Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 52

A History of Liberal White Racism

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take:

Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period -- the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action -- southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an indispensable part of the governing political party.

It actually starts much earlier with Woodrow Wilson who forged a "composite of racism and progressive liberalism" which "came to dominate the Democratic Party, and, with it, the content and boundaries of social reform."

The composite endured after Wilson:

During the 1920s, Alabama's Oscar Underwood and Joseph Robinson of Arkansas led the Democratic Party in the House; Senate Democrats were led by Claude Kitchin of North Carolina until 1923, then by Finis Garrett of Tennessee. With no realistic threat to segregation on the horizon, southern members often allied successfully with western Republican progressives led by Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin and George Norris of Nebraska.

This coalition propelled reform legislation that included the Water Power Act of 1920 and the Merchant Marine Act of the same year, as well as tax laws that maintained the progressive income, inheritance, and excess profits provisions that had been brought in during World War I. It also passed the Maternity and Infancy Welfare Act of 1921, jointly sponsored in the House by the Texas Democrat Morris Sheppard and Iowa Republican Horace Towner, whose pattern of local administration sharply discriminated against black families in the South.

The South's Democrats also supported collective bargaining for unions in the railroad industry, and large-scale power projects, including the epic construction of Boulder Dam, a project that would not be undertaken until 1931.

Their tax policies, in the main, grew more moderate after the 1924 Republican landslide, which weakened that party's progressive wing, but even the more conservative southern Democrats, like Underwood, "sustained much more 'progressive' voting records than their Republican colleagues from New England and the mid-American states" throughout the 1920s.

The uniting force that makes all of this possible is white supremacy. In the Democratic Party of the early 20th century, everything was negotiable save the advancement of black people. Not even the protection of black people was countenanced. During the same period Southern Democrats were supporting railroad unions, they were actively fighting anti-lynching laws. You could easily bring the women's suffrage movement into this also which, by the 20s, had embraced the spirit of white supremacy. The embrace was likely necessary.

I don't know where Katznelson is ultimately going, but I think his point is that -- in the end -- it was a lot of this New Deal legislation, however flawed, that helped bring about segregation's end. Unfortunately, the effects of a social safety net engineered for the aid of some and the hindering of others is still with us.

       

A History Of Liberal White Racism

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take:

Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period--the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action--southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an indispensable part of the governing political party.

It actually starts much earlier with Woodrow Wilson who forged a "composite of racism and progressive liberalism" which "came to dominate the Democratic Party, and, with it, the content and boundaries of social reform."
The composite endured after Wilson:

During the 1920s, Alabama's Oscar Underwood and Joseph Robinson of Arkansas led the Democratic Party in the House; Senate Democrats were led by Claude Kitchin of North Carolina until 1923, then by Finis Garrett of Tennessee. With no realistic threat to segregation on the horizon, southern members often allied successfully with western Republican progressives led by Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin and George Norris of Nebraska. 
This coalition propelled reform legislation that included the Water Power Act of 1920 and the Merchant Marine Act of the same year, as well as tax laws that maintained the progressive income, inheritance, and excess profits provisions that had been brought in during World War I. It also passed the Maternity and Infancy Welfare Act of 1921, jointly sponsored in the House by the Texas Democrat Morris Sheppard and Iowa Republican Horace Towner, whose pattern of local administration sharply discriminated against black families in the South.
The South's Democrats also supported collective bargaining for unions in the railroad industry, and large-scale power projects, including the epic construction of Boulder Dam, a project that would not be undertaken until 1931. 
Their tax policies, in the main, grew more moderate after the 1924 Republican landslide, which weakened that party's progressive wing, but even the more conservative southern Democrats, like Underwood, "sustained much more 'progressive' voting records than their Republican colleagues from New England and the mid-American states" throughout the 1920s.

The uniting force that makes all of this possible is white supremacy. In the Democratic party of the early 20th century, everything was negotiable save the advancement of black people. Not even the protection of black people was countenanced. During the same period Southern Democrats were supporting railroad unions, they were actively fighting anti-lynching laws. You could easily bring the women's suffrage movement into this also which, by the 20s, had embraced the spirit of white supremacy. The embrace was likely necessary.
I don't know where Katznelson is ultimately going, but I think his point is that--in the end--it was a lot of this New Deal legislation, however flawed, that helped bring about segregation's end. Unfortunately, the effects of a social safety net engineered for the aid of some and the hindering of others is still with us.        

