By one of my favourite commentators, Clarence Page, in
today's Chicago Tribune
Quote:Moving beyond the bind of race
Clarence Page
December 1, 2007
I wasn't there, but I'm guessing that Sen. Barack Obama winced uncomfortably over at least one of comedian Chris Rock's jokes at a fundraiser for Obama in Harlem's historic Apollo Theater last week. Rock quipped that his mostly black audience would be "real embarrassed" if Obama won after they had supported New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"You'd say, 'I had that white lady! What was I thinking,' " he said, according to The Associated Press.
That line might well have passed without much notice, had it come amid the usual raunchy fare on late-night cable TV. But race is a particularly sensitive topic in the world of politics. Expect Obama, as we journalists like to say, to "distance himself" from the remarks.
After all, the biracial Obama has made inoffensiveness and outreach across racial, ethnic and ideological lines a signature theme of his presidential campaign, even when his effort has brought a stronger outpouring of support from whites than he has received from blacks.
For example, his Harlem fundraiser came during a week of dueling endorsements with front-runner Clinton. Clinton won the support of a group of black ministers in South Carolina. Oprah Winfrey announced she would campaign for Obama. One national poll had Obama trailing Clinton among black voters nationwide. A poll in pivotal South Carolina, where blacks make up about half of the Democratic primary voters, has Obama closing his gap into a neck-and-neck statistical tie.
Over Thanksgiving dinner and elsewhere, I have heard a lot of reasons from my own little focus group of black voters as to why the race for black votes among the Democratic presidential candidates gave an early edge to Clinton. A lot of black folks have serious doubts that America will elect a black president. Black voters naturally have turned to a candidate whom they already like, Clinton, even if some of them like her husband better.
Fifty percent of black Americans say Obama shares their values, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. But the other half dismiss him as having only "some" or "not much" or "not at all" in common with the values of black Americans.
Challenges to his "blackness" are not a new problem for Obama. Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell recounts in his biography, "Obama: From Promise to Power," how Obama first ran head-on into the issue in 2000. That was when he unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Bobby Rush, the popular Chicago Democrat and former Black Panther leader. If your blackness is a campaign issue, it's hard to beat a former Black Panther leader.
Nevertheless, he refused to allow his crossover dreams to be dimmed by the racial hang-ups of others, he told Mendell. "What I've found," he said, "is they are usually going through identity issues themselves and they project those issues onto me."
That line came to mind as I read Hoover Institute scholar Shelby Steele's new book-length essay, "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win."
Whether the Illinois Democrat realizes it, he is trapped in the "double bind" of race in America, Steele writes. He argues that Obama is "a bound man who cannot serve the aspirations of one race without betraying those of the other.
I think Steele is being too hard on Obama and the process of politics within which the senator is trying to operate. Steele tries to fit Obama into the models that the author described in his breakthrough 1991 book of essays, "The Content of Our Character." You either have to be a "challenger" like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in Steele's world or a "bargainer" who makes the deal with the white world to refrain from making whites feel guilty in exchange for their cooperation.
I think Obama is trying to play a different role, that of a cultural bridge-builder. He's trying to challenge the soul-crushing system that Steele decries and most Americans seem to want to see more unity in our politics after years of polarization. Obama certainly can't pull that off overnight. But at least he has begun the process.
And, with all due respect to the progress that Americans have made in race relations, there still are folks out there who think Obama is "too black" for their tastes. As a white South Carolina man told CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds last week, "I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything, but for one, I am not going to vote for a colored man to be our president." Well, friend, I hate to break it to you, but you do sound prejudiced.
Somehow I doubt that Obama would have gotten his vote anyway.
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
I love Clarence Page. He's been out in front of so many issues - racial and other - for a lot of years. And I think he's right on about what Obama is up against.
Three fans of Paige. Smart man and very funny. Thanks walter.
4 fans. I've always appreciated Mr. Page's ability to clear away the cobwebs.
Yep, good one.
And that's another one that contributes to my sense that if Obama wins in Iowa, he might gain a lot of black votes. I keep seeing things that indicate that there are black voters who like him and would like to vote for him but don't want to waste their vote on someone unelectable -- and might change their minds if he wins in Iowa.
Hey, Soz - 'member the exchanges we had back when you started this thread? I was one of those blacks who loved Obama but (not only didn't want to "waste" my vote, but) didn't think a black man could be voted in as POTUS.
What's changed is not so much that I am now convinced to the contrary and think the US will embrace a black or a woman as readily as the traditional male WASP. It is that I have just become more and more sure about just how right for the time and the job Obama is.
I was in on that conversation, snood. I still believe your initial position was unduly pessimistic.
NY Times this morning has Dowd and Rich talking about Obama...
http://www.nytimes.com/
(top right corner)
blatham wrote:I was in on that conversation, snood. I still believe your initial position was unduly pessimistic.
...Maybe. But noteworthy in light of the present news - blacks in SC who were "pessimistic", now taking a second look.
My reactions as a black man to a viable black candidate for POTUS were shared by millions of blacks.
I didn't even notice this....
Quote:Clinton-bashing is the last shared article of faith (and last area of indisputable G.O.P. competence) that could yet unite the fractured and dispirited conservative electorate.
The Republicans know this and are so psychologically invested in refighting the Clinton wars that they're giddy. Karl Rove's first column for Newsweek last week, "How to Beat Hillary (Next) November," proceeded from the premise that her nomination was a done deal. In the G.O.P. debates through last Thursday, the candidates mentioned the Clintons some 65 times. Barack Obama's name has not been said once.
from frank rich
That's a compelling piece. Hasn't Rich turned into a real gem?
Yep, I remember, snood.
I do think that some pessimism is absolutely warranted. America's come far but not so far as all that. I think that a lot of the promise of Obama is how he handles the race issue, and his own background -- that is, I don't think any black man with similar qualifications (Harvard, state senator, etc.) would be doing as well as Obama is.
I refer to a segment of the black electorate when I talk about not wanting to waste a vote, not every black voter. I think there are already a fair amount of people like you, Snood, who investigated Obama and liked what you saw, and therefore put aside your electability concerns. I think there is another segment, though -- referred to in the Page piece, and many other places as well -- that is made up of black voters who are being held back just by the electability issue. And who, I hope, might have their minds changed by an Obama win in Iowa.
Article in the NYT about the whole Oprah endorsement thing -- she's about to actually go campaign with him. I'm sooo curious how that's going to pan out.
sozobe wrote:Article in the NYT about the whole Oprah endorsement thing -- she's about to actually go campaign with him. I'm sooo curious how that's going to pan out.
The pundit consensus is...minimal effect. I think they are seriously underestimating the dynamics here.
blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.
cicerone imposter wrote:blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.
I think that's what he was saying.
maporsche wrote:cicerone imposter wrote:blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.
I think that's what he was saying.
Maporsche, Thanks for the head's up; another sloppy reading on my part.
blatham wrote:sozobe wrote:Article in the NYT about the whole Oprah endorsement thing -- she's about to actually go campaign with him. I'm sooo curious how that's going to pan out.
The pundit consensus is...minimal effect. I think they are seriously underestimating the dynamics here.
Me, too. Oprah reportedly has the most watched TV show in Iowa, and her viewership is largely women of 50+ years. A serious chunk of the constituency, with serious clout.
cicerone imposter wrote:blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.
But, who listens to Oprah? Have you ever seen the audience?
Quote:A serious chunk of the constituency, with serious clout
"Serious clout"? Aren't they sitting on most of that "clout"?
