Jackson and Obama: Political Blackness Redefined

Tammy Johnson

Jackson and Obama: Political Blackness Redefined

This week Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now broadcast featured a discussion with Reverend Jesse Jackson that focused on race and the primary elections.

Much of the conversation centered on the Reverend’s support of Barack Obama, and the perceived split of support among Black leaders and celebrities for various candidates. But what was really intriguing was Jackson’s take on Obama’s political handling of racial issues and his relation to the civil rights legacy which paved the way for his historical bid for the Presidency.

Death to the scary Black man
Goodman kicked off the sequence with a clip of William Bennett trumpeting the rise of the new Black man via Obama’s Iowa victory.

“97% in fact, Iowa, rural white, farming state. Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, wins this for the Democrats. I have been watching him. I watched him on Meet the Press. I watched him on your show, watched him on all the CNN shows. He never brings race into it. He never plays the race card. Talk about the black community, he has taught the black community you don’t have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don’t have to act like Al Sharpton.”

If you have been around racial politics long enough, you recognize the subtext of this argument. Obama’s not a scary black man. He won’t make white people confront racial inequities, deal with issues of privilege or the structural racism that undergirds this country. You get your chocolate without the calories and perhaps, without the nutrients as well. Reverend Jackson attributes the Iowa victory to the “maturing of America.” I can buy into that thinking up to a point. After all, when white Iowans went into those voting booths they did punch the card for a brother. But was that a calculation that he was a safe bet? It takes me back to that scene in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, where the Italian, Pino, says of Black celebrities that he really likes, “They’re not really Black.” In the minds of white voters, is Obama really Black?

The Establishment Goes Black?
Reverend Jackson puts Obama’s victory into a larger context of political and social struggle. He rightly runs down the battles that were fought in the streets, the courts, the White House, the jailhouse, the conventions and back rooms for at least four decades prior to the Obama run. What’s noteworthy is that in every battle Jackson describes the push and pull that Blacks had to engage with the establishment (read Democratic Party and it’s leadership) as opposed to the blatantly racist Jim Crow crowd; from MLK’s forcing Johnson’s hand on the Civil Rights Act, to challenging the party’s values when it refused to demand the release of Mandela in apartheid South Africa. It begs the question: Will Obama, the beneficiary of the struggle, push the party on key issues of race? Will he do what Shirley Chisholm was unable to do, and force the party’s platform to reflect the needs of all the people? Will he speak up against three-strikes laws, push for the repeal of welfare reform or stop the unfair the deportation of Haitian immigrants? Or will he play it safe and talk about racial unity with great eloquence, but very little substance? Jackson didn’t go there in his public speculation, but somebody should.

Struggle Continues
Some would say that it’s good that Obama doesn’t address race directly. Here again, Jackson diplomatically puts such thinking into the uniquely American context.

“Well, there’s a sense in which many Americans want to focus on racial reconciliation, and they ignore racial justice and racial equality. And you cannot ultimately get past those concerns…But Barack does not remind America of the unfinished business very much of racial justice, racial equality, but he need not. It’s self-evident that that needs to happen.”

If it is so self-evident, why does the good Reverend then go into detail about what he called “the state of emergency in Black America?” The list of racial wrongs was daunting: Increased incarceration rates, voting rights violations, mortgage foreclosure crisis and the general abandonment of civil rights for Blacks and Latinos. Jackson is right when he says that you can’t take a pass on people’s mental and emotional blocks on race. You have to confront it. Isn’t that exactly what he is doing with his January 22 march on HUD and the housing crisis? Isn’t that what he and countless numbers of civil rights and racial justice leaders have done for decades? Why lower the bar now? Obama may be successful in moving ahead politically by creating an image of being civil-rights-lite, but will communities of color reap the benefits as well? That’s yet to be seen. Meanwhile, I’m off to the next coalition meeting.

Posted at 12:09 PM, Jan 11, 2008 in Elections | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

Technically, whites in Iowa did not go into voting booths and punch a card. The caucus process requires you to announce your support in a public place.