The Elusive 'Good War'

I finished Antony Beevor's majestic The Second World War last night. I immediately poured myself a drink. Beevor's book is great look at how we think about "good" and "evil." I found it very easy to name "evil," and a lot harder to name "good."This is evil:

Many prisoners of the Japanese had suffered a particularly gruesome and cruel fate. General MacArthur had given Australian forces the dispiriting task of clearing New Guinea and Borneo of the remaining pockets of Japanese. It became clear from all the reports collected later by U.S. authorities and the Australian War Crimes Section that the 'widespread practice of cannibalism by Japanese soldiers in the Asia-Pacific war was something more than merely random incidents perpetrated by individuals or small groups subject to extreme conditions. The testimonies indicate that cannibalism was a systematic and organized military strategy. 
The practice of treating prisoners as 'human cattle' had not come about from a collapse of discipline. It was usually directed by officers. Apart from local people, victims of cannibalism included Papuan soldiers, Australians, Americans, and Indian prisoners of war who had refused to join the Indian National Army. At the end of the war, their Japanese captors had kept the Indians alive so that they could butcher them to eat one at a time. Even the inhumanity of the Nazis' Hunger Plan in the east never descended to such levels. 
Because the subject was so upsetting to families of soldiers who had died in the Pacific War, the Allies suppressed all information on the subject, and cannibalism never featured as a crime at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946.

It's not just the practice of cannibalism, but that the cannibalism proceeded from notions of racial superiority, militarism, and empire. The Nazis, who attempted to turn human body parts into consumer goods, were not much different.
But is this good?

The mass of incendiaries raining down in a tighter pattern than usual on the eastern side of the city accelerated the conglomeration of individual fires into one gigantic furnace. This created a chimney or volcano of heat which shot into the sky and sucked in hurricane force winds at ground level. This fanned the roaring flames still further. At 17,000 feet, the air-crew could smell roasting flesh. 
On the ground, the blast of hot air tore off clothes, stripping people naked and setting their hair ablaze. Flesh was desiccated, leaving it like pemmican. As in Wuppertal, tarmac boiled and people became glued to it like insects on a flypaper. Houses would explode into a blaze in a moment. The fire service was rapidly overwhelmed. Those civilians who stayed in cellars suffocated or died from smoke inhalation or carbon-monoxide poisoning. 
They, according to the Hamburg authorities later, represented between 70 and 80 per cent of the 40,000 people who died. Many of the other bodies were so carbonized that they were never recovered... 
Harris's attempt to break German morale had failed. Yet he still refused to admit defeat and he certainly refused to recant. He despised government attempts to whitewash the bombing campaign by claiming that the RAF was going only for military targets and that civilian deaths were unavoidable. He simply regarded industrial workers and their housing as legitimate targets in a modern militarized state. He rejected any idea that they should be 'ashamed of area bombing.'

This is very clearly terrorism. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill privately acknowledged as much, noting that RAF Bomber Command was often bombing "simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts." Arthur Harris (Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command) rejected the idea that you could separate German civilians from the German military. 
When the entire state is mobilized to conquest, what is a civilian? In the Pacific theater, Curtis Lemay used similar logic in ordering the firebombing of Tokyo. (100,00 dead.) I don't suggest an equivalence here. The big difference between the Nazi embrace of terrorism and the British/American embrace is that there was an actual debate. In Nazi Germany, those who debated were seen as weak, insufficiently loyal, and often executed. 
But that isn't enough. Do we get to call ourselves "democratic" and then judge ourselves by a Nazi standard? And there is something more -- what you see is the Americans and British forces throughout the War enacting harsher and harsher measures. Faced with the evil of the Nazis, or the evils of Japanese imperialism, we find the tools of evil more alluring. By the time American forces get to the Ardennes, they are not taking prisoners. And looking at Nazi tactics -- "surrendering" and then shooting -- can we say we'd do anything different? 
This is what is ultimately most troubling for me about Beevor's work. He -- all at once --catalogues all the flaws of the Allies, but robs you of your moral superiority. How should we think about the Soviet Union, which, among "The Big Three," bore the brunt of the Nazi assault? On one page Beevor will profile their heroic stand against an Army thought sought to starve them out of existence. On another he will profile that same Army raping its way to Berlin. How do you think about the subjugators  of Poland and the liberators of Auschwitz, when it's the same Army? 
Perhaps in the same way you think about a Union Army enforcing emancipation, only to turn around and enforce the pilfering of Native American land. Perhaps in the same way you think about Britain holding out against the Nazis, while ruthlessly warring against Kenyans fighting for independence. During the Bush years there was a lot of debate about the usefulness of the concept of "evil." I don't have much trouble naming "forces for evil." What I have trouble with is naming "forces for good," to say nothing of "good wars." Indeed, it's very easy to name "an Axis of Evil." It's significantly harder to name a "Alliance for Good." Perhaps I can go with "forces for betterment" or "necessary wars." Certainly the Allied victory presented a "better" world then what Hitler promised. 
I find that it's common for people who fight "good wars" to gild the cause in humanitarianism. And sometimes there are real, actual  humanitarian outcomes -- ending the Holocaust, the destruction of the American slave society. But we didn't join the the Second World War to end the Holocaust. And the North only joined the war against slavery when it became clear that it was the only way to reunification. 
I am sorry for the confusion of all this. I am still thinking a lot of this through. Je ne sais pas.[image error]        

