While I think Barack Obama has done a good job walking the tightrope of racial politics in America, I get the feeling that he is heavily constrained by racism and racial stereotypes. This was one of my reactions to the now famous speech–it is always important to think about what is, and is NOT being said. For the record, I think the speech was good as a political speech, but as a speech about race in American it was so heavily constrained by the politics of racism that there were some important points that Obama omitted. Furthermore, the reactions to the speech steer discussion in some unfortunate directions, which is where most of my critique lies. Now before anybody gets upset at me for saying this, I don’t blame Obama for the subsequent discussion of his speech.\u00a0 My critiques are not about the man as an individual, they are about racism and racial politics in America.<\/p>\n
Let me start with some things I agreed with and liked about the speech. Obama (and the speech writers because I’m sure there were some) asserted that we don’t talk openly and honestly about race in America.\u00a0 I think that is true–people either tend to deny the realities of racism and or they exaggerate, stereotype, or misrepresent when it comes to our differences.<\/p>\n
I also agree that history has created a great deal of racial baggage that we carry around with us as people.\u00a0 Moreover, there is an acknowledgement in the “speech on race” that these effects linger in the form of institutional racism.\u00a0 Check out these few paragraphs (I referenced the text from Daily Kos.<\/a>):<\/p>\n Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. \u00a0As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. \u00a0In fact, it isn’t even past.” \u00a0We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. \u00a0But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.<\/p>\n Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.<\/p>\n Legalized discrimination – where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments \u2013 meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. \u00a0That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.<\/p>\n A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families \u2013 a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. \u00a0And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods \u2013 parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement \u2013 all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.<\/p>\n This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. \u00a0They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. \u00a0What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.<\/p>\n But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it \u2013 those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. \u00a0That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations \u2013 those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. \u00a0Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. \u00a0For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. \u00a0That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. \u00a0But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. \u00a0At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With the exception of the comment about welfare policy, which echoes Ronald Regan, I think these are pretty bold statements for a politician to make.\u00a0 Of course, they are not quite as bold when they are framed as products of past<\/em> discrimination rather than products of both past and present<\/em> discrimination, but given the conservative nature of political discourse, I can live with it.<\/p>\n A Few Critiques of the Speech and Reactions to It\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The comment about Obama’s white grandmother has been pulled apart and parsed by pundits, most of whom don’t have a clue about the dynamics of interracial families.\u00a0 Later, in discussing this speech Obama described his grandmother as the “typical white person” and the same pundits went crazy. These pundits expect people to be racially consistent and they cringe at the idea of whiteness being discussed in any way that is not exceptional ((Do you think they would have been mad if he described her as the “exceptional white person” rather than the “typical white person”?)).\u00a0 In the pundits’ minds, people can’t change their racial views over time, and they can’t hold contradictory views.\u00a0 In reality, that’s exactly how people are when it comes to race.\u00a0 I highly suspect that Obama’s grandmother is typical of most whites in her generation–they grew up with racial segregation both legalized and informal segregation as the norm and didn’t much question it.\u00a0 Furthermore, intermarriage was illegal in many states during the much of his grandmother’s lifetime.\u00a0 Although Obama has never spoken about his white grandparents reaction to his parents marriage and his birth, we know from surveys that during the early 1970s the vast majority of whites opposed interracial marriage and this opposition was still very strong even into the 1990s, when whites were asked about a family member intermarrying.\u00a0 So it would be the least bit surprising if she had negative views of interracial relationships and black people.\u00a0 It’s pretty clear that, like many white relatives of interracial couples and biracial people, Obama’s grandmother loved him and cared for him, and she held stereotypical views of black men.\u00a0 That should not be hard to believe because it is the norm in many mixed race families, and in many people in general.<\/p>\n What bothered me about this part of the speech and the subsequent discussion of the racial dynamics of Obama’s family life is that I got the distinct impression that the underlying message Obama and some of his supporters were trying to convey was, “Hey, don’t forget; I’m\/he’s white too” or “I’m\/he’s not as black as you think I am\/he is.”\u00a0 To me that was a really sad revelation about the current state of racial politics in this country.<\/p>\n What made this worse was when it devolved into a common stereotype of mixed race people that I have discussed in the past (here<\/a> and in papers I have presented at conferences).\u00a0 The myth involves the belief that mixed race people are 1) signs of progress and 2) potential saviors who will somehow liberate us from racism because they understand “both worlds.”\u00a0 On numerous occasions, people have treated Obama in this way.\u00a0 They have viewed his mixed race heritage as something that bestows him with supernatural abilities, specifically the ability to transcend race and heal old racial wounds.\u00a0 Having a mixed race family doesn’t not necessarily give an individual a special understanding of race, and being monoracial doesn’t preclude someone from being able to united diverse groups and develop an understanding of what it is like to be from “another race.”<\/p>\n I don’t totally blame Obama for reminding people that his mother is white–that is politics.\u00a0 Obviously, his campaign thinks it will help him, and they are probably right about that.\u00a0 I just don’t like the handful of narratives that we have developed about interracial families and mixed race people.\u00a0 While the old narratives about tragic mulattos<\/a>, the one drop rule, and sexually adventurous interracial couples are misguided, some of our new narratives–“the best of both worlds” and “the supernatural biracial uniter” are also misguided.<\/p>\n In the next post on the Obama speech, I’ll address two other problems I had with the speech and the reactions to it.\u00a0 The 2 critiques\/points are related to the following points 1) Are white “resentments” and black “anger” really equivalents?\u00a0 Does the two way street anaology really work?\u00a0 2) Why does “Working Class” mean white in our political discourse?\u00a0 And what does it say that we single out white working class resentment (racism)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While I think Barack Obama has done a good job walking the tightrope of racial politics in America, I get the feeling that he is heavily constrained by racism and racial stereotypes. This was one of my reactions to the … Continue reading