Why American Blacks May Be Obama’s Great Problem
What is it about Barack Obama that makes it so hard for American Blacks to get behind him – even those with a similar backgrounds? According to this analysis of his candidacy from South Africa’s Business Day, ‘It may well be that it’s Black America and not America in general, that isn’t yet ready for a Black president.’
By Jacob Dlamini
January 12, 2008
South Africa – Business Day – Home Page (English)
I FIRST heard of Barack Hussein Obama about three years ago. My informant was a young American whose family was a part of the Black political establishment in the U.S. The family originally came from the U.S. south and could speak directly of slave ancestors and cotton pickers on both maternal and paternal sides.
My informant’s parents, whose roots in the Black political elite could be traced to the Black church and the civil rights movement, were proud members of the generation of Black Americans who benefited from the success of the civil rights movement of the late 1950s. These successes included the gradual dismantling of Jim Crow discrimination , the meaningful extension of the franchise to Black voters, especially in the South, the desegregation of schools and universities, and of course, the advent of affirmative action.
And my informant had done better than his parents, attending for his education, private schools and Ivy League institutions. He had, on the face of it, gone beyond the Black political establishment and become a member of America’s integrated political elite.
Yet my friend saw himself as an outsider. He saw himself as a civil rights campaigner still fighting old battles.
He was very suspicious of Obama, the young senator from Illinois. Obama was not a senator then, but was starting to make waves within political circles. My informant said he was automatically suspicious of any Black politician who looked like he was the darling of the White political establishment. “What’s the catch!” my informant demanded. “Why do they like him so?”
My informant’s suspicions made no sense to me. First, both he and Obama were from a similar class background and both had gone to Ivy League universities. Obama might have had a White mother, but he proudly identified himself as Black; Obama might not have had direct and immediate experience of segregation, but he proudly embraced the civil rights movement and acknowledged his debt to it; he might not have known the life of a poor Black boy growing up in an inner-city project, but upon graduation he threw himself into community work.
None of this mattered to my informant. Obama wasn’t Black enough for him. He wasn’t militant enough. In fact, my informant suggested, any Black politician who made White folks feel comfortable should be distrusted. It didn’t seem to matter that Black America, which constitutes only about 13 percent of the American population, can only succeed politically through coalitions with other interest groups and communities. It didn’t seem to register that Obama looked like the sort of politician who could help build those coalitions.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AND MUCH MORE ABOUT THE WORLD’S REACTION TO OBAMA AT WORLDMEETS.US
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