Relics in black & white

Sharon Angle, the 2010 Republican nominee for the US Senate turned 61 in July. She grew up in Nevada’s flyover country during the 50s and early 60s. The world was starkly black & white then. If you weren’t white, then one largely existed as Ellison’s Invisible Man – a marginal, two-dimensional “extra” in the play we call life. To be sure, it was also no picnic for Angle and her female ilk. She could vote and do the other things, but in the eyes of many men, she was hardly equal – a point “Mad Men” has repeatedly driven home. But it was post-war America. And Elvis was King.

For many in Angle’s generation, racial views (usually stereotypic, often negative) were imprinted deep and early. For most of these folks, such views lived in the subconscious as passive assumptions. Many in that generation later recognized the folly of such views and purged them. Many, alas, never did. Angle, I suspect, falls in the later group, however innocently.

Until proven otherwise on Law & Order, I will assume Angle is a decent, well-intentioned person. To the extent that she has exhibited racism, it likely derives from ignorance rather than malice (though neither is excusable). To the extent that her recent campaign ads bashing her opponent (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) are racist, it likely derives from a combination of political cynicism (do whatever the fuck it takes to win) and ethnic insensitivity (which again stems from ignorance).

The ads in question – which depict scary, dark-skinned men associated with words like "alien" – took Reid to task for allegedly being soft on illegal immigration. It sparked an uproar in Nevada’s Latino community. Angle rushed to contain the wildfire by holding a televised meeting with Hispanic high school students. She promptly made a mess of it. Angle, who is not the brightest bulb, said the ads do not “necessarily” portray Latinos. In other words, she implied, who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?

Then, making things worse, she said:

"So that's what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.  … What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I'm evidence of that. I've been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly."

The kids were duly insulted. And Angle looks about as Asian as I do. Yet, it is what some members of Angle’s generation always do when confronted by race. They panic and then go into some tired rendition of I’m-not-a-racist-why- some-of-my-best-friends-are-[insert ethnic group]. That’s pretty much what the Asian remarks amounted to. And everyone saw right through them.

Look, Angle is a horrible politician and clearly stupid. But she is probably not a bad or immoral person. Carl Paladino, the GOP nominee in New York’s gubernatorial race, is the alpha male version of Angle. They are different sides of the same cultural coin. Paladino has admitted (unapologetically, mind you) to sending blatantly racist and sexist e-mails to co-workers prior to joining the governor’s race. His defense: Hey, I’m just a regular, blue-collar Joe. (He’s a multimillionaire.)

Angle and Paladino are two living relics of America’s past. They cannot help being what they are: insensitive schmucks. And at ages 61 and 64, respectively, it’s unlikely these old dogs are going to learn any new tricks. They are the folks one simply writes off. By the grace of god, America is no longer a ‘50s era TV show in black & white. The Invisible Man is no longer invisible.