It seems like all anyone--or, at least, anyone in the Clinton campaign and the media--can talk about lately is the fact that Barack Obama is a black man. Oh? His skin is deliciously bronze? I hadn't noticed...
I've been reading a lot of race and passing stuff for the current diss. chapter and I'm a little hung up on a detail. Obama's father was Kenyan-American and his mother is a white American. (I'm not sure of her ethnic heritage.) Which means, of course that he's half black--and half white. But with all the discussion of whether he's too black or not black enough, I feel like we're still, as a nation, subscribing to the one-drop rule: if even one drop of black blood is in a person, the saying went, then that person was black.
Don't get me wrong, if Barack gets elected, and I think--and hope--there's a good chance that he might, it will be a HUGE and very belated positive step for our country in terms of the electability of someone who looks like he does. But I think the recent obsession with race is, if not offensive, then at least misleading. The argument is that Obama is sidestepping the race question because he doesn't think he can get elected if he focuses on his blackness. I'm sure that's, unfortunately, partly a factor. But maybe he's not sidestepping the race issue at all. He is, after all, a brown-skinned man who was raised by a white mother. I'm sure he's seen it all in terms of race roles and the complications thereof.
Will we ever move beyond the dichotomy of the black/white line?
2 comments:
I do not think that his campaign believes he cannot be elected if he focuses on the blackness. Being the first black president and serving as the representative anecdote of what an entire race can aspire to is not the problem. In fact, I think that others would have a problem in this country if he did that.
The problem the Obama campaign must avoid is playing the race card: he cannot appear that he will get the nomination just because he is black nor can he ask people to vote for him because he is black and, hence, a victim.
For his campaign to be successful, he must avoid the race card, which fits in with the ethos of the presidency. You do not get to be the "leader of the free world" by accident or quota; you get there because you inspire and focus on the present and future.
Right, so by focusing on being black, he might rub people the wrong way, either because they don't want a black president or because they don't want a president just because he's black. Either way, it's sad.
I think we're in agreement here.
Post a Comment