Everybody considers Obama through the self-reflective prism of his blackness while pretending to ignore the fact that Obama is black. White Democratic primary voters made all manner of unsupported assumptions about Obama based largely on his skin. There was absolutely no indication that he was a progressive true believer.
In fact, in May, 2007, The New Yorker ran an Obama profile entitled "The Conciliator." His background and actions suggested a highly pragmatic, malleable politician. Voting for him, primary supporters made a statement about themselves (see Salon magazine's "It's okay to vote for Obama because he's black"), and made assumptions based on the "black saint/black radical" historical narrative, assuming that this decidedly centrist politician was going to somehow "heal the divisions" in America (for the first time in its history) and/or usher in a radically progressive renaissance.
Blacks, seeing his skin and appreciating his adoption of black culture, ignored his actual distance from it. A white mother and an African father means he formatively absorbed none of the cultural heritage of American descendants of African slaves. But overwhelmed by the historical first, and being ourselves largely blind to our own cultural distinction, we rallied behind a candidate choice George Will properly identified as "eccentric."
Neither blacks nor whites can overtly mention his race save to highlight his "first" status. Blacks can't because doing so would "raise the topic" and if it's a topic, he loses. Raising it is tantamount to a race crime. White conservatives can't mention it because their entire modern association with race has been to exploit suspicion and hatred for electoral success. White progressives can't mention it outside a very narrow perimeter because if they do, they're accused of racism, as Bill Clinton was for comparing Obama's vote totals to those of another black candidate in a state with a large black voting bloc.
We must all pretend to believe that race isn't there. The Washington Post quoted John McCain as saying "He brought up the issue of race; I responded to it. I don't want that issue to be part of this campaign. I'm ready to move on. And I think we should move on."
He retreats behind the playground retort, "I didn't start it. He did!" But McCain's statement acknowledges that the issue exists. He refers to it as "that issue." He just doesn't want to be seen addressing it directly. However, he is more than willing to address it indirectly by insisting that his opponent has addressed it by simply acknowledging his own blackness. Very clever.
Race is an issue in this campaign. Whether or not Americans are willing to see a black man--even a half-white one with no inherent ties to America's racist crimes--occupy the highest office in the land is the issue that dare not speak its name: What do some Americans fear about a black man in the Oval Office? Do they fear he will seek revenge for historical crimes against blacks? Do they fear he will be too strong an advocate for black Americans?
Do they feel he will give short shrift to white Americans? Do they fear that he will simply remind them of the bulk of this nation's history that they'd rather forget? Are racist impulses still strong enough that many simply fear or hate the idea of a black man with power over them? These are the unasked questions. To ask them would unleash America's demons, the snarling beasts we've locked in a cage in the basement, whose diminished, yet still menacing growls we pretend not to hear.
If race, its place in American history and the American present are all unwelcome topics, it only stands to reason that the people at whom the word "race" is most often focused--Afro-Americans--are equally objectionable. We are, after all, the reason that the caged beast exists. Our very skin is the source of all of that discomfort.
On Tuesday, July 29, the House of Representatives quietly passed a non-binding resolution apologizing to African Americans for the crimes of slavery and the Jim Crow laws that stood until 1965. It was the first time the Federal government had apologized for those crimes of the distant and recent past. Oddly, it was not big news; no front page status. Stories that appeared highlighted fears that an apology would bolster calls for reparations, that most discomfiting topic.
The New York Times recently reported that even doctors, the stalwarts of the "deny and defend" strategy, are learning that earnest apologies dilute the anger that fuels expensive lawsuits. The most maddening thing to the injured is the insistence that they were not wronged, when the facts state otherwise. When they know in their hearts and souls--when they hear in the voices of their parents and grandparents--the pain and humiliation, the results we all still live with, such denials gall. To deny the injury is to deny the wronged--to deny their rights, their value, their very humanity. It's a re-perpetration of the original crime in schematic.
Until Americans realize that if we take pride in America's greatness, we must also take responsibility for her crimes, we will continue to lie to each other and to ourselves about what we see in black skin. We will continue to inwardly cringe at its associations and wish that it, and therefore its wearers, would simply fade away. We will continue our vain attempts to emotionally disappear 12% of our population and the vast majority of our history. And we will do so with all the grace and dignity of John McCain's Britney/Paris TV spot.
www.leoncegaiter.com
Raised in New Orleans, Washington D.C., Germany, Missouri, Maryland and elsewhere, Leonce Gaiter is the quintessential army brat-rootless and restive. He began writing in grade school and continued the habit through his graduation from Harvard. He moved to Los Angeles to work in the creative and business ends of the film and music industries. His nonfiction writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and in national syndication. His thriller "Bourbon Street" was published by Carroll & Graf. Chapters of "Bourbon Street" as well as additional fiction and non-fiction writings are available on his site: www.leoncegaiter.com
Well written, but lacking confidence in the humanity of the great majority of Americans, whether Obama wins or not. I suspect there are those who fear blacks-- they must harbor latent fears that blacks are superior or that their one-time victims will turn on them like a vicious, raging jungle-lusting beast with a heart of darkness. King Kong.
But most people I've known have good relations regardless of a person's skin color. Sure, bankers and used-car selesmen exploit, but that's their business. Yes, black neighborhoods are red-lined. Denied a real chance at a decent life, I might turn to inner realities with drugs and neglect my society, turning my neighborhood into a real estate loss-leader, a demonstration of adolescent rage against the power structure. It is what the ruling class have made it, and few people, white or black, have the competence to make it to Harvard, much less senior gov't. positions.
Nevertheless, it is all we have. We either make pots out of this clay or live on the treacherous riverbank of fear and deceit. America has always been merely a promise, seldom other than in our greatest moments and people the realization of that promise, and then mostly by events and circumstances forced to perform the commonsense and compassionate action for the sake of the future. Humanity is still starving and poor and without modern medicine, despite the TV propaganda. So don't be surprised if the media chooses the weakest Democratic candidate-- a black intellectual, to oppose a white "war hero", (who is a war criminal in the eyes of all who protested the Vietnam War). The GOP has denied reality for lo these many years since WWII. They're scared to death they will be exposed for the criminals they are.
And with high food and fuel prices, Americans are beginning to realize the extent of the deception and outright lies their children have been dying for. So blacks have that as a common denominator.
Those who are educated realize that all humans were originally black, that we became whiter over generations as our skin needed to lose the pigment as we moved away from the equator to adjust for less sunlight by becoming pale enough to manufacture enough Vitamin D to keep bones strong enough to support us. But even the so-called educated will pick on the weakest among them, like chickens pecking a flawed chicken to death. Some of this is natural, that which is different often causes strife in nature.
But most esteem their helpful, kind, honest neighbor regardless of color. It's getting hard to have trustworthy friends. Many protect the undocumented honest worker. Many of us could care less about color, except to see the beauty in all creatures.
I believe the smart ones will endure. Many of the friends of my youth are gone already, victims of drugs, demolition and disease. So hang in there. Many of us have and will continue to suffer the slights of being black or smart or not from around here or of the wrong persuasion to participate in profitably remunerative activities, or of not knowing lawyers who can fix our case. But good people abound everywhere I've been. Yet we can always use more.
Obama may win because the alternative is just as unthinkable for the GOP as for the Dems. Unless McCain throws the candidacy to Jeb.
by
martinweiss (34 articles, 4 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 460 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 8:05:53 PM
1 comments
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