The Preacher and the Politician: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and Race in America

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. Kevin Sacks, “A Time to Reap for Foot Soldiers of Civil Rights,” New York Times, November 4, 2008 (hereafter NYT). 2. A process that Obama began with his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention (see David Mendell, Obama: From Promise to Power [New York: Amistad Press, 2007], 3). 3. Abby Goodnough, “Massachusetts Votes to Keep Its Income Tax,” NYT, November 5, 2008. 4. Many of the Republican Party’s voter base demonstrated the importance of issues like gender and sexuality after Senator John McCain announced his vice-presidential running mate was Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Much of the initial response from Republican voters was openly chauvinistic; the following comment of one correspondent to the Houston Chronicle was typical: “Other than a pretty face, what is Gov. Sarah Palin going to bring to the Republican ticket?” (August 30, 2008). For scholarly analysis of race, sexuality, and gender in the United States, see John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Julian B. Carter, The Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in America, 1880–1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007); Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, In-Between Bodies: Sexual Difference, Race, 122 Notes to Pages 2–4 and Sexuality (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007); and Jared Sexton, Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiculturalism (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2008). 5. Quoted in Martin Fletcher and James Bone, “Hugs and High Fives as a Spirit of Harmony Blows into Windy City,” Times (London), November 6, 2008. 6. http://www.conservapedia.com/Barack_Obama. 7. Sarah Smith, “Police Foil Plot to Kill Obama,” Channel 4 News, http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/ police+foil+plot+to+kill+obama/2673987; Jonah Goldberg, “‘Hear Me, Earthlings!’ Citizen Obama Addresses the World,” National Review, August 18, 2008, 18; David van Drehle, “The Five Faces of Barack Obama,” Time, September 1, 2008, 33; David Freddoso, The Case against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2008), 121. For a brief summation of Obama conspiracy theories, see “Explaining the Riddle,” Economist, August 23–29, 2008, 20. 8. Bruce R. Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory in the Early Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Jerrold M. Packard, American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); John M. Giggie, After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Clive Webb, Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); George Lewis, Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement (London: Hodder Arnold, 2006). 9. http://www.shitskin.com/presidentshitskin.html. 10. Jay Felsberg, “Board Won’t Fire Teacher over Obama Slur,” Florida Freedom Newspaper, October 17, 2008, http://www.nwfdailynews .com/news/howard_11960_article.html/board_sims.html. 11. Sarah Smith, “Police Foil Plot to Kill Obama.” 12. See TV by the Numbers, http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/ Notes to Pages 4–6 123 16/oreilly-vs-olbermann-through-thursday-january-15/11035#more11035 . 13. Bruce A. Williams and Michelle X. Delli Carpini, “The Eroding Boundaries between News and Entertainment and What They Mean for Democratic Politics,” in The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, ed. Lee Wilkins and Clifford G. Christians (New York and London: Taylor and Frances, 2008), 181. See also Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter , The Nightly News Nightmare: Television’s Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988–2004 (New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2007). 14. See NationMaster, http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/ PBS-Newshour; Robert J. McKeever and Philip Davies, Introduction to US Politics (New York: Pearson Longman), 82. For further analysis, see James T. Hamilton, All the News That’s Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Mark J. Rozell and Jeremy D. Mayer, Media Power, Media Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2008). 15. Greg Hitt, “The New Southern Strategy,” Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2008; Christopher Dickey, “Southern Discomfort,” Newsweek, August 11, 2008, 22–32. 16. C. Vann Woodward, Origins of...