[Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
Vivek Narayanan
vivek at sarai.net
Tue Nov 11 10:18:08 IST 2008
Nicholas, the left has historically tried to discount (for example)
racial or caste-based discrimination by claiming class as the only
relevant or "real" category, and this strategy has always backfired.
Nader is trying to reuse this old saw, but ironically in a way that only
points more directly to his deep, oblivious immersion in racialised
rhetoric, his way of seeing the world through racial lenses. He uses a
contemptuous, derogatory epithet that can only be applied against Black
Americans; that's inexcusable, yes, but what is more fascinating is how
completely out of touch it shows Nader to be, as a politician and as an
activist. Anyone who has spent some amount of time in the US would
understand how and why Black Americans feel infuriated at even being
innocently called "uncle"-- let alone "uncle Tom". By not getting this,
Nader has completely alienated a huge section of his potential support
base for all of time. I doubt he would have done that if he was more in
touch. It may that this is a generational disconnect, as Paul suggests;
or it may be a disconnect that goes much deeper.
Perhaps you're right only in the sense that Nader perhaps *thinks* that
Obama's election signifies a post-racial world, and now he can say
whatever he likes without anyone taking (or having the right to take)
offence. This is why Davey D's example of "the white boy at the party
who thinks he's cool enough" feels so appropriate. In the coming
months, I suspect we will continue to see a lot of comments based on
just such an assumption. The discourse of race may have evolved
significantly, but we are still entangled in it; to pretend that it has
gone away only entangles us further.
Or perhaps there are more cynical reasons for Nader's comments. For all
he says, he is still very much invested in electoral politics*. This
has been a campaign full of slurs, vicious, below the belt and "let's
try anything" attacks. Perhaps Nader is just doing his own bit to come
into view. [*the article I posted earlier to this list eventually
points to the ultimate limitations of electoral politics itself, and I
think that would be a much more interesting and useful base to critique
and challenge Obama]
Naeem, I'm surprised that you would make Nader's and Davey D's comments
equivalent (as you seem to be doing.) Incidentally, Nader's ancestry is
Maronite Catholic from Lebanon; this is a community that began
emigrating from Lebanon (to escape persecution) to places like the US
and South Africa from the mid-1800s onwards, and was universally
accepted as "white" in all of these places (in Apartheid era South
Africa, Maronites were classified as whites by law; other Maronites
settled and were integrated/intermarried into the white social world in
places like the American South). Todd Palin is, of course, Native
American. And of course there's that debate, revived by Nadine Gordimer
apparently, over whether Obama is "really black". Or, as a far less
sophisticated fellow was insisting to his friend outside my local wine
shop yesterday (in Tamil), "No no no, I tell you, he's not a Negro--
he's a Muslim, African Muslim!" All of these intricate and comically
tedious technical questions are mostly separate from the way that Nader,
Palin and Obama are commonly figured in public discourse, in the
dramaturgy of racialised politics.
Vivek
Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
> greetings paul/all...I see your point...it's just that Nader seems to be calling up the old phrase to highlight what he sees as the irrelevant nature of race in Obama's presidency...it's not his skin color that will make the political difference, even as most recent 'political' commentary surrounding Obama's win, revolves around the historic nature of a U.S. president of a different hue...
>
> Nader's critique seems effective here: it decharges the race element...by stating the obvious... that 'Uncle Tom' is a vestigial phrase best left that way... while recalling the words, as an attempt to eliminate the conspicuous activist charm of 'race' that has relegated, for Nader, the itemized political issues to the backwaters of media coverage and commentary...
>
> NRIII
>
> Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
> Editor, Kritikos
> http://intertheory.org
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Paul Miller <anansi1 at earthlink.net>
> To: Nicholas Ruiz III <editor at intertheory.org>
> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:50:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
>
> Hi Nicholas - yes, that clip got passed around alot. I still totally
> and utterly disagree with Nader's use of what is viewed in a political
> context as ridiculously stupid rhetoric.
>
> To call someone an "Uncle Tom" is a highly charged term in African
> American culture - I'm not sure what the South Asian equivalent would
> be. Of course there's a reason Fox News (never the most progressive
> place...) would highlight Nader saying that, and of course, he's
> trying to gain media traction by using incendiary terms.
>
> I'd like to elevate the discourse a bit. If you look up Birth of a
> Nation and it's fear of an African American political leadership - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
>
> you can see a similar aesthetic at work. Will the new leader be the
> saviour of his people or be controlled by whites as a kind of stand in
> for their own agenda? That film was in 1915. Nader's comments were in
> 2008. If we look at the philosophical implications of Obama's
> presidency, we need to look at something like Frantz Fanon's "Black
> Skin, White Masks" as a guide - perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, the
> Obama presidency will be something totally new. It's too soon to say.
>
> To be fair, one needs to have some kind of equilibrium. I don't think
> that Nader's comments were, as Fox News likes to say "fair and
> balanced."
>
> in peace,
> Paul
>
>
> On Nov 10, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
>
>
>> Let's be fair...and not take Nader's comment out of context:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsP6XN2dIo
>>
>> There is little that is hurtful about the way in which Nader meant
>> to articulate a critique of the political (not racial) similarity of
>> Obama and McCain...
