The Racism in this NRA Video Needs to be Called Out

I’ve seen this video written about in two places, The New York Times and The New Yorker. Neither of them takes on the video’s obvious (to me anyway) dog-whistle (and maybe not even dog-whistle) racism. First, there is the divide-and-conquer aspect of the video, i.e., the unstated fact that it is about an African-American man whose children get all that protection when there are so many African-American children who, in the video’s formulation, die from gun violence because that kid of protection is not available to them. Then, there is the plain old racism of manipulating white viewers to forget that we’re talking about the security needs of the children of the president of the United States and focus on the “fact” that this Black man and his children, not to mention his wife, are getting a level of armed protection that this same Black man–again, in the NRA’s formulation, though of course the video never uses the word “Black”–wants to deny the rest of us.

To be honest, though, my first response on watching the video was to be appalled at what I think is a different level of racism, one that I think has been active from the start of President Obama’s first campaign until now, and that I have seen called out only very rarely, if at all: the way all too many of his opponents feel authorized to cross lines of decorum and respect–and I mean respect for his office, not just him as a human being–that I don’t believe they would think of crossing if they were opposing a white president. The birthers and the politicians who gave them any kind of support are perhaps the most obvious example of this, but I am thinking as well of the elected official who called Obama a liar during his health care speech; and this video by the NRA strikes me as another prime example. Somehow, I don’t believe the NRA would have gone after the president’s children in this way if the man in office were white, and so I don’t know how to read the subtext if this video as anything other than a very large, very powerful group of people trying to put this “uppity” Black man in his place, “Remember, we know where you live; we know who your children are and where they go to school.”

There is a lot to talk about when it comes to gun control and violence in the United States, including–though this is all too often not included–the role played in that violence by our ideas about manhood and masculinity. It seems pretty clear to me that the NRA’s campaign as a whole is more about fear-mongering than really having that discussion, but the racist fear-mongering this video trafficks in is especially insidious and dangerous and it needs to be called out over and over again, plain and simple.

Cross-posted.

This entry posted in Race, racism and related issues, The Obama Administration. Bookmark the permalink. 

21 Responses to The Racism in this NRA Video Needs to be Called Out

  1. 1
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    I’m not sure it’s racist– or at least the non-President’s kids at the beginning are shown briefly in silhouette, so that their race isn’t obvious.

    I am sure it’s very stupid. As you say, the security needs of the President’s kids are way beyond the usual.

  2. 2
    RonF says:

    First, there is the divide-and-conquer aspect of the video, i.e., the unstated fact that it is about an African-American man whose children get all that protection when there are so many African-American children who, in the video’s formulation, die from gun violence because that kid of protection is not available to them.

    You’re right. It’s unstated. It’s unstated because it’s not there. He’s the President, and he’s spearheading attempts to limit civil rights. Are people NOT supposed to oppose this because he’s black? Nothing in that video refers to the race of kids being killed or needing protection.

    You want to talk about racism? Fine. What’s sparked the latest spate of attempts to limit 2nd Amendment civil rights has been the killing of white kids, not black kids. Seems to me that if there’s racism involved it’s been on the part of the people trying to use kids to take away civil rights, not the people trying to preserve them. Otherwise, why didn’t they go to these lengths when black kids have been killed?

    Then, there is the plain old racism of manipulating white viewers to forget

    White viewers? Is there a magic filter on this video so that only white people see it? How is this video a) “manipulating” anyone and b) only “manipulating” white people?

    that we’re talking about the security needs of the children of the president of the United States

    Why is it relevant that his wife and kids are getting protection because he’s the President? No one is challenging their need for protection. No one is challenging that it’s paid for by the taxpayers. The point is that he’s challenging other people’s kids’ need for protection. Heck, the school he sends his kids to has 11 armed guards outside of the Secret Service. They’re part of the school staff for all the kids, they aren’t there just for the President’s kid.

    The point the NRA is making is not that the President’s kids’ school shouldn’t benefit from armed guards. It’s not that he shouldn’t make sure his kids are safe. It’s that it’s hypocritical – and elitist – to criticize the concept that other schools should not and could not benefit from the same protection.

    Why his kids need that security is immaterial. Why anyone’s kid needs or wants that security is immaterial. The President of the United States thinks that his kids benefit from the presence of armed guards. What is illogical or mendacious about the President of the NRA proposing that other parents and school districts would benefit from the same thing?

    and focus on the “fact” that this Black man and his children, not to mention his wife, are getting a level of armed protection that this same Black man–again, in the NRA’s formulation, though of course the video never uses the word “Black”–wants to deny the rest of us.

