The Clintons' Race Problem

Chris Lehmann talks to Orlando Patterson among others about what this campaign has revealed about the Clintons and the race question:

"I've taken a lot of criticism from people saying I've not been sensitive enough." But the former president's stray "kid" reference "is a synonym," Patterson says, "for being 'uppity,' it's a way of saying 'who is he?' Throughout the history of America, there has been a history of young leaders, and for [Clinton] to say this in a context of promoting his wife in a very nepotistic way, it's very disappointing. He's charging a grown man of being uppity. There's a race--well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's racist, but there's a condescension there."

The way the Clintons are treating black leaders is very reminiscent to me of the way they have long treated gay people. When I'm asked by readers about the source of my emotional hostility to the Clintons, a lot of it does indeed go back to how they treated the civil rights issues of the 1990s. In some ways, I preferred the outright hostility of some on the religious right to the condescension and manipulation of the Clintons and their apparatchiks. I've never been able to get that bad taste out of my mouth. Which is why I am not in any way surprised by the racial issues they are now embroiled in. They treated the gays this way first.