{"id":281,"date":"2011-11-18T21:50:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-19T02:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=281"},"modified":"2011-11-18T21:50:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-19T02:50:50","slug":"herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html","title":{"rendered":"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain has had a rough couple of weeks.\u00a0 Several women have come forth accusing Cain of sexual harassment.\u00a0 Now, Cain may or may not be guilty of the charges that are leveled against him.\u00a0 It is not my intention here to defend him.\u00a0 In fact, I am not now nor have I ever been a Herman Cain supporter.\u00a0 However, as a conservative, I am disposed to be skeptical of most things in life.\u00a0 And there are few things as deserving of skeptical treatment as the phenomenon that has engulfed Cain since he has become a presidential frontrunner.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This is the first reason for why I am disinclined to extend Cain\u2019s accusers a sympathetic hearing: it is only now, once his party\u2019s presidential nomination is within his reach, that they have come forward.<\/p>\n

Second, not only have these women waited until Cain became a frontrunner before they decided to disclose these revelations, they waited well over a decade to do so!<\/p>\n

Third, the publicity-hungry, Democratic-friendly Gloria Allred is representing at least one of Cain\u2019s accusers.\u00a0 This fact alone suggests that the Cain \u201cscandal\u201d is politically motivated.\u00a0 When, however, it is taken in conjunction with the foregoing considerations, it all but compels this conclusion.<\/p>\n

There is another reason, though, to account for my suspicions that, whatever may or may not have happened in Cain\u2019s past, this episode is largely a plot hatched by his political opponents.<\/p>\n

To put it bluntly, Cain is black and, thus far, his accusers are white.<\/p>\n

Beyond this, some of them\u2014including and especially Sharon Bialik, the woman who is the first to put a face to the sexual harassment charges\u2014are white women with blonde hair. <\/em><\/p>\n

Now, the base of the Republican Party remains predominantly white.\u00a0 From the leftist\u2019s perspective, white Republicans are even more preoccupied with \u201cracist\u201d delusions than are whites generally. \u00a0This explains, according to the leftist, why white Republicans love Herman Cain: he is a black man \u201cwho knows his place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This, at any rate, is what MSNBC analyst Karen Finney said during an exchange on Martin Bashir\u2019s television show.\u00a0 \u201cOne of the things about Herman Cain is, I think that he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy.\u201d\u00a0 Finney continued to say that she believes that Cain has given the Republican Party base \u201ca free pass\u201d because they view him as \u201ca black man who knows his place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Janeane Garofalo, on more than one occasion, has attempted to reinforce this notion of an incorrigibly \u201cracist\u201d Republican Party and its relationship to Cain.\u00a0 While speaking with Keith Olbermann, she asserted: \u201cHerman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because\u201d such support on their part \u201chides the racist elements of the Republican Party.\u201d\u00a0 So that no one would miss her point, Garofalo was blunt: \u201c[The] Conservative movement and tea party movement [are] one and the same.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0That is, they are \u201cracist<\/em>\u201d against blacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the leftist, then, Republicans, conservatives, and Tea Partiers generally dislike blacks\u2014except for when those blacks, like Herman Cain, \u201cknow their place.\u201d\u00a0 When blacks like Cain come along and defy those threatening stereotypes concerning blacks that \u201cracist\u201d Republicans regard as self-evident truths, then they exploit him in order to prove that they aren\u2019t \u201cracist\u201d after all.<\/p>\n

But now, so goes the logic of the leftist\u2019s vision of Republicans, the latter will have a change of heart.\u00a0 Cain would have only appeared<\/em> to Republicans to have undermined the worst of black stereotypes.\u00a0 But the women\u2014white <\/em>women\u2014who now alleged that Cain made unwanted sexual advances toward them will surely throw this into doubt, for Cain sounds like precisely the sort of black man that they have always feared, a black man with an insatiable sexual drive and an irrepressible attraction to white women.<\/p>\n

On November 14, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw and Catharine A. MacKinnon co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times <\/em>in which they touch upon this theme of the intersection of black male sexuality, miscegenation, and white hostility.\u00a0 As is clear from the title of their essay, \u201cWhy Herman Cain is Unfit to Lead,\u201d the authors are no fans of Cain\u2019s.\u00a0 However, they caution against casually dismissing Cain\u2019s claim to be, like Clarence Thomas two decades earlier, the victim of a \u201chigh tech lynching.\u201d\u00a0 They write: \u201cIt would be wrong to dismiss the appeal of his defense, given the common dimension of public sexual humiliation and how deeply \u2018lynching\u2019 resonates as a metaphor for black men in the real context of the sexual politics of racial hierarchy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is, whites generally and white men in particular have always reserved the harshest treatment for black men who insist on pursuing white women.<\/p>\n

