breaking the code

Conservative commentator Christopher Caldwell has written the most interesting response to Obama's speech I've read yet. He draws on a recently published book by anthropologist John Jackson which argues that elaborate black conspiracy theories (like Wright's suggestion that the US government cooked up HIV to kill blacks) have flourished since the disappearance of plain talk about race from the public realm:

The US has not managed to eliminate racism, Mr Jackson thinks, but it has succeeded in eliminating racist talk. Remarks the slightest bit “insensitive” draw draconian punishment. White people, because they feel thoroughly oppressed by this regime, assume that it must be some kind of “gift” to minorities, especially blacks.

It is not. It is more like a torment. It renders the power structure more opaque to blacks than it has ever been, leaving what Mr Jackson calls a “scary disconnect between the specifics of what gets said and the hazy possibilities of what kinds of things are truly meant”. If the historic enemies of your people suddenly began talking about you in what can fairly be called a secret code, how inclined would you be to trust in their protestations of generosity?

This is the core of the problem Mr Obama aims to address.

UPDATE: When listening to the McWhorter/Loury discussion (see above) I came across this part, where Loury makes almost exactly the point Caldwell makes about Obama's speech. When Obama mentions his grandmother's dodgy comments about black people in the same breath as Wright's rhetoric, he's not necessarily implying moral equivalence (Wright's comments are clearly far worse). He's suggesting that what people from different races need most is intimacy and candour with each other. Talk it out.

Comments

[Rita]

Freedom of Speech, it seems, has been narrowed to include only the minorities. If a white minister were to blurt out all of the "racist" accusations that Reverend Wright has done, all hell would break loose. Whites are not allowed to express disapproval of their own mistreatment by blacks. I am white, live in a predominately black neighborhood, and have been a victim many times of racist remarks and actions. In my neighborhood, blacks drive Cadillacs and Hummers and wear mink, while I drive a chevy and wear cotton. Yet, I still hear that the white man is keeping them down. I think it's time our generation stop having to pay for something that happened in the past. MOST whites of this generation have not participated in any racicist activity. Also, I am tired of the term "racist" being used as something only the white man can be.

[Peg]

Where' all her money? Obama's pastor took it all. You owe us for what you heard.