    Again, I fail to see how the race of anyone involved here is part of the formulation of the message. Do you think the NRA would not have created exactly the same video if President Obama was white?

    Somehow, I don’t believe the NRA would have gone after the president’s children in this way if the man in office were white,

    Apparently you do. I can’t imagine why. I’d appreciate it if you would explain.

    Do you think that if you changed the black faces to white in this video it wouldn’t communicate the same message?

    It seems to me that what’s going on here is that the NRA deliberately ensured that this video wasn’t race-based and communicates a clear non-racist message – and rather than raise a logical argument against the message (which as far as I can tell here you haven’t), you try to invent a racist component in it to discredit the messenger.

    video’s obvious (to me anyway) dog-whistle

    Funny thing about dog whistles. People can’t hear them. Or are you comparing NRA members to dogs?

  3. 3
    RonF says:

    Hm. Comment editor still broken. That last bit – it shouldn’t just referenced NRA members. I”m sure that this video is meant for general circulation. So I ask; are you comparing 2nd Amendment civil rights defenders to dogs?

  4. 4
    RonF says:

    Somehow, I don’t believe the NRA would have gone after the president’s children in this way if the man in office were white

    Going after his kids? They’re not going after his kids. God bless the President’s kids, I and I’m quite sure the NRA officers and membership hope they live their lives unscathed by violence. At no point are they proposing that the President’s kids’ security arrangements be changed one iota. They’re going after his policies as they affect civil rights and other people’s kids.

  5. 5
    Robert says:

    Ron is correct. It is possible that this video is racist, whether secretly or as part of Operation Negro Degradation 2013 – but it is not possible for the NRA to make a video which makes the substantive point of this one (which Ron defines quite well so I won’t rehash) and have it be impossible for folk of your ilk (it’s a good ilk, don’t feel bad) not to see it as a racist.

    If it helps, gun-rights supporters have noted, over and over and for years and years, long predating the rise of President Obama to any office, that elected officials (and to a lesser but meaningful extent, rich Hollywood liberals) are quite open to having armed guards for themselves or their households, but seem horrified at the thought that someone poor and non-political and non-Hollywood would be so crass as to adopt a DIY approach. They were blowing the dog whistle for decades before anybody even knew some dogs were coming, in other words; I guess they could be that cunningly far-seeing, but I doubt it. It’s just a good rhetorical point, and easy to make, like if Bill Gates was going around lecturing people for having unreasonably large houses. (He doesn’t. He goes around saying things ought to be more efficient, and maybe we could spend the tiny sums needed to stop megadeaths in Africa. And then he does.)

    Which is not to say that you couldn’t find some NRA people, or people of any other anti-Obama ilk, that you could scratch and find racist underneath the skin; sad but it’s there. But as our foremost Affirmative Action president said, we must beware the soft bigotry of low expectations; if we say people can’t criticize boneheaded or tin-eared or just plain hypocritical behavior of the President because he’s black and RACISTS would make that same argument, then we are in the position of essentially arguing that a black guy can’t do the job. Being subjected to brutal but fair criticism (even brutal and unfair criticism) is part of the job.

    I know you aren’t saying that black people can’t handle the job, because that would be racist. Ergo, it’s OK to dump on Obama whenever the dumping is good. Racists breathe and eat pie and take epic dumps, too. I’m not abandoning any of those key planks in my platform just to be different than them.

  6. First, Ron, the term dog whistle racism is simply about some people being attuned to frequencies of rhetoric that not everyone else will hear. I certainly am not trying to call anyone a dog, but I do understand why you might find the term offensive and so I will simply apologize and stop using it.

    Robert:

    but it is not possible for the NRA to make a video which makes the substantive point of this one (which Ron defines quite well so I won’t rehash) and have it be impossible for folk of your ilk (it’s a good ilk, don’t feel bad) not to see it as a racist.

    I’m sorry but that seems to me to indicate a profound failure imagination. I can easily imagine a video that would make this point:

    If it helps, gun-rights supporters have noted, over and over and for years and years, long predating the rise of President Obama to any office, that elected officials (and to a lesser but meaningful extent, rich Hollywood liberals) are quite open to having armed guards for themselves or their households, but seem horrified at the thought that someone poor and non-political and non-Hollywood would be so crass as to adopt a DIY approach.

    that makes the point that Obama stands with them not you, that does not mention his children and that is just as emotionally powerful and hard-hitting as the video the NRA made. I have no problem criticizing–or “dumping on” to use your term–Obama and his policies, regardless, as you say, whether the criticism is fair or not, brutal or not. But when an organization like the NRA makes a video like this, which crosses a line (bringing a politician’s children into the debate on a very personal level) that has, as far as I know, generally not been crossed with other politicians in other situations, including debates over gun control, and when that kind of line has been crossed more than once–not by people showing up at protests with signs, but by people from whom one would expect otherwise–I have to ask why it’s okay to cross it with this guy and not someone else.

