Not So Fast, Chris Matthews

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Not So Fast, Chris Matthews

Posted on Jan 29, 2010
By Marcia Alesan Dawkins


The second decade of the 21st century has ushered in changes in technology, economics, politics, culture and narratives of identification. From the advent of social media, to the Great Recession, to health care reform, to the revised racial categories on the U.S. census, American lives are faced with increasing tensions and ambiguities. No single icon reflects these tensions and ambiguities, and the paradigm shifts they are inspiring, more cohesively than President Barack Hussein Obama.

Many argue that Obama’s election to the presidency and status as global “supercelebrity” are signs that we have entered a post-racial moment in which everyone and everything are mixed. Among these believers is Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Matthews, in a very different take on Obama’s public image than that offered by Sen. Harry Reid, said Wednesday: “I forgot he was black.” How could we forget this important aspect of our president’s racial identity? What does Matthews’ statement mean?

“I think Matthews intended this to be a positive statement,” says Dr. Rebecca Herr Stephenson, a media effects researcher at the University of California, Irvine. “But I doubt whether audiences will receive it as he intended.” In other words, while the racial climate in the U.S. does show some signs of progress, as Obama’s status demonstrates, the idea that race and/or racism is dead ignores the salient fact that we continue to live in a society deeply influenced by race, with material consequences that affect life chances and have implications for contemporary race relations that go beyond black and white. Matthews jumped to this conclusion while ignoring the daily reality of many Americans. He admitted as much when he declared: “I felt it wonderfully tonight, almost like an epiphany. I think he’s done something wonderful. I think he’s taken us beyond black and white in our politics.”

“While there is some truth to the issue of progress in Matthews’ post-racial thesis, it is grounded in a privileged perspective that ignores what still needs to be done in order to achieve liberty and justice for all,” says Dr. Ulli Ryder, a professor at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. “From a lesser- or nonprivileged perspective, post-racial politicking is wishful thinking and must be mitigated by a closer look at social, political and cultural contexts. If we look at the ways in which we have dealt with events like Hurricane Katrina, increasing educational segregation, wars against Islam, immigration reform and the privatizing of our prisons it is easy to see that we have much work left to do.” .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/not_so_fast_chris_matthews_20100129/