I am in a really good mood. Last night, Barack Obama won in Iowa. I am shocked but delighted.
I am a cynic and I don’t have a lot of faith in humankind. I never thought that people would hear Obama’s message because I figured that they would be too busy focusing on the color of his skin and not the content of his character. I’ve always respected and admired Dr. king, but I also thought that he was a dreamer, and dreams don’t come true. I am thinking that I was wrong. I am praying that I was wrong.
My blogami, Marc, wrote a thoughtful post today in which he spoke about racial identity. He made perfect sense in his assertions about Barack Obama as being as much white as black, and that his appeal transcended traditional notions of racial identity. However, I do think that there is another piece to the whole racial identity bit. I know that it is difficult for white people to understand why black people talk about race so much. I can only tell you by way of explanation that we didn’t start the conversation.
Historically, a person with any non-white ancestry was not white in this country. Ironically, prior to the 20th century, people of mixed parentage were classified with terms intended to indicate the mixture--mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon. However as Jim Crow took wings, state after state enacted race laws that included the "one drop rule." After the Emancipation Proclamation and during the period of Reconstruction, blacks began enjoying political, economic, and social freedoms that had been previously denied to us. Throughout the country, but particularly in the southern states, where there was a significant black population, the white majority became more and more concerned about growing black political and economic power. By the early 1900s, Jim Crow laws were introduced, designed to keep blacks in their place and prevent blacks from displacing the white power hierarchy. The key word is “law.” These were not social customs of exclusion but laws passed with the specific intent of subjugating an entire group of people. Maybe the reason so many black people play the race card is because it was the only deck that we were dealt.
By 1925, nearly every state had laws that included some definition of race or the one-drop rule. It is important to note, that the one-drop rule was rarely applied to other ethnic groups, but primarily to people who had “black blood.” In the social and cultural fabric of this country, Barack Obama is a black man, first and foremost. Don't get me wrong, I think that my friend Marc’s analysis is absolutely on target and correct; I'm talking about feelings more than logic or reality.
The first of the racial identity laws was struck down legally in 1967 in Virginia in the Loving case, heard before the US Supreme Court; however, many states persisted in racial classification and culturally, people continued to identify people based on the one-drop rule. As recently as 1986, the US Supreme Court allowed a de facto standing of the one-drop rule in Louisiana by refusing to hear a case regarding a woman who appeared to be white and had lived as white her entire life, but had recently discovered that she was identified on her birth certificate as black, based on some great or great-great grandmother. The Court declined to hear the case and the highest court in Louisiana, based on the one-drop rule, declared that the woman was black. Under the one-drop rule, so were her children. I don’t know whatever became of this woman, but at one point, her husband was reported to be considering divorcing her and friends were shunning her. The woman brought the lawsuit because she wanted to be declared to be white.
It sounds pretty nuts, but black people didn't invent this schizophrenic nonsense. The upshot of this fixation on racial identification was that it was possible to identify someone as black whose external characteristics weren’t clearly identifiable as having sub-Saharan ancestry—think Lena Horne, G. K. Butterfield, and Mariah Carey, for example. The other side of this coin was that eventually black people began to see it as a badge of honor to be able to claim someone as black, based on the one-drop rule. We became distrustful of anyone who had so-called “black blood” who tried to acknowledge his or her multi-racial identity. Witness all the flack Tiger Woods drew when he focused on his Asian heritage as well as his black ancestry.
I've always liked the Obama campaign slogan, Audacity of Hope. I think that having hope is audacious, especially for a black man (regardless of his parentage, under every social and cultural norm applied in this country, Obama is black) to even think that he has a serious shot at the presidency of the U.S. is audacious. It isn't as if it's ever been done before. Hope isn't easy, not when you have been a citizen of a country in which you have been continually marginalized, legally, socially, educationally, and economically for generations. What's easy is to give up hope, to believe that the status quo will always be and that there is nothing that you can do to change it. Without hope, there can be no action. If you don't believe in the possibility of success, why make the attempt. Having hope in the face of everything that you have ever experienced telling you that hope is meaningless, that is audacious.
Maybe Barack Obama’s Iowa win is the beginning of closing the door on this chapter of race relations. Perhaps, this country is ready to become the country of which Dr. King spoke in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
I usually hate to be wrong, but I am delighted at the very real possibility that I’ve been wrong in my pessimism about the reality of Dr. King’s dream.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."—August 28, 1963
P.S. While shopping for music for my sister as part of her Christmas gift, I purchased a present for myself, a CD of Janis Joplin's greatest hits. If you don't hear music, click here to listen: I Need a Man to Love.
16 comments:
I try not to speak about racial identity *in person* unless I know the people very well, because folks say some weird stuff & then I'm off fighting with people I thought were normal who now seem like morons. I know a few people who are mixed racially who've had people say of them: He is black with white features. Uhm, huh?
