Analyze This

From Reuters--"Analysis: Race issues beset Obama's 'post-racial' presidency" by Patricia Zengerle.

It's hard to believe anyone thought Obama would be post-racial. I sure didn't. The problem is, I suppose, like the old cartoon--where the bride and groom are walking down the aisle happily thinking about married life, but with diametrically opposed beliefs (it's dirtier than that, but I try to keep this blog clean)--those on different sides of the divide saw the Obama era differently. To blacks maybe it meant "finally we can openly and honestly air our grievances" and to whites "finally blacks will stop complaining so much."

But forget that, I want to talk about how incredibly weak the Reuters "analysis" is. Let me count the ways:

Last July -- in the heat of the White House fight for its healthcare overhaul -- when Obama was subjected to scathing criticism for saying police had "acted stupidly" when they arrested Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, on charges he was breaking into his own home.

I believe Gates was arrested because he would not follow the officer's instructions, and was unruly. (At least that's what the officer claimed.)

It may not be important to the main thesis, but for a think piece this is incredibly sloppy. Next, Zengerle quotes an odd source:

"When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn't suspect that it's fake -- you should presume that it's fake, until further evidence becomes available," columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

This intemperate statement is apropos of nothing. It's not counter-balanced by a quote from a conservative saying the same about the left. I can't believe we're meant to take it seriously.

Blacks account for 13 percent of the U.S. population and on average earn less and are more likely to be unemployed than other racial groups. They are also more likely to be arrested and are given harsher sentences.

"More likely to be arrested" means nothing by itself. Are they more likely to be arrested because they're black, or because they commit more crimes? In context, the former seems to be implied, but no evidence is given either way.

Both the right and left accuse each other of injecting race into the political discourse. Experts say that's inevitable given Obama's position as the first non-white U.S. president.

Now she tells us. This piece began by noting many hoped Obama would herald a post-racial era.

This week, Shirley Sherrod, a black official at the Agriculture Department, said her bosses pushed her to quit after conservative media repeatedly broadcast a tape that seemed to show her saying she had discriminated against a white farmer because of his race.

Seemed? There's a lot more to the story, but on this point didn't she admit she discriminated?

Whether intended or not, the furor over the Sherrod case distracted media attention on Wednesday from one of Obama's biggest achievements -- his signing of a historic reform of financial regulation that was opposed by conservatives.

It's an "achievement" in the sense that he got it done, but in the more common sense that he did something great? It looked like another controversial bill Obama was able to force through on a party-line vote. I doubt the "distraction" hurt or helped him much politically. (I might add Obama should get almost anything passed considering the huge lead he has in Congress. The troubles he's had suggests how unpopular much of what he wants is.)

Conservatives had linked the tape to the NAACP asking the conservative "Tea Party" political movement to denounce racism by some of its members. Images such as Obama with a bone through his nose and the White House with a lawn full of watermelons are often displayed at Tea Party rallies.

Now it's getting ugly.

First, anyone reading this "analysis" who knows nothing of the situation wouldn't have any idea that calling the Tea Party movement especially racist (or even indifferent to racism) is highly controversial. (I'm surprised it's controversial--at its essence the Tea Party is not about race, but about the place of government. This might put them in opposition to Obama, but not for racial reasons.) There should at least be some recognition that one side sees the NAACP decision to single out the Tea Party for attack this way as a particularly despicable tactic.

The second sentence is much worse, accepting the idea that racist images are commonplace at rallies, when they're actually rare. Zengerle could have gone on to explain how some of the evidence showing Tea Party racism is manufactured or taken out of context, as badly as anything relating to Shirley Sherrod. I guess we should just be happy she didn't call them Teabaggers.

Tea party leaders say the movement is not racist but concede there are racist fringe elements in its membership.

This is the nicest thing she's capable of saying about them. They've got tens of millions of supporters, I doubt there's a fringe view you can't find somewhere in the movement. Would she care to go into the fringes of NAACP supporters?

Gillespie said the stakes are higher for Obama because his presidential campaign sought to emphasize that it was would not be bogged down in racial disputes.

That'll teach them for defying the experts she quoted above.

Looking at the piece as a whole, I'd say people would be better-informed if it hadn't been written.