Accused by Ralph Nader of “talking white” and “trying to appeal to white guilt,” Barack Obama said Wednesday that Nader is “trying to get attention” by making “inflammatory” remarks.
The flap reintroduced racial politics into the presidential campaign just weeks after the conclusion of a racially charged Democratic primary. It also raised the profile of Nader, a staunch liberal whose independent presidential candidacy could drain votes from Obama.
“He’s somebody who’s trying to get attention and whose campaign hasn’t gotten any traction,” Obama said in Chicago. “[What] better way to get some traction than to make an inflammatory statement like the one that he made?”
He added that Nader has “become a perennial political candidate. I think it’s a shame.”
Obama was responding to remarks Nader made to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate: He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson?”
The comment recalled former President Bill Clinton’s attempt to minimize Obama’s North Carolina primary victory by noting the contest had been won twice before by Jackson, a firebrand civil rights activist. Clinton, who was widely pilloried for his remark, accused Obama of “playing the race card” against him.
Nader also accused Obama of trying to advance himself by offering to assuage “white guilt.”
“He wants to show that he is not another politically threatening African-American politician,” Nader said. “He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”
The son of a white mother and black father, Obama spent decades anguishing over his self-described “racial obsessions.”
“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he wrote in his first memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” “One of thosetricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”
Obama said Wednesday that “Nader hasn’t been paying attention to my speeches,” which the Democrat said have addressed “all the issues” Nader raised.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs called Nader’s remarks “reprehensible and delusional.”
