On the final evening of the Democratic National Convention, the blogger Andrew Sullivan posted a picture of Congressman Barney Frank kissing his spouse. Frank is openly gay and what is striking about the picture is a total absence of reticence, and the swiftness with which our world has tumbled toward change. Sullivan noted that the picture would never had appeared at the GOP convention. This is true. But eight years ago, I doubt it would have appeared at a Democratic one.
Still it remains true that we have, as we always have had, two competing traditions toward human and civil rights in this country. One which believes in broadening those rights regardless of difference, and another which believes in restricting them to those who find the most favor among the body politic. That tradition is hewed to even in the extremes.
We all think of birtherism -- the belief held by many in the Republican Party -- as a kind of zany flight of fancy taken up by the kind of toothless eccentrics who also obsess over Area 51. In fact, birtherism has its historical roots much closer to home, in that same restrictionist tradition that would frown on Barney Frank, and has for much of this country's history directed its skeptical gaze at African-Americans. In 1790, when Congress first sat down to define citizenship it restricted it to "All free white persons."
The disreputable tradition continued afoot will into the 19th century with Stephen Douglas, in his famous debates with Abraham Lincoln, declaring that "this government was made on the white basis" and that our founding documents made "no reference either to the Negro, the savage Indians, the Feejee, the Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of men."
After the Civil War, with the country reeling, and freedom on the march, newly minted President Andrew Johnson rejected blacks holding a stake in the country's politics noting that 'it must be acknowledged that in the progress of nations Negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism."
And the tradition carried over right into the 20th century with William F. Buckley, intellectual godfather of the conservative movement, arguing that "the great majority of the Negroes in the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could."
The right to lead one's country is the highest of all aspirations granted by (birthright) citizenship. That a black should wield such power still discomfits a certain portion of this country, just as it has for over 200 years. And while the particular history offered in this column focuses on the problem of the color-line, its applications are much broader. A similar history could be written of restrictionist attitudes toward the country's Latino, Asian-American and Native American populations. An even longer history could be written on the views of democratic societies toward women.
Doubtlessly, closeted gays and lesbians have served this country in powerful places and enjoyed their share of citizenship. But they did so under a shadow, mostly unable to fully display all aspects of who they were. What makes the picture of Barney Frank and James Ready (his spouse) caught in a kiss so profound is that the old prejudice is now beating a fighting retreat.
Looking at the two conventions of our major parties, you saw two visions: one of our restrictionist past, and the other of our increasingly open present. It is tempting to attack GOP leaders for fully embracing a tradition which, in a few years, even they will doubtlessly be forced to repudiate. But political parties represent actual people. Our past is with us and exerts a powerful hold over our politics. This is not to let Mitt Romney off the hook for the random birther joke. But what is most important isn't the joke -- it's the crowd in the background, raucously laughing.
(Ta-Nehisi Coates is a writer and senior editor for The Atlantic and its website. His blog can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates.)