The Elusive "Good War"

I finished Antony Beevor's majestic The Second World War last night. I immediately poured myself a drink. Beevor's book is great look at how we think about "good" and "evil." I found it very easy to name "evil," and a lot harder to name "good."This is evil:

Many prisoners of the Japanese had suffered a particularly gruesome and cruel fate. General MacArthur had given Australian forces the dispiriting task of clearing New Guinea and Borneo of the remaining pockets of Japanese. It became clear from all the reports collected later by U.S. authorities and the Australian War Crimes Section that the 'widespread practice of cannibalism by Japanese soldiers in the Asia-Pacific war was something more than merely random incidents perpetrated by individuals or small groups subject to extreme conditions. The testimonies indicate that cannibalism was a systematic and organized military strategy. 
The practice of treating prisoners as 'human cattle' had not come about from a collapse of discipline. It was usually directed by officers. Apart from local people, victims of cannibalism included Papuan soldiers, Australians, Americans, and Indian prisoners of war who had refused to join the Indian National Army. At the end of the war, their Japanese captors had kept the Indians alive so that they could butcher them to eat one at a time. Even the inhumanity of the Nazis' Hunger Plan in the east never descended to such levels. 
Because the subject was so upsetting to families of soldiers who had died in the Pacific War, the Allies suppressed all information on the subject, and cannibalism never featured as a crime at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946.

It's not just the practice of cannibalism, but that the cannibalism proceeded from notions of racial superiority, militarism, and empire. The Nazis, who attempted to turn human body parts into consumer goods, were not much different.
But is this good?

The mass of incendiaries raining down in a tighter pattern than usual on the eastern side of the city accelerated the conglomeration of individual fires into one gigantic furnace. This created a chimney or volcano of heat which shot into the sky and sucked in hurricane force winds at ground level. This fanned the roaring flames still further. At 17,000 feet, the air-crew could smell roasting flesh. 
On the ground, the blast of hot air tore off clothes, stripping people naked and setting their hair ablaze. Flesh was desiccated, leaving it like pemmican. As in Wuppertal, tarmac boiled and people became glued to it like insects on a flypaper. Houses would explode into a blaze in a moment. The fire service was rapidly overwhelmed. Those civilians who stayed in cellars suffocated or died from smoke inhalation or carbon-monoxide poisoning. 
They, according to the Hamburg authorities later, represented between 70 and 80 per cent of the 40,000 people who died. Many of the other bodies were so carbonized that they were never recovered... 
Harris's attempt to break German morale had failed. Yet he still refused to admit defeat and he certainly refused to recant. He despised government attempts to whitewash the bombing campaign by claiming that the RAF was going only for military targets and that civilian deaths were unavoidable. He simply regarded industrial workers and their housing as legitimate targets in a modern militarized state. He rejected any idea that they should be 'ashamed of area bombing.'

