Obama Navigates the Home Stretch
Start with this: every national election has been about race. Go back as far as you want. You'll find the slavery-oriented elections, the immigration-oriented elections, the Jim Crow elections. You'll find civil rights as an issue before the eruption of the modern civil rights movement (1948 anyone?). There's Lyndon Johnson's famous statement after the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act ("We've just handed over the South to the Republicans for at least a generation"); there's George Wallace; there Lee Atwater and his Willie Horton ad. Down to now: the George Allen "macaca" incident effectively ended Allen's absurd status as presidential contender (along with his Senate career).
It's a "structural racism" scene. In the old days the racism was much more overt of course. Ask yourself why black voters are so astute, why they tend to vote in bloc? The answer is clear: they were "trained" under Jim Crow, when of course most blacks weren't permitted to vote. But the ones who could cast their ballot had to choose between, say, lynchmob candidate "A" for senator or governor who wanted to have a lynching EVERY DAY of the week, and lynchmob candidate "B" who only wanted to hold lynchings EVERY OTHER DAY of the week. Distinguishing between the worst and the merely very bad hones your voting skills big time.
OK. Ask yourself why white voters remain so susceptible to fear of a black hat, and the answer is also clear. Deep down, many whites (especially older voters, especially working-class men) still believe that blacks are less intelligent that whites and don't work as hard as whites, that they don't want to work, that they're criminal, that they're inferior. Or a part of them believes this: the unconscious part, the anonymous and disavowed part, the part that comes out when they're drunk or think they're alone with other white people who agree with them. The serious survey research on racial attitudes, and the best ethnographic work on race as "lived experience," bear this out.
Of course many whites are beyond this point, far more racially open than they used to be (especially younger voters and to some extent women). They've embarked on the journey of racial transition. Many whites are antiracist -- at least a lot of the time. There is now a white "double consciousness," something roughly parallel to the condition Du Bois's black American experienced: "...[A]n American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder...." Well, whites don't have to face anything like that kind of pressure; to a significant extent they can still think of themselves as "just people," people "without race." But not nearly so much anymore. Today they too have to consider their dual identities: an American, a white, two nervous souls. And in some places they're already a minoity themselves: California is now 58% nonwhite, and the whole country is trending that way. By around 2050, the US will be a "majority minority" society.
What what does Obama have to do with this? Everything. He's navigating it, in a whole new way. How many votes he gets depends on how well people can understand the course that he is steering through the shoals and reefs of the latest national election to be about race.
Before we consider his route in greater detail, take a look at those reefs! There's the Bill Clinton reef, the one that dismissed him as the "black candidate" in the Jesse Jackson mold after South Carolina. There's the Islamophobia reef (the turban picture, the madrasa charge, the stressing of his middle name). There's the anti-semitism reef (repudiate Farrakhan! denounce Palestinian terror! stand up for Israel!). There's a black nationalism reef (most effectively represented by Jeremiah Wright at the moment -- we'll get to him in a moment) and a black left reef (Adolph Reed, Glenn Ford), whose main criticism -- although it is not usually expressed this forthrightly -- is that Obama is "tom-ing." So whites and blacks are both going after Obama, rightists (mainly) but also quite a few leftists. He's steering through the channel, trying not to run aground, trying to appeal to voters who can still think, who are not ruled by fear or resentment.
It ain't easy, but it's still possible. Despite quite a few gaffes, Obama remains on the high road. He has not gone negative in any major way. His campaign operation has been well-crafted, well-financed, and well-organized. And most of all, he is approaching race, in the context of another highly racialized national election, in an entirely new way; he is recognizing the contradictions. Take a look at his Philly speech, where he tells us:
[W]e cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction...
