Joyce Elliott, one of the two candidates who will face a runoff in June in the race to replace Rep. Vic Snyder, could in Arkansas become the first African-American ever to represent the state. When I was in Arkansas many I spoke to supported her but wondered whether she could win because racism is so pervasive. Yes, the district includes Little Rock and its suburbs -- the biggest city in the state and a liberal island. But about a third of the district is extremely rural, reaching into the foothills of the Ozarks. The district is about 20 percent African-American, and about 75 percent white.
It's hard to overstate the amount of racism that's still prevalent in the South. Yesterday, I wrote about how the Arkansas Democratic primary race showed how much Arkansans dislike the influence, or perceived influence, of outside groups. But that same type of localism is just as often used to justify racism and anti-Semitism. In many issues, the "local people know better than the those outside" language is used to reject more progressive policies that disrupt the status quo.
That was true in the first round of the Senate race on the Republican side, too. State Sen. Kim Hendren used it during a recent interview to try to diffuse criticism about referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer as "that Jew" from New York. (Hendren came in sixth in an eight-way race in the Republican primary.) He was asked in an interview by the local NPR station, KUAR, whether he'd received any criticism for that remark, and he said not from Arkansans. People from the state, even "people of the Jewish faith," shook his hand and said they knew what he meant, he said.
That's very similar to the types of racist comments many white Southerners still make: The people up North just don't understand, and that African-Americans are fine with the way things are in the South, too. That racism was stirred up and became even more apparent to the rest of the country after Obama was elected, but it was always there.
If Elliott's standing holds, it could be an exciting achievement in the state.
-- Monica Potts