This is very clearly terrorism. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill privately acknowledged as much, noting that RAF Bomber Command was often bombing "simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts." Arthur Harris (Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command) rejected the idea that you could separate German civilians from the German military. 
When the entire state is mobilized to conquest, what is a civilian? In the Pacific theater, Curtis Lemay used similar logic in ordering the firebombing of Tokyo. (100,00 dead.) I don't suggest an equivalence here. The big difference between the Nazi embrace of terrorism and the British/American embrace is that there was an actual debate. In Nazi Germany, those who debated were seen as weak, insufficiently loyal, and often executed. 
But that isn't enough. Do we get to call ourselves "democratic" and then judge ourselves by a Nazi standard? And there is something more -- what you see is the Americans and British forces throughout the War enacting harsher and harsher measures. Faced with the evil of the Nazis, or the evils of Japanese imperialism, we find the tools of evil more alluring. By the time American forces get to the Ardennes, they are not taking prisoners. And looking at Nazi tactics -- "surrendering" and then shooting -- can we say we'd do anything different? 
This is what is ultimately most troubling for me about Beevor's work. He -- all at once --catalogues all the flaws of the Allies, but robs you of your moral superiority. How should we think about the Soviet Union, which, among "The Big Three," bore the brunt of the Nazi assault? On one page Beevor will profile their heroic stand against an Army thought sought to starve them out of existence. On another he will profile that same Army raping its way to Berlin. How do you think about the subjugators  of Poland and the liberators of Auschwitz, when it's the same Army? 
Perhaps in the same way you think about a Union Army enforcing emancipation, only to turn around and enforce the pilfering of Native American land. During the Bush years there was a lot of debate about the usefulness of the concept of "evil." I don't have much trouble naming "forces for evil." What I have trouble with is naming "forces for good," to say nothing of "good wars." Perhaps I can go with "forces for betterment" or "necessary wars." Certainly the Allied victory presented a "better" world then what Hitler promised. 
I find that it's common for people who fight "good wars" to gild the cause in humanitarianism. And sometimes there are real, actual  humanitarian outcomes -- ending the Holocaust, the destruction of the American slave society. But we didn't join the the Second World War to end the Holocaust. And the North only joined the war against slavery when it became clear that it was the only way to reunification. 
I am sorry for the confusion of all this. I am still thinking a lot of this through. Je ne sais pas.        

The Limits of Good Faith

At Simmons College in Louisville on Friday, Rand Paul was asked about the criticism he encountered at Howard. He responded as follows:

Paul acknowledged criticism for the speech he gave at Howard University Wednesday, saying, "I think some think a white person is not allowed to talk about black history ... which I think is unfair." 
At Howard, he spoke for about an hour about how, historically, Democrats opposed integration and minority voting rights, while Republicans were the party of Abraham Lincoln. At Simmons, he talked about how blacks once registered in large numbers as Republicans, how Democrats in Kentucky opposed constitutional amendments that gave African Americans expanded rights and how Henry Watterson, editor of The Courier-Journal from its creation in 1868 until 1919, opposed letting black people vote. 
"Much of the public doesn't know that anymore, and part of my reason for bringing it out was that so people know Republicans aren't hostile to civil rights or somehow to African Americans," he said.

I guess I should point out here that white persons have been allowed to talk about black history for as long as there has been black history. Over the centuries much of that talk has been regrettable. In the recent decades, at lot more of it has been transcendent. There are many white people who talk about "black history" who would be quite warmly received at Howard -- Jim McPherson, David Brion Davis, Beryl Satter, Edmund S. Morgan, Drew Gilpin Faust, Eric Foner, John Thornton. (Those are just a few of my favorites.) There are even white people at Howard who are talking "about black history" at this present moment at Howard University. When I was history major at Howard, one of my favorite classes was a survey of American history by Joseph Reidy.  
But all of that is really beside the point. Rand Paul went to Howard University, lied, and then got his ass kicked. That's not so bad. I got my ass kicked regularly at Howard. That was the reason my parents sent me there. But having gotten his ass kicked, his answer is to not to reflect but to make an allegation of racial discrimination.
One of the things I try to do in my work is -- in general -- take people at their word. It's very hard to communicate about anything without good faith. This, of course, assumes that communication is the goal. That was my assumption about Rand Paul. I was clearly wrong.         

The Journey to Mecca

Reason has a good video up looking at the cross-section of opinion which followed Rand Paul's visit to Howard University. (With Chad Bozeman out there doing work, it's a good time to be a Bison.) I offered some of my own thoughts on Friday's All In With Chris Hayes. Here are a few more.

1.) I've gone back and forth on this but I think Rand Paul deserves credit. These sorts of speeches are often done by conservatives as a way of signaling to moderate whites that they aren't racist. The Mitt Romney show at the 2012 NAACP convention is the best example.

