From Katrina to Trayvon Martin: America's Postracial Fantasy

As if everything were going well and as if his election had put the racial question to rest once and for all, Barack Obama has practically not uttered a word on racism in the United States since his election in November 2008 — as if that event had squashed that old American demon.

On June 25, the Supreme Court struck down Articles 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed under Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 and prohibited Southern states from changing their voting rules without consent from Washington. Everyone knew the act essentially prevented the South from making it impossible for minorities, particularly blacks, to vote.

With a vote of five votes to four, the Supreme Court judges agreed with the suit of a committee from the deep South — arguing for states’ rights, but also and especially for the anachronism of a racist law in a country where racial segregation belongs good and well to the past. Well, if the Supreme Court says it …

Now, evidently, all of that is politics. Obama has almost never talked about racism while in the White House because that is a trap in which Republicans hope to catch him. If he appeared to be a defender of blacks, an “exposed racist,” he would be done, according to Fox News star Glenn Beck.

‘Bush Does Not Care about Black People’

In truth, the racial question is still at the heart of American problems. Remember New Orleans in 2005? Hurricane Katrina ravaged everything in its path. Before a tribute concert for the victims aired on NBC on Sept. 2, 2005, rapper Kanye West — there to ask for donations — decided to stop reading from the teleprompter and said with evident emotion, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

The unease that followed this assertion says a lot about the force of the rapper’s words. By saying loudly what many (blacks) thought deep down, Kanye West opened up a can of worms, a debate that has never truly ended.

Four months later, on Dec. 13, 2005, journalist Brian Williams referred to the rapper’s statement in an interview with George Bush. The president defended himself and reminded everyone that areas largely populated by whites were hit just as hard. It was a response that did not satisfy the journalist because the White House had assessed the size of the drama and its racial dimension.

After Katrina, a widespread investigation led by Michael Dawson, Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Cathy Cohen led to an almost unanimous conclusion that Bush’s attitudes were racist.*

The difference of perception between whites and blacks is very important. Nine percent of blacks thought Kanye West’s statement was not justified, compared with 56 percent of whites! Over 84 percent of blacks thought the federal government would have acted more quickly if the victims had been white, a view shared by only 20 percent of whites.

Just before the first televised debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama last October, the conservative site Daily News turned up a video of the American president from 2007 (while he was still a senator), in which he evoked precisely the delayed reaction of the Bush administration due to the victims’ “race.”

Trayvon Martin: New Racial Division

That is the context, under which the Trayvon Martin affair took place. It is pointless to recount the details.

A new poll from The Washington Post in association with ABC News shows that the racial divide in 2005 during Katrina remains the same in the United States. Over 51 percent of whites agree with the acquittal of George Zimmerman, while only 9 percent of blacks do. Even more enlightening, two-thirds of whites think Zimmerman had the right to fire, while only 13 percent of blacks do.

To take it further (maybe too much further), two out of three whites consider a young hooded black man a sufficient threat to justify using fire arms. That is terrifying. Finally, 78 percent of polled blacks think that the trial brought the country’s racial problems to light, compared with only 28 percent of whites.

Obama only made a statement six days after the verdict freeing George Zimmerman. Without criticizing the decision, he (finally) brought up racism in American society.

*Editor’s note: The author is referring to a University of Chicago Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture study by Michael Dawson, Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Cathy Cohen, titled 2005 Racial Attitudes and the Katrina Disaster Study and published January 2006.