In mid-March Obama still sought dialogue with the black radicalism and nationalism that necessarily and logically maintains strong roots in ghettos (and in black middle-class enclaves too) across America. He disapproved, he admonished, but he also recognized the roots of that anger. In fact he explained it as a generational phenomenon. He refused to spank Reverend Wright, settling for mere disagreement instead. He provided the nation, not only with a Lincolnesque speech, as Garry Wills has pointed out, but with an advanced lesson on race and democracy. And beyond that, he recouped some political points that Wright's fulminations had cost him, through the tender mercies of Fox News and the like.
But Wright was not reined in, not mollified. Perhaps he saw himself as a contemporary abolitionist, another Jeremiah, another prophet. Garry Wills sees him as playing the same counterpoint to Obama that John Brown (another wild-eyed preacher) played for Lincoln. One thing was clear: by late April Wright was steering an entirely different course than Obama. Far from navigating among the shoals of double consciousness, far from setting the helm for the proper destination -- winning the election -- as Obama was doing, Wright smashed his craft on the rocks of endemic white racism. Obama properly denounced Wright fiercely and thoroughly this time. Wright had not only betrayed his leader; he had arrogantly abandoned the quest for a new democratic racial politics.
Obama continues on the high road. Though he still holds the formal lead, his drive for the nomination remains in peril. The threat does not come from black supporters, who remain solidly behind him. As in earlier days, the black electorate is the most percipient, and blacks are still pound-for-pound the wisest voters in the nation. No, the threat to Obama comes now from white voters, especially older ones, the ones still disdainful of blacks, still afraid of blacks in ways they may not realize, still new to white double consciousness, still out of touch with white racial dualism. Obama must convince these whites to trust him, at least as much as they trust the other guy.
There is only one way to do that: to fight for their class interests. As working-class, as middle-class, they have suffered at the hands of the corporations, the elite, the Republicans. They have been screwed by Bush, screwed by the war. Obama must articulate their anger, as John Edwards did to some extent. He must turn that anger against the greed an corruption, the callousness and brutality, of the Republicans. He must channel that anger, lest it return to the anti-black racism that runs so deep in American culture.
We haven't seen much anger from him yet, maybe a bit in his repudiation of Wright, but his chief emotion then seemed to be sadness. Obama needs to develop some serious and articulate anger at the powers that be. He'd better do it fast. Can a black man get angry in a national election? Can he channel the righteous indignation of America, not just black but also white? Can he represent BOTH class resentment AND racial tolerance? America's future depends on the answer to that question.
Howard Winant teaches sociology at UC Santa Barbara, where he also directs the Center for New Racial Studies. He is the author of The World Is a Ghetto and (with Michael Omi) Racial Formation in the United States.
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This is a great piece. I do think that it is time for Obama to get angry not just about Wright, but also about he needs to show his anger about the way in which the people of the United States have been treated by the "old" politics that he is trying to transcend. He needs to show his "bitternes
I think Obama has lost his oomph!
The Real Story: Should Obama NOW Drop Out of Race Due to Racial Controversy?
It's not about Obama conveniently ending his long relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright & that ends it & Jeremiah Wright is a bad man & racist & how could he?
It's all about Barack Obama how after 20 years of having a close relationship with Pastor Wright appears to have a dual personality - one of which is a dark hidden side with racial confusion & the convenient use of disposable people. No one should overlook the facts in order to elect the first black president or first women president at ANY cost! That's not what real Democracy is about.
Obama - remember chose Jeremiah Wright and his church.
It is an extreme stretch of anyone's imagination that this Obama – Wright relationship of convenience is all a complete surprise to Obama after 20 years of spiritual mentoring by Wright.
This is all about saving Barack Obama's presidential campaign after the public scrutiny does NOT like what it sees in the Obama racial controversy. This is NOT something to just explain away with another grandiose Obama public lecture/speech!!!
http://the
Obama had it for twenty years HIS WAY with the racist Wright - now he wants us to completely disregard that - it was different - it didn't happen - we don't understand - we are taking it out of context - we need to move on - it's not important.
Like many "replies" in many forums, I have to wonder if the member actually read the article he is supposedly responding to here or did he just plop it down like a condiment, lets say a pickle, on whatever sandwich happened to be on his paper plate at the picnic. I mean seriously, the article was ABOUT him.....to
I get that feeling, too.
