"Dealing with race is about educating white folks." -Dean.

The Boston Globe ^ | 1/2/2004 | D.Z. Jackson

[weegee]

It certainly highlights the double standard that the media has about racism.

[weegee]

Here's the text of the full article:

Dean's blunt talk about race
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 1/2/2004

CHARLESTON, S.C.

HOWARD DEAN SAID, "I'm trying to gently call out the white population." His genteel example was a story he tells to voters about how his chief of staff as governor of Vermont was always a woman. After two or three years, Dean noticed that she had a "matriarchy" in the office. When the chief of staff was going to hire a new person, Dean said, he told her, " `I notice we have a gender imbalance in the office, and I wonder if you could find a man.' She said it's really hard to find a qualified man. I got everybody laughing about that."

That is Dean's icebreaker to get audiences to understand institutional racism. "The punch line of the story that it's so hard to find a qualified man is everybody does it. Everybody tends to hire people like themselves. And I get them all nodding, including the African-Americans in the audience."

He went on to talk about a consultant who runs political campaigns in Washington. The consultant was kept on to hire the staff for one of his candidates who won a city council race. "In the first staff meeting before the guy took office, they looked around and said, `Oh-oh.' Everyone was male, and everyone was African-American."

This was a softer Dean than the one excoriated by his competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination for saying he wanted to appeal to white guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. For all the fire of that moment, Dean said the Democrats cannot run away from a blunt, if gently blunt, discussion about race.

"Dealing with race is about educating white folks," Dean said in an interview Tuesday on a campaign swing through the first primary state where African-American voters will have a major impact. "Not because white people are worse than black people about race but because whites are in the majority, and therefore the behavior of whites has a much bigger influence on hiring practices and so forth and so on than the behavior of African-Americans." It is unknown whether Dean's style of education will have a big influence on either white or African-American primary voters at the expense of, say, Wesley Clark's experience with affirmative action in the military or John Edwards's Clintonesque folksiness. While the Republicans have baldly capitulated to racism in modern presidential campaigns, such as appearing at Bob Jones University and claiming we are so close to a "colorblind" society that affirmative action programs can be dismantled, the Democrats have struggled to find a message that attracts swing white voters and loyal voters of color at the same.

The last Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton, who was hugely popular with African-American voters, started a national discussion on race but abandoned it during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton also never challenged Republican-inspired laws that had a disastrous impact on young African-Americans and Latinos, such as mandatory sentencing and much harsher jail terms for possession of crack cocaine than for powdered cocaine.

Dean would not discuss the Clinton era. He did say that as president, he would try to end disproportionate drug sentencing and mandatory sentencing. He said he is a firm supporter of affirmative action. He said perhaps preferential points could be given to companies seeking federal contracts who can demonstrate diversity.

Dean said proactive measures are still necessary to counteract the unconscious biases that confirmed by many studies showing that job discrimination continues to be a major problem. "One generation does not make up for 15 generations of slavery and Jim Crow," Dean said.

Dean said his own education about unconscious racism began at Yale, where he graduated in 1971. He was trying to get a child from the inner city of New Haven that he was tutoring to talk "proper" English. One of his African-American roommates told him, "Why don't you leave him alone?" He said he had the "traditional white liberal idea that if black people were like us then we'd all be fine. Sort of like the Republican idea. If we all played golf at the same country club, then there wouldn't be any racial problems."

Another seminal moment was during his freshman winter. One of his roommates became a leader in the black student alliance, which resulted in frequent, large gatherings of African-American men in his dorm room. At one of these gatherings, Dean said, "I suddenly realized I was the only white person in the room, and literally the hair went up in the back of my neck. 'Cause I thought, what if it was always like this? What if everywhere in your world you were the only white person and everyone else was black? For one instant I had some tiny inkling what it was like to be black in America."

Now Dean wants to get white Americans to ask those same questions without raising the hair on their necks. If he succeeds, that would really turn the tables on America's most difficult subject.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

[chiller]

Now wait just a minute. Dr. Dean told us a few months ago he had BLACK ROOMATES IN COLLEGE! He KNOWS and don't you doubt the man.