I think Paul's was different. I can't remember a potential Republican presidential candidate standing before a group of black students like that and actually taking questions. And these were not plants. Paul got the full brunt of a school where black history and politics are the air.

2.) Someone should have told Rand Paul he was going to a school where black history and politics are the air. At a university founded by prominent 19th-century Republicans, where every student is subject to an African-American (studies, lit, history, etc.) requirement, you can not hope to surprise them with "Famous Black Republican Facts." They know this. And anyone so moved to attend a Rand Paul speech at Howard will almost certainly know it better than Rand Paul. (Edward Brooke!)

3.) The lack of someones is particularly telling. It's not so much that Rand Paul is a Republican that matters, its his obvious lack of either good African-American advisers, or advisors who simply cared enough to do some recon. Someone who knew Howard could have told him that he was walking into a lion's den. This is the real and hard value of diversity, an area where, for at least the next decade, Dems will enjoy an advantage. They are better are talking to diverse audiences simply because they've had more practice. This isn't mission impossible. But to be good at talking to black people, you must talk to black people.

4.) This should not be a series of "speeches." Paul should go back to Howard and sit in on a couple of classes. He should just sit there and listen. I know he's a busy guy, but there is so much there that he clearly doesn't know. If he can't do it, he should send someone to do it. Better, he should hire a couple of smart kids out of Howard's poli-sci department who are sympathetic to his politics. (They are there.)

5.) Paul's answer to the Civil Rights Act question was deeply damaging. Nothing he did there hurt him more than outright lying. This is 2013. All these kids need do is google Rand Paul and Civil Rights Act to see what Paul actually said. It would be like Obama announcing his support for marriage equality, by claiming he'd always supported it. The worst part is he didn't even have to lie. A simple "I've learned a few things since becoming a senator" would have sufficed. Unforced error. Again, no one around Paul to say, "It's Howard. A third of SNCC went here. You are going to get this question. You must have a good answer."

6.) If you are a libertarian and dismayed by the largely critical reaction to Paul's speech, you should understand that much of it is because black liberals, like me, actually expect more of Rand Paul than we expected of Mitt Romney. Again, a lot of us have family whose politics are not very different from Rand Paul's. These are people who don't like foreign wars, who don't like our incarceration rates, and don't like our deficit.

These people are not me. But the fact that we end up voting for the same guy is a distortion of democracy. We deserve to fight it out. Having that fight doesn't require the GOP to fully embrace Obamacare. It requires the GOP to stop attempting to limit the number of people who are voting, and start competing for them. At this moment, the GOP has a choice. It can embrace the "Gifts" logic of Mitt Romney which holds that black people will never vote for a Republican, or it can make a pitch and compete.

Rand Paul -- skeptical of foreign war, skeptical of the drug war, skeptical of mass incarceration -- is the most credible Republican to make that pitch. We don't have any expectations for Steve King. Paul is different, and is being judged accordingly. You don't get to do something striking and courageous (like Paul's actual filibuster) and get judged by the standards of cowards.

       

'The Leviathan,' Cont.

We obviously got off track with our reading of The Leviathan. More precisely, I got off track. I plead Europe, near-death, the deadlines of magazines and 12-year-old son. Just a heads up that we'll be returning this Friday, picking up with Chapter V--"Of Reason and Science."
Apologies for the delay. I have not forgotten.        

Housekeeping

As you've probably noticed we are having problems with moderation and DISQUS. I wish I could tell you why. know everyone here at The Atlantic is working to get this figured out. But until it is figured out, I'm shutting down comments. 
If it were as simple as dealing with trolls we probably could keep it going. But there is a small portion of The Horde, that evidently enjoys being trolled. Short of banning longtime readers,  there's not much I can do. And without moderation, there's nothing Sandy and Kathleen can do. 
Hopefully this will be resolved soon. My apologies.        

Against the Conversation, Cont.

