Early on in the presidential primaries, it seemed that Barack Obama had managed to do the improbable, if not the impossible -- transcend the thorny question of race in American politics. I had hoped this situation would continue.
It was not, alas, to be. The whole issue of Reverend Jeremiah Wright reared its head, once again bringing race to the forefront of the Obama candidacy.
I had wondered what stereotypes about Black men would bubble to the surface on the long, winding trail of the campaign. Raised in Washington, D.C., on the edge of the segregated south, I was familiar with many of them
Three major stereotypes about Black males, research finds, are The Sambo, The Brute, and The Respectable Black Man. Sambo is lazy, no-account, and not very smart, a comical, pathetic figure. The brute was personified by Willie Horton, and this particular stereotype has its own dubious niche in presidential campaign history. Imprisoned for murder in Massachusetts, Horton was on a weekend furlough when he committed rape and armed robbery. His face was used very effectively by George Bush pere to terrify whites and to discredit Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime. A variant of this stereotype is the Angry Black Radical, gun-toting, slogan-spouting and harboring nothing but ill for his (white) fellow Americans
The respectable Black Man looks like Sidney Poitier and talks like an Ivy Leaguer. He's too perfect, too polite. Melissa Harris Lacewell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told the Associated Press that learning to adapt is at the heart of being an American Black male.
"Black mothers and fathers socialize their sons to not make waves, to not come up against the authorities, to speak even more politely not only when there are whites present but particularly if there are whites who have power," she said.
I thought Barack Obama could not be imagined in either of the first two categories, and seemed too self-possessed for the third. His father was African and his mother was white, and so in many ways he doesn't conform to the typical African- American experience. Some have even complained that he's not Black enough.
So it's surprising that the stereotype that emerged in the campaign was the Angry Black Man -- embodied in Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sound bites. Even though the cool, urbane, extremely rational Obama is the antithesis of the hate-spewing radical, that is the image that the Republicans will surely use if he is the nominee. We've already been told that Obama isn't patriotic because he doesn't wear a flag-bedecked lapel pin, and because his wife intimated that she wasn't proud of being an American before her husband ran for president. Obama will be portrayed as a closet radical, his cool demeanor a benign cover for what he really believes. He's Stokely Carmichael in a tie, Huey Newton with a Harvard degree, a guy who believes in his heart that the U.S. deserved 9/11.
The irony is that while all this is simmering, Maureen Dowd in the New York Times has quite a different take: Barack's not radical, he's effete. She writes:
"His strenuous and inadvertently hilarious efforts to woo working-class folk in Pennsylvania have only made him seem more effete. Keeping his tie firmly in place, he genteelly sipped his pint of Yuengling beer at Sharky's sports cafe in Latrobe and bowled badly in Altoona. Challenging Obama to a bowl-off, Hillary kindly offered to "spot him two frames.
At the Wilbur chocolate shop in Lititz Monday, he spent most of his time skittering away from chocolate goodies, as though he were a starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline."
It's a bit daunting to have to contend with those two absurdly incongruent images. Maybe Barack should do a photo op where he's stuffing his face with a Ring Ding, wearing an American flag shirt and throwing his arm around a steelworker (if there are any left) who's sporting a White Power tattoo on his forearm. Then they could play a few rounds of pick-up basketball. (Or is basketball too Black these days?) Barack certainly isn't going to climb on a windsurfer as John Kerry did, or on a tank like Mike Dukakis.
It's a difficult line that Barack Obama will have to walk if he's the nominee. The assault from the far right will no doubt be fierce -- after all, these are the folks who accused a Vietnam vet who had lost three limbs in that war of a lack of patriotism. Unbelievably, Max Cleland lost his Senate seat (Georgia) due to this onslaught
John Kerry, another war hero, got himself "swiftboated" and didn't fire back fast enough to wipe out the insurgents. Obama can't make that mistake if he is the nominee. He will have to take a page from Clinton One and set up a rapid response team so that as soon as a scurrilous charge is made, it can be batted down and defanged.
As Bette Davis said, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
Boston University journalism professor Caryl Rivers is the author of "Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women (University Press of New England.)
You realize of course that Wright has said no such thing
Obama has run his campaign on hating Hillary and Bill and this reminds me of Rev Wright sermons. Obama is a preacher and a little too much the intellectual snob. This image will be ridiculed by the Republicans - and rightly so, I might add.
Inspiring young people to not wait their turn, tear down the bridge to the past, focus abuse on the woman, and believe without question - are not good foundations for anything good happening in the end.
Pointing out differences of opinion is not hateful, sorry. It's what political debate is supposed to be about. Obama is doing it right.
"This image will be ridiculed by the Republicans - and rightly so, I might add." Wow, you actually approve of Republican attempts to appeal to Americans' anti-intellectualism?
"Inspiring young people to not wait their turn, tear down the bridge to the past . . ." Since when has the presidency been a right of succession? Didn't we have a revolution 225+ years ago to get away from hereditary rulers?
