The term “race card," as aptly defined by Wikipedia, means alleging “that someone has deliberately and falsely accused another person of being a racist in order to gain some sort of advantage". It’s a very complicated and controversial term that incites varied from many Americans.
Recently, an example of this can be explored between the two final candidates in the United States Presidential race with Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain.
An article on The Washington Post blog about the 2008 Presidential election called "The Trail" has an entry titled McCain Camp: 'Obama Has Played the Race Card' in which the blogger describes how the term was used by the McCain camp against Obama.
Obama recently stated while speaking to an audience in Springfield, Illinois: "So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's essentially the argument they're making."
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, countered with the following statement: "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
Whether or not Obama legitimately unfairly, or even fairly, used the "race card" in this instance is ambigious, as are many situations when the term is used.
Some believe that the race card is actually a way that the race claiming the race card can, in affect, deflect true racism by trvializing it.
An entry by user Osibisa on Urban Dictionary sheds more light on the situation: "Any time a racist action or comment has occurred, a white person will instantly label any response as "playing the race card". This serves to delegitimize the racist nature of the situation in order to completely avoid any sort of discussion on racism, thereby allowing it to continue. "
While this is just an opinion, it is a shared opinion amongst many minorities who have been accused of pulling the race card while pointing out racism or prejudice.
In his book, The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, author Richard Thompson Ford says that use of the ubiquitous use of the race card my “frequently distract from serious racial injustices, which, in the ambivalent aftermath of the civil-rights era, “stem from isolation, poverty, and lack of socialization as much as from intentional discrimination or racism.” This argument against useage of the race card claims that using the race card actually benefits no one and takes away from the real issues at hand.
Defining the race card is relatively easy, but explaining the motives and true meaning of the term, is more difficult.
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