    Ron:

    Why is it relevant that his wife and kids are getting protection because he’s the President? No one is challenging their need for protection. No one is challenging that it’s paid for by the taxpayers. The point is that he’s challenging other people’s kids’ need for protection. Heck, the school he sends his kids to has 11 armed guards outside of the Secret Service. They’re part of the school staff for all the kids, they aren’t there just for the President’s kid.

    Thanks for this. I was careless in listening to the beginning of the video, which does not specifically reference secret service protection. This does not change my overall reading of the video–see above–but you’re right; this part of my reading was inaccurate.

  7. 7
    Robert says:

    The other point to be made, by the way, is that the video is out of date. Obama changed his mind, and the video is quite unfair to criticize him for hypocrisy; he’s now for letting districts that want guards have guards (not that it’s any of the president’s beeswax) and for finding some Federal money, a la Clinton, for districts that want a hand. (Unfair is, I guess, an unfair word. Yesterday, the video was fair.)

    Jeff, I am not going to spend an hour Googling it, but the families of other Presidents have been used illustratively (this was not a targeting; nothing bad was said about the girls, just that their dad was hypocritical in sending them to a school with private security guards but opposing that for other kids) and/or have been targeted, probably since Nelly Lewis. (George Washington’s granddaughter.)

    Most Presidents, Obama included, invite the practice to some extent by virtue of using their kids as political props beyond the photo-op of mom, dad, and gleaming-toothed offspring. I have more sympathy (and my impression is, the media and opposing parties are more cooperative) in cases where POTUS keeps the sprouts out of camera as much as possible. Where they’re helping mom show the victory-over-economics garden to Bill O’Reilly, or whatever, then they’re actors on the stage and – with due restraint owing to tender years – fair game for most fodderization efforts like this NRA piece.

    OK, on second thought, Nelly Lewis probably got left alone, because George Washington would materialize in a pillar of fire and radiation and kill anyone who crossed him. But after that.

    (Honestly, if I had to wager, I would say that Michelle Obama, if anyone, pulls more uncalled-for fire than anybody else in the White House. I don’t much like her, but then, I don’t imagine she would much like me. But she gets called names like crazy – I definitely see a lot of racism, though unorganized, directed there.)

  8. 8
    RonF says:

    The anti-civil rights forces have predicated their entire recent campaign on the basis of the safety of children. They are the ones that brought children in to this. Contrasting how public officials ensure the safety of their own children while they ridicule a leader of an organization they oppose who proposes that those same measures be available to the public’s children seems fair play to me – and I see nothing wrong OR racist with using the hypocritical actions of one of the most prominent people involved in this as an example. And, as Robert points out, the President has used his own children as a foil to illustrate points about his own political positions repeatedly.

  9. 9
    RonF says:

    As far as Michelle Obama goes, I put her up there with anyone else who you see in People magazine every month or so. I don’t really care what she says or does. The only issue I have is that we (unfortunately) elected her husband, not her, so I don’t see why I have to pay for 24 staffers and God and the U.S. Comptroller knows how much money support an office for her. But I won’t lay that at her particular doorstep – that’s something that’s been creeping up for some time.

  10. 10
    RonF says:

    Richard, @ 6: I see nothing in the analysis in that post that refutes my point that there’s in fact no racism in that video.

  11. 11
    Ampersand says:

    Heck, the school he sends his kids to has 11 armed guards outside of the Secret Service.

    I’d like to see some actual evidence for this claim. This is the best I’ve found so far, from the Weekly Standard:

    According to a scan of the school’s online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.

    That’s a presumption, not evidence.

    An alumni of Sidwell, the school the Obama children attend, claims it is a Quaker school and the security guards are not armed.

    Sidwell’s own “Special Police Officers” are simply security guards that you’d find at any school. They are not armed with guns, nor do they have access to guns (whether this is because of DC’s restrictive gun laws, the school’s Quaker values or a recognition that arming people increases the likelihood of negative outcomes, I’m unsure). There are eleven of them because they operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

    That’s not absolute evidence either – it’s possible that the rules have changed since this person attended Sidwell. But I don’t see why you’re so sure that Sidwell’s security is armed.

