Somewhat More Visible Man

I've often wondered what it might mean to "feel" American--to truly accept its glories and shame as my own. Looking at and listening to the Cindy McCains, George W. Bushes and Ronald Reagans of the world, I've wondered. The country they describe bears so little resemblance to the one in which I've lived, very different from the one in which my parents were raised. When they speak of American moral supremacy, of unsullied American justice and righteousness, of the deathless wisdom of the Founders, I cringe. Such statements omit me. For 188 of this nation's 232 year history it was legal in America for a white man to first own or destroy my black life at will; and subsequently, it was legal to erase me and those like me from the mainstream of social, economic, and political life. This latter was apartheid, as deadly and vicious as that ugly word implies.

Yet, we speak of an unsullied America, an America somehow free from sin, a past and perpetual shining city on the hill for all men and women. That is a lie. My parents' lives prove it is a lie, as did theirs before them. And yes, as their offspring, I prove it is a lie. It is my duty as their offspring to remind America that it is a lie. I owe it to them and what they sacrificed to remind us all that the McCains and Bushes and Reagans continue the tradition of omitting the sons and daughters of African slaves. I owe it to my forebears to remember that this perfect, mythical country is one where my past is quashed--psychologically deleted... one in which I am deleted. In this mythical, exceptional land, I am the blight that must be forgotten. I am its version of the shunned Victorian madwoman prone to blurt the family's filthy secrets, locked in an attic to keep them hidden. The secrets slowly poison everything beneath the capacious manor roof, but the residents suffer the rot and stench to maintain their precious image of upright sanctimony.

Barack Obama, the half-black son of a Kenyan and a Kansan--and unmistakably "black" man who has unwaveringly adopted Afro-American culture, has just been elected President of the United States. Some will say that this proves American racism is dead. Some, like the Reagans and the Bushes and their political brethren, have been saying that for decades, and it remains transparently ignorant and self-serving. Countless tales from this election alone prove the point (here, here, and here, for a small taste.) There is ample research to prove that we have neither outgrown our American cultural history nor our animal distrust of those who don't look like us.

No, this election does not mean the end of American prejudice, bias, racialism or racism. Job applicants with black-sounding names will still be 50% less likely to get a given job than those with less distinctive tags. However, the election does have deep meaning, particularly to me, and I'll be so bold as to suggest that I may speak for many other blacks as well. I am not trying to belittle the satisfaction that whites might feel at this sign of progress--their own progress. However, such satisfaction is only personal if one overcame a conscious distaste for blacks in order to push the "Obama" button. If not, the satisfaction is second-hand; it's an easy kumbaya moment. It costs nothing emotionally. It demands that you neither acknowledge an altered reality about yourself, nor adjust any long-held belief.

I have often wondered what it meant to feel fully American. Today, I received my first glimpse. I have no illusions. I know that the country's catastrophic state bears as much credit for the Obama victory as his rational, intelligent response to it, and his skillful, disciplined campaign. Nonetheless, it is heartening to think that issues can trump our ugly racial scars--that we can stop picking at the scabs long enough to consider our own self-interest above our historical prejudice. Considering from whence we've come, that is huge. Think of all the blood that has been shed to get here. Hundreds of thousands died on U.S. soil to preserve the right to keep me in literal chains--to own me like you'd own a dog. Sociologists Steward E. Tolnay and E.M. Beck identified

"2805 [documented] victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast majority- almost 2,500-of lynch victims were African-American. Of these black victims, 94 percent died in the hands of white lynch mobs. The scale of this carnage means that, on the average, a black man, woman, or child was murdered nearly once a week, every week, between 1882 and 1930 by a hate-driven white mob."

Untold numbers died from neglect, substandard, segregated medical care. Millions went uneducated and locked away from opportunity. Four little girls died when a white man bombed their church. Three civil rights workers, one black and two Jewish, were murdered because some white men hated us unto death. White assassins' bullets murdered Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King. This is a small sampling. Millions died in slave holds on the way to this country. The list goes on.

