For anyone who has not had the pleasure of seeing Barack Obama make a magnificent speech on race, yesterday in Philadelphia, leave everything you are doing now, and read/watch his speech, because that was a history-making moment when Barack Obama proved once again, why he is such an amazing and unique candidate.
Being wary of anyone who proclaims himself/herself to be "religious" while running for public office, I was hoping Obama would come out and publicly address the issue of his religion and in the process talk about race, the question which will not go away under the mere facade of political correctness. And, he did just that. In an amazing way.
In answering the questions about his ties to Reverend Wright, Obama issued a manifesto of his own unique brand of nationalism. Standing in front of a backdrop of American flags, across the place where the Constitution was hammered out, Obama embraced America, but not in the same simplistic, idiotic way our current president (and most before him) has done. Recognizing that the very idea of America was based on the "original sin" of slavery, Obama's speech was a candid acceptance of all the contradictions that make America so resistant to any attempt to essentialize it. He admitted that Reverend Wright "has been like family to me" despite the contradictions that are embedded within him. Then he went on to describe the contradictions that are embedded in his own very genetic-make up: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." He admitted that while Americans can be decent and loving people, they are also stranded in the narrative of their own pasts: black Americans still resenting the injustices of racism, white Americans the injustices (as they see them) of affirmative action.
Obama reached into the container of the American collective past, pulled out its diverging and polarizing strands and attempted to mold them into a unified (but still diverse) whole: "For the African-American community, that path [to a more perfect union] means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans...In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds...It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper...."
Reminding us of William Faulkner's lines that "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact it isn't even past," Obama boldly rummaged through our collective pasts and through this process, attempted to redefine who we are today. It is his fluid and endlessly creative view of the past, and by extension of American identity, that is so appealing in Obama's thinking. At a time when the world feels overwhelmed by the damage done by the Bush administration's imperialistic foreign policy, we desperately need a president who will not only mold specific policies, but also reshape the American narrative that will change the very face of American nationalism.
You can find the transcript of the speech at: (The transcript of the speech: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/politics/18text-obama.html?em&ex=1206072000&en=ee9b37a72e4cff50&ei=5087%0A)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
DOES OBAMA EVEN KNOW WHO HE AND HIS DESPICABLE PASTOR HAVE OFFENDED MOST, AND WHY HIS FAVORABILITY RATING IS IN FREEFALL?
Why is a guy who grew up a rich kid with a Kenyan father and Southern White mother (no ties to being a slave whatsoever) lecturing Northern Whites regarding the Civil War when it was our ancestors who fought and died in the Union Army to free the slaves?
Is Obama kidding or what? Yes, Senator Obama, let’s have a discussion about race in America and then maybe you’ll understand why you are in absolute freefall against John McCain in States like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. You ripped a scab off of a wound that we didn’t deserve to have inflicted in the first place.
Lexi
Lexi: Wow. I think Lexi's comments show how prevalent racism still is in the country. First of all, there is no evidence to suggest that Obama's favorability is "in freefall" as you put it. Your wishful thinking, fortunately, does not translate into reality. All the polls show him running ahead of McCain.
Secondly, he did not offend anyone. He never uttered a word that could be taken as such and he denounced the words of his pastor. His background, his campaign, and his previous political engagement are the best testament to the honesty of his promise to keep above the racial fray and to help the country turn the corner on race.
What is most disturbing about Lexi's comment is his/her admission that Obama as a man from a mixed racial and cultural background is somehow less legitimate in speaking about the issues of race to "white northerners" as he/she puts it. But then again, Lexi does not try to hide his/her racism in acknowledging that Obama's supposed "freefall" is due not to some policies he is advocating, but to his own racial makeup.
And this is the most disturbing element of the pervasiveness of racism.
Lexi, some questions:
1. What is this wound of which you speak? Who inflicted it? And what's the scab? I could theorize on what you meant, but would rather have it spelled out with
2. Are you a direct descendant of a Union soldier? If so, are you genetically endowed with such knowledge of the process of emancipation, reconstruction, segregation, and civil rights in America that you can not listen to another "lecture" on these topics without being offended?
3. Are all Northern Whites possessed of a similar understanding of race relations in America, and if they are, why haven't they tidied up the issue yet?
4. When did Kansas become part of the South? Obama's mother is from KS, which was admitted into the Union just as the Union was falling apart. Perhaps you remember from school that Kansas was not a Confederate State. Is there some other criteria for being called southern that you're referring to here?