" . . .believe without question . . . " Do you have an actual speech where Obama told his supporters they shouldn't question him? If so, please produce it. Only in the minds of charisma-challenged candidates like Hillary Clinton and her supporters could the ability to inspire people to action be a liablity.
Write the NYT and give 'em hell about the horrible cynicism of Maureen Dowd, folks. If you're a Hillary supporter and you haven't read Dowds recent stuff on her, I can only tell you that she doesn't write glowingly about Clinton either, not by a mile. It's important to call them on this stuff because it creates the meme for the rest of the lazy MSM to use. And so, we Democrats once again get it from both sides. Again, write the NYT and complain about this. If enough of us complain, believe me, they'll get the message.
Why must blacks be required to transcend race yet asians, latinos, whites are not obligated to do so?
The repugs, racists and fanatical Clintonites will be the ones bringing this issue to the forefront whenever they can..............i.e. Lanny Davis just wrote another Op-ed about Wright. Tthe Clinton camp won't bring it up themselves because it will look bad for Hillary, so their using him to do it.
Everytime the discussion of race and gender stops, I fail to see the three candidates as White man, woman and black man. I just begin to see them for who they are. Three candidates, who are trying to be president, presenting their case before me, why do they deserve my vote? I have asked a lot of friends, black and white, they all feel the same.
I think it is the politicians and the media who bring up race in a way as to inject it into the minds of the public. Left alone, all the candidates, would have been judged by their merit, and not their race or gender. HRC is the only candidate that I recall during a debate asking for votes of women voters. Her husband appeared to me in this campaign, to have wanted us to become aware that Obama is black so the whites would somehow find it difficult to vote for him. But above all, I find that it is the likes of Wolf Spitzer, who have done more to inject race into the public's minds. The repeated question they ask is, Does race matter? Will it drown Obama? Can he rise above race ? So on and on and on they go.
If no one was to question, ask, raise, discuss, race from here till the election, most voters would vote without racial or gender prejudice.
YOu can blame Clintons supporters if you choose, but Obama supporters have shown to be very sexist in the comments.
Unfortunately, there is too much money to be made by instigating racial hatred by the media. For ruling elite, the office of the presidency and its power is too important , not to inject racial hatred or any other means to retain it. There is also too much money at stake in every divorce white and black, for gender to be left alone.
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Both race, to instigate hate, and gender to rally support will remain inalienable and essential tools and components in this race for the white house. And in the end they might prove to be essential ingrediants and tools as envisioned by the likes of Bill Clinton ( a political genius ), and implemented by their lackeys ( the so called independent Journalists of the free world like Wolf ) that will win the all important post with the ability to order 3 am strikes against any in the world, 3 am FBI raids into political enemy homes, 3 am fundraising phone calls, and last but not the least, the speaking fees that come with the title President after leaving office.
And you know what's wonderful? The majority of people who have voted so far in the Democratic primaries and caucuses have proven they really ARE intelligent enough to get this.
Americans, against all my expectations, anyway, are showing themselves to be thoughtful, involved citizens who understand nuance and want change.
Race is only an issue among people who can't figure out how else to stop his momentum. There are racists in this countries just like there are sexists. There always will be. He's not allowing himself to be distracted by it -- and neither is most of America.
Mr. Obama will do fine. He needs to stay the course, continue to address issues head on and treat people like they are adults.
I did get a feeling that I was all of the sudden stuck in the past reading this article. Hopefully Ms. Rivers can move beyond her stereotypes and look at the candidate for who they are, not what color their skin is.
I'm not an Obama supporter, but I am a Black woman with two grown sons. And while I did NOT "socialize" my sons as described above – except maybe to not come up against the authorities if they're stopped by a white cop on a dark road somewhere with no witnesses - you better know I did teach them the truth about people who, as a result of "research," might not have their lives or best interests at heart.
I have neither the luxury nor the inclination to "transcend the thorny question of race in American politics" - or anywhere else for that matter. That's how we got where we are today. If Barack Obama is the nominee, the only line I expect him to be walking, difficult or not, is the one begun in truth (not transcending) and leading to some semblance of honest governance - for a change.
Oh, and by the way, given the antics of the CIA and J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO, you might just find some people who believe there was something to Stokely's take on institutional racism and Huey’s stand against the police abuse of power against
But that was funny.
I just think he should steer clear of bowing. :)
The real conundrum in this race has been Hillary Clinton, a white woman like yourself.
She's been the one who's been changing colors like a chameleon in this race, at one moment the dutiful Democrat, expressing the importance of putting a donkey in the Oval Office, the next endorsing an elephant.
At one moment crying for this country, another strongarming superdelegates to buckle to her whims or face the consequences. Those aren't pantsuits, they're second skins which can be shed depending on the political climate.
I know this is a well intentioned piece, but the reference to fifty year old stereotypes shows a profound disconnect. The youth vote have gotten past race, that's why Barack's doing so well. It's the older folk, who can't seem to reconcile their own experience is a racially divided past that have the problem.