Some white Americans rail against such litanies. They call it living in the past, or insist that the past is insignificant. They can speak so foolishly because, in general, white Americans just don't do the past. They don't have to. And they don't understand those who do. It's at the root of many of our international failings. Many American memories don't extend beyond their own lifetimes. We don't understand that most of the world lives the past each and every day. Unlike the majority, black Americans live the past every day. We have no choice. We are its children. Southerners often live the past. War was fought in their backyards, and they lost. Americans have an uncanny ability to jettison the past with each generation. You can do that when you don't have to look, every day, at scars it left behind.

I have often wondered what it meant to feel American, and today I have the glimpse because a black man, who is half-white, wears a sense of entitlement unsullied by any of the "can't-haves" that history has carved into black psyches in the course of the American past. Raised by white women and men, he seems to have a sense that he did not have to snatch or steal his due from America, but that it was his for the taking. His most primal human relationship--with a mother--was with a white woman. He watched those who loved him--his grandparents--make disparaging remarks about those who happened to look like him. Confusion ensued, and led to his throwing in his cultural lot with the descendants of African slaves. However, his acceptance was "academic" if you will. It was learned, not lived. And in learning as opposed to living it, he did not have to absorb the degree of fear and suspicion that the rest of us inherit. Just the opposite; his white family and formative years in brown-skinned environments probably helped inure him to such fear and suspicion.

The attacks of "un-American" didn't stick to Obama the way they could have to another black candidate because his outlook is just as white as it is black. For most of this country's history, the word "American" was preceded by the unspoken word "white." Only whites received the benefits of this country's freedoms. To be fully American--to reap America's fruits--was to be white. It is this attitude that McCain's Republicans tried to exploit. Not only was the zeitgeist not on their side, they had a candidate whose upbringing spared him a deep sense of exclusion. He didn't defend his American bona fides with litanies of forebears who had fought in wars or who had labored in southern fields, thereby evoking memories that discomfit so many. He did not react defensively in learned fear of the less-than-American status of earlier black generations. He carelessly flicked off the opposition's arrows. He didn't have to remind America that he was part of what they want to forget. He did not have to defend his Americanism because he was not looking at this country exclusively through a black history or white historical point-of-view that excluded him from it.

I remember as a young child in school in the late 60s and 70s hearing how in America, anyone can grow up to be President, and knowing that it was a lie, knowing that if America had the balls to bet her glory on that statement, America would lose. If any American could grow up to be President, and I could not (men died in the streets to secure my right to merely vote) then I did not qualify as American.

Rivers of black blood have been spilled. My parents and theirs fought and died to rip their rights from the majority's avaricious grasp. To justify their illegal hold, the majority belittled, dehumanized, brutalized and sometimes killed me and mine. So I have often wondered what it might mean to feel fully American. Today, I, a black descendant of African slaves, get a glimpse, and it feels good. I get a glimpse because the white part of a half-black man raised by whites who adopted black culture allowed him to see a different country from the one my history has burned into my mind. In America's long, perverse history of race relations, such absurdist irony is fitting.

Comments

[ggm68]

I didn't think much about race in choosing to support Obama. But I saw all the fretting over whether he'd be too black for whites to vote for AND "not black enough" to earn the African-American vote. Bill Moyers interviewed a black scholar who wrote a whole book on why black people wouldn't vote for Obama. I knew people who were convinced that only Hillary could beat McCain, because not enough white people would vote for a black man.

It's true Barack Obama is not himself the descendant of slaves, but his wife and children are. It's also significant that he is the first-generation child of an immigrant. He may not have proved that "anyone" can become President, but he shattered more than one glass ceiling in one fell swoop. But there's an awful lot of broken glass lying around, and a lot of people who are on edge about this change in America's reality. Obama campaigned on bringing America together, and that's something each one of us can help make happen.

[tysoph]

Whoopie Goldberg said it simply, "I feel lile I can put down my suitcase".

[Donk]

Excellent essay. Hopefully the "Divide and Conquer" political strategies won't work anymore.

