Barack Obama: The Postracial Candidate?
Barack Obama
For a postracial America?
(Image from US Senate Office Website)
In yesterday's blog entry, I mentioned that I had thought of Barack Obama as signifying a "postracial America," but I did acknowledge:
Race is doubtless an issue, just as ethnic identity is an issue everywhere in the world, but Obama the candidate -- like Obama the person -- is more complex than that, as are his supporters.There's a personal aspect in this for me, and not just because my kids are half Korean. I suppose that I pass for white, but my maternal grandmother was recognizably American Indian, so much so that when she and my grandfather were traveling through the Smokey Mountains way back in the 1930s, some Cherokee men standing around a potbellied woodstove in a local hotel (where my grandparents were looking to lodge for the night) came up to her while my grandfather was off inspecting the hotel room and asked:
"How does an Indian like you get along with an Englishman like him?"But she was curious about how the man had known that she was Indian since she wasn't very dark. He told her that she simply looked Indian, that this was obvious and that any Indian would instantly recognize the fact.
"Oh," she replied, "we get along fine."
I grew up knowing the story and that I was part Cherokee, but I didn't really see the Indian in my grandmother until I moved to San Francisco and saw her face in the faces of old Chinese women, just as I now sometimes see her here in the old women of Korea.
Maybe that's partly why I feel comfortable in this distant place even though the Koreans probably think of me as just another waygukin -- an "outside-country person," as Robert Ouwehand translated it in his "Letter to the Editor" for yesterday's Expat Life section of the Korea Herald.
But to get back to Barack...
This morning, I read a short article, "Honolulu Diarist" by Allegra Goodman in The New Republic that reaches back to Honolulu of the 1970s to help explain Obama's fluid identity, the 'postracialness' that I mentioned. Goodman describes the complex identity dynamics that she saw taking place in her fifth-grade class, taught by an old "veteran teacher, old-fashioned, Christian, strict, Mabel Hefty," and she implies that Obama would have experienced much the same thing:
Six years before she taught my class, Mabel Hefty had taught a boy named Barack Obama who grew up to name her as his favorite teacher for her ability to make "every single child feel special." To Mrs. Hefty, special did not simply mean loved -- special meant singular. This was a particularly strong message to her diverse students. Mrs. Hefty's students were Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, Korean, Tongan, white, and, more often than that, hapa, a combination of many races and traditions. On the surface, our classroom looked like a melting pot. A girl with honey blond hair, cafe-au-lait skin, and green eyes might say proudly, "I'm part Hawaiian, part Portuguese, part Chinese, and part Irish." And, yet, despite this melding of cultures -- indeed, because of it -- we were all struggling to define ourselves and find a place in the world.I think that this gets at part of Obama's appeal, especially to the young. Whether postracial or not, racially, ethnically, Obama is hard to pin down, much as America and Americans are becoming harder to pin down as we all struggle to find our place in the world.
Which is why Obama's not "The Black Candidate" that the Clintons would like for him to be...
Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Cherokee, Hillary Clinton, Postracialism
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 4:09 AM
23 comments
23 Comments:
I think Americans are ready to elect an African-American like Mr. Obama. If he does not succeed, it will not be because of his race, it will be because of his lack of experience. He only became a United States Senator in 2005 and he was not Governor or other highlevel politician befor that.
Yes, the lack of experience -- perhaps as much in campaigning as in government -- could sway people's decisions.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
My school embodies the new America that is not only post-racial but inclusive of the disabled and speakers of other languages. Friendship circles are naturally multiracial and multicultural. No one looks twice at the child born of a crack-addicted mother, ambling down the hall in a walker with a warm smile brightening his encephalic head. One of his friends is a severely autistic girl whose bizarre outbursts rarely stop other students from what they are doing. Koreans would stare until their eyes popped out of their heads, for they continue to segregate the disabled, just like we used to do. The kids in my school are tolerant because they know of no other way to think or behave.
It is not like that everywhere. At my previous school in Illinois, African-American students comprised 30% of the student body and self-segregated. At the breakfast table one morning, a light-skinned first grader looked at her pale palm and responded to darker classmate, "Eeuw, I'm not white!"
