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Obama cannot have it both ways
#81 - 0--spud--Obama cannot have it both ways--2008-03-25 11:15:22
#Senator Obama wants to be the transcendent candidate, because he believes that it would win him the White House. He also wants to be the "Black" candidate because it gives him credibility within the Democratic Party. He needs to be both to win, but he cannot be both and be credible.
Ever since Barack Obama began his serious run for the presidency he billed himself as the candidate who can bring America together. He has attempted to appear as an African-American who transcends race. Then he become embarrassed by his association with the pastor of an Afro-centric church known for spouting what can be called racist and anti-American statements; a church, which he has been a member of for some twenty years. It suddenly becomes obvious that the Senator hasn't even transcended race in his own life, so how can we expect him to do it on the much larger national stage.
Several commentators have suggested that Mr. Obama joined the Trinity United Church as an inroad to the Black community in Chicago, and that he has used it as a foundation, without which he would have had a much more difficult time obtaining political office. It has also been suggested that he needed a membership in this kind of organization to validate or authenticate a racial identity. They are, essentially, calling his membership there a purposeful charade. For a truly transcendent candidate nothing of this sort should have been necessary.
Consider that Senator Obama is of mixed racial heritage, was raised by various people from different backgrounds in his youth, and spend a considerable amount of time in Indonesia and Hawaii. He should have been able to easily bill himself as transcendent by drawing on that history, joining a multi-ethnic church and avoiding any questions of where his own personal identity lay. He could have charted a whole new course by saying, as Popeye the Sailor used to "I am what I am and that's all that I am." It would have served very nicely, but politicians rarely use that approach. It is too honest and forthright. It doesn't project itself as the centerpiece of a successful marketing campaign.
Dr. Shelby Steele, who is of a mixed heritage similar to Obama's, has studied the Senator in depth, and characterizes him as a "bargainer." According to Dr. Steele, a bargainer is someone who wears a mask that "enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society.Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain — and feel affection for the bargainer — because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist.So the bargainer presents himself as an
opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence." (Italics in original) As Dr. Steele puts it,bargaining has allowed Mr. Obama to turn "his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma" by being a conduit of white innocence. This conclusion was published in a March 18, 2008
commentary for the Wall Street Journal.
The opposite side of Dr. Steele's analysis contains people such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson whom he categorizes as "challengers;" those who try to manipulate white guilt, and gain status through intimidation and demands for historical justice. It appears that Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Pastor of Obama's Church, is one of those. With Wright's statements making headlines, The Senator was caught in an embarrassing situation. If he accepted the statements then he lost the bargainer status, but to refute them, or to condemn Wright for making them,would likely alienate the Black community base, and perhaps lose him his credentials as a legitimate liberal candidate. The only choice he had was to dance around the issue, which he did with extraordinary dexterity. The only problem was that his dexterity was insufficient. He refused to acknowledge that he had made a mistake. Instead he tried to present himself as a reactionary and a transcendent at the same time. This was impossible and only people intent on avoiding the truth could not see through it.
There are Black political figures that seem to have avoided the issue of race, at least in their personal context, almost entirely; people such as Lynn Swann and Michael Steele. Commentators such as Star Parker and Larry Elder have done the same. I believe that they have done this through two specific means. The first is intellectual honesty. They have arrived at their positions on political and social issues through personal experience and examination of the salient facts. This has led to defined belief systems that they refuse to compromise in the face of criticism from Dr. Steele's "challengers." They can also show precisely why they believe what they do. It is also why they are conservative in orientation. Their position is exactly the opposite of Senator Obama's; "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." In other words, he stands for nothing except his personal ambition. He really has no defined views. He needs none as long as the blank screen is sufficient and no one cares enough to require them.
I believe that the second means used by Swann, Elder,Steele and Parker is simply that they have chosen to avoid race. It only becomes an issue to them when and tothe extent that it becomes a tool for African-Americans to keep themselvesdown, and allow manipulators and challengers such as Sharpton and Jackson toclaim a false mantle as their liberators and advocates. In effect, they have accepted the fact thatin order to be like everyone else they have to be like everyone else, makingtheir ancestry and skin color of no importance. They are asserting that by refusing to cling to race politics BlackAmericans can voluntarily cast of their (presently) self imposed chains. They have adopted C. Mason Weaver'sdeclaration that
It's OK to Leave the Plantation .
Senator Obama had the opportunity to do this, but rejected it in the name of political advantage. He could not be successful on the American Political Left as anything but a "black candidate" because the Left is still so closely wedded to race politics that doing otherwise would lose him his credibility in the Democratic Party.
Senator Obama wants to be the transcendent candidate, because he believes that it would win him the White House. He also wants to be the "Black" candidate because it gives him credibility within the Democratic Party. He needs to be both to win, but he cannot be both and be credible. He had to pick one or the other, before it was too late. The time to do so is now past.
In 1972 when President Nixon visited China I was advised by a mentor that a Democratic president could never have done so without being labeled as a Communist sympathizer. In the same vein, it may be that the only way for a "Black Candidate" to break through to the Presidency would be from the political Right because their personal identity would be non-hyphenated. They wouldn't carry chips on their shoulders or need liberation theology or "civil rights advocates" to pave their way; they are perfectly capable of doing it themselves, which is what America has traditionally been all about. Of course they would also, in their own minds, and in the minds of their supporters be simply candidates. Race would not figure in it.
Senator Obama's sojourn in an Afro-Centric, liberation theology oriented church almost certainly reflects his true attitude toward America. While he may not hate this nation, he likely believes that it owes certain people something from the perspective of that leftist icon "social justice." He also quite certainly believes that government activism is the way to pay the debt. His attitude is wrong headed, but for a professional politician, that is something we should not be surprised about.
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