I think the dynamic which The Wire outlines here indicates why a conversation is beyond us. Jim Gile, a country commissioner in Kansas, was caught on tape discussing the repair of building with a group. He told the group that the county should hire an architect, instead of "nigger-rigging" the project. This suggestion was greeted with laughter. In case you were unclear about the meaning Gile went on to clarify -- the project should not be "Afro-Americanized."  
When the tape emerged, Gile claimed that he had actually meant to say "jury-rig" or "jerry-rig." How you get from "nigger" to "jury" or "jerry" is beyond me. And "jerry-rig" and "Afro-Americanized" became synonyms, I'm not quite sure. 
But none of this really matters because Gile is a "good person" and isn't racist:

"I am not a prejudiced person," Gile said Friday. "I have built Habitat homes for colored people." Gile said he also has a close friend whom he regards as a sister who is black.  "I don't ever do anything bad and don't know how to do anything bad. People know I am not," he said. 
In addition to building Habitat homes, Gile has been involved with CAPS, DVACK, the Food Bank, Salvation Army and Salina Rescue Mission, and he helped start Hunger Barrel, Souper Bowl and Project Salina. In 1989, Gile was awarded the JC Penney Golden Rule award for his volunteer work and he was given the Salina Award for Outstanding Citizen in 2009.

One of his colleagues went on to say that Gile doesn't have "a racist bone in his body .... He would give the shirt off his back to help anyone, no matter their race or status."
It is tempting to write this off as the local shenanigans of some unknown politician. Except that Gile's response is fairly typical when people are caught doing racist things. You can see my catalogue here. Michael Richards once yelled, at the top of his lungs, "He's a nigger! He's a nigger!" made a joke about lynching. When told that this is the sort of thing which, you know, racists tend to do, he said "I'm not a racist" -- and was indignant that someone would call him one -- "that's what's so insane."
This is denial and willful ignorance. And it's fairly endemic. I can't really remember the last time I saw a public figure do something racist and say, "Yes. I am racist. I am sorry and I intend to do something about it." Indeed virtually any "conversation" on race that would take place in this country must -- necessarily -- be premised on there not being any actual living racists, or any actual effects of racism. 
We do not know. And we like it that way.
EDIT: As a clarification, this is where I part with many of my liberal fellow travelers. I just don't believe everyone should be engaged in a conversation. I strongly believe that people often have disparate interests. White racism is an actual interest held by actual people. Some people should be talked to. Other people must be defeated.        

Against The Conversation Cont.

I think the dynamic which The Wire outlines here indicates why a conversation is beyond us. Jim Gile, a country commissioner in Kansas, was caught on tape discussing the repair of building with a group. He told the group that the county should hire an architect, instead of "nigger-rigging" the project. This suggestion was greeted with laughter. In case you were unclear about the meaning Gile went on to clarify--the project should not be "Afro-Americanized."  
When the tape emerged, Gile claimed that he had actually meant to say "jury-rig" or "jerry-rig." How you get from "nigger" to "jury" or "jerry" is beyond me. And "jerry-rig" and "Afro-Americanized" became synonyms, I'm not quite sure. 
But none of this really matters because Gile is a "good person" and isn't racist:

"I am not a prejudiced person," Gile said Friday. "I have built Habitat homes for colored people." Gile said he also has a close friend whom he regards as a sister who is black.  "I don't ever do anything bad and don't know how to do anything bad. People know I am not," he said. 
In addition to building Habitat homes, Gile has been involved with CAPS, DVACK, the Food Bank, Salvation Army and Salina Rescue Mission, and he helped start Hunger Barrel, Souper Bowl and Project Salina. In 1989, Gile was awarded the JC Penney Golden Rule award for his volunteer work and he was given the Salina Award for Outstanding Citizen in 2009.

One of his colleagues went on to say that Gile doesn't have "a racist bone in his body...He would give the shirt off his back to help anyone, no matter their race or status."
It is tempting to write this off as the local shenanigans of some unknown politician. Except that Gile's response is fairly typical when people are caught doing racist things. You can see my catalogue here. Michael Richards once yelled, at the top of his lungs, "He's a nigger! He's a nigger!" made a joke about lynching. When told that this is the sort of thing which, you know, racists tend to do he said "I'm not a racist"--and was indignant that someone would call him one--"that's what's so insane."
This is denial and willful ignorance. And it's fairly endemic. I can't really remember the last time I saw a public figure do something racist and say, "Yes. I am racist. I am sorry and I intend to do something about it." Indeed virtually any "conversation" on race that would take place in this country must--necessarily--be premised on there not being any actual living racists, or any actual effects of racism. 
We do not know. And we like it that way.
EDIT: As a clarification, this is where I part with many of my liberal fellow travelers. I just don't believe everyone should be engaged in a conversation. I strongly believe that people often have disparate interests. White racism is an actual interests held by actual people. Some people should be talked to. Other people must be defeated.