Sonagi, you must be working at a very unusual school. Is it experimental? Private or public?
Jeffery Hodges
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I think you've got it completely backwards. Why would a major political party seriously consider as nomininee for the country's most coveted office a candidate whose experience is measured in months rather than years, without a single major (or even minor) political accomplishment, and who has been careful not to stake out a single important policy position?
No experience, no accomplishments, no policies -- I see only one reason people want to vote for him. Obama allows us to pretend we are a postracial country. Ironically, his candidacy demonstrates just what a fantasy that is.
Scott, I guess that this means that I've been out of the country so long that I'm no longer able to place my finger on its pulse.
I'm waiting to see what his political positions are, as I've noted elsewhere, but I have read his first book and found myself impressed by his intelligence and character.
Also, he writes pretty well.
My impression of him as postracial is based partly on his book but more on the personal response that many whites seem to have, especially among the young. Race just hasn't seemed to be a strong factor in white support (or nonsupport) for Obama.
"Why would a major political party seriously consider [Obama] as nomininee for the country's most coveted office"?
Because lots of people are supporting him, that's why. There's no other strong reason for the party to consider him than that.
Jeffery Hodges
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My school is not an experimental school. Inclusion of disabled students in mainstream classrooms is mandated by federal and state laws; hence, all teachers are special education and ESL teachers since about 1/4 of students in a typical classroom are SPED or ESL.
No experience, no accomplishments, no policies -- I see only one reason people want to vote for him. Obama allows us to pretend we are a postracial country. Ironically, his candidacy demonstrates just what a fantasy that is.
Then how do you explain the failure of Jesse Jackson to establish much support from other racial groups? America wasn't ready to "pretend we are post-racial"? Barack Obama's biracial background is a novelty that hooks the interest of the press and the public; however, voters of all colors pull the lever for the candidate they feel most comfortable with. Obama's biggest asset over Clinton and the Republican field is his lack of baggage. With his name cropping up in headlines every day, it's easy to forget he hasn't even served one full term in Congress.
That was my sense, too, Sonagi, that America has changed since Jackson ran.
Bill Clinton was hinting otherwise in his Jackson remark, but that seemed like an obscure reference to ancient history for a lot of people.
Jeffery Hodges
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Reading Jesse Jackson's platform in the Wiki entry, it's easy to see why Jackson never succeeded in building his Rainbow Coalition. Some of his ideas have been widely accepted, proof that America HAS changed, but back in the conservative Reagan 80s, he looked like an extreme leftist.
Actually, at the time, Jackson seemed more moderate than a lot of things people had been hearing. The early 80s were not so far from the 60s (which, by the way, didn't end until about 1975).
What's interesting is that America has, overall, grown more conservative since the 60s but simultaneously less race conscious.
Jeffery Hodges
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Is America really more conservative? I don't think radical 60s movements represented most Americans, but some of their beliefs, issues, and practices have become mainstreamed. America only seems more conservative, perhaps, because the tyranny of the moral minority, who do not represent most Americans.
On economic and moral issues, the nation has moved rightward even as it has become more tolerant of differences.
This is made possible, I think, by the tendency of most Americans to see themselves as individuals. Most prefer a relatively free economy and a generally restrained personal morality but also accept that other individuals may choose differently.
Jeffery Hodges
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I think the conservatives have focused on race; I even think they have been obsessed with it. I have never heard so much about what's wrong with black people, inundating the airwaves, blogs and online conservative news outlets.
It ain't altruism.
Race is not an issue as it was in the sixties, but I think that is because whites have extended their boundaries. There are still lines you don't cross. Like you can't appear to be smarter than some unless you can prove that you had a 2400 SAT and a 181 IQ. Even then you will get an argument filled with probabilities of taking those test.
Living outside of the States for 20 years has probably spared me a lot of that talk, Hathor, though I have heard echoes of it in the news.
Anyway, we may find out how postracial America is if Obama gets the Democratic nomination. Of course if my friend Scot is correct, then white folks voting for Obama doesn't really prove postracialism at all.
