Candidates’ Racial Views Outdated

Ever since it entered the Union in 1850, California has distinguished itself from the rest of America. One-hundred years later, Carey McWilliams called the Golden State “the great exception.” Its population has always been largely composed of immigrants from around the world, who together created a highly dynamic and nontraditional state culture.

Post-1965 immigration and rising rates of interracial marriage have made California even more distinctive. Because the state is regarded as a trend-setter, it is commonly assumed that all America will one day look like contemporary California. Indeed, in January, the Census Bureau projected that the United States will become a majority nonwhite country by 2059, just as California will sometime this year.

A closer look at population data reveals that the country’s Latinos and Asians, the two groups fueling most of the demographic change, will largely remain in the same, rapidly growing states that have become gateways for immigrants. Milken Institute demographer William H. Frey has projected that only 10 states will be racially and ethnically diverse by 2025. While California, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Texas will become what he calls “melting-pot states,” the 40 other states will remain mostly white.

If ethnicity is still a key determinant of political attitudes--and it is--it follows that great distinctions in the ethnic/racial compositions of states can create significant political divides among them, particularly with respect to race. Yet, the leading candidates in this year’s presidential campaign have, thus far, approached racial issues in ways geared to appeal to the 40 non-melting-pot states. In California, their appeals are profoundly out of date, if not irrelevant. While California today represents a larger percentage (12%) of Americans of any state since New York in the 1870s, it still must endure a debate dominated by states whose racial reality is becoming more and more unlike our own.

Moments after the polls had closed in South Carolina and it was clear that Texas Gov. George W. Bush had vanquished Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary there, staffers at Bush campaign headquarters played Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” at full blast. Much to the dismay of conservative Christian volunteers, Bush’s staff was already switching gears to prepare for Super Tuesday’s primaries in states with ethnically diverse populations. Having just embraced the Christian right to win South Carolina, the Bush campaign was dusting off the more moderate, inclusive themes with which it began.

Candidates tailoring--and even switching--their message from one state to the next is nothing new. But with the advent of 24-hour news channels and the country’s growing demographic divide, such tactics are becoming harder to pull off. For example, in California, where 15% of births are to multiracial/multiethnic couples, Bush’s decision to kick off his South Carolina campaign at Bob Jones University, a Christian fundamentalist school that bans interracial dating, seemed nothing short of stupid.

In ethnically diverse states, the presence of “minorities” is not the only factor that leavens the electorate’s perspective on racial issues. Many studies have shown that the greater the contact between whites and minorities, the more positive the attitudes of white voters toward the minority-group members. While it is not enough for groups to live in the same state to change attitudes--in the 1990s, white Californians were more critical of Latinos than were Anglos in other states--growing contact at work and socially can merge racial attitudes.

Direct interethnic contact has an even more profound byproduct in California: multiracial children. The growing multiracial population is becoming a veritable constituency unto itself. Clearly, rising interracial marriage rates illustrate the extent to which ethnicity no longer serves as a primary barrier between Californians. It would also appear to signal the emergence of a more complex, multiracial state outlook on race in a country whose racial dialogue is still very much stuck in the old binaries of white/black and right/wrong.

Although race has not taken center stage in this year’s presidential campaign, all the major-party candidates are guilty of their share of pandering and slandering with racial undertones. They have all injected race into the debate for the sole purpose of moral one-upmanship. All four major candidates have accused each other of being racially insensitive. Early on, Vice President Al Gore accused former Sen. Bill Bradley of devising a health plan that would hurt minorities. Bradley responded by blaming Gore for having first raised the racially charged Willie Horton issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.

In their two debates on race, both Democrats tripped over each other promoting affirmative action, a policy that no longer exists--and therefore cannot be an effective solution--in the three most diverse states: California, Texas and Florida. On no other issue but race can a candidate get away with proposing a generation-old solution to contemporary issues. While both Democrats have argued that discrimination has become more subtle, neither candidate has seen fit to propose a more subtle policy to combat it.

While Bradley’s views on race are certainly more heartfelt and impassioned than Gore’s, both candidates are mired in an antiquated notion that whites are solely responsible for alleviating the problems of black America. Bradley has repeatedly challenged white Americans to wake up to the indignities and suffering of African Americans. But while rhetorically appealing, this strategy makes less and less sense in the larger states where whites are becoming minorities.

Meantime, the leading Republican candidates’ missteps on race have largely been sins of omission. Both Bush and McCain showed extraordinary cowardice in their refusal to denounce the public use of the Confederate flag in South Carolina. Since then, they have scolded each other for reputed bigotry--Bush for his anti-Catholicism and McCain for his “gook” remarks. Both candidates have largely ignored racial issues. Indeed, Republicans are no closer to shedding their racially exclusive image today than they were at the start of the campaign. By lining up behind Bush, the GOP establishment hoped to broaden Republican appeal, but after his defeat in New Hampshire, his campaign quickly reverted to traditional Republican form. To paraphrase Bradley, the new conservatives look an awful lot like the old conservatives.

Ironically, given their party’s traditionally poor record on race, the two Westerners, McCain and Bush, probably have greater personal insight into America’s new ethnic dynamics than do the two Democratic candidates. The McCains have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh, and Bush’s brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, not only married a Mexican-born woman but he also converted to Catholicism. Yet, the South remains the foundation of a national Republican presidential strategy, and this country’s racial dialogue is still dominated by the East Coast.

Despite the politically inspired and government-sponsored civil rights gains of a generation ago, the rhetoric of this year’s candidates strongly indicates that politics is no longer the arena in which Americans will forge racial harmony. In today’s politics, race has lost its moral imperative and become just one more theme that can be leveraged for a candidate’s gain.