Views > February 1, 2007

Baracks Black Dilemma

By Salim Muwakkil

The day after the national celebration of King Day, Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) announced he was forming a committee to explore a run for the presidency. Obama’s rapid ascent and the popular draft that has swept him into the presidential race would have amazed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Less than 40 years after his assassination virtually killed the civil rights movement, many white Americans seem willing to back a black man for their leader. Even King dared not include a black president in his celebrated dream.

To paraphrase James Brown, this is a brand new bag. Had Brown not died last Christmas, he might have written a song about it.

Obama’s announcement was met with the kind of media coverage that makes politicians’ mouths water. Such media adulation has accompanied the 45-year-old since his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his election to the U.S. Senate that same year. Before that, he was an Illinois state senator who had earned bipartisan respect for his energy, intelligence and political acumen.

Obama won his Senate seat through a series of lucky breaks (i.e., both of his major political rivals were done in by damaging allegations from former spouses), as well as his political appeal. His Ivy League education and well-modulated eloquence wear well in the mainstream, but have sometimes provoked suspicion from the black electorate. This Hawaiian-born son of a black Kenyan and white Kansan is a brother from another …

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) exploited those suspicions when Obama challenged him in 2000 for his First District congressional seat. Obama lost badly. In fact, Obama has had to deal with questions of racial authenticity since his initial foray into politics. Perhaps that’s why the line in his convention speech, that black parents must guard their children against the “slander that a black with a book is acting white,” resonated with such authority.

Some of the same qualities that make Obama alluring to white Americans (his affability, his seeming lack of racial grievance) are troubling to many African Americans. They wonder if the senator feels as connected to the black community as he does to the educated elite with whom he spent so much of his formative time.

This is a skeptical tradition formed by generations of African Americans who were betrayed by the slave masters’ favorite blacks. The logic seems simple: Be suspicious of those like you who are liked by those who dislike you.

Despite these suspicions, most African Americans seem pleased with the Obama phenomena, if also perplexed by the intensity of white Americans’ affection. All of this is new ground, which is why, aside from his political stance or ideological leanings, Obama’s public prominence will spark necessary discussions on race in American culture.

Obama’s racial hybridity is expressed as “black” in the United States only because “one drop” of African blood denoted blackness in a society dependent on racial slavery; this quality became a social taint with a devastating impact on the psyches of African Americans. As late as 1968, James Brown sparked a minor cultural revolution with his song, “Say it Loud (‘I’m Black and I’m Proud’).” It is one of Obama’s favorite songs.

Some who question Obama’s racial credentials raise the point that, unlike most African Americans, his family history was not framed by generations of chattel slavery. Black Republican Alan Keyes raised that issue during his disastrous senatorial campaign against Obama. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh have also raised it. In fact, some conservatives are so distressed by his popularity that they’ve hinted he could be a “Manchurian Candidate” for Islam, programmed during his short childhood stint at an Indonesian madrasa. Whew!

But his unusual ancestral narrative may also fuel the fervor of Obama’s white support, in that his lack of slave history elicits no feelings of historical guilt among whites. They love Obama because he doesn’t hate them, as they suspect blacks should. Another theory making the rounds on black talk radio proffers that some whites see Obama as a way to redeem America in the eyes of a world angered by the Bush administration—the multicultural Obama’s calming presence serving as a necessary balm.

But where does this great black hope of whites stand on issues of enduring interest to African Americans? In Chicago, Obama won over many of his black critics by persuading them of his integrity, and with a legislative record that convinced them he had the black community’s interest at heart even as he cultivated alliances with other political forces.

For the most part, however, African Americans understand that Obama’s bid for national office requires a more complex political calculus than the protest candidacies of the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They know it’s a brand new bag—they just want it to stay funky.

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• Reader Comments

  “Funky” ? The Black community is suffering from way too much funky behavior. If Obama could wiggle out of AIPAC’s control and take some controversial stands, he might be worth supporting. The author must be hanging around some guilt tripping whites if they think blacks should hate them for being white. Thanks but no thanks.

  Posted by blondemike on Feb 1, 2007 at 11:15 AM

  As usual Salim is on target with his piece on Obama.  Not only is Obama the one hope for African-Americans and whites.  We must galvanize and support this intelligent politician, who has our hopes for peace and equal rights at heart.  Reparation will come later.
  “C” in OKC

  Posted by hopeinok on Feb 1, 2007 at 3:24 PM

  “Many blacks wonder if mainstream whites love Obama because of his lack of history as a slave, which elicits no feelings of historical guilt.”

