Losing the Narrative
To my mind, commentary about Obama’s ‘race’ speech in the press has been superficial and overtly, unreflectively partisan. (It was a fine speech, to be sure; don't get me wrong. This guy is not only a brilliant politician, he's a genuine intellectual. He has integrity. And, he's brave, to boot.) Yet, as editorial writers rush to call it "the greatest speech on race since King's 1963 oration...," I can't help but notice how they blithely overlook LBJ's 1965 commencement speech at Howard University which, to my mind and by any serious historical standard, was easily a more important and historic statement. Johnson’s speech was, after all, a statement which had and still has consequences, in terms of major institutional reforms embodied in our nation's laws and practices, affecting the lives of many millions of people over the span of two generations. (But, then, the Obama enthusiasts have successfully implanted the idea that it is somehow ‘racially insensitive to recall that LBJ's skills, vision, courage and compassion were absolutely indispensable in bringing about the progress we all take for granted today...)
It seems to me that this is a defining moment in the discourse on race and justice in America. Clinton once tried to promote a 'national conversation on race,' which was well-intended though ineffective. Well, we may be on the threshold of having a very different national conversation on race, thanks to Obama's brilliant yet troubling speech. That line about how the movement he's leading -- across lines of race, class gender, age and social location, on behalf of the idea that people can work together -- must not be made hostage to the past, this goes right to the heart of the matter, in my view. How shall we deal with our unlovely racial past? What claims, if any, does it make on us today? Of course, we ought not to be prisoners of our past. But, as a person deeply concerned for the welfare of black people in this country, I am far from being convinced that Obama's vision, as set out in his Philadelphia speech, marks out a coherent plan for moving forward on these issues.
Wright's error, Obama tells us, is that Wright's view of America is static, ignoring how things have changed -- so much so that one of his own parishioners now stands on the threshold of being elected to the highest office in the land. As a (more or less) angry black man of Jeremiah Wright's approximate generation (I graduated high school in 1965), and while offering no brief for Wright himself and no defense of the remarks that have created this firestorm, I nevertheless find that argument very patronizing. I know, just as Wright surely knows, that things have changed a great deal. I also know that, as I write this, one million young black men are under the physical control of the state; a third of black children live in poverty, and, the Southside of Chicago, with more than one-half million black residents, is one of the most massive, racially segregated urban enclaves ever to have been created in the history of the modern world... These things are a reflection of social, cultural, economic and political forces deeply enmeshed in the structure of American society. They are not merely the consequence of attitudes embraced by some more or less well-meaning but benighted black and white persons -- attitudes which can be thrown-off if only we were to become determined, under the inspiring and inspired leadership of the junior senator from Illinois, to work together to solve our common problems, etc.
I can’t get past the fact that Obama was negotiating with the American public on behalf of MY people in Philadelphia last week. In the process, he presumed to instruct a generation of angry black men as to how they ought to construe their lives. I am not really sure that Barack Obama has earned the right to do either of those things. How the Senator’s negotiations will ultimately shake out – in terms of American attitudes about the nation’s responsibility to act so as to reduce racial inequality -- is something I'm not very confident that anyone can predict. Advocates of the interest of black people have to consider what hand we’ll be left to play, should he be defeated in November. The narrative-defining moves that Obama is making now, in the heat of a political campaign and in the service of his own ambitions, must be critically examined as to what impact they will have on the deep structures of American civic obligation, for generations to come.
At bottom, what is at stake here is a fight over the American historical narrative. Obama, a self-identifying black man running for the most powerful office on earth, does threaten some aspects of the conventional 'white' narrative. But, he also threatens the 'black' narrative -- and powerfully so. In effect, he wants to put an end to (transcend, move beyond, overcome...) the anger, the disappointment and the subversive critique of America that arises from the painful experience of black people in this country. Yet, the forces behind his rise are NOT grassroots-black-American in origin; they are elite-white-liberal-academic in origin. If he succeeds, there will be far fewer public megaphones for the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and Cornel Wests of this world, for sure. Many will see that as a good thing. But a great deal more may also be lost including, just to take one example, the notion that the moral legacy for today’s America of the black freedom struggle that played-out in this country during the century after emancipation from slavery – I speak here of Martin Luther King's (and Fannie Lou Hamer's, and W.E.B. DuBois's, and Ida B. Wells’s and Frederick Douglass's ...) moral legacy – should find present-day expression in, among other ways, agitation on behalf of and public expression of sympathy for the dispossessed Palestinians – who are, arguably, among the 'niggers' of today's world, if ever there were any. (We all know that Rev. Wright’s publicly and vociferously expressed sympathies in this regard – his condemnation of America’s support for what he called ‘state terrorism’ in the Middle East – are a central aspect of the political difficulty that Obama now finds himself having to deal with.)
Speaking for myself, and as a black American man, if forced to choose, I'd rather be "on the right side of history" about such matters, melding the historical narratives of my people with those of the 'niggers' in today's world, than to make solidarity with elites who, for the sake of political expediency, would sweep such matters under the rug (or, worse.) My fear is that, should Obama succeed with his effort to renegotiate the implicit American racial contract, then the prophetic African American voice – which is occasionally strident and necessarily a dissident, outsider's voice – could be lost to us forever.
Obama’s speech, quite understandably, glosses over such matters, while desperately (if on occasion disingenuously) trying to reassure the American mainstream. For instance, everything Obama has had to say since this firestorm broke out, on behalf of the humanity, the intelligence and the complexity of his Christian pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, could also have been rightly said on behalf of the despised Muslim imam and reputed anti-Semite, the Hon. Louis Farrakhan – a man who, like Wright, has helped transform for the better many thousands of lives, and who ministers to a huge flock in exactly the same community where the Trinity United Church of Christ is located. It can come as no surprise that the congregation at Trinity favored Farrakhan with an achievement award. After all, the two religious movements are drawing on the same black population there on Chicago’s Southside, and through their respective ministries they are responding to the same sensibilities, attitudes and perceptions which are widely held in that community – the community, I might add, which Barack Obama represented so effectively in the Illinois state legislature for many years.
