’s interesting here, is when Democrats get caught saying racist things, an apology is enough. If that had been [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying that about an African-American candidate for president of the president of the United States, trust me, this chairman and the [Democratic National Committee] would be screaming for his head, very much as they were with Trent Lott.”

Lott lost his leadership post in 2002 after saying that the country would have been better off if Sen. Strom Thurmond — a segregationist — had been elected president in 1948. The comments — or at least the interpretations of them — were obviously different: While Lott words could be interpreted as a call for the continuation of racial segregation, Reid's were not an argument for race-based policies but rather a characterization of racial attitudes among voters today. Still, Steele said: “There has to be a consequence here if the standard is the one set in 2002 with Trent Lott.”

Also Lott’s comments came at a birthday celebration for Thurmond while Reid’s comments were made privately as Reid has pointed out while saying he wished those private comments never came out. The other point that others who are calling for Reid to step aside is the fact that Nevada Senator John Ensign relinquished his leadership post last year after admitting that he had an affair with a staffer after Democrats and others screamed for his removal from GOP leadership. So the calls for Reid’s relinquishment of leadership are not uncommon.

Still in the day since Reid's comments were first reported, the majority leader has reached out to black leaders for support — and gotten it. Reid called Obama on Saturday to apologize to the president directly for his statement, made during an interview for the new book, “Game Change.” The book quotes Reid, who backed Obama’s candidacy, as saying that Obama is "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." "Harry Reid called me today and apologized for an unfortunate comment reported today,” Obama said in a statement released on Saturday. “I accepted Harry's apology without question because I've known him for years, I've seen the passionate leadership he's shown on issues of social justice and I know what's in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed."

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, came out in support of Reid, as did Nevada Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, the top black pol in Reid’s home state. Al Sharpton, the vocal civil rights leader who has inserted himself in the middle of many of the biggest racial fights over the past 25 years, said that while Reid “did not select the best word choice in this instance,” the Nevada Democrat should not be forced to step aside.

Now remember Clyburn came out harshly criticizing former President Bill Clinton during the Democratic Presidential Primary season after he made some racially charged comments about candidate Obama. However in this case, Clyburn came out fast supporting Reid and other black leaders are doing the same in order to make sure that healthcare gets past and feel Republicans are just using this incident to try to derail the final passage of healthcare reform.

Even D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and an African-American, is warning Republicans against trying to make hay out of Reid’s comments. The nonvoting member of Congress said Reid's opponents “will not find a welcome mat in the black community” if they try to seize on the Nevada Democrat’s remarks. Reid has also reached out to Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus and other influential African-Americans, including Donna Brazile, Julian Bond and Wade Henderson.

With top African Americans supporting Reid or saying nothing, he has been able to avoid— up until this point— having the furor become a full-fledged media firestorm. “The difference between Lott and Reid is that Democratic members of Congress are not calling on Reid to step down, especially CBC members,” said a GOP insider involved in the Lott scandal. “That’s what drives the media. Is he safe or not safe? But if members are not calling on [Reid] to step down, that won’t drive the media.”

Reid’s office quietly circulated talking points over the weekend on the majority leader’s record on racial issues and social justice. Reid’s aides said the majority leader “has always been a friend to Nevada's African-American community, and as Nevada families struggle in these difficult times, his leadership is needed now more than ever.” They highlighted Reid’s support for the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, health care reform, expanded college loans and HIV/AIDS funding, all of which were key issues to minority groups, as well as his high career ratings from the NAACP.

In addition, Reid backers pointed out that Reid has run an internship program for the past five years with Howard University, a leading black college in Washington, D.C., designed to provide more diversity in Senate staffing. Lott came under fire in December 2002 after saying, at a birthday celebration for Thurmond that his home state of Mississippi had supported him in1948 and was "proud of it." "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," Lott said.

Unlike Reid, Lott initially refused to apologize for his comments, which were seized on by the blogosphere and by Democratic critics, including the then-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe. While Obama quickly put out a statement backing Reid, the top African-Americans in the Bush administration, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, did not publicly back Lott, despite private pleas from the Mississippi Republican for help. Then Education Secretary Roderick Paige, an African-American, also refused to support Lott. Although Lott went on Black Entertainment Television to try to quell the furor, his appearance was unsuccessful in stanching the outrage. President George W. Bush and other top White House officials, as well as his Senate GOP rivals, including former Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, seeing an opportunity to bring Lott down, did not publicly back him either, and Lott ultimately resigned his leadership post. Frist then took over as majority leader. Lott was reelected to the top ranks of Senate Republicans four years later, before he resigned in 2007 to become a lobbyist.

Is there a double standard on race in America when it comes to Democratic and Republican politician? The answer is perhaps yes to a degree but what isn’t factor into the discussion when discussing this is the timing and the circumstances. The reality is that Lott came from a southern state where he was not well liked in the African American community to begin with and his record on African American issues was not good. Now when Clinton made his comments about Obama, it was doing a hotly contested Democratic Presidential primary season and America was virtually split between Clinton and Obama with African Americans backing Obama two times over.

Thus fast forwarding to the present, Reid’s comments come at a time when Democrats need all the votes they can get to pass healthcare reform without any outside disruptions. So the Democratic Party and many of its African American leaders as well as other African American organization will not allow for distractions to derail the final passage of healthcare reform. Now if healthcare reform was already passed than perhaps Democrats wouldn’t be rolling out a defensive to save Reid as they start the week.

In conclusion, double standards on race all depend on the timing of the comments not necessarily the circumstances because in life, everything is about timing. Still what Reid’s comments do reveal is that the race issue in America is one that is badly in need of discussing and with 4 days until Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, this issue only highlights how badly race still plays a role in not only politics but life in general.