[rdb3]

That is a pathetic cop out.

No, it is not a "cop out." I accurately recall where you said that black people should be written off. Well, since I am black, what then, have I to do with you? The only direction this could go now is bad.

Therefore, write us off. And let it be.

[sweetliberty]

Would anybody else like to be a fly on the wall and hear some of the casual talk that goes on around the Bush table? I'll bet he has a few opinionss about Howie. Wouldn't even be surprised if he's saying his prayers at night, "please God, let this moron be my opponent."

[Huck]

No, it is not a "cop out." I accurately recall where you said that black people should be written off. Well, since I am black, what then, have I to do with you? The only direction this could go now is bad.

It's a total cop out. I voiced skepticism about the return on investment for "going after the black vote", as they say. You disagreed with me and I engaged in dialogue on the subject. I am willing to be convinced, at least when the topic piques my interest.

So here comes a story. I see you post a number. Someone questioned it. I tried to check it out. Where's the beef, rdb3? It's so funny that you would complain about outreach and dialogue, and then refuse to participate in it. That's so interesting that you would do that. I would be happy to just pick up the conversation where it left off:

Where did you get that 75%, anyway?

[sweetliberty]

"by all the 9 8 dwarfs"

Oh, did we lose another one?

[iconoclast]

"please God, let this moron be my opponent."

As I post this I'm watching the Fox bush-bots going ballistic over the inability of Gephardt and Kerry to even slow this guy down, much less stop him.

I think the Pubbies are more than a little bit scared of him.

[Rebelbase]

Sen. Graham dropped out of the race a while back.

[FITZ]

I don't know what it is overall ---- in the region I'm in it's well over 75%. I think a lot depends on where you live --- out West blacks are strongly middle class. I know at least 2/3 of blacks were middle class 10 years ago or so and that might have gone up.

[rdb3]

You disagreed with me and I engaged in dialogue on the subject. I am willing to be convinced, at least when the topic piques my interest.

Bull².

Again, you've stated your belief. What have I to do with you?

I would be happy to just pick up the conversation where it left off

And I would be happy if you go in peace. You've said what is in your heart, and that is where the truth resides.

But don't worry much. Many here share your point of view. mhking can attest to that.

[chiller]

Dean has obviously not devoted much thought to this issue, or many others, for that matter. Dangerous. He'd alienate most of the planet before he took office.

The more interesting story is the Dems. How long will they support an obvious idiot. Not much longer, imho.

[HardStarboard]

I can't wait for Dean to get in the Deep South and start edgicat'in white folk.

[sweetliberty]

"whites are getting da*n tired of taking the blame for the irresponsible minorities"

"So are most minorities."

Apparently not in large enough numbers to quit voting democRAT. It just seems to me that any intelligent person would be able to recognize when they're being used and eventually get fed up with it. The democRATs use people....whatever group they can rally to form a voting block. Blacks just happen to be the largest, and obviously the most reliable, of their voting blocks.

I don't understand people not realizing they're being taken for granted...or maybe they do and don't care because they believe at some level that the RAT scoundrels best represent their interests. I don't know. I would just like to see a handful of loud-mouthed, charismatic blacks on the right be on hand at every event to openly challenge the Jesse Jackasses of this country before a black constituency.

[Tim Osman]

Yeah, but he LOVES Jesus.

Yeah, but (allegedly) so does the Rev. Al Sharptongue!

[sweetliberty]

"Sen. Graham dropped out of the race a while back"

I knew that, but then Clark jumped on the circus trainbandwagon, so we still have nine, right?

[Howlin]

I can't wait for Dean to get in the Deep South and start edgicat'in white folk.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how we Republicans are lucky enough to have had this "candidate" drop right into our laps!

How many insults is that to the South so far? I've lost count!

[Rebelbase]

Stop it! Its too confusing! I need a beer.

[aculeus]

Keep talking, jackass. (Not you, Cyro)

[Huck]

That 75% sounds high.