Finally, one could argue, with good reason, that the purportedly post-racial Obama candidacy has been hypocritical in its exploitation of a simple-minded racial voting reflex among black Americans. This central fact of the current campaign is only spoken of guardedly, and often goes unnoticed altogether. It is supposed to be an insult to him -- and, by extension to blacks as a whole – that he might be seen as a 'black' candidate. And yet, it is the fact that so many blacks see him precisely in that way – viewing him through the lens of a politically infantile narcissism – that has allowed him to obtain a winning hand in the delegate count. (This, by the way, is the same narcissistic reflex that installed Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court a decade and a half ago. These are very different cases, to be sure; but, it’s the same reflex.) Here we have the ‘post-racial’ candidate who is favored to win the crucial North Carolina primary because he can confidently rely on drawing 90% of the black vote. Can I be the only observer who sees a profound irony in that?
I believe that deep disillusionment with American political institutions is implicated in all of this. Being "lied-into" an interminable and pointless war has exposed a hollow core. Legitimacy has been cast into doubt. The taint of failure is everywhere -- in government and in the press. And, anxiety is everywhere, too -- about security, about the economy. George W. Bush has managed to profoundly damage conservatism's brand. "Liberalism" was long ago discredited -- Bill Clinton himself drove a stake through its heart ("the era of big government is over.") Obama's post-ideological campaign, by eschewing explicit identification with the great tradition of Democratic progressivism, by trumpeting the 'transformative leadership' of Ronald Reagan, etc., only reinforces this tendency. (This is what Hillary Clinton's futile and seemingly shrill protest over the health care mandates issue is really all about, in my view) And so, Obama and his followers speak of transcending ideology: no more "red states vs. blue states" or left wing vs. right -- that's the old way of thinking, it is said. We need to transcend those categories, to move-on from those old arguments, to seek a new direction, to inaugurate a new generation of leadership, etc. etc. Throughout this campaign he has avoided the responsibility -- and he did it again in his ‘race’ speech -- of saying directly and explicitly what (beyond "the old ways of Washington politics") are the nature and dimensions of the failure, and how will what has gone so horribly wrong ever be remedied. Instead, he simply calls for "change."
Obama, an African American from the south side of Chicago (sort of), has become the embodiment of this call. The question is, will the deep structures of American power accept a stealthy revolutionary's ascent to the pinnacle? I doubt it, very seriously. As his life experience and his current political strategy would seem to suggest, he can only succeed by abandoning the critical, skeptical, dissident's voice which is the truest political expression of the lessons learned by black people over the long centuries of being America's 'niggers.' So, anyway, is how I'm seeing things at the moment.
Comments (146)
Wow. When I say this piece is a kick in the teeth, I mean it as a compliment.
If I had been born into a minority racial group, born a woman or born a homosexual that I would flip my lid every time anybody told me "look how much things are better for us than they were before," especially when followed by a wistful, "we still have a long way to go, but..."
Everybody gets exactly one life. That's all. If that life is lived on unfair terms, then you're going to be angry about it. That things are less unfair for you than for your parents isn't really an answer.
In no other area of life do we accept "it's better than it used to be," as the solution to a problem.
But there are commentators out there who desperately want this to be the answer.
March 31, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
what do you suggest? I uncerstand your frustration in regards to us only having one life and therefore should enjoy the best the world has to offer in that life but the question is how do you fix every problem at once? is it possible? if it is, please let everyone else know. In my opinion things change gradually if it is on a national level. I don't think that you were making the argument that things have not changed for the better (i think we can agree on that), but rather the speed at which it changes. Please let me know how you would fix everything in one lifetime, with one speech, one action, one election...
March 31, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I do agree that things are getting better and I can't answer your other question because I have no answer for you.
I just know that people who aren't being treated fairly don't want to hear from me that "things are better than they used to be" and so I don't say it. It's really no answer.
March 31, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's speech was realy very odd: he presents as equal on the scales injuries and insults of really very different dimensions: the bitter rage of Rev. Wright at the injustices of America is balance by Obama's white grandmother -- we are to understand and forgive Rev. Wright in the same manner in which Obama forgave and understood his white Grandmother. It gets even odder when you read the account of the incident Obama referred that he provides in Dreams of My Father: his Grandmother who commutes to work on a morning bus has been approached for money by a black panhandler, she has given him a dollar and he has demanded more money and she is afraid. Obama's white Grandfather insists that his wife is afraid because the panhandler is black. Obama's take then is that his Grandmother is afraid of someone who could be his brother.
On a mroe serious level Obama explains to whites the anger of blacks in terms of the massive wrongs done to them in this society and then turns around and equates this to the anger of whites -- immigrants in particular - to whom no such helping hand has been extended. It is as though he were equating the wrongs of growing up in slum areas with slum challenges in slum schools with facing the trauma of having your child compete for college slots with black competitors who have been granted a few extra points.
Obama may well be correct that far more will be done for blacks if we fix the problems that we all share than if we try to right the wrongs inflicted on minorities in this country. Indeed this may be the only option if we insist on being racially blind rather than racially just.
April 2, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The media represents a major impediment to a discussion on race. We reduce entire comments into snippets. Clinton's comments about LBJ are educed to suggesting that MLK was an afterthought. The African-American backlash to the snippet suggests that Whites played no role in the civil rights movements.
The backlash occurs because discussions of race in the MSM usually consists of Whites posing their set of questions to Blacks. Blacks are mere responders. Black do not lead the MSM discussion on race. When presented with a snippet, the community responds with a snippet. No true conversation takes place. Both sides point fingers.
Next, we have to be honest and say that Conservatives have used racial divisions in the country to their benefit. It therefore comes as a surprise when African-American conservatives speak out against this tide. Michael Steele, the former Republican Lt Gov of MD, pointed out at the State of the Black Union conference that political party never trumps race. Condoleeza Rice's statement about the national birth defect of slavery was also eye-opening.