I also roll my eyes when someone says that only ignorant people would NOT vote for someone because he/she is black. Maybe so, but there are plenty of ignorant people voting. I've still heard enough people say lately that if we have a black president he will be more likely to cater to black people. Ok, than what does that say about all the white presidents we've had?
I think there's a healthy number of people in this world who don't want everyone to be equal, & I don't just mean racially, but that is included. ~Mary(probably your only Republican commentor) ;-0
It's about his authenticity as a human being, in my book, that make Barack so special.. He's one of those rare people who manages to trancend the filters his particular adjectives would normally invoke.
Who'd a thunk it. I don't know much about American Politics but I do know about racism and I deplore it. I think the fact that a Black man can come as far as Barack Obama in the American Election process says a lot about how people are changing. Martin Luther King would be proud of the progress his people have made in a lot of respects. I just wish we lived in a world where race, colour, religion, sex etc. didn't matter at all, and that everyone could be taken for the person that lives inside this shell we call a body. Those are the real "me's". The rest is just the icing on the cake and we all know that a steady diet of icing without the cake is detrimental to one's health! The cake is the best part!
Marie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/mariealicejoan/MariesMuses/
I am an Obama fan -- but a John Edwards supporter -- simply because I thought he was the only "electable" Democrat. I'm very cynical about this country's voters, and so I put my faith into the good-looking harmless white man. Iowa citizens made me feel like a coward on Thursday.
Russ
Russ,
I know exactly what you mean. My initial response to Obama's candidacy was that he didn't stand a chance and therefore I was going to support Edwards because I also think that he is a good choice. I felt that supporting Obama would be a waste of my vote. I was so damned cynical that I just thought that it was impossible for Obama to meet with any success. You're not the only one feeling cowardly, but I'm a grinning coward. No matter how the race turns out, I will never forget this moment when a man was judged on the content of his character and not the color of his skin.
I think the Americans are getting brave, with potentially a black man or a woman running for the White House. For me, skin colour nor gender are relevant in people; it's other qualities that count.
I too have been cynical about Obama's run for the highest office in the land ....perhaps even the world. I still have little faith in the sanctity of the American psyche about race. Of course I am elated with his win in IOWA but I hold on to my pessimism tightly until we get farther down the line toward the real votes. Disapointment is too difficult to overcome so I refuse to put myself in that position. I hold the Audacity of Hope close to my breast in utter secrecy. Good write and good thinking.
Spencer
You made a point in Russ's comment that Obama has made the American public look at him as a "Man" and not his colour, which is very important, and thats where the real "learning" comes from.
In my own life that has always been my point look beyond the colour of my skin and look at me the person inside that skin as thats where you will find the real me.
In Britain I don't think they will ever be ready for a Black Prime Minister, although most of my age group were born and bred here, and, are part and parcel of the British infra structure, its sad but so true, so I say "Go Obama"
Excellent post Sheria and as always thought provoking.
Yasmin
And to think it took midwesterners, from Iowa, to make the rest of the couintry sit up and listen! And the coastal folk think we are a bunch of bumpkins? I'd say we are a pretty good judge of quality.
Geez I haven't been reminded of that darn 1% rule for ages, glad you wrote about it. Very excellent timing too, with Mr. Obama's perfect message of hope actually being heard past the roar of race questions. What's to question? I think the perfect example is the black man who's turning white (vitiligo) it brings this all home so well, that it's your character, your personhood, your heart, soul, mind, that make you a person - not a pigment in your skin. Not an ancestry you had no part in creating. My very dark-skinned ancestors were people first and foremost, people with a character. I pray with optomism that Mr. O can navigate these waters tho I have to admit, I think he's a path-clearer and won't get the prize, but will pave the way for those to come - "HOPE" FULLY!! xoxo CATHY
http://journals.aol.com/luddie343/DARETOTHINK (dare to dream!!)
Gee, I'd never heard of the 1% rule.
On two superficial, perhaps, grounds
I ask you for a pass: I'm in an inter-racial
marriage with four (4) inter-racial children
ages 12, 7, 5, ten months. Yet, in spite of
that I'm still disgustingly White. What work I got
as an actor and model and TV commercial
(a TON of them) actor, came from my whiteness.
My objection to Obama is that he's too tense.
His mouth is always open. He never moves smoothly
but only in jerks. I resent his tagging along with Oprah.
I like the politics in his probably getting along and getting listened to by foreign envoys and politicians. He seems
to be making progress solely on his being Black and not really
on the valificty of an idea or set of ideas.
I met MLK in the 1960's in the basement steam room
of the Diplomat Hotel in Miami. I asked him to come fishing with us the following day, a Sunday. Instantly and warmly he said he regretted that he had an appointment that day.
"Ask Brock [Peters] be sure to ask him," he said.
Barry
...
