It was a hope of many that the tangly, convoluted and often painful issue of race would be transcended in this campaign. In fact, race has stepped front and center ever since Barack Obama stepped there himself. The walls of Jericho have fallen down, the floodgates are open and the question now is to what extent will his race make him very visible and consequently invisible? There are fewer well researched profiles now, and lots and lots of hit-and-runs. Has the level of discourse sunk to an unreturnable low? Is this dialog necessary, but not necessarily helpful for a candidate? How effective are the skirmishes and rants in leaving indelible stains on Obama's image? Curious, I have listened in, scrounged around for discussions of race and the affect that it is having on the 2008 presidential dialogue and candidacies. Here is some of what I've found:
Josh Marshall’s excellent piece points to race baiting as a Republican strategy against Obama, a kind of round the clock Willie Horton ad. Adam "Big Time" Nagourney has a similar hit list.
There are those who dismiss the idea that race is really such an issue. Over at Slate, Richard Thompson Ford argues, "I suspect there are three distinct reasons for Obama fatalism among liberals of all races: false realism, once-bitten timidity, and investment-in-oppression" here.
Christopher Hitchens calls our "obsession with Barack Obama's" race "embarrasing and pathetic."
Author Uzodinma Iweala, conversely, is shocked "not because race is a theme but because so many in the media seem to think that race would not be or should not be mentioned. It is as if we think that not speaking about race is the equivalent of making progress on race issues." Deanna Isaacs writes about Chicago activist Paul Street who laments our "denial about racism."
Novelist Darryl Pinckney thinks the talk of race is much adu about something. In an essay titled, "Dreams from Obama" in the March 4, 2008 edition of the New York Review of Books, Pinckney writes:
Though Obama has been praised by some for not making race an issue in his campaign, and for not coming off as the black candidate, his race most certainly is crucial to his broad appeal. Black people can appreciate as much as white people the inclusiveness of his mixed-race heritage and that his story is in part that of an immigrant. But this is not a color-blind election. People aren't voting for Obama in spite of the fact that he is black, or because he is only half-black, they are voting for him because he is black, and this is a whole new feeling in the country and in presidential politics. Forty years ago, Robert Kennedy was sharply criticized for saying that a black man probably could be elected president of the United States in fifty years' time. "Victory tonight," my barber, Mr. Sherlock, said as we shook hands.
Gary Kamiya at Salon echoes Pinckney's point here. Michael Eric Dyson comments on Obama's agility when it comes to dealing with race issues:
That [Obama] is aware of race without being its prisoner--that he is rooted in, but not restricted by, his blackness--challenges orthodoxies and playbooks on all sides of the racial divide and debate. But it also makes him curiously effective in the necessary pledge to overcome our racial malaise by working to deny it the upper hand in restoring our national kinship.
Dyson does not address, however, the certain racist vitriol that will be slung at Obama. We've had a taste already: this long list from Pandagon blog, to old fashioned racist white boy humor from Oxytocin, an interview from 2006, and of course the new, with an extra twist of lime, 2008 version, and the glaring refusal to balance the scales. And for a slew of right wing suckerpunches and spitballs here is a tidy round up of FOX News ugly by 40AcresMule.
Will, as Dyson puts it, the curious effectiveness Obama has in overcoming the "racial malaise" hold up against the barrage of racial attacks? And, perhaps more importantly, can this effectiveness unearth and debilitate the consequence of generations of internalized racism that sits there, stewing, waiting for confirmation?
Much has been made of the rift between Latinos and African-Americans. Will Latinos support a black candidate? Hillary Clinton's pollster, Sergio Bendixen, said in January, to accusations of "racial propaganda," that "the Hispanic voter...has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." Of course, there is much documentation of Latino/black coalitions and dialogues: here, here, here, and here. Ellis Cose writes about blacks and Latinos being at a crossroads, as the sheer numbers of Latinos changes the political landscape. And there is strife: here, here,here, and here.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man dissected the social and political invisibility of black people here, here, and here. Obama, in Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, wrote "only 'white culture' could be nonracial, neutral, and objective...Only white culture had individuals." There is, of course, the obvious point to weigh here: what effect does Obama being biracial have? Raised and nurtured by white people? Gregory Rodriguez writes that unlike Tiger Woods who identifies with his mixed ethnic and racial lineage, Obama "embraced" his blackness, he did "not try to transcend race."
Police Chief Bill Gillespie said to Detective Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night:
“Because you’re so damn smart, you’re smarter than any white man, you’re just gonna stay here and show us all. You got such a big head that you could never live with yourself unless you’ve put us all to shame. You know something, Virgil, I don’t think you could let an opportunity like that pass by.”
One of the most insidious things about racism is that you can't always tell if it is there or if you're just being paranoid (and you know that doesn't mean they're not after you.) And therefore everything gets tainted by its possibility. How will race and identity factor into this presidential battle, shape the ensuing national dialogue? Just how hot is the "surge of racial hate and prejudice" in this country today?
Finally, will Obama be judged on his merits? John McCain, that terrier, that I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass (friend) for-a-hundred-years "maveric," is held up as a true rugged individualist, even though there is much to suggest that he is compromised by lobbyist handouts. McCain is a smart and shrewd politician who knows how to finesse the press as good as any skilled lover. Remember how the corps liked getting nicknamed by Bush? I say no more.
But Barack Obama? Can he be and will he be judged fairly? Has Clinton creeped back up in the polls because the potshots have worked? Will the issue of race obscure instead of illuminate who he is? I believe Obama to be principled and a thinker, a deep thinker with aspirations to make this country a better place. He has a rare and keen ability to inspire people, and I believe he would inspire people to make good, to consider one another, to look out for one another.
So, you tell me: Will he be seen?