Leftist MSNBC contributor Toure is even more explicit on this score.\u00a0 While on Martin Bashir\u2019s program, he remarked: \u201cWe\u2019re going to see how open the GOP is to this black\u2014their \u2018new black friend\u2019 when they find out he is harassing blonde women as opposed to black women.\u201d\u00a0 The idea here is that because this \u201csort of thing,\u201d i.e. \u201cpredatory <\/em>black sexuality,\u201d is still \u201cvery frightening,\u201d \u201cvery threatening,\u201d inAmerica (emphasis mine).<\/p>\n

Another MSNBC contributor, Karen Finney, seconded her colleague\u2019s sentiments.\u00a0 Of Republicans, she commented: \u201cLook, I think it will be interesting to see if these guys rally around Herman Cain with as much voracity as they have these last couple of weeks now that it\u2019s clear that a whole other layer of black sexuality has been infused into this.\u201d\u00a0 Finney is confident that the fact that these are \u201cwhite women\u201d and Cain is a \u201cblack man\u201d is not bound to sit well with Republicans\u2014or most whites, for that matter.<\/p>\n

Michael Tomasky, contributor to The Daily Beast, <\/em>argued before<\/em> anything was known about Cain\u2019s accusers that if the latter were black, this wouldn\u2019t hurt Cain in the least, for \u201cwhite conservative voters are less likely to care what black people do amongst themselves.\u201d\u00a0 If, though, his accusers turn out to be white, then he can count on losing much support, and \u201cif they\u2019re blonde<\/em>,\u201d he will lose that much more support (emphasis mine).\u00a0 Granted, Tomasky\u2019s article\u2014\u201cThe Cain Sexual-Harassment Game\u201d\u2014is satirical.\u00a0 But it is obvious to all who read it that Tomasky sees his hypothetical thought experiment as embodying real truths about Republicans and blacks.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We know, of course, that when it comes to the issue of white Republicans and Herman Cain\u2014like when it comes to most issues\u2014the leftist is self-delusional.\u00a0 Yet it is precisely because leftists do <\/em>think this way about white Republicans, race, and sexuality that invests my theory that the Cain \u201cscandal\u201d is politically conceived with a measure of plausibility. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It becomes even more plausible, though, when we recognize that the interracial character of this episode serves another crucial function.\u00a0 It kills two birds with one stone, if you will.\u00a0 Not only can it be made to alienate white Republicans from Cain; it can serve in alienating blacks, black women specifically, from him as well.<\/p>\n

As Thomas Sowell has written of Cain: \u201cMy gosh, he is certainly one of us [i.e blacks], far more so than Barack Obama [.]\u201d\u00a0 The Democratic Party establishment is not at all comfortable with the prospect of a black man raised in the old South during Jim Crow going up against Barack Obama, a much younger bi-racial candidate who enjoyed a relatively privileged life coming of age in plushHawaii.\u00a0 A brief perusal of their respective histories suggests that Cain is more \u201cauthentically\u201d black than Obama.<\/p>\n

This, at least, is what leftists think the rest of us think.\u00a0 So, for the sake of precluding that perception, they depict Cain as a black man for whom black women aren\u2019t good enough.\u00a0 That he has been married to a black woman for many years, far from detracting from this message, actually strengthens it, for his wife\u2019s is the face of the black women everywhere who he has disrespected and denigrated by pursuing white women.\u00a0 Cain, blacks can now know, really is <\/em>\u201cthe sell-out Uncle Tom\u201d that they have suspected.<\/p>\n

To reiterate, my point here is neither to exculpate Cain from the allegations made against him nor to convict the left of foul play.\u00a0 Rather, I simply wanted to present a theory as to why the left, if it was interested in framing Herman Cain or any black Republican, would choose to do so in terms of the kind of scandal at the center of which Cain currently stands.<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain has had a rough couple of weeks.\u00a0 Several women have come forth accusing Cain of sexual harassment.\u00a0 Now, Cain may or may not be guilty of the charges that are leveled against him.\u00a0 It is not my intention here to defend him.\u00a0 In fact, I am not now nor have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHerman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain has had a rough couple of weeks.\u00a0 Several women have come forth accusing Cain of sexual harassment.\u00a0 Now, Cain may or may not be guilty of the charges that are leveled against him.\u00a0 It is not my intention here to defend him.\u00a0 In fact, I am not now nor have…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-19T02:50:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left","og_description":"GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain has had a rough couple of weeks.\u00a0 Several women have come forth accusing Cain of sexual harassment.\u00a0 Now, Cain may or may not be guilty of the charges that are leveled against him.\u00a0 It is not my intention here to defend him.\u00a0 In fact, I am not now nor have…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2011-11-19T02:50:50+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html","name":"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-11-19T02:50:50+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-19T02:50:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/11\/herman-cain-race-sex-and-the-left.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Herman Cain, Race, Sex, and the Left"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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