Does Being Colorblind Help You Win Elections?
And At What Cost?
In “Which Martin Luther King Are We Celebrating Today?” Jason Sokol accurately describes the ways in which “we” — mainstream American society, politics, media — have whitewashed Mr. King himself and his works and legacy. In fact, whitewashing is a particularly apt term for this revision, because we have taken color right out of the equation, as if by bleaching. As Sokol points out, we have “molded him into a gentle champion of colorblindedness,” making King-ism about seeing past race, and not about, well, actual equality. It is a history that reinforces what constitutional law scholars would recognize as the “colorblind constitution,”* exemplified by Chief Justice John Roberts’ (in)famous statement in the plurality opinion of Parents Involved: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Sokol’s article is great, and worth reading if only for the interesting, and sad, historical facts that most of us aren’t going to learn about on MLK Day otherwise (for example: a brief history of how long the notion of MLK day was opposed, as story that is told in more detail here; Ronald Reagan’s victim shaming statement after King’s death: “[a] great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they’d break.”). But the question that I kept thinking while reading was: even if, positively speaking, colorblindness is wrong, is this revisionist King-ism the normatively better way of getting results? And if so, is it worth it? Before going any further I should note that I absolutely do not propose to answer these questions, and I ask that you interpret any tone suggesting an answer as devil’s, or perhaps John Robert’s, advocacy.
Does colorblindness “get results”? A week after the election, CNN anchor Nia-Malika Henderson spoke at an event at Vanderbilt University and made essentially the following point: Donald Trump and Barack Obama were both able to make white people feel good about themselves, and that helped them win elections. Leaving aside the fact that Donald Trump did not make me feel great about being a white person, her point, as I understood it, was that Barack Obama had more of a “post-racial” tone, making lots of white people feel that we had made real progress — the “I’m finally definitely not racist because I’m voting for a black man” effect. For its part, Donald Trump’s campaign was an en masse exorcism of white guilt through the rhetoric of PC-bashing. Clinton, however, as Henderson pointed out, had to pick up where Obama and the Democrats in general (and the nation, sort of) had left off. That is, we had gone from beer summit to Baltimore riots during the Obama administration, and while Obama managed to get away with never uttering the words “institutional racism,”** Clinton did not have such a luxury. And her use of the term/concept did not go over well.
So for all of the obvious problems with revising history and sacrificing truth for the sake of comforting American voters, there is a question about effectiveness. If you can convince a racist to be less racist by convincing them they aren’t a racist, is it worth lying to or about that racist? We revise our own personal histories for the sake of making nice, or at least we should. It may often be better to admit guilt when none exists (“you’re right, I often don’t do the dishes as well”) in order to reach consensus (“so let’s just all follow the chore chart, ok?”). Does that translate to a broad political discussion of America’s original sin?
It certainly does not translate easily. For one, to put it lightly, “making nice” may not exactly be the goal. There’s a lot of room for debate about what “getting results” even means, and it is very reasonable to suggest that ignoring/whitewashing the problems of discrimination may help get a Democrat elected, but that is not “result” a lot of people are looking for. Second, the analogy used assumes that all parties admit to the underlying problem. All the roommates agree that the dishes need to be done, and probably that it isn’t fair if just one roommate does all the dishes. Part of the political appeal of whitewashing King’s legacy and working towards, or believing in, “colorblindedness” is that it allows us to not talk about the underlying problem at all. That may be comforting to some, and it may play well in an election, but it is generally harder to generate solutions when there is disagreement about whether the problem exists. See generally climate change policy.
Eleanor Brown gave the MLK Lecture at Vanderbilt Law this year, which I just left, and she mentioned a piece in the New Yorker by Chimamanda Adichie titled “Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About.” It is very much worth reading today. It, and Professor Brown’s lecture, crystallized some of the answers to the questions presented in this post. There may be some normative value in preventing discrimination on the basis of race by preventing discrimination on the basis of race. But it’s worth considering how far such a regime will get us if we don’t talk about What We Are Actually Talking About.
Or, as John Roberts might write it, maybe the way to stop lying about the reality of discrimination is to stop lying about the reality of discrimination.
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*For those with access to a database, 26 Harv. J. Racial & Ethnic Just. 211 has more background.
**First, I don’t actually know if he never uttered those words. Second, I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate to say he “got away” with never saying them. I think the questions of what Obama did because he was a true believer and what he did out of political necessity will consume a lot of pages in the following years. Jamelle Bouie wrote a great piece about the rock-and-hard-place scenario Obama faced regarding his policy goals and racism, and Bouie essentially makes the case that Obama probably is more of a true believer on these issues than someone smoothing over his racial rhetoric for the sake of political expediency.