One of the theories of why he did so well in Iowa and not as well in NH was just this reason - people were afraid of being perceived as racist while part of the caucus process, so they were more likely to vote for Obama, which was not the case in NH, where voting was private.

Similarly, he polled well in NH because people were afraid of being labeled racist by the person conducting the poll, but when it did come down to the anonymous punch card, people didn't vote for him.

I'm not sure I buy into this completely, but it's possible.

I agree with your premise. My only issue is that talking about racial inequalities and injustice will probably work against Obama. If he talks about it, he's gonna have to speak in numbers and not just the generalities. But, if not talking about racial inequalities doesn't disqualify the other candidates, is it right to disqualify Obama on those terms?

Hillary Clinton had a very nice moment at a Black debate when she mentioned the lack of response to the AIDS crisis amongst Black women. But I can't quite recall her saying anything else as forceful since. And Kucinich's height and build disqualified him long before particular issue stance. Sad, yes, but true.

Great post! White people love Black people that don't hate white people. It's true.

Some poignant questions. However, the author needs to pay a little closer attention to the details of the process to know what it means. She says, "After all, when white Iowans went into those voting booths they did punch the card for a brother. But was that a calculation that he was a safe bet?" Iowa was a caucus not a secret ballot; nobody went into the booth. This is relevant because in a secret ballot people can vote their racist convictions without anyone seeing them, and in a caucus all your neighbors know how you are voting.

Barack Obama ". . . is not a scary black man. He won't make white people confront racial inequities, deal with issues of privilege or the structural racism that undergirds this country."

With Hillary's injection of Dr. Martin Luther King smack dab in the middle of presidential politics this week, it's entirely fitting to note that Dr. King was hardly a "scary black man" either. And it's illuminating to note that Dr. King usually found genuine ways to make not just white people, but all people, "confront racial inequities . . . or the structural racism that undergirds this country."

It's by no means a stretch to believe that Barack Obama can too.

". . .when white Iowans went into those voting booths they did punch the card for a brother. But was that a calculation that he was a safe bet?"

Of course it was! But in many minds, it was based on a willingness to trust and believe in the power of hope, not just in Obama, but also in our selves.

"In the minds of white voters, is Obama really Black?"

Let's take it upstairs—
In the mind of God, is Obama really black?

No; he's not black. He's not white; he's not half this and half that.
We can say with spiritual and intellectual confidence that God sees him the same way God sees all his children: as his sons and daughters. And that's the way anyone who believes in hope should see him as well.

Will Obama, the beneficiary of the struggle, push the party on key issues of race? Will he do what Shirley Chisholm was unable to do, and force the party's platform to reflect the needs of all the people?

Will he "push"? . . will he "force"? I certainly hope not. I "hope" not, precisely because that's the tried and truly wrong way to bring about the confrontation that will cause a change in heart in those who are capable of changing their hearts; something we should have already learned through "the struggle"; there's a right way and a wrong way to use the force of change.

. . .will he play it safe and talk about racial unity with great eloquence, but very little substance? Jackson didn't go there in his public speculation, but somebody should.

Very well: Why does a writer consider that talk— words written, or spoken— hold "very little substance"? Was no one moved to action when the truth was spoken to power through the eloquence of Dr. King? Should anyone not recognize that Barack Obama's eloquence in speaking truth to power has just begun to galvanize a new generation— and perhaps an old one— to action that can change the course of history?

The reason some maxims become clichéd and time worn is because they become the work horses of evolving insight. "It's always darkest before the dawn" in one such maxim, and Jesse Jackson's recent recitation of the factors of the "state of emergency in Black America" is yet another application of the darkest days, now upon us, being exposed to our personal experience; and Barack Obama, unless I miss my guess, is this nation's living and breathing herald of that dawn so long awaited, our best "calculation," our "safest bet" for the solutions of our nation's multiple states of emergency, born on the wings of new hope and belief in our selves; not just in Barack Obama, or his eloquent plea, to do just that.