aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, December 24, 2007

Obama’s dilemma

A Newsweek Periscope piece labeled “Race” say the Revs. Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young and Al Sharpton are lost in the Obama era:

At times they can seem like jealous, cranky old men, as in December when Young suggested Bill Clinton was “every bit as black as Barack.” Or when Jackson said Obama was “acting white’’ by skipping a giant rally for the Jena Six.

But it’s not just jealousy. They are also frustrated by mainstream voters’ eager embrace of an African-American raised without a traditional African-American experience-who’s not, in other words, an “angry black man.” Reared in Hawaii by white grandparents, Obama didn’t have a family history of segregation and Jim Crow laws. And sources close to all three reverends say the men are hurt that Obama hasn’t sought their advice, even privately. (Still, Jackson has endorsed Obama.) The leaders appreciate Obama’s dilemma. They know he’d lose many white voters if he reached out to leaders known primarily for advocating black issues. Obama’s refrain is that there is just one America. It may be what America wants to hear-but the three lions of the old school couldn’t disagree more.

It seems to me that those old lions are right. I’ll be happy as can be if Obama’s elected, but what is the likelihood of him doing something substantive about race relations or racial inequality in America?

If “Obama’s dilemma” means that because he’s a black man he can only be elected if he minimizes race and acts every bit as much the centrist status quo as Hillary or Edwards, why should those who value racial equality embrace him?

Dr. Ronald Walters, the director of the African American Leadership Center at the University of Maryland, worked for both of Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns. He said this on Bill Moyers Journal about the Oprah tour:

I looked at this spectacle the other day of Michelle and Oprah and Barack-- three black people in front of this sea of white faces in Iowa. I said, “That’s amazing.” But when you look at who they are they don’t, for example, take very strong issues having to do with race. They have made part of the professional and their political life dealing with the problems of whites. They are trusted in those communities. And, therefore, they have a right to be there. That’s historically important.

And Salim Muwakkil wrote this about The Post Civil Rights Fallacy for In These Times:

[T]he media has been awash in assessments of a new cohort of black leadership. These neophytes are generally described as well-educated (often Ivy Leaguers), non-ideological coalition builders-in that they were not nurtured in the race-tinged battleground of the civil rights movement.

The star players in this coterie are Obama, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, Alabama Rep. Artur Davis, Philadelphia mayoral candidate Michael Nutter and a few others.

These attractive newcomers are being cast as the harbingers of a new America, a nation untroubled by the ogre of rank racism. Race-focused leadership, like that expressed by the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jackson, are to be relegated to another era, a 20th century paradigm.

These ideas are part of a hardening notion that the protest mode is an ineffective way to redress the racial problems of the 21st century. Increasing numbers of commentators are stressing the need for African Americans to place more focus on internal social and moral reform than on external protests for civil rights. This is hardly a new debate. In fact, it was the core disagreement between W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington at the beginning of the 20th century. [...]

Obama is a black politician seeking national consensus. If he responded to every expression of racial bias, he would alienate his supporters who believe we live in post-civil rights America. However, some African Americans are uncomfortable that Obama’s prospects for success are enhanced by a state of racial denial.

I’m all for the new leaders. But they’ve got some big old problems to solve. If the only way they can get elected is to deny those problems, I’m just not sure there’s much progress is being made.