Cain, the Race Card

[walterrhett]

“This many white people can’t pretend that they like me,” #HermanCain #npclunch, asked about the racism in the U.S. today.


As a native born Southerner, an African-American who integrated a high school and voted for Strom Thurmond, Herman Cain rings true on my side of the fence, but for different reasons than you might imagine. But yesterday he did something I had to go back before the civil war to understand.

In DC at the National Press Club luncheon, an important platform for public affairs, Cain answered a question on race issues by making it personal. His answer was all about him. He turned historic issues of employment, education, family, teen pregnancy, male incarceration, health care disparities, and opportunities into a tete-a-tete affirming his adoration of “white people” by embracing their joy in him as a human being. Cain, leading in the polls, is beloved and enjoyed by many. He’s smart, successful, defuses controversy, and slicker than cooking fat. He has the knack of personalizing every issue from foreign policy to unwanted pregnancies, reducing the issues to one of a single example: those of his own experience.

On the campaign trail, he sells that experience, his 40 year private sector sojourn without mentioning he was Chair of the Kansas City Federal Reserve or that his career began with a Navy civilian job–the kind he argues the government can’t create. He shows allegiance to all the wrong cliches and plainly repeats he has no time for complicated issues that need deep thought. His main message is elect me.

He blames race polarization on others, especially blacks, especially Obama. He constantly references the “Democratic plantation” that won’t let blacks “think for themselves.” These charges don’t upset the conservative whites who agree with him. In fact, of Cain’s racial views–he speaks openly and often about his race, quipping his secret service code name would be cornbread–conservatives agree with him.

But my experience tells me something different. I see that he agrees with them. His answers and quips, his targets of blame, his speech and world view perfectly fit the conservative mind set. From an early age, Cain knew the benefits of priviledge, income, fame, influence, power, position available to blacks at any level who were able to make whites comfortable. Cain shares the warm fuzzy feeling of deep, abiding personal affirmation that modern leaders such as Dr. King (a Morehouse College graduate like Cain), Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Samuel Proctor, Barack Obama receive in the public sphere. But Cain’s approach and his ideas differ significantly.

Despite his adoration, he stands nearly alone, a great distance from fighters for justice and social change. Instead, he blames the victims and tells the unemployed ”it’s their fault” if they don’t have a job. Cain has no grand vision, no breathtaking dream of a better America, no challenge to offer, no quirky issue whether green energy or the gold standard. His speeches often call for politics that would inflict pain on those he blames for the system’s failure–not the bankers but the workers. He has an unwavering faith in the system. It worked for him. Spectacularly.

Still I see something different. I see the cost of his success. Our life history and life chances give us roles to play through life, affirming and rejecting our cry for what Gwendolyn Brooks called “our mutual estate.” (Click her brilliant poem below.)

Blographia Literaria: More From Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen

Cain’s life chances are often described as humble beginnings, his daddy was a chauffeur for the President of Atlanta’s Coca Cola Company, but I know better. My father was a waiter, and the men and women in the segregated service industry that catered to the wealthy elite were definitely upper middle class in the black community. Thurgood Marshall, Patricia Roberts Harris, and others had fathers who were waiters. They had money and status. Most importantly, they had access. They observed men of power and wealth learned how they thought, What they ate and drank. What they wore. They put them at ease. These were cultural skills passed inside the community among workers and families. Many felt these skills to be undignified, reinforcing status and stereotypes of subservience. But the culture really taught these workers who had the most significant level of contact with the elite in a segregated America that reinforced injustice how to leverage and build on this extraordinary minor relationship. The differences were in what purpose it would serve.

Cain choose a different fork. He neither thanks or mentions publicly the narrative for the struggle for equality and opportunity that puts him on the national stage. Like Topsy, he “just grew.” ['I spect I just grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me."] He could draw from Republican examples. Bob Dole stood in the well of the Senate and after Strom Thurmond moved for cloture to cut off Jesse Helms’ filibuster, steered the passage of the King Holiday bill. Would Mitch McConnell do so now? More importantly, would Herman Cain? A search reveals no remarks by Cain on the person from his hometown who give him his life’s greatest chance: an open door to corporate America, a ladder to its opportunities, laws to protect and guarantee its gains, and annual ceremonies and celebrations to affirm our better selves at which Cain has been strangely silent.

At the center of that silence is a skill trusted blacks learned to use to survive in their relationships with the powerful.

You learned not to challenge. Today Cain doesn’t challenge any of the conservative orthodoxy or affirm the importance of continued social progress. No view is 100% right, but Cain offers no departures, and when he does, he quickly adjusts and backtracks. That’s not independent leadership; that’s being a popular, highly skilled sycophant.

Cain is no Ronald Reagan, but he is highly skilled in social, group, and personal relationships. The American black community had a special class of youngsters who were taught the skills of pleasing power and gaining power by trust, association, and reference. The roles that enshrine this trust go back before the Civil War. On the plantation, trusted black men and women were given the keys each day. The key holders protected the interests of the planter and slave holder. His trust required them to be differential, invisible, prompt, and loyal. But their choice was not made in fear or out of threats or intimidation, and often not by merit. They chose quite willingly to collaborate, to put the planter’s interests above all, including their own for marginal gain and personal benefit. It was America’s first inter-ethnic coalition. Some who entered into the pact wore the mask. For others it became a true face.

Nelson Mandela rejected such entreaties, as did Dr. King. But Cain learned if you imitated the dominant group, espoused their values, and could put them under a legitimate obligation, you could avoid many of the present dangers of the social head winds that others faced. Cain chose his course with this in mind. It has become his true face.