[Kenne]

Hmmm. Mr. Gaiter presents a most eloquent defense for the transparent declaration of our nations past, present and future. It is so true t hat Americans auspicious history has been suspiciously altered to present a less than honest image of our nation to its citizens, our children and the world.

Only through a clear examination of who we are and where we have come from will the 800 pound gorilla in the room be excised. The nation of South Africa was able to do it. The German Republic was able to reconcile. Why do we still have such blatantly divisive and racist ideologies presented as "American" values? It is shameful. The world can see it. Why can't WE see it? Maybe with the new administration we can and will be able to ostracize the demons of our past.

Thank you Mr. Gaiter.

[wship111]

Your post was a very heavy and articulate statement on what it is to be "Black" in this nation of fools. I am proud of your discourse because you have written what I have been feeling for seventy years. By the way I am a black senior citizen.

[wrylass]

This election makes me believe we are not a nation of fools ...

[iv64]

I believe this election had very little to do with black vs white. I think it was about intelligence and education vs ignorance. You will find that educated people white or black have long stepped over a racial barrier. It is the ignorant whites as well as blacks that stick to this simple form of division. Everyone is subject to some form of racism and preconceived notions about who and what you are based on skin color. The only way to root out racism is through rooting out ignorance. Obama was elected by people of all color but not for his skin but for his brain and that is how we elevate ourselves. Focusing on his skin color minimizes his victory. We must focus on education of people of all skin color.

I think Palin is the best example. The GOP thought the american citizens to be ignorant enough to vote solely on her gender. Most voters are women. However, as it turns out we the people are not THAT ignorant. We actually cared enough to find out what she stands for and her capabilities.

This is the same with Obama and skin color. Focus on what he stands for his superior intellect and ignore his skin color.

[pjburns11]

SO very well stated. THAT is the essence of what I tried to relate here about what Obama means to all of us not just the majority of us:

http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/its-not-a-white-thing-or-a-black-thing-its-an-american-thing/

But you got it.

We we took a big step in the right direction this week, and together we have a long way to walk.

[unite4change]

Republicans perpetuate racism with code words, as if no one else knows them but other whites. They know most whites are poor and uneducated so they pit them against minorities when in fact they should be running as far away from republicans as they can. Did you not see how poor whites responded to Governor Palin's rhetoric about, Who is Obama? real America, small town America, patriotism, etc. at her rallies. The ate it up and it's too bad. They don't realized there are being used every four years, the only time they are needed and they fall for it time after time.

How can any poor white believe the party of big business cares about them? The only thing I can think of is because they have the same skin color. Poor and low information whites have been used like this since slavery and I do see it changing any time soon.

[kellygrrrl]

now let's fight together to make sure no minority is second-class. WE must overturn the ban on gay marriage!
This is THE Human Rights issue of this century!

[RobertDoyle]

As an Arizonan who canvassed for Barack Obama in a small town in New Mexico, I can testify that racism is alive and well in a certain segment of the population. Many people, some claiming not to be racists, were blunt about not voting for a black man. This is a tragedy, not just for our society, but for those individuals enslaved by their racism.

For the thousands who traveled to battleground states, like myself and my wife (who worked for ten hours a day, three weeks straight), our motivation was a belief in the quality of Barack Obama. This doesn't mean that we weren't always aware of racial issues (after all, we dealt with them on people's door steps and on the phone). The color of his skin made Obama a tough sell to certain people, but our effort was an attempt to ensure that the essential excellence of the man would not be made invisible because of how his race was perceived.

It is understandable that Mr. Gaiter wishes Obama more closely shared the experiences of African-Americans whose ancestors were slaves. However, electing a bi-racial President who identified with his African-American side is the best our society can do at this moment.

The election of Barack Obama does not pay for the suffering of African-Americans through the centuries. Nonetheless, it is one step, made possible by the work and sacrifice of many, towards a more equal future free of enslaving fears.

[dynagirl]

Thanks for this insightful post.

