Johann Hari would seem to think that the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination is between Barack Obama and one Mrs. Bill Clinton. We know this from reading his most recent article which is ostensibly an argument against Hillary’s nomination, but singularly ignores her own career in public office which began a fair few years ago. Reading Hari, you could be forgiven for thinking that HRC’s first foray into frontline politics is this year’s race for the Democratic nomination. You might also wonder why Hari, who backs Obama, would be writing in terms that insist there is no discernable Hillary or Bill and only a profoundly unappealing ‘Clinton package’, given it is HRC’s supporters who have long stood accused of encouraging a belief among the electorate that by selecting Hillary they will in fact be voting for a William Jefferson third term-lite. Well, the reason is that Hari is convinced HRC has more to lose as a result of her marital association than she could possibly gain.
Forget Obama’s African couture, his funny-sounding name and his insinuated flirtations with Islam, did you know Bill Clinton is a bit iffy when it comes to black people and that, by extension, so is the other pea that shares his political pod? Per Hari, “the nature of the Clintons has been plain for a long time.”
But just in case you missed it, here it comes:
The idea that Clinton was “the first black President” was always implicitly racist: so screwing around, riffing well in speeches and liking fried chicken makes you black now? In fact, Bill Clinton was prepared to lash black people whenever it was politically convenient, with the quiescence of Hillary. Just after receiving the Democratic nomination for President, Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to authorise the execution of a black man, Ricky Ray Rector, who was so profoundly mentally disabled that he told the guards to keep his last meal so he could have it tomorrow.
Attacking blacks when an election neared became a habit: in 1996, Clinton signed a package of welfare reform that effectively abolished benefits for poor women after a two-year time-limit. They are disproportionately black – and as a recession hits now, they will suffer severely.
Bill Clinton increased jail terms for drug possession, creating a situation where one in nine black men between the age of 20 and 35 is now in prison at any given time.
There’s a pattern, is there not? No doubt aware of the potential legal consequences of so doing, Hari certainly does not accuse Clinton (Bill that is, but think Hillary, m’kay?) of racism per se. No, rather like some elements of the HRC campaign smear squad and their Obama ‘observations’, he’s merely ‘pointing stuff out’. We can draw our own conclusions, right?
There is an awful lot wrong with this article, but I’ll content myself with focusing on the race innuendo. So, in order then:
The idea that Clinton was “the first black President” was always implicitly racist: so screwing around, riffing well in speeches and liking fried chicken makes you black now?
The author of the “first black President” quote is Toni Morrison. For those unfamiliar with Morrison, she is a celebrated American author, Nobel Prize winner and academic. She looks like this:
Yeah, I noticed it too, and I also know that just because Morrison is black that it doesn’t mean she is incapable of making an anti-black racist remark, be it explicit or implicit. I would, however, suggest that her colour does increase the possibility that there is another, altogether more logical interpretation of her “first black President” comment than that offered by the Clinton-hating Hari. In fact, one look at the full quote and its context confirms this.
Then, in October 1998, Morrison was commenting on what she perceived to be a media elite’s witch-hunt against Clinton who, unusually for Whitehouse incumbents, is not cut from the finest of original cloths. She heard echoes of the establishment-endorsed, decades-long discrimination suffered by blacks:
Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.
Read the whole thing, as they say, to get the full context, but this brief extract alone should satisfy any objective reader that there’s nothing racist – not even implicitly racist – about the “first black President” mantle. Especially as the only person making the link between blacks and sexual promiscuity, “riffing” and fried chicken is, um, Hari. Will those stereotypes never die?
Moving on:
In fact, Bill Clinton was prepared to lash black people whenever it was politically convenient, with the quiescence of Hillary.
What is this? “Lash black people”? “Lash”? “Black people”? Yep, that’s the first image I saw in my mind’s eye, too.
Just after receiving the Democratic nomination for President, Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to authorise the execution of a black man, Ricky Ray Rector, who was so profoundly mentally disabled that he told the guards to keep his last meal so he could have it tomorrow.
Capital punishment is, to my mind, barbaric. The execution of the sub-par intelligent more so, although, good luck searching for that death penalty abolitionist presidential hopeful. (It’s also entirely relevant if a little discomforting to make the point that Rector was fully compos mentis when he murdered a civilian and policeman. His retardation was the result of a subsequent suicide bid. This fact fails miserably to make his execution more palatable to me, but it is certainly germane to any assessment of Clinton’s innate im/morality.) More importantly, Hari clearly believes the colour of Rector’s skin is significant, or the “prepared to lash black people whenever it was politically convenient” pre-cursor has no function. If we’re not being encouraged to believe that Clinton might just have intervened to save Rector had he been white, then what?
Attacking blacks when an election neared became a habit
Is this a “habit” anyone other than Hari has noticed? What political mileage is there in a poll-busting, unprecedentedly popular Democratic president “attacking blacks”? Was this Clinton going after the much sought after redneck racist vote?
in 1996, Clinton signed a package of welfare reform that effectively abolished benefits for poor women after a two-year time-limit. They are disproportionately black – and as a recession hits now, they will suffer severely
There is certainly a left-liberal critique of the snappily-named Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act that can be made. There are aspects of the law that don’t sit happily with me, however, it’s a gross misrepresentation to talk about the act as the abolishment of welfare as an entitlement and nothing else. Less than 2 years ago, the not-exactly-reactionary New Republic magazine suggested in an editorial that: “A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster–and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped”. Not that any of this matters for the purposes of this discussion. The act may very well be the affront to social democrat sensibilities that some believe it is, but that makes it an assault on the poor (a great many of whom happen to be black) rather than the “attack on blacks” that Hari insists it is.
Bill Clinton increased jail terms for drug possession, creating a situation where one in nine black men between the age of 20 and 35 is now in prison at any given time.
I don’t need a whole lot of convincing that our respective governments’ drugs policies both sides of the pond leave something to be desired, but I suspect that prevailing socio-economic trends play a much greater role in dictating how many members of each ethnic group wind up in prison. Specifically, I’ll wager they are far more influential as regards the disproportionately high number of black prisoners we see in US jails. But it is not the role of the criminal justice system in any democracy to correct the socio-economic imbalance. Increasing prison terms for drug possession is no more an attack on the black population than reducing them would be positive discrimination in favour of blacks; and raising the tariff for illegal bond trading is not illustrative of bias against middle-class, Ivy League alumni, either.
What puzzles me most is that given Hari’s premise for this article, he’s missed the most gaping of open goals. Clinton himself recognizes that the ugliest stain his presidency was his failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide that resulted in at least 800,000 murders in a 100 day bloodbath.
[Pssst, Johann – check out the colour of those Tutsis. Do you not think their colour prompted Bill’s indifference?]
Some people will ask what does any of this matter? They will way, for sure, Hari is guilty of smearing Bill Clinton in a half-arsed attempt to damage Hillary’s credentials, but he’s not running for global politics’ top job. Far from being the most powerful person in the world, he is simply an increasingly shrill, one-eyed hack on a hilariously misnamed ex-newspaper.
To which I would reply, yeah, that sounds about right.