With few exceptions, White Conservatives have no moral authority to criticize African-Americans. The GOP has been at the forefront of the Southern Strategy. Black conservatives bear the burden of Ward Connerly. As long as the Southern Strategy and Connerly are the basis of the GOP's interacting with the Black community, the GOP will be largely ignored.
The Democratic Party via the Hillary Clinton campaign is showing a new side to the African-American community. Geraldine Ferraro and other Clinton supporters have raised serious questions about the Democratic Party's feeling toward it's African-American base.
If Blue collar Democrats throughout the country cannot accept an African-American candidate than a reassessment of the community's relation with the Democratic Party will occur. Gov Rendell of PA stated openly that there are Whites in PA who will not vote for a Black candidate. That is flatly outrageous.
Things are in flux from a political standpoint.
Neither party truly welcomed it's African-American voters with open arms. Staying home, or just voting in local elections may become the default position.
March 31, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do not believe that the Clinton's have in their bones even the slightest bit of "white resentment", but it is hard to deny that in carving up the electorate into micro-demographics they are trying to exploit that resentment among "working class whites" in northern post-industrial, Appalachan, ethnic areas. I'm not sure how that contributes to the conversation at all.
March 31, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the Clintons are not racists however they do allow qustionable things to be done in the name of the campaign.
Armstrong Williams a once and now once again prominent African-American GOP Consrvative was a well known shill for the GOP front-runner (insert any front runner name). Williams could call Colin Powell an "empty suit" when making a comparison to Bob Dole. It was understood that Armstron was trying to survive by GOP rules set for african-Americans.
Maggie Williams, the new Clinton campaign head represents a new phenomenon, the "go-along-to get along" African-American Democrat. The thing that typified Black prominent Democrats was the willingness to challenge the hierarchy.
From Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Party to Shirley Chisholm to Al sharpton there was a maverick spirit. Now we come to political opportunists like Williams.
I suspect that some Clinton supporters like Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Sheila Jackson Lee, etc will face eventual ouster as a result of supporting Hillary.
March 31, 2008 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Must we always see the glass as half empty?
I mean, if Obama wins the nomination, and it looks like he will, then that in itself is historic and means that a lot of whites all across the country supported him.
Are you going to condemn the country and all of your white fellow countrymen who stood with you because of the ignorance of some?
And doesn't the reason Obama loses matter as well? If he loses on the race question, then yes, that's discouraging, but he could also lose because people are worried about his experience and the GOP drums up a whole lot of fear about his ability to deal with Iraq and terrorism.
I beg you to please keep some perspective.
March 31, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a thoughtful post, but I don't know if I buy it. Here's my main problems:
"Yet, the forces behind his rise are NOT grassroots-black-American in origin; they are elite-white-liberal-academic in origin. If he succeeds, there will be far fewer public megaphones for the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and Cornel Wests of this world, for sure."
I don't know that the premise is true and I'm not sure the conclusion follows. What does it mean to be "grassroost-black-American" in origin? Does the fact that he went to Harvard put him into a elite, white, liberal, academic origin? Similarly, does community organizing on the South Side not count for anything? Or was it the fact that he was raised by white people in Kansas? Or are you rather talking about his supporters and not the man himself? In that case, what are we to make of the fact that vast majorities of black people have voted for him in the Democratic primaries? I just don't know how to weigh these aspects of Obama's background in order to evaluate the claim that the forces behind his rise are elite and white rather than grassroots and black. It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the claim has any content.
My fear is that, should Obama succeed with his effort to renegotiate the implicit American racial contract, then the prophetic African American voice – which is occasionally strident and necessarily a dissident, outsider's voice – could be lost to us forever.
This is problematic for me in a lot of ways. The most important problem is that it just passes over the "implicit American racial contract." I have to say that I don't know what the contract is. I don't think I ever saw copy of it and I certainly didn't sign it. If we're going to determine whether one deal is better than another, we have to know the content of each. It would be useful for me to the posters and commenters to have a brief discussion of what the racial contract is. I don't think that we're ever going to get to a point where there aren't any outsiders and there aren't any dissidents.
The question for me, then, is what value is to be found in race-based dissent? It seems to me that as time passes we will get farther and farther away from that regardless of what happens--at least if "things are getting better."
March 31, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Run, Jesse, Run!"
Glenn Loury is Mars Blackmon Redux.
March 31, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"My fear is that, should Obama succeed with his effort to renegotiate the implicit American racial contract, then the prophetic African American voice – which is occasionally strident and necessarily a dissident, outsider's voice – could be lost to us forever."
The voice of the old school lamenting the march of time.
Sorry, but we can't turn back the clock.
A new generation is here with new values.
March 31, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The racial contract which liberals recognized and radicals insisted on is that a large part of the current condition of blacks was a result of wrongs inflicted by the majority and that America had a moral duty to attempt to repair these wrongs. That many of the repair attempts were misdirected and/or condescending and/or ineffective does not negate the moral value of the recognition.
The basic recognition is that resources in this society would be distributed according to population -- if the society were 10 percent Oriental, Orientals would have 10 percent of the resources -- if this society had been racially just from its inception. In a later post it is argued that the Myth of Racial Continuity burdens the current generation for the effect of wrongs they did commit. That analysis ignores the fact that the current generations of whites- immigrants and otherwise face much less competition from blacks due to the current past and present wrongs inflicted upon blacks.
It is absurd to maintain that under-representation of blacks in the college cohorts is more a result of cultural choices (as the absence of the Amish in college ranks can be readilty explained0 rather than the results of inadequate access to resources ranging from pre-natal health care to basic public saftety to education to jobs to even-handed assessment of identical resumes.
If the current generation believes that because they are not personally racist America is beyond having to deal with this legacy, they are reality challenged.
April 2, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
So....blacks are being bamboozled by Uncle Tom Obama.
