A Round Table on Race, Gender, and the Election

Does Obama have a special responsibility to appoint women and people of color to his Cabinet?

Dana Goldstein: Let's start with what has been in the news lately -- the leaks about potential Cabinet and White House staff picks for the Obama administration. There have been surprisingly few women or people of color mentioned. Considering the historic primary Obama went through, and his own identity, does he have any special commitment to appoint women and people of color? Or would that be an unfair expectation?

Brentin Mock: I don't think it's an unfair expectation. It may even be an obligation. Fact is there are plenty of people qualified for Cabinet and lead administration positions -- some more qualified than Obama to be president, actually -- who are African American, Latino American, women of all races, and even gay and lesbian Americans. So to go through that historic campaign and not ensure that these people are on the shortlists, if not flat out appointed to key positions, would be disappointing.

Adam Serwer: I'm skeptical of the phrase "special commitments." We're going to hear a lot about the phrase "special commitments" in the context of race and inclusion with this administration, as though white people are free from the burden of selecting people on merit regardless of race.

Mock: It would be a shame if President Bush had more minorities in his cabal than Obama.

Goldstein: Who are the individuals you guys have high hopes for? I love Janet Napolitano for pretty much any position, for example.

Mock: Well, Colin Powell, of course. I even believe Condoleezza Rice should have the opportunity to redeem herself. She's still an expert on the Soviet Union, and it's not like our recent issues with them have been wiped clean because we have a new president in office.

Dana: Provocative.

Mock: Others who deserve a look: Bill Richardson and Maxine Waters.

Serwer: I've got high hopes for Susan Rice, who has been a passionate defender of Obama's realist foreign-policy worldview. Also, as former assistant secretary of state and having worked on the National Security Council, she is well positioned for something like national security adviser. But I disagree on the first Dr. Rice; I think she should be allowed to pursue her dreams in the NFL.

What's next for the affirmative action debate?

Goldstein: This brings us to a related topic. What's next for the debate over affirmative action in this country? Most progressives would say it's good news that Colorado just became the first state in the nation to (very narrowly) defeat an affirmative action ban on the ballot. But conservatives will probably say that Obama's election means we don't need affirmative action anymore. A lot of progressives are moving to a more class-based conception of privilege, anyhow. Should we still be defending and trying to implement gender and race-based affirmative action?

Serwer: Actually, I think Obama's ascendancy is an argument for affirmative action. Obama was clearly a beneficiary of affirmative action, and all it proves is that the system is effective at elevating people who are good enough to do the job but might not otherwise be considered. I mean you look at Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith in the NFL. Their hirings were the result of an AA program that forced teams to consider black coaches as candidates. The framing of the affirmative action discussion is all wrong: It's not about "getting back" for slavery; it's about providing opportunity for perfectly qualified people who might otherwise be overlooked because of race.

Mock: Well, I think there is a general sense not only among conservatives but even many liberals that Obama's presidency is the ipso facto reason for either dissolving affirmative action or taking the Clinton approach and 'mend it but not end it.

Serwer: I think a more class-based system makes sense with college admissions. But the fact is we still need affirmative action based on race in the context of getting jobs and distributing government contracts. Affirmative action is a corrective for discrimination, not just a way to provide opportunity for those who have lacked it historically.

Mock: I think this should be studied elaborately and not fall into the trap of "Well, Obama made it to the U.S. presidency, that means any disadvantaged class anywhere in America can now become whatever they want if they just try." That's faulty logic.

Serwer: When a white person looks for a job, class markers can be effectively obscured. There's no way to obscure your race unless you're like me (biracial), and you can just pretend to be something else.

Mock: And with our immigrant situation it's almost imperative that we still have an affirmative action program firmly in place. Latino/as in America need to be propelled forward in education and preparation for skilled labor.

Are we ignoring the fact that Obama is biracial?

Goldstein: Adam, you mentioned biraciality earlier. Indeed, until Obama joked about being "a mutt" at his first press conference, that element of his identity had been pretty much invisible as his victory was celebrated. In his concession speech, John McCain framed Obama's win as meaningful mostly for African Americans. What's next for our understanding or public discussion of biraciality?

Serwer: Obama made a conscious choice many biracial people make, to identify as black, and he made it a long time ago. So he comes from a particular cultural context. But the fact is that his biraciality existed during the campaign essentially as a way to comfort white voters who might otherwise be wary of him. Cerebrally, however, I think Obama being biracial gave him an insight into how white fears work and how to circumvent them.

Obama is our first black president. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I can remember being drawn to him initially precisely because back in 2004, he was walking that line in a way he simply couldn't during the election.