  12. 12
    KellyK says:

    Does anyone have handy a quote or video of the President’s comments that the video is based on? That is, comments opposing armed guards in schools. Because I’ve seen some seriously crackpot proposals, floated by actual lawmakers, about arming every teacher and janitor. There’s a huge difference between well-trained armed guards and teachers who are apparently supposed to spend time at the firing range between grading papers and writing lesson plans. So I would really like to see what, specifically, he was objecting to.

    Also, I’ve admittedly only seen the commercial with sound off (at the gym), but the “gun-free zones for our kids” implies that it would be totally awesome if schools were not a gun free zone and any random staff member or visiting parent were carrying.

  13. 13
    JutGory says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman:

    (bringing a politician’s children into the debate on a very personal level) that has, as far as I know, generally not been crossed with other politicians in other situations

    The closest example I can think of revolves around the school-choice issue. Politicians who oppose school choice or vouchers are often criticized about the fact that they do not send THEIR children to public schools in D.C. (which are no model of academic excellence), but decide, instead, that they want to send them to a decent private school. They know that there are public school systems that don’t serve their communities well (and, oftentimes, those communities are poor, urban, and minority), but they don’t want to give poor, inner-city, black kids a voucher that might get them into a decent private school because: OM(God)! And, while these politicians are criticized for their hypocrisy and elitism, the racist effects of their positions are generally overlooked. As these politicians do not make their case on the grounds of race, but do it on the basis of religion, imputations, accusations, or inferences of racism are not made. Though, following your example, perhaps they should be.

    -Jut

  14. 14
    Ruchama says:

    Based on what I know about Sidwell Friends, I would be very surprised to learn that the school hired armed guards. It just seems totally against the culture of the school. (I have a few friends who have taught there.)

  15. 15
    Ruchama says:

    Also, are those 11 security guards just for the middle/upper school campus, or for both campuses? Because 11 people, divided between two campuses, and allowing for people to be on different shifts, would probably mean one or two guards per campus at any given time. And each campus has several buildings.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you’re not the only person speaking out against the NRA’s racism. Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) has also spoken out against what he perceives as the NRA’s racism.

    Following a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday, Rep. Johnson suggested that NRA opposition to Obama’s gun control policies was personal. CNSNews.com then asked Johnson, “You said just a minute ago that part of the NRA’s true colors was a personal dislike of the president. Why do you think that is?”

    Rep. Johnson said, “First of all, he is a black. And as a black person being the president of the United States, that is something they still cannot get over.”

    Johnson said that it was because the NRA could not “get over” the election of a black president. “They couldn’t get over the first election, [and] they’re still shell-shocked at the second election,” he said. “That’s a pun, shell-shocked.”

    You may not be familiar with Rep. Johnson. Here’s another one of his concerns, equally well thought out, that he expressed in a Congressional hearing to an U.S. Navy Admiral about putting more personnel on the island of Guam:

    REP. JOHNSON: Now, this is an island that at its widest level is, what, 12 miles from shore to shore and at its smallest level, smallest location it’s seven miles between one shore and the other. Is that correct?

    ADM. WILLARD: I don’t have the exact dimensions, but to your point, sir, I think Guam is a small island.

    REP. JOHNSON: Very small island and about 24 miles, if I recall, long, 24 miles long, about seven miles wide at the least widest place on the island and about 12 miles wide on the widest part of the island. And I don’t know how many square miles that is. Do you happen to know?

    ADM. WILLARD: I don’t have that figure with me, sir. I can certainly supply it to you if you’d like.

    REP. JOHNSON: My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.

  17. 17
    Ampersand says:

    Also, are those 11 security guards just for the middle/upper school campus, or for both campuses?

    As I understand it, it’s for both campuses, and it works out to 1 guard on duty at most times.

  18. 18
    closetpuritan says:

    Chris Christie doesn’t like the ad, either, although he doesn’t call it racist:

    “To talk about the president’s children or any public officer’s children who have — not by their own choice, but by requirement — to have protection and to use that somehow to try to make a political point, I think, is reprehensible,” Christie said. He added: “I think it’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t deserve to be there. And for any of us who are public figures, you see that ad and you cringe. You cringe because it’s just not appropriate to do that, in my opinion.”

  19. 20
    Jake Squid says:

    The rule is, “Don’t let facts stand between you and fomenting hysteria.”

  20. 21
    bad karma says:

    I don’t see the slightest racism. Don’t throw your race cards so loosely. I see a clear example of hypocrisy.