A President Obama

No Proof that America has Finally Kicked Its Racial Syndrome

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The win by Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama in Iowa has done two things. It proved that a significant number of white voters will vote for a black presidential candidate. It won’t prove that America has finally kicked its racial syndrome. From the moment that Obama stood on the steps of the Illinois state capitol building in Springfield, Illinois last February and announced the launch of his dream presidential campaign to change America, the political deck seemed hopelessly stacked against him turning himself into a serious contender for the White House. The initial knock against him was that he was too new, inexperienced, and had a wafer thin legislative record in the Senate, and was saddled with a name that when twisted, mangled, or deliberately distorted sounded suspiciously like Osama.

But by far, the biggest hole card against him in the
political deck was race. Put bluntly Obama is an African-American, and
the conventional thinking and reality is that white Americans might
publicly swear that color doesn’t matter to them when it comes to
voting for a candidate, but then suddenly develop an acute case of
voting booth conversion on Election Day. That meant that once inside
the cozy and very private confines of the voting booth they punch the
ticket for a white candidate in a head to head contest with a black
candidate. The campaign trail is strewn with the wreckage of the
campaigns of black candidates that held leads, in some instances
substantial leads, over white opponents, and then went down to flaming
defeat on Election Day.

The two tips that Obama could escape their fate was the victory of
Deval Patrick who won the Massachusett’s governor’s seat in 2006. He
had even less political experience than Obama, and was up against a
seasoned office holder. He won anyway, and he won with white votes.

The even bigger tip that things might be different with Obama is –
Obama himself. He plays hard on his multi-racial upbringing and
heritage, can raise bushels of campaign cash, is a centrist politician
that gets high marks as a consensus builder during his stint in the
Illinois state legislature, and is not typed as a race card player ala
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

In other words, he is an American exception, a black man who is, savvy,
telegenic, moderate, and poses no racial threat. This quirky, even
schizoid, American exceptionalism that plays well for Obama has been
time tested in sports, entertainment, and in the business and the
professional worlds for decades. That is the willingness of many whites
to view some blacks through color neutral lens, and elevate them to a
perch beyond race. In the crudest way, it’s expressed with the always
offensive crack to some highly regarded black professionals,
businesspersons, sports and entertainers that they are different, and
not like the others. But generally, it’s simply to cheer the few
exceptions for their talent and ability (as even if that’s the
exception) and keep praising them as long as they make no personal and
legal missteps.

The beyond color pass isn’t granted to some blacks solely out of
enlightenment or altruism. There’s a dividend. It permits many whites
feel goodism, and to back pat themselves for being color blind and that
shows how far America has come in dumping the ugly burden of racial
bigotry. That notion drove much of the decade long contentious debate
over affirmative action. Affirmative action opponents railed that
minorities had broke down the racial barriers, and individual talent
and ability were the only thing that counted in society. Race simply
violated the precepts of a color blind society. The Obamas of America
seemed to more than bear that out.

Even if the now thinkable happens and Obama does wrest the Democratic
presidential nomination, and even beyond that the White House, there
are other sobering historic examples from the long rule of England’s
Queen Victoria to the time in office of Pakistan’s tragically martyred
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that proves that an Obama can get
high marks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that racial hostility and
victimization has vanished. Victoria’s rule did not change gender
relations in Victorian England. It was still a rigidly, class, and male
dominated, patriarchal society. Bhutto in power didn’t change gender
relations in Pakistan either. It is still a rigidly Islamic
fundamentalist, caste, and male dominated, patriarchal society.

An Obama presidency would be a racial step forward in the sense that it
shows that enough whites can and will look past race to make a black,
especially an exceptional black, their leader. It would not show that
they are willing to do the same for the millions of blacks that cram
America’s jails and prisons, suffer housing and job discrimination, are
trapped in failing public schools in America’s poor, crime ridden inner
cities.

Their plight and how they are viewed and treated will remain the same
after Obama takes office as it did before. A President Obama won’t
change that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His
forthcoming book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to
the White House (Middle Passage Press, February, 2007).