>>
>> NRIII
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
>> Editor, Kritikos
>> http://intertheory.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Paul Miller <anansi1 at earthlink.net>
>> To: V Ramaswamy <rama.sangye at gmail.com>
>> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 7:57:45 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
>>
>> Hello Naeem, and hello V - -I'm now writing to you from the far
>> northeast of the U.S. where I'm doing an artist residency at Dartmouth
>> University.
>>
>> Sorry about the delay in communication - I had a 9 hour flight from
>> Vienna to Washington D.C. then plane transfer to New England etc etc
>> This is from my cell phone, so it's brief.
>>
>> OK - response:
>>
>> I'm a big fan of looking at things from the viewpoint of hybridity:
>> yes, Nader is Lebanese American. Is it an identity he claims in public
>> discourse? No.
>>
>> If a person who was identified as "white" American said that Obama was
>> an Uncle Tom on a major news channel it would be greated with outrage
>> (as Nader's comment was).
>>
>> I've lost a lot of respect for Nader from his comments. Imagine if in
>> India a minority from the Muslim population (Muslim's make up about
>> 13% of India's population), became Prime Minister, and these kinds of
>> comments started up in the media. I'm sure people would be outraged.
>> In any case, I definitely think it was simply a poor choice of words,
>> and the intent to critique what Nader views as Obama's agenda got lost
>> in the poor choice of rhetoric.
>>
>> I'm in the middle of releasing a "remix" of DW Griffith's film "Birth
>> of a Nation" as an art piece. The film was made in 1915 and showed
>> exactly the same kind of sentiments of Nader. I can only say I'm not
>> too surprised. Brown on brown racism can sometimes be alot more
>> virulent than white on brown racism. Many of my friends in the African
>> American community were disgusted with Nader's comments. It's an
>> emotional issue, and all I can say is that Nader lost alot of support
>> with his comments.
>>
>> in peace,
>> Paul
>> On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:18 PM, V Ramaswamy wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Nader's "Uncle Tom" comment is not in his "open letter". I believe
>>> that was
>>> made in an interview on Fox tv.
>>> From what I understood (from an earlier age of literacy), the term
>>> "Uncle
>>> Tom" was used by radical blacks, to refer to what they perceived as a
>>> servile, non-threatening, accommodating attitude, of accepting the
>>> white
>>> man's game and his domination but seeking something better for
>>> oneself
>>> within that.
>>>
>>> The term itself of course comes from the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin",
>>> by
>>> Harriet Beecher Stowe, where the protagonist, a slave, Uncle Tom,
>>> silently
>>> suffers indignities, but never turns against his white masters, whom
>>> he
>>> continues to love and whose overlordship he neither questions nor
>>> rejects.
>>>
>>> If I am not wrong, Dr Martin Luther King had also been called "Uncle
>>> Tom" a
>>> few times.
>>>
>>> Ralph Nader has contested the US presidential election a few times.
>>> I don't
>>> think he or anyone else seriously believes he will ever win. He has a
>>> specific political objective in contesting the elections. To say
>>> certain
>>> things, to raise certain issues, to ask certain questions. He is
>>> ultimately
>>> a valuable asset to the US democratic system. In fact this time I was
>>> surprised to learn - 2 days ago - that he had contested. That says
>>> how
>>> marginalised he was in the mainstream media.
>>>
>>> Even if no one else does so, perhaps Nader sees it as his task to say
>>> certain things, to call a spade a spade. For instance, the whole
>>> Israel-Palestine thing, on which he has elaborated in detail in his
>>> "open
>>> letter". I was struck by the fact that notwithstanding Obama's
>>> bending over
>>> backwards to please Israelis and thus American Jews, most Israel-
>>> based
>>> Americans apparently did not vote for Obama.
>>>
>>> Electoral politics is, as we know, a dicey matter, a game that has
>>> to be
>>> played cunningly. So I suppose non-cunning people should not be in
>>> that
>>> game, and only cunning people will play. But I would like to think
>>> that
>>> "cunning" need not always be a negative term! But I would also like
>>> to think
>>> that by and by, the ways of electoral politics will change, and
>>> people can
>>> by the force of their convictions, speak the truth, be honest, say
>>> what has
>>> to be said, and yet prevail.
>>>
>>> I would like to see Nader as a conscience keeper, rather than a sore,
>>> sour-grapes loser, or sniveler. He is holding up the mirror to
>>> Obama. He is
>>> challenging him with what he must do, if he is to be true to the
>>> expectations and hope he has unleashed. I have learnt from life that
>>> one's
>>> harshest critics turn out to be one's best supporters. "With enemies
>>> like
>>> these, who needs friends!"
>>>
>>> For those interested, I am mailing separately Vinay Lal's article on
>>> Obama
>>> (written before his victory) that appears in the current EPW. And a
>>> blog
>>> post that expressed the feelings unleashed by Obama's victory.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> V Ramaswamy
>>> Calcutta
>>> cuckooscall.blogspot.com
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