WOW!!! this is all they have is Rev. Wright, this is so pitiful, no more lapel pins because no one else wear them, and this is all they have to attack with, people are beginning to see that the field is not level just ask ABC,the American people see through all the BS,when people on here say he can't win the white blue collar vote I think you should read the graft in the NYT. Obama has gain 5% amoung these same voters, so please do your home work and not be like the MSM just plain lazy, do your home work get the facts, remember the best arugment to be made is the "truth".
Wright is a NON-Issue for anyone with an unbaised train of logical thought...
The white sheet scare that is being booed across the country is that Obama has swallowed the beliefs of Wright and would do his bidding.
If however that were the case, any researcher could dig through Obama's history and find his path, his goals, his beliefs and actions, and give credence to the fears.
Problem is, Obama's history proves the opposite.
Obviously Obama's life, and experiences have shaped his goals and outlook and have given him his unique gifts to understand the core of what America feels and needs and the views of his one time preacher have had no negative affect and possibly many positive ones.
Get that ?
In order for the Wright rhetoric to have any factual power in the real world, there would need to be some matching correlation in the past actions of Obama, and alas... there are NONE !
So all of you who are holding onto that piece of driftwood as if it’s your salvation, had better kick towards the nearest shore before you are washed over the falls…
"also quite a few leftists." ???
NAME ONE!
What a great post. Howard Winant is a living example of the best kind of academic -- someone who devotes himself to exploring the human condition and producing social science that helps both other academicians and lay people make better sense of the world and the role that race continues to play in America. Right on.
Right on, indeed, standforpeace. Well said.
"many whites (especially older voters, especially working-class men) still believe that blacks are less intelligent that whites and don't work as hard as whites, that they don't want to work, that they're criminal, that they're inferior."
and likewise for blacks like Jeremiah Wright.
BUT Barack Obama DOESN'T fit that stereotype, does he? So they must move on to another racist stereotype ...he's a muslim.
Such people are a lost cause. Don't waste time on them. They don't want to give up their hate. It is what they live for. It is their emotional "high".
I just heard Willie Brown say something similar, forget about those voters. He then said that is why it's necessary to register new voters to take their place.
Just so's ya know, Winant, Black folk know, we have been spared the trauma of having to think about it, that white folk are stupid beyond reason. We know because they don't spare an opportunity to prove it. They operate behind the blinding arrogance of privilege and entitlement that has been at its ugliest at the fall of empire. It is pretty damn ugly now, and getting more stupid by the day. How is it so difficult to see
the world crumbling when that is happening at your feet? This may be your last shot, America. The last chance you get to acknowledge the Black genius you have been gifted with from Banneker, Carver, Morgan to McCoy, and Armstrong, Bird and Coltrane, time to pay attention.
What kind of rot on the inside recommends Hillary Clinton? Do you never tire or get over your collective fascination with Lizzie Borden, Lucretia Borgia or Tokyo Rose? Will you ever understand that Lucille Ball knew exactly what she was doing?
Unfortunatly for Obama most white people are scared of anyone who is intellegent. Think about the slurs used in school for the smart kids of any race. People would rather have George Bush because he is stupid just like them. People would rather have an unintellegent person they can have a beer with than someone who can fix problems. Why do you think Hillary won Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas? Sure, part of it has to do with race, but the larger part has to do with a personal dislike for smart people.
I couldn't agree more. I don't think its an entirely race issue. Its that Obama is intelligent. They don't want to say this therefore they have given him the label of 'elitist'. People feel comfortable with stupid presidents because they see their own reflection of stupidity in them.
That fear many feel gets exacerbated when it's a black person who is intelligent. For those who still believe (and why shouldn't they, with the media's flagrant bias and reinforcement of their own sense of entitlement?) that black people are less intelligent, less peaceable, less law-abiding, less perceptive, less important, less capable, and less human, seeing a black man who speaks eloquently of the problems they don't want to admit they contribute to is terrifying.