This whole thing is a setup for a race war if I've ever seen one. Blacks are figuring this guy is going to get into office and miraculously do, well, what exactly? And when he doesn't do "it" there is going to be some serious anger played out.
And what is it that non-blacks expect? Who knows. Do they think that having a black President's face on TV everyday will somehow heal all racial wounds and promote equality?
In my city govt. blacks are way overrepresented in the heads of departments and elite politicians. Yet that vast majority of crime, murders and poverty is in the small and shrinking black population. Appointing and electing blacks has done nothing to improve things.
Obama is no silver bullet. But apparently the vast majority of blacks mistakenly think he will work some sort of miracle.
Will he will be elected out of a collective sense of guilt by whites and anger by blacks? That is a recipe for failure.
March 31, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
How's that white resentment working out for you, jackass.
March 31, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well if my city is any example I'd say it is not working out well at all. We have more city employees per capita than any other. Blacks are represented in the city workforce more than 3X their population percentage and....city service suck and there are new taxes every election cycle to pay for raises. We have 8,000 city employees that earn over $100K in a city with a population of 800K.
That answer your little snark?
March 31, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tammany Hall has traditionally been an early step of the integration of cultural outsiders into the American power structure. The reform battle which corrects these excesses is worthy but difficult: the more inflamed the cultural divisons become the longer it takes.
April 2, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like you're talking about Detroit - and I couldn't agree more, having lived in SE Michigan my whole life. That system is *definitely* not working and untenable!
April 2, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thought-provoking post.
A few things I have to say. You begin by criticizing the press, noting that "commentary about Obama’s ‘race’ speech in the press has been superficial and overtly, unreflectively partisan." Of course it has. The press itself is superficial and partisan. If we are to examine any effects on a discourse that Obama's speech has created, looking to the mainstream press is the wrong way to look. We cannot know if his speech has been fodder for dinner talk everywhere across the country, but I know in my home it has. And it has been here, for several weeks now, at TPM. And it obviously sparked this round of guest posters.
You then criticize them for overlooking LBJ's speech. Well, ignoring the fact that op-ed writers and cable news have the attention span of a one-year-old, one big difference is that for many of us, this is the only time we have experienced a speech like this as it happened. Reading about speeches and events in books never carries with it as much power as observing it as it happens.
The op-ed writers and cable news have of course dramatized the speech as much as they do anything. These are the same people that ran 24/7 news coverage for days of Anna Nicole Smith's death as Petraeus took over for Casey, as we debated the surge in Iraq, as a report came out that showed the Pentagon purposely manipulated pre-war intelligence, and ironically, as Obama announced his candidacy. Also, there are few, if any, columnists and editorialists who have not already expressed their opinion as to who should get the nomination, so it should not surprise us that their interpretation of the speech will be filtered through that lens. My point being, that if we expect this "dialogue" to be led by the press, we're likely to get nowhere.
I need to think a little bit more on the rest of your piece.
March 31, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yet, the forces behind his rise are NOT grassroots-black-American in origin; they are elite-white-liberal-academic in origin.
I could understand this concern if black people weern't voting for Obama, but they are. Therefore, they are giving his message a vote of confidence.
March 31, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
But those votes are just ironic, you see.
"Here we have the ‘post-racial’ candidate who is favored to win the crucial North Carolina primary because he can confidently rely on drawing 90% of the black vote. Can I be the only observer who sees a profound irony in that?"
March 31, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny that the Democratic Party never had a problem with getting 80-90% of the Black vote before...but when an exceptionally qualified Black man is running for president we're all supposed to vote against him for what reason exactly?
Why is the litmus test for Black folks vote for higher than everyone else? Give me a freaking break. He EARNED the Black vote just like he earned every other vote.
March 31, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
On what non-racial basis did he do so? What particular policies of his are so much more advantageous for blacks the way Democratic policies have been much better for blacks than have been the Republican ones (if you consider this trivial, consider the history of when Blacks were in fact able to vote as opposed to simply having the abstract right to vote.)?
That there is significant suasive moral power to having a black President is a given but saying that Obama's appeal to blacks is not significantly increased by identity politicis is absurd.
April 2, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
The criticism of Obama's speech strikes me as being premised on a slightly extravagant reading of the speech. I didn't hear the speech as saying Obama is here to tell older black guys how to construe their lives. I heard Obama as saying (more or less) that people in the various racial groupings too often talk past each other, don't understand the others' experiences, and don't recognize the legitimate complaints and understandable frustrations of the other. And I heard him saying it's possible to get past this point of mutual incomprehensibility.
As for the complaint about Obama's allegedly hypocritical (or "ironic") post-racial positioning: I have some sympathy for the point, but in a country where blacks are 16% of the electorate and lots of white and brown people view with suspicion the narrative of black experience told by Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, no one is getting elected president by sounding like Al Sharpton. If you want Sharpton, you got him. If you want a black president, too, then you have someone like Obama who is more about brokering a conversation between often-antagonistic groups than he is about advocating as a spokesman for one of the groups.
And actually, I don't find it ironic or hypocritical of Obama that he knows most black voters will vote for a black candidate who wants to broker a discussion about race rather than to serve as an advocate in a debate. It would be hypocritical for him to make appeals to black voters on the ground that he will be a Sharpton-style advocate. But so far as I know, he hasn't made that appeal. So no, I see no inconsistency here.
(I suppose I now must disclose that I am white.)
March 31, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The discomfort with Obama's approach arises in part because his suggested solution appears to be to largely ignore the problems specifically affecting the black population alone and focus on correcting those ills shared by all.
