Race still matters: Why race should be part of first debate

Race matters have been in headlines these last few weeks.

We have grappled with San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand at attention during the national anthem, and the many who have supported and emulated him. We have mourned the killings of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that of Kevin Lamar Scott in Charlotte. We have watched people in Charlotte take it to the streets both violently and peacefully last week. And we have celebrated the opening of the National African American Museum of History and Culture, a museum that highlights both what African Americans have endured and what, despite obstacles, we have achieved. And just two days after President Obama rang the opening bell with a 99-year-old descendent of an escaped enslaved man and her baby granddaughter, the two major party candidates will have their first debate.

Race should have a place in this debate, if only because this last month has shown how much race matters in our nation. The candidates have taken different approaches to race matters. Republican nominee Donald Trump has offered both bluster and a saccharine assertion that he wants to listen and learn. He has outright lied on some of the African Americans he has met with, attempting to reduce Rev. Natalie Timmons into someone too nervous to introduce him (nobody else saw that).

Hillary Clinton offers racial understanding, but in a preachy tone that has tended to turn off millennials, especially African American millennials. It’s too bad that the Commission on Presidential Debates did not consider race matters important enough to include them in the three topics they announced for the 90 minute event — “America’s Direction” “Achieving Prosperity” and “Securing America.”

Still, race matters might be interjected into any of these topics, especially in the first two, if not by the moderator, NBC’s Lester Holt, then certainly by the candidates.

Most white people, and nearly as many Black folks, squirm when race matters are raised. The squirm even more now, responding either defensively or with vitriol, when Black Lives Matters activists talk about the structural inequality that has resulted in more than 160 police killings of African Americans so far this year, along with documented gaps in employment and education. The anticipation of squirming might cause moderator Holt, and the candidates, to shy away from race matters. If neither the moderator nor the candidates raise race matters – including income inequality, police brutality, the unjust shooting of African Americans, and unequal education – as issues, it will say as much about whether “mainstream” American thinks that race matters, that Black Lives Matter.

I’m clear, and I think most African Americans are, that when Trump talks race, he is not talking to Black people. He is signaling educated white folks who might be on the fence that he is no racist. And he is hoping that his abysmal behavior might yield him a black voter or two, though I am sure that his campaign is as convinced as anyone else, that his share of the Black vote is not likely to top Mitt Romney’s paltry six percent.

While Lester Holt may not pose a question about race, either Clinton or Trump can inject race into the conversation. Clinton has much to gain, and little to lose by doing so. Some black millennial, somewhat indifferent to Clinton, might warm to her “shout out” to the Black Lives Matter movement, moving beyond the history lesson of “people died so you can vote” to the contemporary significance of the vote. If Trump’s conversation about race clings to his “law and order” nonsense, he reinforces his support among that set, but may turn enlightened moderates off.

It is projected that as many as a third of us – 100 million – will watch these debates. They are likely to be predictable, but if either candidate can knock one out of the park on race matters, it can have an important impact on undecided voters.

Will Trump swing low and talk about the deplorable conditions among African Americans, turning everyone off? Will Clinton behave so robotically that her natural affinity for African American issues is blurred?

I wish an entire debate could be dedicated to racial issues, especially at the moment in time.

That’s not likely to happen. But the way that race shows up in this first debate will say lots about the candidates, the moderator, and our nation.

Malveaux is president emerita of Bennett College for Women, an economist, author and commentator who’s popular writings have appeared in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms.Magazine and Essence Magazine. Follow her on Twitter @drjlastword

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