The talk that would accompany his candidacy, however, might be illuminating.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Back to the OT of Obama, have you heard of Obama Girl?
The latest video is quite funny and very timely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIiMa2Fe-ZQ
She is actually an actress paid to appear in these clever and sexy videos produced by some very savvy people.
Yes, I've heard of her and watched part of one of her videos but just couldn't get into it. Maybe I'm simply too old...
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Hathor wrote:
"I think the conservatives have focused on race; I even think they have been obsessed with it. I have never heard so much about what's wrong with black people, inundating the airwaves, blogs and online conservative news outlets."
The only way I can agree that the above statement is factual is if you substitute the word "Bill Clinton" or "Clinton campaign operatives" for "conservative."
Sonagi asked,
"Then how do you explain the failure of Jesse Jackson to establish much support from other racial groups? America wasn't ready to 'pretend we are post-racial'?"
Yes, I think that's exactly it.
The most racist people I know are Obama supporters, yet were never Jackon supporters. Why is that? Jesse Jackson had a clear record; everyone knew where he stood on various issues. Obama acts as a cipher -- the Democrats reached into the Illinois state senate to find a slightly dark-skinned man with no public statements or political positions that could ever be seen as challenges to white voters.
I think the unspoken bargain is this: "Here, we give you this deracinated (not, I'm afraid, post-racial) man who will not threaten you in any way. Vote for him, and in the future you can consider yourself absolved of racism."
It saddens me that so many Americans leap at the chance to make this bargain. It's especially sad since in the decades since J. Jackson's candidacy, many talented and experienced blacks have come on the national scene, any one of whom could be considered viable candidates.
Scott, while I agree that the Clintons look pretty sorry indeed on this score, I think that Hathor is referring to the discussion of IQ that has been going on for some years now and that is associated with some conservative groups.
As for Obama, is he really deracinated? I didn't have that impression from his first book. He actively seeks there to define himself as African-American and even goes to his relatives in Kenya to seek his deeper African roots. I suppose one could argue that this is evidence for deracination, but I'd counter that Obama is not deracinated but, rather, complex in his identity.
As for the whys and hows of Obama's candidacy, I'll admit that I have little understanding of the way that power works, but I don't see the Democratic Party as having sought out Obama. He seems self-motivated to me.
As for what he stands for, I presume that we'll begin to find out as the campaigning goes on.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
"As for the whys and hows of Obama's candidacy, I'll admit that I have little understanding of the way that power works, but I don't see the Democratic Party as having sought out Obama."
The state party tapped him back when he was a first term state senator in Illinois. They ran him (unsuccessfully) for a House seat after, and after he lost that, he sent another few years in the state senate. At this point, the national party was looking for someone, and they took notice of him. The opportunity to advance him came when a US Senate seat opened up. They were already touting him as a possible presidential candidate back when he was running for his Senate seat, and, of course, he's been running for president since taking office as a US Senate.
If you have access to such databases, just search for Obama's name in big time American newspapers before 2004 (when he took his US Senate seat). You should be able to trace the process even without being in America to see it first hand.
dr. richard scott nokes,
Listening to talk radio in the northeast and reading conservative and libertarian blogs is where I have gotten such ideas. I have also had a few conversations with a Lew Rockwell follower and while he was saying "I am not a racist" I could hear new variations of code words I have heard most of life. I grew up as a southerner during Jim Crow, so I think I know when a spade is a spade.
If all that experience was necessary, how on earth did this country ever get started. Does being an inventor and postmaster, prime you to be an ambassador or a gentleman farmer to be a president?
Scott, that sounds like a time-consuming process, so I'll take your word for it that the Democratic Party sought Obama out.
The important point for me is what position he actually takes on issues. I'll just wait to see as the campaign forces him to clarify them.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
On the issue of experience . . . while I wouldn't want to dismiss the importance of experience, I think that intelligence can make up for its lack, and Obama seems exceptionally intelligent to me. Of course, Hilary Clinton is highly intelligent, too, as was Bill Clinton, but Obama seems to have more character than the two of them combined. I base this observation on my reading of his book.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
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