April 2, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
well, you are projecting way, way too many expectations onto Barack Obama as a singular individual, and then conflating the press' reaction to his speech with the speech itself. it is certainly not Obama's fault that most in the press are not familiar with any of LBJ's speeches, let alone the specific one you mention. it is silly for anyone to expect Obama himself to "heal" our national racial wounds, that is ridiculous and impossible. certainly the same is true of the idea that Obama himself will somehow "silence" the voice of dissent in the black community or in the country. what ridiculous hyperbole! if anything it will have the exact opposite effect, and the vast swaths of America which remain reflexively rather than actively racist will be directly confronted with the refutation of many of their deeply held fears about black people.
go Barack! you can't please everybody and it sucks that sometimes the people who have the most to gain from an Obama victory hold him to purity tests instead of understanding the enormous pressure on him and the razor thin tightrope he is walking in this campaign...
March 31, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Onceler,
Perhaps it was Obama's responsibility to shut down some of the rhetoric, knowing it (at least he should have) to be incorrect and inflamatory, from his surrogates when Hillary made her MLK/LBJ remarks. I notice you've managed, as have quite a few, to ignore that part of Loury's piece(But, then, the Obama enthusiasts have successfully implanted the idea that it is somehow ‘racially insensitive to recall that LBJ's skills, vision, courage and compassion were absolutely indispensable in bringing about the progress we all take for granted today...).
Imagine a black man saying the same thing Hillary did. I wonder if he's a racist as well.
March 31, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice pose Mikey
March 31, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're going to engage in censorship you should acknowledge your actions...or did you think I wouldn't notice that a post of mine appeared and then disappeared?
Both Comment is Free(Guardian) and Free Republic tell you when they are censoring someone. Apparently, you have neither integrity nor maturity...just pretensions.
March 31, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had a comment disappear after a long pause loading (tried twice). It had some insults and moderate curse words but they were a caricature of the comment I was replying to. I wonder if part of the whole change at TPM was designed to give them more "editorial" control.
March 31, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't you post it again? The only posts I've seen disappear around here were violent ones.
April 1, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think one of the mistakes that we are making is not looking at the effects of income on African Americans. African Americans aren't a monolithic group. In fact I will argue that the life of an upper middle class black has more in common with an upper middle class white than an African American who lives in poverty on the South Side of Chicago.
So I think the conversation needs to change from a race base conversation to a class base conversation. What Obama needs to make the mainstream understand is the problems of poverty, lack of health care, lack of access to a good education, lack of access to a good job. These are problems that effect all Americans black, white, Hispanic, Asian, native American it doesn’t matter. The problem is that do to our past racial history these problems are more acutely felt by the African American Community.
The narrative can then be if we can find non race based programs to help the African American community these same programs will help all Americans.
March 31, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an important point because you would be surprised how many people don't believe real poverty exists in America or that it isn't necessarily the fault of the impoverished.
I think one difference between the black and white perspective is it's much harder for blacks to be so isolated from poverty -- even as members of the middle class -- that they can believe it doesn't exist. But at least some whites in gated communities really are this out of touch.
March 31, 2008 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
A couple of things I guess. MLK thought LBJ didn't do much of anything at all. As far as Obama's speech I think he said what he could say and even that was considered "mind-blowing". I have no doubt that Obama is aware of everything you're saying. He is in a box that doesn't allow for a great deal of latitude when it comes to this issue.
Us African-Americans were pretty supportive of Clinton until Clinton Inc. started pushing lines like drug-dealer and shucking and jiving.
March 31, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
jay,
as a black woman if you are saying that is your problem with bill clinton that they talked about drugs and shuckin and jiving that is a bit embarrasing for me. all that comes to my mind to say to you is... grow up.
March 31, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
michelle,
One of my problems with them is that they ran a racist campaign. However, my bigger problem is their desire to imprison African-Americans unfairly using racist drug laws.
March 31, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, I guess I should add, this 40 year old civil rights and immigration attorney, is already all grown up. Thanks though.
March 31, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then why not use your own name? I'm not saying you're not who you say you are, but I am saying that autobiography that can't be validate is essentially meaningless. Out here, what you read is pretty much what you get, isn't it? I think what she's saying is that if you are who you say you are, post like it. We'll pick up on who and what you are soon enough.
March 31, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's two troubling assumptions at the base of this piece: (1) that Obama once had the "dissident's voice" (which he now has to abandon to assend to the Presidency), and (2) that his speech was a disingenuous political move, not an honest explanation of the differences between his worldview and Rev. Wright's.
Aren't these assumptions similar to those made by Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and company?
March 31, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
they may have been put forward by hannity and others. that does not take away from the fact it may be true.
March 31, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nor does it explain what actions, if any, Obama may have taken during this twenty years at TUCC to promote his own views to counteract the ill effects of Rev. Wright's anger.
April 2, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I think about the implicit racial contract in the US, I think about the gerrymandering in Texas. The incredibly devious plan—Rovian in origin, of course—doesn't disenfranchise people of color directly, it disenfranchises progressive voices. By circumscribing African-American and Hispanic populations away from white populations, it guarantees that there will always be a certain representation for people of color in Texas, and those pols will nearly always be Dems. But by cutting electoral off alliances with White liberals, it also guarantees a majority of safe districts for Rethuglicans. This is the implicit contract: the conservatives will 'graciously' 'allow' minorities a token place in our society as long as they don't have real political power to challenge our imperialist and corporate-capitalist elites. Look to Rep. William Jefferson or former Newark Mayor Sharpe James (replaced by Cory Booker) to see what kind of Dem pols this encourages and (Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales for what kind of Republican pols this contract also encourages).
This contract sucks for White, Black, and Brown folks alike. Obama can renegotiate this as must as possible, for all I'm concerned. I follow the author's complaint here about Obama presuming that he can speak for his generation, in essence writing off their complaints as legacies of historical pain. But I agree with Obama (and also see Cory Booker's interview on Bill Moyers Journal last week) that this pain doesn't clearly direct us toward thoughtful policy solutions to the dire problems that we all share. Obama is 100% correct that terrible schools are a problem for people of every color and that fixing them is not a zero-sum game. I don't think that the tradition of American progressivism and AA prophetic voices have done a good job of communicating this, no matter how well they might actually understand it. I don't see how Obama is bound to follow the same patterns of communication and organizing as the people who have come before him and yet failed to achieve their central goals.
