Well, let’s take a look at what former President Carter said. The answer that I’m going to give is the same answer that I gave on Sunday, when I was asked this question. The president does not believe that that criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by both this administration and previous administrations to stabilize our financial system, to ensure viability of our domestic auto industry.Whether or not people believe that criticism of the president comes based on the colour of his skin (and some of it most certainly does) seems somewhat irrelevant here. What matters is the reaction he would get if he called it out -- and I think he knows all too well what that reaction would be.
That is, it's a different thing for Jimmy Carter, a white ex-president, to talk about racism than it is for Barack Obama, the current black president, to do so. In the bizarro world we seem to find ourselves in, if Obama discusses racism or brings up race in nearly any capacity, he's likely to be attacked as "playing the race card" and perhaps even thought of by conservatives as racist against whites ("reverse racism"). In fact, we've already seen what happens when Obama tries to talk about racism, earlier this summer -- he was criticized by police organizations and pundits.
I would not be surprised if that event gave the administration a better idea of the real racial climate of the country -- a state of denial where pointing out racism brands one as oversensitive, or else as the true perpetrator of racist ideology. In other words, we're living with the "just don't look" model of racism -- don't pay it any attention and hopefully it'll go away. Carter will take some heat from the right, but nowhere near the level he would if he weren't white. I don't think Obama can afford to do the same.
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