Mock: White people will have to understand Obama's connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- why Obama stayed in that church for 20-plus years and what that made him. Black people will have to understand who Obama's mother and grandmother were and the reason why he has to placate white fears to a certain extent.

I don't mind Obama being referred to as the first black president, but very quickly we're all going to have to go deeper than that, especially as we learn how to relate and work with one another in a quickly diversifying nation.

Serwer: A more complex understanding of race and self-identification will have to wait until the old terms die off. The fact is no one sees Obama as biracial except for biracial people who love that he found his balance, and white people who need his intimacy with whiteness as a comfort. Obama self-identifies as black.

What's next for conservative identity politics?

Goldstein: I called Sarah Palin's appointment "identity politics farce" in my essay that ran on election night. After nods to self-conscious whiteness with Palin and Joe the Plumber, what do you think is next for GOP identity politics? Will conservatives listen to those who say it's finally time to switch gears and reach out to blacks and Latinos by embracing populist economics? Or will they just cling harder to the idea that America can remain a monocultural, white, Christian nation?

Mock: They can cling to it all they want, but the demographic facts show that the time for a WASP nation is short -- maybe another 20 years.

Serwer: The right-wing blogosphere will descend further into nativist politics and an unconscious devotion to white racial archetypes as the nucleus of American virtue. Will they wrest control of the party? I have no idea. The GOP may be one more thumpin' away from listening to Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat.

Mock: The GOP had an outreach effort to Latinos, and an effective one. It was one of the smartest, most future-looking strategies that Rove and Bush ever employed. But they effed up and let Tom Tancredo and the nativist crowd get too much voice on the matter, and now Latinos are in the blue camp. That said, I don't think it's too early for the smarter people in the GOP to claim many Latinos back. After all, according to the Census, Latinos are actually "white," albeit Hispanic-white, but white nonetheless.

Serwer: I think the studies showing changing demographics obscure the fact that most Latinos identify as white. So one of two things will happen: The GOP will continue to marginalize itself with hostility to Latinos, or it will redefine whiteness to include many of them. I'm betting on the latter.

Mock: Latinos identify as white for two reasons: On the Census there's few options to not choose white. They can't choose Hispanic-black, for instance. The other reason is that in the countries they come from, they understand the political and economic benefits of identifying as white and the political/social consequences of identifying as black, if they so choose.

Serwer: Right. Many Latin American countries have similar racial hierarchies to the United States. So while Tancredo may see Latinos as foreign and scary, many of them see themselves as white. It's not a stretch to imagine the GOP bringing many of these people into the fold.

What about poverty and class? Did John Edwards teach us anything before he imploded?

Goldstein: When John Edwards was in the race -- way back when! -- we were talking a lot about class and poverty. Not so much now. What do we expect from Obama, if anything, in terms of a big commitment, articulated as such, to fighting poverty? And are we ending this election stronger than we started off in terms of building that movement?

Serwer: I think there's a kind of "don't knock the hustle" sentiment among poverty advocates when it comes to Obama, and an understanding that a black candidate running for president on poverty issues would have been hit a lot harder on "redistribution of wealth" than Obama already was. At the same time, I think there's an understanding that Obama is committed to dealing with things like mass incarceration, health care, and education in ways that will benefit the poor and working class but that he can't necessarily talk about them the way John Edwards can.

But also, how successful was John Edwards at running on poverty anyway? It's not clear to me that talking about poverty the way Edwards did was necessarily beneficial to the poor, in terms of realistically convincing people that something should be done. I should add that I found Edwards' Dickensian vision of the noble poor to be reductive and counterproductive. Americans hate helping victims. The fact is that poverty can make you do some messed up things to survive. Part of the privilege of being well off is being insulated from difficult moral decisions. We need to talk realistically about what people face in a manner that doesn't reduce them to mere martyrs of noble suffering.

Mock: Here's my wish list on poverty: We need to be investing R&D money in renewable energy and green technology so the green-collar labor industry can finally bloom. Better protection and -- dare I say -- subsidization of black farmers in the South and helping Latino farmworkers own their own farms. More money for teacher salaries and increased per-pupil expenditures in all poor and urban schools but especially in the South.

I don't trust Obama with this stuff. He's not spent enough time in the South nor in the Gulf Coast region to understand the severity -- the extremity, in many cases -- of poverty down there, exacerbated by their vulnerabilities to natural disasters. He better pick someone who does understand this though, and he needs to do so quickly.

Serwer: Obama is a politician; his arm needs to be twisted on this stuff. But once again, the worst way to get him to listen will be to accuse him of not following through on his "special commitments."

Goldstein: Touche, Adam. And thank you both for participating. This has been fascinating.