I don't know much 'bout politics. But I was annoyed by an article in yesterday's NY Times: "So Far, Obama Can't Take Black Vote for Granted." The gist of the article is that many African Americans don't feel Obama is "black enough" or "one of us," and that as the son of a white mother and Kenyan father, he doesn't share the struggles and experience of a typical black American.But, A: neither do most white presidential candidates share the struggles and experiences of the average white American. It seems to me that many white presidential candidates were born into wealth, often belong to families that are already politically prominent, and have enjoyed the benefits of private education and ivy league degrees. This is obviously not the experience of your average American of any color. Also, I know that my elected officials are supposed to represent me and my fellow "average" Americans, but they don't have to be "average" themselves. In fact, I hope they are a lot smarter and more educated than I am.
Secondly, I have a big problem with this analysis of Obama's lack of support, as given in the same article:
The black author and essayist Debra J. Dickerson recently declared that “Obama isn’t black” in an American racial context.To me this is reminiscent of one analysis often given to explain the persistence of the achievement gap in schools between black and white students. In her book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", psychologist Beverly Tatum expounds on the idea that as black adolescents begin to form their racial identities, it often seems "white" to do well in school, and that black students who do excel academically face being ostracized by their peers. Dickerson's analysis suggests to me whole masses of the kids in Tatum's book growing up without growing out of this mindset and thinking, "you know what else 'isn't black' in an American racial context? Being a politician. Therefore I don't think I'll support Obama."
It seems silly to me to think that anyone would decide on whether to support a candidate based on whether or not they fit into a certain racial paradigm, or whether they're somehow representative of any vague notion of the average American experience. On the other hand, I guess politicians are always trying to show us that they come from backgrounds "just like us" to secure our votes. And as a nation, we did vote for Bush, a non-intellectual cowboy, just like the rest of us Amuricans. So is my thinking on this naive and overly idealistic? I welcome your comments.
4 comments:
Your post is right on the money Suz. It's ridiculous to hold Obama to some sort of higher standard of blackness just because he is running for political office.
The fact is that in this country, although we may no longer adhere exactly to the "one drop rule" of bygone years, if you have any significant amount of black blood people are going to call you black and treat you as such. Hardly anyone ever mentions that people like Halle Berry, Tiger Woods, and Colin Powell are only half black or probably less than that.
Why should this even matter in Obama's case when it is a well-known fact that nearly all African-Americans have some non-black ancestry? As you say, this is just because he is running for political office - a supposedly unblack thing to do.
The irony is, I think Obama's status as one of the most unblack black men you'll ever find is more of an advantage than a drawback. I think America is close to ready to elect a black president, but sadly, only if he is an unthreatening, very white-ish black male, like Obabma, who as much as I like him, I have to say, talks white and walks white.
It just wouldn't be realistic to try to elect a "very black" person to the White House, if it is even possible to say what "ideal blackness" is, which I doubt.
Nick, I agree; it's not realistic to elect a "very black" person so long as part of what defines blackness is that one can't do "white" things like be articulate or go to law school or run for political office. But this way of asserting one's racial identity seems like shooting oneself in the foot.
Well, I think these kinds of articles are all a tempest in a teapot, anyway. The fact is, if Obama were to get the nomination from the Democrats, he would carry 99% of the African-American vote regardless.
I think this issue also brings up a different discussion, which is what exactly "African American" means. There has been some discussion over whether, for instance, an immigrant from Africa is "African American" or whether that is a term that only refers to native-born Americans of African ancestry. Some scholars have suggested just saying "black" for native-born people, and reserving "African American" for people who actually emigrated from Africa. The confusion can be seen when a television announcer, for instance, describes an African athlete as "African American" when they aren't American at all. ("They are the first African American to win the..." well, no, because they aren't American, they are just African, period.) "African American" has come to stand for a particular skin color, which is ironic because it was originally meant to get people to stop thinking about skin color! But, other thinkers have said no, even if an African immigrant didn't have the "black experience" growing up in America, they are still "African American" because that's their experience now.
So...I sort of started this paragraph going somewhere and now I forget. But Suz, how could you leave out the Biden comments on Barack---describing him as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean." Yowza. And Joe Biden shoots himself in the foot again, setting the record for the shortest Presidential campaign of all time.
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