Written by Marianne Mansfield
If Michelle Obama has a fan club, I’d like to apply for the position of chief fan. For eight years, I’ve admired her grace, her intelligence, her sincerity, and her momma-bear-defending-her-cubs attitude.
Thus, I was eager to hear her speech to the graduates of Tuskegee University in its entirety even before Rush Limbaugh and his cronies started castigating her for “playing the race card.” I’ll get to Mrs. Obama’s speech in a moment. What I wondered about first, though, was the true meaning of “playing the race card.” Where did the phrase come from?
The etymology is a bit murky on the origins of the phrase. Going back to1863, Punch magazine published a cartoon of Abraham Lincoln—drawn to appear very devil-like—in a card game with a Confederate soldier. Lincoln is brandishing an Ace of Spades showing the face of an African American man, poised to slam the card down on a keg of dynamite. The title of the cartoon was “Abe Lincoln’s Last Card; Or, Rouge-et-Noir (Red and Black).” However, the phrase “playing the race card” came long after the publication of this cartoon.
Moving forward, in the UK in 1964, Peter Griffiths, a Conservative candidate for a seat in Parliament used the slogan: “If you want a ni**er as your neighbor, vote Labour,” implying that the Labour party was supporting the burgeoning influx of black immigrants into the country. Again however, those who study such things also dispute the attribution of the “race card” phrase to Griffiths’ slogan, noting that the election also predated the phrase.
There is little dispute, however, that by the time of the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the phrase “playing the race card” was commonly understood in this country and abroad. It was accepted to mean, according to Collins English Dictionary, that “someone plays the race card [when] they bring up the issue of race in a discussion, perhaps for sympathy or to seek popularity by appealing to racist sentiment.”
So what did Rush Limbaugh and friends mean to imply when they accused Michelle Obama of playing the race card? Let me be clear, I haven’t a clue what goes on in the likes of Rush Limbaugh’s mind, and for that I am grateful. I am, however, trying to understand his criticism.
So Mrs. Obama brought up the issue of race to appeal for sympathy or popularity or to engender racist sentiment. For the sake of argument, let’s just say my guess is close to what those guys meant.
Or try this. The Urban Dictionary provides us with a more down-to-earth definition of the phrase: “Calling someone racist, even if they aren’t, just to get away with something.”
If we use this definition, Rush seems to imply Mrs. Obama accused some white folks of being racist (because of course they aren’t) just so she could get away with… what, exactly? Inciting the graduates of Tuskegee University to take to the streets? Having free license to talk about the examples of overt racism she and the President of the United States have endured during his two terms so she could garner our sympathies? Again, I’m guessing here.
So, I listened to the speech. All of it. Not just the sound bites the national media cherry picked. It is nearly a half-hour long and worth every minute of it. Mrs. Obama is a polished speaker and an impassioned one. And she gave one hell of a graduation speech.
[You can find her entire speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhUKwl5NFgE]
After acknowledging everyone from the choir to the parents of the graduates, she settled into her remarks. She discussed the great history of the institution, naming Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver as two early associates of the institution who shaped the course of its growth. She mentioned the importance of the Tuskegee Airmen and their contributions during WWII. In each instance, she lauded them for “soaring past the bumps” (of outrages and discrimination) as they rose to exert their influence over the potential of future Tuskegee graduates.
Let’s be honest. Isn’t invoking the accomplishments of past graduates of an institution pretty standard fare? What Mrs. Obama did, however, was to explain that part of the hardship these men endured was due in some degree to the color of their skin. Can you possibly call this disingenuous? Read the history.
Mrs. Obama challenged the graduates to “live up” to the legacies of those who came before them. And how did she entice them to buy into her challenge? By creating a common bond of fellowship and camaraderie not only with the past but also with her own very personal, very hurtful experiences at the hands of the some of the press and some of the country. She welcomed in the graduates by assuring them that she, too, had suffered the evil power of racism.
And yet, she didn’t stop there. She told them about her choice. It was her choice not let others define her but rather to have faith “in God’s plan for me.” She exhorted them to decide who they were and what they cared about. She admonished them not to let “the noise” hold them back.
She was candid about the stubbornness of “age old problems,” without referring to racism by name. She acknowledged that feelings of despair can be isolating, but again she enjoined them not to use such feelings as an excuse to lose hope.
In this I found her passion persuasive but not unusual. What graduation speech is not designed to inspire its audience to burst forth upon the world with enthusiasm and spirit?
Nowhere in this speech did I find a play for sympathy. Nowhere did I hear an appeal to racist sentiment. And I never heard her call anyone racist or even imply that someone might be racist just so she could encourage the graduates in their attempts to “get away with something.”
Rather, I heard a fairly typical graduation speech, given by a woman who is an eloquent and caring speaker. I heard this woman doing her best to give the graduates of Tuskegee University an honest dose of reality, both the bumps along the road and their pathways to excellence.
And after all, what more do you want a graduate to hear? I can’t think of much.