I'd also like to post a question to other Cafe writers: Is Obama actually running as a 'post-racial' or 'race-transcending' candidate? I've never heard him use those terms; I only ever see them in the media.
March 31, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Loneoak,
excellent post re: gerrymandering and the consequent breakdown of interracial coalitions. Very important point that has been unfortunately hard to talk about in democratic circles.
March 31, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post
March 31, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
i am not old school black but OBAMA does not speak for me. neither did jesse jackson nor al sharpton.
March 31, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! What a mash-up of elegant analysis, faux mind-reading, and logic chopping.
Others have commented on the elegant analysis, so I'll skip over that for now.
Loury says "These things are a reflection of social, cultural, economic and political forces deeply enmeshed in the structure of American society. They are not merely the consequence of attitudes embraced by some more or less well-meaning but benighted black and white persons"
Umm, did Obama proclaim somewhere that we are supposed to ignore these "social, cultural, economic and political forces"? How does Loury know that's his intent? Doesn't Loury think Obama knows this?
Loury also says "In effect, he wants to put an end to (transcend, move beyond, overcome...) the anger, the disappointment and the subversive critique of America that arises from the painful experience of black people in this country."
Well, one out of three isn't bad. Obama does want to move past the anger, IMHO. And that's a really good thing, because 99% of the time, anger is dysfunctional--angry people fsck things up. I don't see where Obama wants to sweep aside disappointment or the subversive critique--rather, he wants to _extend_ them to the white community, as well.
Bottom line: Loury's fear is overwhelming his good judgment in large chunks of this piece.
March 31, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Obama's message to other blacks is: Too Bad. So Sad. Get Over It. Go out there and compete.
So is he going to bring racial justice to this country or is he simply Wade Connerly on steroids?
April 2, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glen, I've been flowing your commentary with McWhorter on bloggingheadsTV and I must say you two are by far my favorite duo! You always say what I yell at the tv/laptop. Great piece.
March 31, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am born into a minority group, one that has gone for Clinton in overwhelming numbers (hispanics) and I look at it thusly:
We have failed. We cannot ever successfully deal with the past racial events in this country. We can agree that event x happened, but other than that it's an impasse. All we can do now, is try to look at how things actually ARE now, not necessarily as an outgrowth of the past but just as present and move forward from that. Anything else is, and HAS BEEN doomed to failure.
Your conception of an African American voice is interesting--it sets up an outsider's perspective. But then I also think that's part of the problem with hispanics as well.
March 31, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post MN. A nice viewpoint from the Hispanic side.
PS - This Cleveland Indian fan will forgive your Twins hat....:)
March 31, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
This article is intellectually stimulating. Just look at this sentence alone: "But a great deal more may also be lost including, just to take one example, the notion that the moral legacy for today’s America of the black freedom struggle that played-out in this country during the century after emancipation from slavery – I speak here of Martin Luther King's (and Fannie Lou Hamer's, and W.E.B. DuBois's, and Ida B. Wells’s and Frederick Douglass's ...) moral legacy – should find present-day expression in, among other ways, agitation on behalf of and public expression of sympathy for the dispossessed Palestinians – who are, arguably, among the 'niggers' of today's world, if ever there were any."
And there are many more sentences just like it. Just reading this article is in itself an intellectual accomplishment.
March 31, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. :)
March 31, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very hefty post.
Amazing the baggage one has to carry on account of one's skin color. I defy anyone to cite an example of Obama using the term "post-racial" about himself except in critical examination of the term itself, as he finds it repeatedly used about him in media.
To the larger point of narrative: the Professor plainly would rather have his cake than eat it, and that is fully his right. I would just say that I see no positive case for any candidate here, and that is what is most needed at this hour.
I see this as the mirror image of my view of Hillary Clinton's candidacy: she (and he) ought not to have burdened our country with them, imperfect representations of their identity groups as they are.
Darn individuals. They'll get one's categorizations all tangled up every time!
March 31, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense. We accept incrementally better conditions in all aspects of our life all the time. And we judge ourselves, as a society on the trajectory of our progress not just on a single absolute scale. "In order to form a more perfect union..." Doe sit sound familiar.
Some aspects of justice are categorically either just or unjust. Specifically, de jure injustice (in this case discrimination by race) can be addressed in a categorical way. De facto injustice is always dealt with incrementally. We live in a more tolerant society in many ways than we used to. That has real advantages for society and for individuals. In terms of racial segregation in housing we have a huge amount of progress yet to make.
March 31, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was supposed to be in response to the very first post. I guess this "reply" button doesn't always work.
March 31, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since Mr. Loury says: "The narrative-defining moves that Obama is making now, in the heat of a political campaign and in the service of his own ambitions, must be critically examined..." Since he puts ambition (and therefore ego) in the argument, I am left thinking that Mr. Loury would feel some sense of personal loss for himself and other African-American intellectuals and activists of his generation should Obama become President, and therefore become the dominant face and voice of Black America. I would hope Mr. Loury will do all he can to encourage Obama to be the leader he would hope him to be. But first an election must be won, and the language and attitudes Mr. Loury would have Obama take now would doom him to defeat.
March 31, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Loury is for Clinton, so until this nomination is over, I don't think he is rooting for a way for Obama to win. After the nomination, ....
March 31, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Loneoak - I was just wondering that myself. I've never heard him refer to himself as post-racial, and have heard it constantly in the media. So I went back to his book, The Audacity of Hope, where he writes, "Still, when I hear commentators interpreting my speech (in reference to the 2004 DNC speech) to mean that we have arrived at a "postracial politics" or that we already live in a color-blind society, I have to offer a word of caution. To say that we are one people is not to suggest that race no longer matters - that the fight for equality has been won, or that the problems that minorities face in this country are largely self-inflicted." In fact, the whole chapter on race is worth reading again, but I'll not type it here.