The irony of Cain’s course it that it is shaped by a parallel universe in which the battle for social justice, opportunity, and inclusion are played out. Cain’s rise comes after the blood sacrifice of civil rights, it comes after corporate America was forced to open its doors and discover talent, but his rise depends upon skills from the legacy of slavery, not submissive acceptance or the stereotype of the Uncle Tom, not docile and guileless; but something ambitious and passive aggressive, something that ignores the personal cost of turning your back and abandoning those who fought for your rights and taught you survival tricks.

Despite leading the polls, Cain’s funding–which has increased–amounts to a weekly operating allowance. He’s in hot water for borrowing funds from a non-profit (forbidden under the tax code) financed by anonymous donors to get his campaign off the ground. Follow the money: his campaign manager works for a Koch brothers Wisconsin issues organization.

Cain’s accusation and finger pointing at Obama is an old race tactic, again rooted in American slavery. In Charleston, those enslaved caught plotting fires or rebellions were often let go if they pointed the finger at others who were judged as potential trouble makers. To save themselves or to bring down people they disliked, slaves blew the whistle and shifted the blame to preserve their privilege. And they give authorities an excuse to take down those perceived as threats to the social order.

And does Cain really think he would be in the Republican nomination race were it not for Obama? Reagan’s 11th commandment once applied within the African-American community–don’t harp on differences. But Cain attacks to flex his bonafides. Divide and blame has been successfully prompted since slavery as a means to curry privilege and favor.

Yes, Cain did sing. One of the most enduring American images is an African-American bursting into song. From the crop fields to levies to the proscenium and raised podium, singing blacks have assured us all is right with the world (or will soon be) and the good times be rolling.

What sets Herman Cain apart is his sincerity. Years ago, I had the chance to listen to the live recorded tapes made doing Jesse Jackson’s presidential run, including private meetings with staff. I remember listening to the meeting in the hotel before Jackson keynoted the Democratic convention in 1986. [Barbara Jordan keynoted in 1976.] I was struck by his sincerity. Even behind the scenes.

While many like me think Cain is sincere, we find him outrageous–and dangerous. His yea-saying is shaped by external forces, by men and money that he sincerely seeks to please and he has the tools and intangibles that raise an abandoned role to a new level of credibility.

When I voted for Strom Thurmond Charles Ross, then mayor of Lincolnville, told me how Thurmond secured grants for water, sewer, paved roads, street lights, public safety, and community facilities in Lincolnville and other South Carolina incorporated towns with black mayors. When I lived in DC and needed a job, Thurmond, working through Arlen Specter, put me to work in less than 48 hours. Although they share rhetoric, Herman Cain is no Strom Thurmond.

Herman Cain has political jungle fever.

[jaxx]

That is intensely interesting walterrhett. Thank you for the perspective. It explains some of Cain being unable to stick to a policy but rewording it to be PC, no matter how many times he has to do the rewording. It leads me to wonder, does he stand for anything....besides Herman Cain?

[SeattleGirl]

(11-02-2011 10:34 AM)jaxx Wrote:  That is intensely interesting walterrhett. Thank you for the perspective. It explains some of Cain being unable to stick to a policy but rewording it to be PC, no matter how many times he has to do the rewording. It leads me to wonder, does he stand for anything....besides Herman Cain?

I echo that, jaxx -- intensely interesting post.

And no, I don't think Cain stands for anything but Cain.

[Born_A_Truman]

Walter, I will have to read this over and over. Thank you for the historical perspective. This, along with the latest revelations of campaign seed money and Cain's ties to Koch, it answers alot.

[Born_A_Truman]

Shared on reddit and Twitter.

[walterrhett]

Summary points:
Most think of the South as a citadel of bias but it was equally an academy keenly insightful about the nusances and roles of race.
People think of Uncle Tom, but that role is ascribed through fear and initimidation yet celebrated as a Christ-like response to anger and humilation.
More dangerous is the role described above, the willing, eager collaborators.
The black community until recently always had an inside oral tradition about race and its roles, for both black and white that was extremely complex. It is never mentioned since the assumption is that there was no tradition or delibrate actions by blacks (except King, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. DuBois and certainly not at the grass roots).
A civil rights joke demonstrates the contrary: Montgomery homeowner: what do you think of the bus boycott? Domestic worker: til they settle all that trouble, I ain't riding the bus!
The Southern system allows for contradiction and weighs assessment toward the ends. Does the action perserve or advance progress outside the limits, or does it sarcifice identity and integrity for power or priviledge within the status quo? (That's why Robeson and DuBois lost their passports.)
Timing and conditions are considered; Cain would be fine except for the fact that he undercuts Barack, channeling his ineptness and igorance to tar Barry ("he isn't as smart as me and see how dumb I am!" : my quotes). This undercuts, therefore is unacceptable.
The hardest decision in the last election was John Lewis'. Do you know why? Post yr replies, please. It has to do with how and what he weighed as he assessed.

[Born_A_Truman]

I know he endorsed Hillary Clinton and later changed his endorsement Barack Obama. I will never forget seeing him on election night. He had me sobbing.

[OptimistesMaddie]

This is fantastic analyis.

I agree that is is the tried and true tactic of "divide and conquer"! Cain will never admit that that invisible hand that was helping him up that ladder and tying his boot straps were rich white benefactors who saw gain for themselves through him.

I think not enough analyis has been done on the Restraunt organization that he lead...that lobbying group destroyed waiters and waitresses hopes across the country for minimum wages etc.....Cain does not care for the everyman......he only cares about himself....

By the way that singing....I think that it is ironic that he uses old tyme hyms to appear as if he ever sufferred the struggle. I also find it amusing that when he attacked the unemployed it was their fault.....now that he is under the light he doesn't take any responsibility......it's those women with unsubstantiated claims....

[kahuna]

Herman has become a minstrel show. What was once amusing is fast becoming embarrassing for me as a black woman.