5. Would Obama have more of an "edge" with you if he had direct ties to American slavery? And why?
6. Have you listened to or read Obama's speech?
These are just a few questions- I think that if you took the time to answer them truthfully, you might have a different take on Obama and his relationship to his former pastor. Based on what you wrote, it seems that you are interested in presenting the terms for a discussion on race, and that these terms would omit anyone who is not a white person from a former Union state, a descendant of a black slave, a senator from Arizona, or a poor person from participation.
Lexi's attitudes are actually pretty common place amongst what s/he calls "white northerners," both conservative and liberal. The former likes to make the rationalization that somehow slavery was merely a Southern affair, not an integral part of the American economy. Also, lets not forget that states like Kentucky and Missouri, both part of the Union were also slave states. Federal troops had to be placed in regions such as Southern Ohio and Maryland to keep them from joining the Confederacy. What a conveinant, uncomplicated historical narrative: "my ancestors fought for your peoples liberation." Even if taken in its unproblemetized form, this doesn't assauge the reality that structural inequality, both social and cultural, exists in Boston as it does in Biloxi.
Northern Liberals, on the other hand, like to displace the racism that exists in their treasured cosmopolitan cities of Boston, New York, Philly, ect upon America's dark alter ego, the South, which comes to represent the entire antithesis to the progressive, pluralist, liberal republic.
I liked Obama's response. The Right had their little moment of Angry Black Man Pornography. So Wright is a hack who appeals to transparent metanarratives of collective ethnic/transcendence? So are all of the Right's people in the organized religion hustle.
i've just listened to obama's speech and i have only one reaction: yes, I want you to be my president. alas, he doesn't run for presidency in Romania!
New plan for you: quit this stupid PhD thing and follow Obama around on the campaign trail. There has to be someone who would pay you to write your perceptions of his campaign. And it seems like a hell of a lot more fun (and useful) than being couped up in some archive. And I'd love reading your version of the inside scoop.
j
Unfortunately, the latest poll actually does show Obama trailing McCain. The same poll shows Clinton now leading Obama outside the margin of error.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
Unfortunately as well, as Lexi's comments demonstrate, it is this persistent racism that the Republican machine is going to exploit in the rumor mill in areas of poor white male voters, the South, and the Midwest. It may not matter if Obama gave a great speech if key sectors of the country are stupidly not listening.
And not to quibble, Shley, but the admittance of a state into the Union during the Civil War is little proof of it being 'North' or 'South'. Kansas was bleeding for a reason--it was highly divided. Hell, Southern Illinois was the start of the Confederacy for all intents and purposes. Nevertheless, I think that Lexi is certainly wrong in her(his?) perspective but illustrative of something festering under American radar for ages: many northern whites really don't like other races and hide behind emancipation and desegregation of schools as their noble birthright (and something to force the South to do) while at the same time maintaining massively segregated schools and neighborhoods in cities like Chicago. The North, unfortunately is considerably racist, partially, I muse, because so many northern whites don't have to live with any more than 'token' minorities.
Clearly, however, Lexi has a personal scab that this debate has opened.
quibble accepted, Ryan- I was attempting to present KS as a territory of dispute by mentioning that it was admitted to the Union as the Union was falling apart, but succeeded only in falling to the kind generalizations embedded in Lexi's language- the North and South are obviously very black and white terms for this person, and so reminding her that Kansas was technically a Union state was meant to bring attention to her misinformation, misclassification and simplified understanding of the North and South. Kansas was bleeding, just as Missouri (ojczyzna moja), KY, IL, etc. Lexi has conveniently forgotten that the Civil War was fought within families, whose strong convictions concerning not only slavery, but sovereignty, economy, federalism, etc., divided them such that they often faced each other on the battlefield.
I enjoy the responses to Lexi's comment, but fear that we're all just talking to each other now as Lexi has most likely moved on to other blogs, deeming this one too liberal, or sympathizing, or whatever. Which is the great problem with this topic, as Ryan pointed out- there are those who are lost, unwilling to engage in this sticky issue, and those who recognize it as a open and honest statement from the senator that.
Also, I apparently didn't finish my sentence in my first question, which is probably best since it was sure to be rife with sarcasm.
"many northern whites really don't like other races and hide behind emancipation and desegregation of schools as their noble birthright (and something to force the South to do) while at the same time maintaining massively segregated schools and neighborhoods in cities like Chicago."
My thoughts exactly.
Hey Lexi! STFU!
Post a Comment