March 31, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, I completely see your point but at the same time, as a white female with long experience with the attitudes that many older whites have about race, I can't see how at this point in time a black candidate could successfully run in any way other than the way Obama has run his campaign, or with a different message. Not to be pat, but it's almost another Jackie Robinson moment. 30 years from now, it might be possible that a black candidate could run as a black candidate, first and foremost, successfully, but at this point in time, the one voting bloc that most reliably turns out to vote at every election - old white people - also happens to be the last generation of folks who grew up under segregation. Some of them have come a long way in their attitudes about race, some of them have only come a little way, and some of them haven't budged at all. In short, there's a lot of these people who will consider voting for a black candidate - but only if he or she is not "too black". And destor23 is right - this stuff moves too glacially slow - but it IS moving, thank god. I'll give an anecdotal example - the small town in Arkansas my parents moved us to when I was in high school was, I thought, shockingly racist. I had come from Atlanta and even as a young teen was fairly ignorant of the whole civil rights struggle that had taken place when I was a young child. I never attended a segregated school - this was for me, normalcy. The town we moved to had a very small black population - less than 10% - and had integrated its schools only a few years earlier. It was just 70 miles down the road from a place where, into the mid-70s, it was not unheard of for signs saying "black man don't let the sun set on you in Newton County" to be posted, according to friends who grew up there. I got out of that town as quickly as I could once I was out of school.
Fast forward to a few years ago...that small town where I attended high school elected a black mayor, a guy who was a friend of mine in school, and the general agreement is that he's done an excellent job and he has drawn no opposition in the upcoming election. Even many of the older whites who didn't vote for him when he ran are supporters now that they've gotten to know him and have seen what a good job he's doing.
So things can and do change, not quickly enough as far as I'm concerned but it's not completely hopeless, because I think all of us have seen measurable change in our lifetimes.
But in the main I'm in agreement with you and my hope is that, once elected, Obama would step it up a bit. I'm personally sick of hearing consistent whining from conservatives about how the 40 years since the civil rights act is all the time necessary to overcome the centuries of slavery and oppression that preceded it. I get particularly pissed off when I consider that even during those 40 years, most black kids have still never been given access to quality education. School integration in some places wasn't fully accomplished until the mid-70s, and even then, many states merely gerrymandered rural districts to keep the black kids in schools with no local tax base (most land and businesses were in white hands, just one legacy of slavery and sharecropping) while the white kids' districts got the benefit of what tax base there was. States aided the inequality by making districts rely on local taxes for school funding. In my state, they didn't even start working on trying to equal that out until 2000. And if we're going to be honest about it, it was only 5 years after all the schools were finally "integrated" even if in name only, and 15 years after passage of the civil rights act, that white voters elected a president in part for his promises to punish the lazy layabout black people. It was also at this time that white voters began to systematically de-fund public education and move their kids out of the public schools. And for 25 years or more now, again starting about 15 years after passage of the civil rights act, we've heard consistent conservative whining about affirmative action, which in light of the school situation was for many blacks THE avenue to the middle class through employment in federal, state and local governments, especially in places like my state. Without it, the black middle class here would be virtually nonexistent, and along with it, black college enrollment, etc.
It just seems to me that whites have in this country played the role of Ramses these past 40 years: "they are to make twice as many bricks, but are to be given no straw." The outraged faux noblesse oblige of white conservatives pretends that the crumbs from the table were a generous feast. This country has been nothing but grudging in extending equal opportunity to black Americans, in most cases publicly "giving" but in private taking it all away, while continuing to blow its own horn about all the good things it was doing, and pointing to the symptoms of racial inequality as excuses for giving up on curing the disease. So if we're gonna finally be honest about all of this, let's be honest about it. I'd love to hear Obama speak of the pettiness of spirit that has brought us to the point where we are now, the stinginess with opportunity and the truth about the feel-good story most white conservatives tell themselves about both their racial attitudes and the "equal opportunity" they believe they've been so generous in dispensing.
But I don't for a minute think I'll hear him say anything like this before the election. I know I'm not alone in hoping I'll hear it - or at least something approaching - when and if he is elected.
March 31, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
But remember Reagan was the President with ideas.
I will never understand why any one falls for the idea that because black college entrants are embarassed by the suspicion that they attained their place only with the help of affirmative action we should adopt policies which ensure that there will be fewer black college graduates.
April 2, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"My fear is that, should Obama succeed with his effort to renegotiate the implicit American racial contract, then the prophetic African American voice – which is occasionally strident and necessarily a dissident, outsider's voice – could be lost to us forever."
I don't really understand this statement.
Black radicalism (and other forms of leftist radicalism) have an important role to play in this country.
It's wrong to suggest that black radicalism should be somehow ended or silenced. But it's also silly to suggest that an Obama victory would lead to that result.
Radicalism is always, by definition, on the margins of society -- it stakes out that position because it advocates for major changes to the existing order.
Black radicalism is in a marginal position -- and mainstream reactions to Rev. Wright prove this. An Obama victory would neither move it into the mainstream, nor somehow cause it to be "lost to us forever."
Neither Obama nor any other individual can singlehandedly "renegotiate the implicit American racial contract." Opposing Obama because he could somehow, paradoxically, disempower black radicals (who have virtually no power now!) is profoundly and bizarrely short-sighted and wrong-headed.
Honestly, I wish people would stake their support for or opposition to Obama on matters other than his race.
March 31, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what polcies of Obama attract your support or opposition?
MLK recognized the wrongs committed by American Whites as fully as Rev. Wright did and was able to bring America be better by arguing that if you responded to your best impulses, you would stop the bad things that you are doing.
Obama on the other hand offers the excuse that I understand that the things you are doing are bad but I also understand that you are doing these bad things from the best possible motives which I share.
It is not at all clear that this will lead to better behavior by America. Obama has applied this argument to President Bush's actions after 9/11 and indeed opposed impeachment (USA Today). This may make it a lot easier for Obama to obtain Republican votes but it does nil to reduce the likelihood of a repetition of Bush's actions.
