t is a truth that not everything is about race even when different races are involved.  Given what goes on in the United States these days, one would not know that this is a truth.  A most recent and flagrant example of someone who has racialized a matter although race was almost certainly not the factor that he has made it out to be is Father Michael Pfleger, speaking at the Trinity United Church for Christ on 25 May 2008.  His claim is that the reason why Hilary Clinton has been distraught is that simply that a black man, namely Barack Obama, has upstaged her in the race for the democratic nominee for the 2008 presidential race.  In particular, the charge is that Obama, a black man has deprived her of what she, as a white person, felt was hers by entitlement, namely the democratic nomination. 

Father Pfleger is, at once, so very wrong and so very right.  It would seem that he is absolutely right in his thinking that Hilary Clinton felt entitled to the nomination.  Indeed, a mere six months ago—December of 2007—it seemed almost certain that she would get it.  But this sense of entitlement on her part most certainly had nothing to do with her being white per se.  Certainly, the sense of entitlement she had did not operate only with respect to blacks.  Not at all. 

Hilary Clinton’s sense entitlement held across the board, regardless of ethnicity or gender or whatever.  Her credentials as former first-lady for 8 years and a current United States senator for the State of New York were thought to give her a lock on the nomination, no matter who any other candidate might be. Certainly, it would not have occurred to her or anyone else that someone manifestly junior to her in experience would be able to upstage her.  Once more, this line of thought held regardless of race or gender or whatever.

It is sheer nonsense; it is petty; and it is malicious to hold that it was only against blacks (or some other minority group) that she supposed that her lock on the nomination was utterly secure.  Indeed, insofar as she was thought to have a lock on the democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential race, she had to have thought that this lock held against white men as well. 

There is simply no reason whatsoever to think that had a white male upstaged her in an Obama-like fashion that Hilary Clinton would have thought “Oh my, I guess I was wrong.  I concede to Mr. White Male”.  Indeed, I suspect that she would have attacked Mr. White Male in a most vituperative manner precisely because the issue of race would not have been a factor.  She could have said any dirty thing she wanted about Mr. White Male without anyone supposing that her motives are racist. 

Not so with Obama, however.  The least critical thing said about him by Hilary Clinton is easily viewed as an expression of racism on her part at some level or the other.  And in a very real sense this is profoundly unfair to her; for if there is anything we know, it is that that the presidential campaigns becomes horrendously vicious, as each candidate does whatever it takes to undermine the credibility of the other. 

This I say—not because I support Hilary Clinton—but because it is the truth.  In the United States, a black can say with impunity just anything he damn well pleases against whites as a group (and so cases of legal slander and libel aside).  One would have to be socially naïve to the nth degree not to know this.  

It is beyond question that Father Michael Pfleger knows this.  It is beyond question that Barack Obama knows this.  It is also beyond question that this truth—namely the truth that blacks can criticize whites with impunity but not the other way around—gives Obama a very significant advantage over any white candidate.  It is disingenuous for anyone to deny this truth.  It is disingenuous for blacks to deny this.  It is disingenuous for Barack Obama to deny this truth.  Likewise for Father Pfleger.

Father Michael Pfleger has viciously and malicious racialized the sense of entitlement with which Hilary Clinton began the race for the democratic presidential nominee; and in so doing, he has done considerable damage to the American political landscape. 

An Uncle Tom is a black who, at the expense of his own moral self-worth plays to whites.  Alas, modernity has produced a white counterpart to the Uncle Tom.  Perhaps we should call such a white an Uncle Teddy!  Father Michael Pfleger is an Uncle Teddy. 

Speaking at the Trinity United Church of Christ on 25 May 2008, Father Pfleger made himself all but indistinguishable in style of delivery from any traditional fiery black preacher.  Just as whites used the Uncle Tom to legitimate their morally warped views of blacks, the blacks at the Trinity United Church of Christ used Father Pfleger, their Uncle Teddy, to legitimate their morally warped views of whites.  On behalf of blacks, Father Pfleger is playing the race card.

Father Pfleger could have truthfully spoken about Hilary Clinton’s sense of entitlement to the democratic presidential nomination without turning her into one who harbors deep racist sentiments against blacks.  One hardly needs the view that she is racist in order to make sense of her being tremendously disappointed.  Anyone in her shoes would be—including Obama himself.  If tomorrow, a Black-Latino lesbian were to upstage Obama, we can all be absolutely certain that he would be sorely disappointed.  It would make no sense at all to claim that his disappointment is owing to either his sexism or his heterosexism or whatever.  For he would be rightly disappointed for the obvious reasons, namely that the victory that he thought would be his was suddenly snatched away from him.  Obama would have to be other than human in order not to be extraordinarily disappointed. 

The only difference is that if the person were a white individual rather than, say, a Black-Latino lesbian, Obama and his supporters could cry racism.  And this is to turn the idea of racial equality into something that is very morally obnoxious and inherently unstable, involving three untenable theses: (1) whenever a black loses to a white, it is racism; whenever a white is disappointed in losing to a black it is racism on the white’s part.  By contrast, (2) whenever a black wins over a white, the only explanation is talent and none other than talent on the part of the blac.  Together, theses (1) and (2) entail another thesis, namely that (3) the black candidate is always better than, and so more qualified than, the white candidate.   Needless to say, not only is (3) false, it is absurdly false in every conceivable way. 

Accordingly, insofar as the idea of racial equality embraced by blacks sits upon these three theses, it is not racial equality at all.  Rather, it is an unvarnished claim to racial superiority.  Alas, the claim of racial superiority is not more palatable when blacks are the one who are claiming to be superior. 

American may or may not yet be ready for a black president.  The irony, however, is that one very poignant reason why America may not yet be ready for a black president is that there are both blacks and, as Father Michael Pfleger makes abundantly clear, whites who embrace theses (1) – (3). 

Now, it does seem that the Father Pfleger's projects have benefited financially from the good priest's association with Barack Obama.  Which unsavory alternative do we have here: racism as usual or business as usual?