July 24, 2007

Senator Barack Obama

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

Dear Senator Obama:

This letter concerns the issue of race relations in America.

Race and race relations are matters that still plague the country. You are in a unique position to change the discourse regarding race. The need to change the discourse is clear for several reasons – some political, some moral, some both.

First, although there is much more to be done to heal the “racial divide” in America, the country is also fatigued of talk of race, and in some cases it despairs about the possibility to address the wounds created by its forefathers and foremothers. This is seen in various initiatives that are shrinking such programs as Affirmative Action, in the limited shelf-life Sandra Day O’Connor has given such programs, and in recent Supreme Court decisions on the use of race to direct students to particular schools.[1] The candidate that can recognize this and articulate a sensitive comprehension of this “fatigue factor,” in the nuanced way that it deserves, could lay the groundwork for a different kind of discourse regarding race in America. Because you are the candidate who is both African American and progressive, you are the one with the best chance to pull this off without raising hackles or suspicions. If you speak, people will listen.

Second, the larger truth regarding race in America (and in the world) is that there are no races. That is, the scientific community has long determined that talk of racial biological types is not based on any scientific facts. At most, race is a social construction, but quite a powerful one. Most would agree that it is a construction that is stubbornly sticky, as well as one that has done more harm than good, by far. This idea of race transcends the black and white bifurcation that dominates American public discourse.

Third, the American experiment embraces difference. America is a democratic, cosmopolitan country. Here, there is a blending of culture as much as there are differences in cultural values and cultural manifestations that, thankfully, persist through time. All of these make America the great place that it is. Yet, it is more than arguable that race per se is not one of the values and manifestations that make the country great, and that the country could do without racial categories without any obliteration of the wonderful ethnic differences that make for the cultural palette that paints onto the nation all of the colors of the human experience – not literal colors, but colors of religion, of philosophy, of language, of temperament, of character, of community, of genius, and of industry.  

Fourth and last, the racial divide exists because of a pernicious and stubborn notion that there is “something” to race, and so to the “different races” that exist within America’s borders. This “racial essentialism” (as it is often called) does little more than create factitious lines of separation that make friendships, love interests and exchanges between communities (and even whole regions) difficult or impossible.

These four reasons rise to the level of American public policy and discourse regarding what I will now place in scare quotes – “race.” The time screams for a sustained national effort to re-educate the citizenry away from “racial” thinking and “racialized” habits.

All this said, it is not the case that such a change in direction, as I propose, need lead to the naïve colorblindness that we see in such figures as Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly and Armstrong Williams (to name a few). While nuance can be political death if taken too far, it is certainly the case that with just a bit of nuance injected into the discussion about “race” America can be advanced farther in the direction of what Martin Luther King, Jr. and Josiah Royce before him called “The Beloved Community.” The right leader in the White House can do a great deal to end the mentality of “racialization” that is the bedrock of all “racism.” Take away the foundation, and the house falls, as they say. What easy excuse can “racism” be based upon if there is wide acknowledgment that there are no “races” upon which to build it?  A candidate that declares that he will work for The New Discourse on questions of “race” and identity, in the hope of speeding up our arrival at that Beloved Community, will get noticed. The country yearns to turn the final page of its long national chapter of race consciousness and racism. To date, no one has known how.

I believe that a sustained national conversation on the four points outlined above would be a great service to humanity, let alone our fellow citizens. No world leader since Gandhi has engaged in such a bold project on the subject of “race.”

Done in the right way, there need be no fear that the advances made in this country on civil rights would be eroded in the least. I say this because the basic causes of sustained segregation of people according to "race" – color and morphology – would still remain the basis on which such segregation persists, and would still need to be and would be addessed by the law. “Race” just is color in America, and it is the illusory predicate, the excuse, that made invidious discrimination so pervasive. Title VII already and explicitly refers to “color.” It is the shape and color of bodies, and not the fictional notion of “race,” that has been the excuse for invidious discrimination. Expose the absurdity of that, and you force people to seek out foundations that are much harder to lay for the biases to which they would continue to cling.

Instead of to my work, which is focused but meager on this issue, I direct your attention to the work of the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, of Princeton, and most explicitly to the second chapter of his book In My Father’s House – Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. There your will find one of the best cases ever made that race is a woeful illusion. Further, I recommend his book The Ethics of Identity, and especially the chapter therein on soul-making. I then recommend that you cross the aisle and read George Will’s Statecraft as Soulcraft. You will then see, if I am right, how to reframe the discussions on “race” and identity in our country.

If we are ever to turn the chapter of race consciousness and racism, we must have bold and innovative leaders in all areas of civil society, and that certainly includes high office. I hope that you will consider these thoughts with all due seriousness. It is time to put the racial nightmare behind us. The iron is hot. You can land a mighty blow. It is time to strike.

Sincerely,

David E. McClean

Enc: biography

___________________________

David E. McClean

Summary Biography

President

David E. McClean & Associates

(a regulatory and business ethics consultancy)

Instructor in Philosophy

Molloy College

Rockville Centre, New York

Member,

Board of Directors

ERASE Racism

Syosset, New York

Member (and former President)

Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy

New York, NY

Member,

Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

Member,

American Philosophical Association

Organizer,

Love in the Public Square

A Conference

www.loveconference.info

Founder and Director,

The Interfaith Union for Progressive Religion

www.iunion.org

[1] I refer here to Parents Involved in Community Schools Inc. v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County (Ky.) Board of Education. My analysis of certain of the Chief Justice’s statements may be found at the web site of  the Texas Civil Rights Review, http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1025.