Race and the 2012 Presidential Election

By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

We live in an odd in-between time, neither free of the racist politics of the past nor committed to achieving racial justice within our multi-racial reality. In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, the casualties of racism include not only the lives lost to death-dealing racism, but also truth and justice.

As in 2008, there is a new opportunity for people of faith to counter-frame the worn-out white narratives dominating the political landscape. Sadly, in 2012, leading Catholic institutions have yet to lend their witness to racial justice or contend fully with America’s racial history.

There is a critical need, both on the grounds of Catholic social teaching and fundamental democratic values, to counter-frame the dominant white narrative. Doing so is a prerequisite step toward a future that embraces our increasingly diverse citizenry. Yet to do so we also need to expose the hard and soft racial frames that keep structural inequities invisible in public policy debates while they pollute our souls.

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