All the democrats support the welfare state, which is supposed to be a last-resort economic safety net that'll keep anyone from starving today. It seems very compassionate towards a number of people in the short run and obviously some people depend on social security, but no one talks about the long run effects of the welfare state. You have to step back and look at the whole picture. In general a welfare state is socialist and taxes success heavily to support the poor. More directly, federal reserve expansion of the money supply (which has been tied to government spending - it's hard to say exactly what's going on there) leads people not to want to be holding cash, which leads loaners to raise interest rates (or go out of business) and then of course to difficulty in running any successful business - particularly businesses like realty development that depend on long-term, low interest loans, which we've seen crumbling recently. Inflation also leads to the cycle of booming and busting that causes a huge number of businesses to crash and thus unemployment. The welfare state digs the black community's hole just a little deeper in that it decreases economic prosperity and so the market's ability to right itself promptly.
I have to wrap this up so I'll say just a few more things.
That Obama is black shouldn't matter in your mind, in fact that fact that he's black will give the black community a false hope that without a theory for federal overhaul, a black guy in power giving tax money to interest groups will save them so they won't have to.
I'm not being negative like this to take away your hope of a solution. I'm an activist during this primary for the first time because for the first time America has a chance to stop swatting at ghosts and pull itself off its ass. There is a candidate who not only understands what we're doing to ourselves but can fix it and turn us into a prosperous 21st
You don't know me, and most of the posts I make I use the screen name 'outskut', which you can look up on google. My primary blog is xanga.com/outskut.
I am coincidentally part of the majority of white people in this country, and so I am not like you in that I have not lived your situation, but I have seriously studied and respect it. It is a radical, extreme effect of democracy in that at the heart of it it arose because blacks were easily distinguishable as a minority. Whites could and then of course would distance themselves in their minds from blacks and it opened the door for persecution. The Jim Crow laws arose, as did the similar laws during the second half of the gold rush that directly forbade the significantly more efficient Asian workers from being employed, by racism applied to the perfect machine of majority oppression - the democratic state. Our state is not the problem, and it is debatable whether it can be used to help the situation. In the past it seems to have helped a bit at times, but there have also been predictions that slavery would have been abolished far sooner in America had it not been for the sponsorship of the state.
Let's step back now and consider Senator Obama as president. In the end it's not what color his skin is but what he does while in office.
Personally, I've been convinced that the end of the war on drugs would be highly beneficial to the black community not only because prohibition is utterly ridiculous and in corporate interests, but because for some reason it's been seemingly exclusively targeting blacks. Additionally, the problem is exacerbated by the police and it's hard to see exactly how we can fix that. Not the last but worst of all there's an attitude among black children and adults alike of economic helplessness. It is the worst of all because they are in a deep hole and rut that only determination can dig them out of, and so a lack of d
hm... I guess it cut off the ends of my posts:
1st:
It is the worst of all because they are in a deep hole and rut that only determination can dig them out of, and so a lack of determination is fatal.
...
2nd:
There is a candidate who not only understands what we're doing to ourselves but can fix it and turn us into a prosperous 21st century nation. Vote Ron Paul 2008.
Thanks for a thoughtful post and a painful trip down memory lane (the 1% rule). I have mixed feelings about which candidate I hope comes out on top, because after the last seven years, 'electability' is of paramount importance to me. But I found myself nodding my head to Michael Moore's comment:
"I know that Senator Obama is so much more than simply the color of his skin, but all
of us must acknowledge and celebrate the fact that one of the whitest states in the U.S. just voted for a black man to be our next president."
In addition, placing all the intellectual bean counting aside, when I listened to Senator Obama's post-Iowa speech, I felt a lump in my throat, and I haven't shed tears of hope for a politician for a long, long time.
jack-of-all-thumbs
www.selfsufficientsteward.com
And here I think of Barack Obama, when talking of race and ancestry, as a first- generation American and a mulatto. I figured if he wishes to be identified as a black man, that's fine by me, it's his choice, but I wondered why so many others seem so often to overlook that he's half white, also, Kansas and Kenyan. If I'm going to consider someone's racial and ethnic background, I like to look at all the complexities involved, a 10% Greek, cool, 15% Italian, cool, 25% Korean, cool, 25% Bolivian, cool, and 25% Ivory Coast, cool. I suppose, however, you are correct. That this person would be viewed by many as being black. Oh, not just historically -- I know this history, actually yes my daughter studied it so I was reminded -- but the whole social context. I register my daughter for a new school for next year, and I'm to make the mark for what race she is (and if I refuse, the staff is required to make their best guess). What if my child was half and half? I wouldn't have that option, even while some places now DO let one mark "mixed race."
Primarily, ha, primary campaigning joke, in this particular Presidential race, I have seen people OTHER than Barack Obama bringing up race first. I have heard him say it's not a black America and a white America and (he goes on), but one America. The audacity of hope indeed.
It'll be interesting to me to watch your hope grow, to watch the country as they continue to hear his message, and to see how they respond.
I've heard some nasty attacks against Senator Hillary Clinton, and against Senator Barack Obama, slurs against their gender and race and perceived religion that were all wrong. I like to think most of us are beyond voting based upon what could divide us.
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