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Clinton veering close to stereotypes
Attacks on Obama evoke the old biases - in pop culture and in politics - that black men are slick and lazy

BY CHARLTON McILWAIN

Charlton McIlwain is assistant professor of culture and communication at The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University.

February 25, 2008

Many suspected that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent substance-over-mere-words attacks against Sen. Barack Obama smacked of desperation. Some expected these attacks to come to an end once Wisconsin had come and gone, giving the Clinton campaign its expected defeat there. But the fact that Clinton continues to repeat the substance-over-mere-words theme indicates that it may be the last card she has to play.

In her speech following the Wisconsin results, Clinton articulated several contrasts between herself and Obama. The first was a contrast of style versus substance, speeches versus action. With this alleged contrast, she comes dangerously close to the line of evoking a long-standing stereotype about black men: that they are "slick."

The stereotype has a history, especially tied to black men who deal in the currency of words. The idea is that they dazzle the soft-minded with a persuasive prose, but leave them with nothing more than a feeling, at best. At worst, the charm in their speech leaves unwitting audiences with something quite different from what they were promised. ...