Without winning a single primary, it’s quite clear that Barack Obama has already changed the way the rest of the world views the United States. According to this op-ed article from Colombia’s leading newspaper, El Tiempo, ‘The victory of a neophyte Black senator in a state where only 3 percent of the population is African American – should at least temper the myth so common abroad, that relations between races and ethnicities in the United States have not evolved.’ The author goes on, ‘The message of Obama also renders obsolete the noisy, angry, street-wise and accusatory activism of preachers like Jesse Jackson and above all, Al Sharpton, who base their leadership on confronting other ethnic and racial groups in the country, and assume as inevitable – and at the same time profitable – the victimization of the Black community.’
By Sergio Muñoz Bata
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
January 9, 2008
Colombia – El Tiempo – Original Article (Spanish)
Regardless of the final outcome of the primary race and with full knowledge that the U.S. presidential race of 2008 has barely begun, the most transcendent event so far has been the degree of acceptance accorded Barack Obama’s candidacy in Iowa and New Hampshire, since it documents the dramatic change in that country’s race relations.
And while it’s true that individual racism remains as irremediable as it is repugnant – both in the United States and around the world, the victory of a neophyte Black senator in the caucuses of Iowa – a state where only 3 percent of the population is African American – should at least temper the myth so common abroad that relations between different races and ethnicities in the United States have not evolved.
Obama has also introduced an important change on the issue of racial identity. If anything, his hopeful, calm, unifying and inclusive discourse shows that the old model of Black leadership as exemplified by Martin Luther King is now out of date.
That was a movement that ultimately proved crucial in vindicating the rights of those who had been discriminated against and segregated due to the color of their skin, and to ending American apartheid by enacting legislation that institutionalized equality among the races.
The message of Obama also renders obsolete the noisy, angry, street-wise and accusatory activism of preachers like Jesse Jackson and above all, Al Sharpton, who base their leadership on confronting other ethnic and racial groups in the country, and assume as inevitable – and at the same time profitable – the victimization of the Black community.
The son of an African [Kenyan] father and a White mother, Obama grew up with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii and didn’t suffer segregation’s direct impact the way that others had to endure it. But Obama doesn’t deny his Blackness. Nor has he sought the advice of the older activists, and, without underestimating the needs and deficiencies of the Black community, he prefers integration over confrontation as the means to address them.
The third change proposed to Obama is obvious: to remove Republicans from the White House. And fourth, he’s looking for a changing of the guard for the Democratic leadership. Obama belongs to a different generation than his competitors and, instead of experience, he offers his intelligence, his charisma, his hope and a smile that never seems staged.
The fifth change, the most ambitious one, is undoubtedly the most difficult to resolve, since addressing great national issues isn’t addressable by the will of a single individual.
READ THE REST AT WORLDMEETS.US
