Has Has Barack Obama really "built his career on de-emphasizing race," only to be caught unawares by the electoral-racial divide of the Rust Belt? That's the assumption that leads John Harwood's Times Week in Review piece on Democrats and the white working class vote. I don't believe it's true.
Anyone who's read Dreams from My Father knows Obama's life story is, in large part, one of coming to terms with his own racial identity and his place within the African American community. His professional life, rather than "de-emphasizing race," has in fact been committed to racial justice. Let's examine the evidence: Obama got his start as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. He chose to go where poor African Americans were concentrated, working with their churches to help them recover from lay-offs and fight for better social services. Later, as a state legislator representing the diverse Hyde Park, Obama was quite attentive to the concerns of his black and Latino constituents; as Alexander Russo recounted in Slate, Obama lent his (albeit careful and quiet) support to activist parents of color who wanted to maintain neighborhood control over schools -- in opposition to Chicago's white reformist superintendent, with whom Obama was friendly.
On the presidential campaign trail, far from de-emphasizing race, Obama has at times used his status as an African American and longtime advocate for racial justice to appeal to other minority groups, most notably Latinos. Campaigning in Los Angeles, he spoke about his experience bringing Chicago Latinos and blacks together to advocate for better jobs. And in an Obama campaign TV advertisement that aired in the Southwest, Rep. Luis Gutierrez from Chicago said in Spanish, "We know what it feels like to be used as a scapegoat just because of our background and our last name. And no one understands this better than Barack Obama." The ad featured a photograph of Obama marching for immigrants' rights on May 1, 2006.
This isn't a candidate running away from race. It's one who, even before his Jeremiah Wright-provoked "race speech," wasn't terrified of talking about it. America isn't a post-racial society, and Barack Obama has never really been a post-racial politician. Rather, he's been defined in large part by his engagement with the culture and issues of urban America -- and that is what is alien to some white Democrats.
--Dana Goldstein
