A more perfect union? part II

This past Saturday, Lee Siegel published an essay in the New York Times titled “What’s Race Got to Do With It?” in which he argues that, “for the many Americans who find the thought of a black president unbearable, [GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney] is an ideal candidate,” because Romney, according to Sielgel, “is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory.” By “white,” Siegel explains, he is “not talking about a strict count of melanin density;” rather he is referring to what he takes to be

the countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways he [Romney] telegraphs to a certain type of voter that he is the cultural alternative to America’s first black president. It is a whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America.

For Siegel, then, as for many cultural critics, race is not merely one social fact among others, and racial difference is not merely one among the many forms of difference that our political institutions attempt to mediate. Rather, race is also a symbol. Terms like “black” and “white” signify a whole range of social, cultural, and economic meanings. Race constitutes the fundamental framework within which the rest of our politics makes (or fails to make) sense.

In our next debate, we’ll test that proposition.

• Debate Team 1 will argue that race is the fundamental issue in American politics, the one that frames and defines all the others. The struggle for social justice in America, then, is first and foremost a struggle for racial equality. 
• Debate Team 3 will argue that race is a vitally important issue in contemporary American politics, but it doesn't fame and define the others. The struggle for social justice in America certainly involves the struggle for racial equality, but there are other, equally compelling struggles, and we should address each separately and on its own terms.

To prepare for the debate, everyone in class should read these brief, recent news pieces:

• Siegel’s opinion piece.
• John McWorther’s rebuttal to Siegel
• And these articles about recent controversies involving GOP candidates Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich.

Debate Teams 1 and 3 will draw upon two book chapters, both on Blackboard (in the folder labeled “Content”): Cornell West’s “The New Politics of Cultural Difference” and Dinesh D’Souza’s “The End of Racism.”