  I live in Illinois where it is required to “declare a party” to get a primary ballot. For the first time I declared “Democrat” just to be able to vote for Obama. (When Allen Keyes turned out to be the Republican opposition, it was no contest for Obama to get my vote.)

  Though both men are of African ancestry any connection to a slave history never entered my mind. I have never heard of anyone I know, white or black, mentioning this as an issue. Any “feelings of historical guilt” must be a wealthy or liberal problem. I feel absolutely no guilt for any policies or behavior which either precede me in of which I never participated. I would be willing to bet most whites feel the same. You may not like it, but it is so.

  Until corresponding on this site I didn’t even realize it could still be a consideration since any individuals who experienced U.S slavery are long gone.
  
  Even so, I doubt that Obama’s lack of a slavery connection is any genuine allure to anybody. My own personal reasons for voting for him were that he seemed to make sense. I am expect to learn more about his ideas as the campaign progresses. I hope he gets to debate specific topics — his book is encouraging, but just too general.

  As for the “...intensity of white Americans’ affection...” it is more likely his lack of anything to dislike so far. Plus the media always tries to make elections into a sporting event.

  Posted by whattheheck on Feb 1, 2007 at 4:28 PM

  Less than 40 years after (Dr. King’s) assassination virtually killed the civil rights movement …

  This strange and ambiguous statement, typical of Muwakkil, stopped me cold.  Whatever could he mean?  Coretta Scott King carried on heroically.  A host of others, including close associates of Dr. King, carried on as well, perhaps not quite so heroically, and maybe even self-servingly.  But carry on they did.

  So, in what sense was the Civil Rights movement “killed”?

  Well, for one thing, emphasis shifted within the Civl Rights movement at the time of Dr. King’s death.  There had been a long history of self-reliance and self-help within the black community, from Frederick Douglass, to Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and on through Dr. King’s time.  There was a strong practical reason for this self-reliance; blacks got scant help from most whites, particularly in the Dimocratic South.

  But several other events corresponded in time with Dr. King’s assassination: integration, the Great Society welfare and poverty programs, and Affirmative Action programs among them.  These programs served to shift emphasis away from self-reliance to entitlement and dependency.  Welfare, in particular, devastated black families, who collected more money when the men were gone than when they were present, giving everyone incentive to see the men gone, or at least out of sight.

  As a consequence of welfare, too many black children grew up without a strong male presence, or any permanent male presence at all in many cases.  And education and accomplishment were de-emphasized in dependent black families, contrary to the sterling examples of Douglass, Washington, Carver, and King.

  Now we have Senator Obama, intelligent, educated, and eloquent, and no one knows how to relate to him.  Not blacks, who question his authenticity.  Not leftists, who are too eager to be impressed by Obama’s obvious abilities and thin resume.  (One blogger, who seemed to be in a position to have observed, was thoroughly impressed by Obama’s note-taking abilities in his college courses!  BFD.) Not Conservatives, who compromised their principles before the last election and are not yet relating coherently with anything. 

  Obama will be good competition, after he establishes a resume.

  Posted by scorp on Feb 1, 2007 at 11:36 PM

  Initially I thought maybe it was just me but after doing a small poll of relatives, friends and co-workers, I came to the conclusion that the idea that “Many blacks wonder if mainstream whites love Obama because of his lack of history as a slave, which elicits no feelings of historical guilt.” is not only untrue but absurd.

  My feeling was surprise that any Blacks were wondering anything about why white people like Obama, it never occurred to me to give it a thought.  The most observant comment I got on this subject was from one of my next door neighbors, a 38 y/o unemployed married father of two (I teasingly call him a “househusband") who stated emphatically that “the only thing whites love about Obama is that he won’t do anything to keep them from continuing to make money”.  My 78 y/o mom believes that “white people don’t really love Obama, they only say they do because he reminds them of the one member of their family who didn’t screw up”.  A co-worker said white males (dems and repubs) are pushing him on because “they’d rather see anybody as President rather than Hilary because with Hilary as President and Pelosi as speaker of the House, #3 in the line of power, women would be running the country”.  My wife said she hopes white people really love him but doubts it and if he wins she hopes they end up regretting it.  My 22 y/o daughter, representing Black youth, doesn’t like to bring up the “slavery thing” because she’s “ashamed that such a stupid and weak group of people (whites) were able to conquer the whole world” and foresees an unmerciful punishment in their future.  My sister in law said, “they love him now, wait til they meet his wife.” I think Mr.  Muwakkil just made this whole thing up, Black folks don’t really care what white people think, about Obama or too much of anything else.

  Posted by theloneous on Feb 2, 2007 at 9:59 AM

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