[SneathLane]

When President elect Obama's parents were married, their marriage was illegal in several of the states he won on Tuesday. They could have been jailed in those states just for being married.

In spite of this, President elect Obama opposes same-sex marriage - he gives no reason for this, but is quite clear. And many of his supporters just voted to strip away the right of people to marry regardless of gender in California, a major victory for the forces of hate.

I too have a personal litany of horror to support my contempt for heterosexual supremacists - friends have been murdered just for being gay, others have been beaten or burned out of their houses, still others have been denied jobs, or have been thrown out of their families as teens, or have had their possessions stolen by relatives of partners who died - and there's more.

In spite of his lack of regard for me, I voted for Mr. Obama, and wish him well - he's by far the best qualified person for the Presidency for a long time. But he considers me a second-class American.

I'm sure Mr. Gaiter has supported candidates who were not yet free of all racism, but who were better than most, like I have supported somewhat anti-gay candidates over rabidly anti-gay candidates.

We all have to bend some to live in America, which is a long way yet from being the land of the free.

[Sweetbay]

SneathLane,

President-elect Obama does not believe in same sex marriage, but he does support civil unions and all the rights that would be allowed heterosexuals. As I post here, though, I don't remember what his position was on a federal mandate or whether it should be left to the states. Will have to get back to you on that.

[SneathLane]

The main right allowed heterosexuals is the right to marry. Mr. Obama has made it very clear that he does not want me to have that right.

States that allow same-sex marriage are showing very different results from states that institute "separate but equal" civil unions. Civil unions are clearly NOT equal, since same-sex couples in "civil unions" run into a wide range of problems that married same-sex couples do not.

I also wonder, will he have the courage to stop the military from attacking gay men and lesbians? Truman, a white man, stopped racial segregation in the armed forces. Will Obama, a heterosexual man, have the balls to end discrimination based on sexual orientation?

Does he really believe in ending discrimination in public life? Or does he believe in ending discrimination for some people, but not for me and mine?

[TrooAmerican]

cont'd from below:

the soda shop worker left.

While he was out, the friend urged him to leave. When he didn't, his friend left out the back. He went on to recount: He said he sat there in awe. He stared at the bar, the shop, the back wall with the mirror.
Today people might come to a new place: "well this is nice, to have this view or perspective on this location." But he sat there basking in a feeling.

He was feeling what it was like to have freedom, to sit where he wanted, to be a part of a society that was "acceptable", or welcomed. He felt for the moment that it was like having bonds released for the first time in his life. His perspective was not like mine or my relatives. His was of a US citizen that wasnt allowed to be one.
He felt part of something for just a few moments that blacks were kept from.
He stopped daydreaming when he felt a nightstick tap him on his shoulder & a tough southern voice tell him to leave or he'll be arrested..... {arrested for sitting down to order a soda- in the white section}

Whites dont know what persecution & being kept down by an entire nation of people who are in control. This was the Late 50s. Thats not that long ago, many of these people are still alive & teaching racism to their kids, grandkids, neighbors etc.

[TrooAmerican]

To those White Republicans and other rednecks that dared to criticize Michelle Obama's remarks about her being truly proud of America after seeing them come together to support Barack.. I say this:

I listened to NPR this summer on a drive home and i recall the person interviewed was an elderly black man. An American. A US citizen. A Legal Resident of our country.

He recounted a story of when he was a young man. He and a friend went into a soda shop, the kind you see in old B&W photos with the bar, and the ice cream and fountain drinks. Normally two young black men, he said, would be required to walk downstairs of the shop to the basement where there was another place with stools set up for people of color to enjoy their orders away from the main shop and white folks.
There was a white man behind the fountain bar working, and an elderly white woman at the other end sipping on a cream soda.
He and his friend kind of came into the store fantasizing about sitting at the whites only bar.
They thought about this before, & this time they did it.
The soda jerk at first didnt turn around and then when he saw them told them they'd have to go downstairs or leave. They refused and the man said he'd go get the police.

cont'd above..

[JMBrodie]

Thank you for the Ellison reference. I hear ya, man.