The (Not So) Good Old Days
41
attempted to address an issue. But because the discussion was for and most often
by white people, the analysis never went very deep.
A 1987 Donahue episode on white supremacist home-schooling perfectly
illustrates the trends I’ve outlined above, and in its treatment of racism, it is
typical of most other old-style talk shows that I observed. It focuses on parents
who have removed their children from public schools that either celebrate
Martin Luther King’s birthday, or teach black history. The panel is comprised of
Stephanie, a young KKK mother and her daughter, a white couple and their
daughter, J.D. Alder (a Grand Dragon of the Klan), Johnny Lee Clary (a former
Klansman), and Rev. Wade Watts (former president of the NAACP and the only
person of color on stage.)
One of the most distinct elements of the episode’s dynamic is the way it
attempts to contain racism within the panel of guests. Repeatedly, Donahue and
audience members project racism onto the racist members of the panel, as if to
absolve the studio audience and the viewing audience of their own racism. For
example, Donahue tells the audience at one point, “I know this upsets you. I
know you don’t want to hear it, but these [racist] ideas are out there, and it’s
important to look at them.” The “you” and the “out there” imply a broad chasm
between the overtly racist views of the panelists and any potential (but less selfevident) racism in the audience. The solution implied by this definition of the
problem comes from a white woman in the audience: “Then stay out of the
public schools! Good! We don’t need you!” The public schools are constructed
as a place free from racism, and all “we” need is to get rid of the small number
of “them” who are causing a problem.
Another gesture toward separating the audience from the racist guests is the
repeated characterization of the racists as lower-class and uneducated. This is
interesting, not only because it reflects the belief that racism is the prejudice of
working-class, less-educated whites (especially Southern whites), but also
because almost all of the panelists seem college-educated and middle-class! The
racist guests assert this several times, despite being taunted by former Klansman
Clary, with remarks like, “So, you want to teach your daughters? You better
teach them how to say, ‘Welcome to McDonald’s, can I help you?’ and ‘You
went to college? What did you learn in college, how to be a janitor?”’ These
statements, which generate large amounts of laughter and applause from the
audience, indicate how Clary maps racism onto the working-class. When faced
with the fact that, with the exception of Stephanie, all the panelists did in fact go
to college, Clary says they did not get the right kind of education while there. By
displacing racism onto the attitudes of the white working-class, the show
absolves the predominately middle-class and white audience of any
responsibility. By displacing racism onto the Southern white working-class
(through repeated references to “Bubba” and “poor white trash,” and the fact
that all the racist panel members are from the South), the rest of the white
viewing audience might very well leave the conversation thinking they have
clean hands.