Sunday Read: Andrew Yang whiffs on the question of racism

SCREEN CAPTURE / ABC

From left, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigeig and Elizabeth Warren tangle on race during the New Hampshire debate.

OPINION:

It may be a bit unfair that we (as in "people of color," specifically Asian Americans) expect so much from Andrew Yang. We put on his shoulders the weight of representing our own experiences and dreams.

You would think that as a POC, Yang would be able to give a more substantial answer to the question of racism in US society. In the New Hampshire debate, racism came up as a topic between Pete Buttigeig and Elizabeth Warren and then Andrew Yang came in at the end of the discussion. I thought to myself, "Oh, here we go, Andrew. Knock it out of the park." Instead, he whiffed. At most, he got a bloop single.

To my mind, racism permeates all aspects of US society. It is at the root of our country's inequality in wages, housing, justice system, education, income, opportunity and social standing. Most of all, racism is the unseen, but deep-dive underlying Marianas Trench that divides Americans from one another.

By and large, throughout his campaign, Yang has steered clear from "identity politics." Whenever the question of race comes up, he seems uncomfortable, and for lack of an answer, he falls back on his major plank on his platform - the universal basic income, or as he calls it, the Freedom Dividend - as the answer to all ills in American society.

That's what he did during the Friday (Feb. 7) debate in New Hampshire.

Mayor Pete Buttigeig was asked about his rocky record with the African American community in South Bend, Indiana. He was asked about the high rate of arrests of black people in his own city.

He claimed that the arrests for marijuana possession were lower than the national average and lower than the state of Indiana.

Fortunately, moderator Linsey Davis didn't let him get away with that answer. In fact, she disputed his figures. There was an increase. Davis said when Buttigieg took office in 2012, the numbers had increased and were still up in 2018, the most recent year the number was recorded.

Buttigeig  did not dispute Davis' figures, but tried to address her allegations:

"Yeah. And one of the strategies that our community adopted was to target when there were cases where there was gun violence and gang violence, which was slaughtering so many in our community, burying teenagers, disproportionately black teenagers, we adopted a strategy that said that drug enforcement would be targeted in cases where there was a connection to the most violent group or gang connected to a murder," he said.

"These things are all connected. But that's the point."

Davis then asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, if Buttigeig's answer was good enough to satisfy any doubters of the mayor's record on race.

Warren's swift "No," prompted applause from the audience.

"We need to rework our criminal justice system from the very front end on what we make illegal all the way through the system and how we help people come back into the community," she said.

“We cannot just say that criminal justice is the only time that we want to talk about race specifically,” Warren said, calling for “race-conscious laws” on issues like housing, education and employment, in order “to make this country a country of opportunity for everyone, no matter the color of their skin.”

But Yang, as the only POC onstage, chimed in, disagreeing with Warren: “We can’t regulate away racism with a patchwork of laws that are race-specific.”

Yang, apparently, believes his signature campaign promise to give every citizen a universal basic income of $1,000 a month, can cure the racial ills facing this country. As if to lend weight to his argument, he cited “the writings of Martin Luther King.”

“We can’t regulate that away through any other means except putting money directly into the hands of African Americans and Latinos, to people of color, to allow businesses to actually flourish and grow in those communities,” Yang said. “The only way that will help is if Black and Latino consumers have buying power.”

Yang’s simplistic solution fails to address the larger point of the brought up by his white rivals: Laws have actively contributed to that lack of “buying power” in the economy. The country has a long history of policies that have institutionalized racism, creating discrimination in housing, education, health care and voting, among other aspects of society.

As such, it needs to be attacked and addressed in all its myriad forms, using any weapons available at our disposal. There is no one cure for this horrible and taxing disease.

You only have to ask any middle-class African American if their hard work and middle-class wage has eliminated racist incidents from his or her life.

Hell, one only has to look at how Trump and his white supremacist supporters in the Senate and elsewhere have attacked President Barack Obama. Even the most powerful man in the world was unable to change racial attitudes towards him and his family -- from questioning his birth certificate, his education and his loyalty to the US not to mention the cruder racist epithets and stereotypes hurled against them.

And as we can see clearly from the current White House, racism can come from the rich as well as from the economically challenged. A $1,000 a month check will not wash clean that ingrained stain.

After the Friday debate, CNN analysts Dana Bash and Erin Burnet again threw Yang softball after softball questions trying to give him an opportunity to give a more substantive answer since only Yang, as the only person of color on stage, could give an answer with any weight. 

Bash asked  Yang if there was anything he'd like to add that he didn't say on stage.

Although he admitted that his Freedom Dividend would not get rid of "structural" racism, easing the economic inequality would at least give American something to build on. "I did feel a bit of responsibility because I knew I was the lone candidate of color on the stage. ... I just don't think you can legislate away racism."

Burnett asked Yang what it felt like to hear white candidates talk about black voters. Yang responded as if he didn't understand the question. He again fell back on his stock stump talking point -- the Freedom Dividend. The closest he came to answering the question was saying that Martin Luther King was pushing for the universal basic income before he was assassinated.

Even though last year he admitted that he was the victim of discrimination while he was growing up in New York state, Yang avoids talking about America's greatest shame as if it is part of a deliberate strategy. 

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julian Castro, who have talked eloquently about race during the previous debates and during the course of their campaigns, have all dropped out of the race for the presidency. Maybe Yang has learned something from their missteps andn doesn't want to offend his white supporters, including those right-wingers who have announced their preference for the candidate who doesn't accuse them of being racists.

Tulsi Gabbard and Duval Patrick didn't qualify for the debate stage and barely register in the polls leaving Yang as the most visible candidate of color who can and should speak about racism with any sense of moral authenticity. 

Though Yang has spoken candidly on the campaign trail about facing racism and discrimination as he grew up in upstate New York, he has also faced other criticisms of his handling of race, such as his self-deprecating jokes about Asian Americans, which have sometimes perpetuated stereotypes, including the “model minority” and good-at-math tropes.

Yang has attracted praise from from the white supremacist wing of the GOP  and to his credit, he has disavowed their support. But he also claims to be attracting substantial numbers of whites who regret voting for Trump in 2016. Perhaps Yang doesn't want to offend his white supporters, but in tippy-toeing around the touchy subject in favor of whites, he's turning off POC voters who want to hear him speak from his heart about their truths.