April 2, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the thoughtful and thought provoking essay. This is a line of critique that isn't heard enough as Obama's candidacy matures.
I think it's inevitable that, since he has positioned himself as a bridge-builder, this will threaten entrenched positions on both sides. "Post-racial" is, of course, a meaningless term. I sincerely doubt that Barack Obama intends by his candidacy to suggest that the African American experience in this country is somehow being superseded. The rhetoric of his speech in Philadelphia centered on the idea of perfecting our union, which is a leitmotif of his candidacy, perhaps even a core aspect of his political consciousness.
From this perspective, your cautions are important. Without a strong, black critique of Obama's stance on race, the normative idea of "colorblindness" ("post-racial" in the current argot) will necessarily take precedence by virtue of the structural fact of white America's over-representation in the media and the centers of power.
But this critique ought not be taken too far. To suggest that there is something inherently or essentially valid, even sacrosanct, in the sort of critique levied by the past generation of black leaders is narrow minded and self-defeating. This attitude asserts itself most strongly when you write:
My fear is that, should Obama succeed with his effort to renegotiate the implicit American racial contract, then the prophetic African American voice – which is occasionally strident and necessarily a dissident, outsider's voice – could be lost to us forever.
The "prophetic" African American voice need not be a permanently marginalized one. Describing the black position as essentially "outsider" is simultaneously to sanctify an "inside" from which African Americans are alienated. I am sensitive to and fundamentally agree with the idea that the historical black experience mounts a necessary critique to the tidy histories of the empowered and privileged. But let's not kid ourselves that this is somehow "prophetic" or essentially and eternally "dissident."
If you'd like a genuinely prophetic image to capture our moment, take a look at Jeremiah 38. Having been cast by King Zedekiah into a pit, the prophet Jeremiah is lifted out by an African whose very name, Ebed-Melekh (servant of the king), speaks of his crossed allegiances. Barack Obama is this generation's Ebed-Melekh, and it is not the black community alone that has been cast down into the pit of despair. Let the man help to lift us out of this darkness. There will be plenty of time to critique his means once the job is done.
March 31, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or to be really surprised about what he does by failing to closely scrutinize his policy prescriptions now. You might try David Seaton.
April 2, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a great post by Glenn Loury. I think it gets to the crux of the issue in asking what Obama's candidacy and his race speech mean for the important Black oppositional narrative. But I still think this is a fair question, and I'll note I'm White: Is it Obama's ambition to be a post-racial candidate, or a post-race-exploitation candidate? I'm not sure, but I read Obama's ambitions as the latter. I agree that racism is as racism does: it's functional, not attitudinal. Or as Glenn Loury says, racism is structural, not personal. And one of the main structural functions of racism in the U.S., arising from the elite interest in fragmenting working and middle-class electoral power (and sustaining the exploitability of Black Americans economically), has been to divide working and middle class voters against their own interests by driving White voters to vote "White." It's been a very successful strategy for conservative Republicans since Nixon. And it's a strategy that has produced public policy that's been lousy for most Americans and disastrous for Black Americans--look at the crack cocaine laws largely responsible for the obscene prison numbers Loury mentions. Broadly, Republican race politics have deepened the geographic, educational and economic segregation of African American.
I'm not sure how to parse those two social dynamics--the importance of the oppositional Black narrative, apparent in that enduring structural segregation, and the devastatingly effective anti-progressive use of race-division by Republicans (and sometimes conservative Democrats).
But it does seem to me that if the Obama campaign can undermine electoral racial polarization, he will have achieved a huge advance for progressivism for all Americans. And I think that that at least possibly opens up more, not less, space for a respectful, serious discussion of structural racism in America--space for the oppositional Black narrative to be better heard. In fact, that's one way of reading Obama's statement in his speech that we can't afford to ignore the subject of race at this point in our history--to investigate and understand the roots of Rev. Wright's anger in the realities of Chicago's Southside, and also (my framing) to understand that working class Whites, struggling to make lives for themselves within a structural racist frame they didn't create and don't fully understand, also need to have at least their perceptions of racial realities respectfully engaged.
Can we have both an electoral politics that moves past racial polarization in the progressive interests of all Americans, and a new and honest engagement with the realities of structural racism as well? I'd like to think that the former might facilitate the latter. Is that naive?
March 31, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post.
On the flip side it is not at all clear that the plutocrats know their own interest: wouldn't they be making more money if the percentage of the population that are crack addicts --black or white -- were computer programmer instead?
April 2, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
"How shall we deal with our unlovely racial past? What claims, if any, does it make on us today? Of course, we ought not to be prisoners of our past. But, as a person deeply concerned for the welfare of black people in this country, I am far from being convinced that Obama's vision, as set out in his Philadelphia speech, marks out a coherent plan for moving forward on these issues."
This is not the first time I've heard this complaint of a lack of specificity in his speech. Comments like this: "Obama was characteristically vague on specifics, declining to suggest how he would address the racial inequities that we continue to face." have appeared in various columns throughout the media. Personally, I find it a bizarre charge coming mostly from the same pundits who throw around accusations of Messianic complexes and cults. It seems, in this case at least, that it is not Obama's supporters who are asking to much of one person, but his critics. I wonder, what kind of specifics would oblige you? Was he to give out a ten step program and hand out checklists? It's worth remembering that we're pretty much all making it up as we go along - there is no playbook written for how to bridge a racial divide that grew out of a history of slavery and discrimination and governmental statues and documents claiming white male superiority. To think he has all the answers is a bit of a stretch, and yet I find that he has attempted to give specifics in places other than his speech on race. That speech was meant to be grand and abstract, for it is a prologue to the discussion we are having at this very moment.
For example, in his book, he writes, "How we close this persistent gap - and how much of a role government should play in achieving that goal - remains one of the central controversies of American politics. But there should be some strategies we can all agree on. We might stat with completing the unfinished business of the civil rights movement - namely, enforcing nondiscrimination laws in such basic areas as employmen