It gets them on the defensive, seeking ways to discredit him rather than facing the dirty truth that they are simply in shock that he seems to better understand where they are coming from, to have better judgment than his white counterparts, to have a better and more inspiring message, when they subconsciously KNOW that all black people are gansters and criminals, as TV and police bias reinforces.
Too many people can't bear the thought that a black candidate might be the better choice, might be in some ways superior to white candidates, because that produces a ripple in their unrecognized conception that even the stupidest white person is somehow smarter than the smartest black person. Forcing them to acknowledge that this isn't the truth forces them to recognize that, at some level, they held this distasteful belief. Those who make the heroic move past cognitive dissonance's instinctive efforts to validate their beliefs rather than force them to change can look at this race impartial to race, but that's a tough achievement.
I don't get it. Why the stress on necessary "anger?" Do you mean, justifiable moral outrage? I think the man needs to go on being the man he is; I don't think anger will help him. Everyone advises Obama. Be more assertive, they said, punch back against negative attacks. When he did, the press wrote that he had abandoned the conciliatory tone of his message. Now it's, "be more angry." Then they'll say he's not a unifier, just another angry black man. Why can't you accept him as he is? He's doing a fine job. He's level headed, he's analytically brilliant, he's a 3-D thinker, he is pragmatic. He embodies black and white, national and global, left and (yes) right. If all are to invited to the table, why should he be forced to denounce one particular group, or only fight from one particular angle? Either people get it, or they don't. If he changes from moment to moment to be politically expedient, what will that say about him? That he's just like his opponent? Leave the guy alone; he knows what he's doing.
Exactly! if he returns Clinton 's attack, he is accused of being nasty so he has both hands tied! Only voters can show they are smart to know who is for them and who is for herself.
Anger is not the way to go. I have been looking for any insight into why the majority white, "conservative" population votes the way it does. Living here in the South, we always relate the issue to the Dixiecrats jumping ship to the Republican party once "blacks" were allowed in. But I was particularly interested in why they continued to vote against the policies and people that could help them the most achieve the American Dream. The question I had was how could reasonable people agree with positions of a candidate and then all of a sudden run away from the candidate because of unsubstantiated "rumors" of being anti-white or having the views of their pastor. No person I know thinks it is a good idea for a pastor, priest, or pope to run a country nor have their views determine policy. Wright's views are not Obama's. Racism was always part of the answer, but did not seem complete. Because some of the children of these southern "conservatives" are still wed to the Republican party, albeit fewer and fewer. I don't think Obama needs to change his approach at all. He should continue to push Hillary as the same as McCain and no break from Bush. While getting his surrogates to get the electorate to confront their fears brought on by this "fearmonger" with Rev. Wright and vote for someone unafraid to challenge the good 'ol boy system that has brought us Bush and the decline of America's standing.
Well said.
I wonder how many Bush "value" voters have asked themselves if a rich oil boy who was born with money and power in his family actually represents their own class. Wanna bet? I put my number down as 0. Let's see if you can come any closer with yours.
I hope it's there (Obama's anger). That's the one aspect of his candidacy that is, at least in public, lacking--if one, having suffered through the last 7 years of proto-tyranny and usurpation and sheer criminal conspiracy isn't real angry, I'd say: "WHY NOT?"
I'm an Obama supporter--he seems to embody the higher aspects of man's intellect and heart--but a righteous anger is APT now and would be echoed and appreciated by vast numbers of us. That he is so diffident will be his failure, I fear--every time Hillary expresses her faux righteous anger about some even minor trivia, she gains in the polls. And her anger is obviously feigned for effect, rather than authentic. Imagine how much more effective a truely appropriate anger would be received by those millions who share it. Not "angry black man" anger (jeez, why do we even have to mention such a stupid racist stereotype?), but the anger of genuine moral outrage at a failed system clearly heading at full speed for hell. "Olbermann anger".
