Progressives bemoan Obama's failure to fulfill his perceived promise to challenge the status quo. During the historic 2008 presidential campaign, Americans both black and white read his book, saw his skin, heard his occasionally preacherly speech cadences married to an academically trained intellect, and the bargain was sealed. They saw, they heard, they made assumptions, and progressives swooned.
Their assumptions were wrong. During the campaign, there was a major kerfluffle when some black commentators suggested that Barack Obama was not 'black like them.' It was a statement of truth, but unfortunately it was perverted and condemned because it was presented in language warped by centuries of ignorance, race hatred, and self-loathing. Barack Obama's appeal as a progressive game-changer, a candidate to inflict blunt-force trauma on the status quo was largely predicated on his skin color. Extensive evidence that his domestic policies sat to the right of some of his primary opponents and articles like Larissa MacFarquhar's "The Conciliator," clearly indicated that he was not the man to wage war against existing power structures. But we looked at his skin, heard the words "African-American," and assumed he had the heart of an outsider, someone born and raised to be suspicious of the status quo, born of a people willing to subvert it. None of this was true.
In fact, Barack Obama is not "black like me." Of course, he is as black as any other black man. He is as African-American as any other man or woman of African ancestry. What he is NOT is raised in the culture of the American descendants of African slaves. He is not culturally "Afro-American." This is what most Americans very imprecisely mean when we say "black" or "African-American." We are talking about the culture, not the color. We are talking about drinking in generations of lessons learned, cultural touchstones, habits of being, speech, worship and communication that have bubbled up on American soil over the past 400 years. When most of us say "black," we mean culturally Afro-American -- the culture born of the American descendants of African slaves. This Barack Obama is not. He has no association with it save accepting it in young adulthood. It is not endemic to him. For Obama, the cultural Afro-Americanism that so many voters assumed is an academic add-on, not a cultural foundation.
Color is not culture. Obama was raised by white Kansans, not the American descendants of African slaves. No Kenyan father and no stint in Malaysia, regardless of how exotic they sound to most Americans, trump the lessons he imbibed from the people who raised him. Why would we assume that white Kansans taught anything but tolerance of the American status quo and its centers of power? Yet, we saw dark skin and assumed the political iconoclasm associated with deep cultural Afro-Americanism where neither existed. And now we whine that we have been betrayed.
We let Obama's late adoption of (as opposed to nurturing within) an Afro-American cultural mantel blind us to his actual cultural foundations. We heard some sing-songy, grade B speechifying and anointed him another MLK -- another black man come to wash America's dirty moral linen. We called it a "movement" and thus made it the first "movement" in history in which nobody actually moved. It was a virtual "movement," an ersatz "movement" by proxy because its members weren't committing to any kind of long-term struggle. They were simply appointing a servant to do another MLK -- but this time we didn't ask him to wash the sins of segregation away. This time we wanted him to scrub out the Bush years.
Afro-America should have sounded the alarm. We tried. But we have allowed the majority to dictate our self-image for so long, we were unable to articulate the relevant cultural aspect of our very American being. Which is not surprising because we don't even credit ourselves with that aspect. The majority conflates color with culture, so we follow suit. The majority historically told us that "a nigger's a nigger," so we believe accordingly. We have always been told that we are culturally valueless, little more than color and a political "issue," and so we ignore our own culture; we fail to codify, painstakingly record it or teach it to our young. So a dark-skinned man raised by white Kansans is assumed to have the same cultural innards as I, and when he behaves like what he has been all along -- a typical politician who promises what must be promised to gain office and then waffles on achieving it once there, we complain that he doesn't behave in accordance with our ignorant assumptions about him.
Obama's election was a step forward for America, but his mixed-race and white cultural antecedents wrapped in dark skin and glazed with an intellectual acceptance of Afro-American culture exposed America's deep confusion about race matters. His election testified to his brilliant manipulation of that confusion.
On the negative, though, his election also highlights Afro-America's gross failure to culturally define, and therefore value itself.
Fewer think Obama advanced race relations
Race takes center stage on Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Survey: Still Ground To Cover In Race Relations
If you haven't noticed, the ship of state is sinking. Your sitting here discussing what exactly?
Start bailing. Both the Left and the Right side of the ship is going to the BOTTOM. Misery does not have
an ethnic or color preference!
Democrat here! Old, Far left, white, (lily white) of french canadien descent, with secessionist tendencies inherted from my Texas father"s side, SO WHAT?
While were talking stupid, Most white people spend long hours and risk skin cancer to look more
what?? ans: Non-white?? Who cares?
I wouldn't care if Obama had the same parents as Romulus and Remus; as long as he intends to serve the people in the best way he sees fit. He said, right up front, that he would make decisions that not everyone would agree with. He is not an ideologue! But if everyone else is, then, no one can follow his lead, nor understand the logic of his actions or his limitations. Let's forget about "left", "right", and all of the rest of these "linguistic fences", which by their very design (in Nature) keep us stuck on stupid!
Invoking the memory of MLK and Gandhi to justify War=Peace was Obama's lowest moment and that Nobel speech will go down in history as the worst speech ever!
It's your loss that you can't see the two men separate because they are not one in the same.
Yes both libs and mods want more affordable health care however.........the first priority for voters was the state of the economy.........
But Obama is untenable position because he went too far to the left by pursuing health care reform first while running way too far to the right in his dealings with Wallstreet and financial regulations
Will you find the recent war refugees "black enough" to suit you? Will you allow them into your "African-American" category? I realize they have not suffered the grave oppresion of American blacks, merely genocide and horror.
I work with this population every day in a medical capacity. I see there machete and bullet scars. I deliver their babies born of assault. To a man and to woman they are proud to be American. And I love them for their capacity to be generous when they have little. To be kind when they have not been kind to. To welcome these babies concieved in hate. These are Americans MLK would have been proud to embrace as I do.
"He is not culturally "Afro-American."
'"When most of us say "black," we mean culturally Afro-American -- the culture born of the American descendants of African slaves."
These remarks disenfranchise a great many black Americans.
"He is not culturally "Afro-American." This is what most Americans very imprecisely mean when we say "black" or "African-American."
"When most of us say "black," we mean culturally Afro-American -- the culture born of the American descendants of African slaves."
Second, Obama falls right in line with what African American culture is, as defined by me and my family. That is a strong believe in education, a strong self reliance, and a rejection of the victim hood attitude.
As an African American all I ask of the President is too pursue policies which benefit ALL Americans. I do not want or expect any special considerations.
And finally, it matters not whether Obama was raised by descendants of slaves or white Kansans to many white Americans. It matters not what education level he has been able to achieve through hard work and dedication. What matters is that his skin is black, just like yours and mine.
FDR, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson were all way left of center.
If any thing, we have failed in creating institutions to sustain and honor our greats. We have perhaps foolishly expected that this nation would do so, but it would be even more foolish to have such expectation in light of the fact that every effort has been generated to write us out of this nation's history.
Remember, on this day if at no other time, that Dr. King was murdered, even as he only preached compassion. Remember that the FBI hounded him from pillar to post but could or would not prevent his assassination. Ask yourself if you think that President Obama is unaware of that fact. This nation is not now nor will it ever likely be "ready" for any sort of Black man in that office.
AA is our cultural heritage
Obama is not African-American heritage wise but he is culturally. He would have to he considering he did marry into an African-American family. African-American is the term used for descendents of American slaves... If were talking about his black ancestry, then Obama is KENYAN-American. That is an American of Kenyan ancestry..Im not sure why Americans are so hesitant to call him what he is..There are many African-Americans who do not accept him as an AA, and cringe when that word is used to identify him..