Reply #16: If you think that the discussion of race in this campaign began with Shaheen or Kerrey or Cuomo [View All]

[EffieBlack]

you really haven't been paying attention.

Perhaps it's more obvious to me because, as a black woman, I have long been aware of and sensitive to the media's consistent attempts to pigeon-hole Obama. Maybe you missed the incessant "Is America ready for a black president" articles, news segments, discussions, etc. over the past year. I didn't. Maybe you didn't notice the cottage industry that has cropped up in polling sponsored by the various news organizations on whether blacks will vote for Obama, whether whites will vote for Obama, whether black women will vote for Hillary, whether black men will vote for Obama, whether black women will vote gender or race, etc. etc. I noticed it.

If you believe that race only came into this race because a Clinton surrogate brought it up, then you are grossly mistaken - your recollection just doesn't comport with reality.

For example, just a quick Nexis search pulled out thousands of references to Obama's race in connection with the campaign. Here are just a few:

It seems to me that there`s a chance that Obama could beat Hillary for the nomination. That chance is Iowa. If he wins out there, it will create an electricity across the country. The first African-American, of course mixed back ground. But the first African-American guy to really have a shot, that the voice of the future, no more Clinton versus -- Clinton and Bush rotating the job of the presidency like rotating old cans on a shelf in a supermarket, dusting off the cans because nobody is buying them. Chris Matthews, October 1, 2007

From the May 13, 2007 "This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

George Stephanopoulos: The 45-year-old who would be America's first African American president addressed the key question of his campaign, is he ready for the job?

{Video Clip:} Obama: I'm confident about my ability to lead this country.
. . .
Stephanopoulos: You have a very cool style when you're doing those town meetings where you're out on the campaign trail, and I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

Obama: That's interesting.

Stephanaopoulos: One of your friends told "The New Yorker" magazine that the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing black man so do you turn down the temperature on purpose?

Obama: You know, I don't think it has to do with race. I think it has to do with when I'm campaigning I'm in a conversation, and what I don't do when I'm campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause lines because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process, I want them to have some ability to walk through with me the difficult choices that we face.

From the roundtable discussion on the same show:

Sam Donaldson: In your first question to me and in your interview with him, you raise something let's just put it on the table. He is an African American. Is the country ready?
. . .
Stephanopoulos: I guess I think that anyone who is not going to vote for Barack Obama because he is black isn't going to vote for a Democrat anyway. And I wonder if there are as many people who will vote for him because -

Donaldson: I mean the place where Barack Obama really helps is in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Right outside Philadelphia.
. . .

George Will: And those who are going to oppose him, have to do it subtly and maybe they won't be able to actually say it, the people who really have to fear in the Democratic coalition, Barack Obama as the nominee, is Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, a whole superannuated collection of so-called civil rights leaders. They see this man who really knows that the principle problem of African Americans in this country is not racism. It's cultural.

So, tell me again - WHO first played the race card?