Given Obama's gifts for compassionate, astute analysis and eloquent articulation (if too halting and hesitant too much of the time), he, of all, should be able to express, in a reasonable and communicable way, our collective anger. And then carry on to offer the solutions he has spelled out so well for those able to hear him.
I'm listening, Barak.
If Obama, as an African American showed his anger it would be very damaging for him. He's by nature an even keel sort of a guy. Can you imagine the endless debates mainstream media would have asking: But why is he so angry? Where does his rage come from? That would have finished him. The spectre of an angry black man would really scare many people. They can't get a grip on an 'intelligent black man'.!
Howard writes "There's a black nationalism reef most effectively represented by Jeremiah Wright at the moment".
There's a bigger reef for McCain. People are not appreciating yet is that Hagee and Parsley are POLITICAL allies of McCain. McCain has to to be seen as a centrist to win. BUt he has condoned and aligned himself with the radical religious right. He has courted them, just like Bush. He needs them, just like Bush. He approves, sanctions, and legitimizes their preachings.
McCain claims to be the "foreign policy" president. Rod Parsley on Youtube: "I do not believe our nation can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam ... America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed". McCain, also on Youtube: "I'm very honored to have here one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide, Pastor Rod Parsley".
McCain wants to be president. What does he tell the 7 million muslim Americans? What does he tell Maliki or Faud? What does he tell the world? A man calls for the US to destroy Islam, and McCain calls him a great leader in America, a moral compass, and a spiritual guide? How does this mesh with Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran? McCain says he has foreign policy expertise. He is playing into the paranoia and fear of Muslims.
McCain has chosen his sides, now we need to make sure people know about it.
We need more Gauchos representing in the world of academia- First Lois Capps (honorary), now Professor WInant. Lets get Paul Sonnino ranting like a mad man here on the HuffPost. UCSB- not just for fuck-ups any more.
Immigration has direct massive negative consequences on today's and yesterdays economy. It is all encompassing your Jobs and economic growth, energy independence, health care access, education and an overcrowded prison system. All these issues are impacted by the 12 to 30 million illegal immigration invasion.
A few states now are representing the American taxpayers, such as Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, instead of the special interest lobby. It's taken forty years of complete inattention or betrayal by Washington and timid Governors, Mayors and their lieutenants. Now they must face up to the fact that the majority of taxpayers are sick and tired, of being a welfare system for big business who hire cheap illegal labor. Democrats must enact the Federal SAVE ACT (H.R.4088) before the new president sign's the next AMNESTY. Then millions more will come...?
Find out the unsuppressed truth at these websites: NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH, LIBERTY POST, IMMIGRATION NEWS INDEXER, UNIPAC and VDARE.
Here's a thought. Is it possible that Rev. Wright's comments and actions, which have clearly harmed Obama, were motivated by something deeper than is readily apparent? Rev. Wright's career and his sermons have been based upon the assertion that blacks cannot achieve their potential because of racism in the United States. Doesn't that position become somewhat untenable if we have a black president? I am a strong supporter of Obama based upon his policy positions, as well as his obvious character and intellect, and having been born in Alabama in the 40's and lived all of my life in the South, I certainly understand that racism is real and has had terrible consequences. However, I have to say that I also look forward to having a black president as evidence that racism can no longer be the catch-all excuse for those African-Americans who fail to accept responsibility for their actions and who, as a result of failing to overcome the variety of challenges that everyone faces, do not achieve their desired level of success. I have to suspect that Rev. Wright and those others who have preached the same for so long, do not look forward to having their arguments so undermined. What incredible irony!
"...as a result of failing to overcome the variety of challenges that everyone faces..."
A child of wealthy parents (of any race) in Tred-Eastown School District will NEVER EVER face anything near the set of challenges to success that a child of semi-literate parents going to school in West Philly will. Let's not take this too far and assume that "variety" in your comment means "similar" or "congruent
good point and obvious to some, but not all.
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