Barack: The Great Black Hope?

-- By DimiaFogam - 14 Feb 2008

Intro

Over the last several months, many magazine and newspaper editors have seen fit to dub Barack Obama “The Great Black Hope”, but that certainly hasn’t been the universal sentiment of the black community. Instead, there have been questions about the authenticity of his “blackness” and suspicion has been cast on the motivation of his white supporters. This paper looks at the motivation behind those feelings and argues that what Obama really represents in the American consciousness is “The Great White Hope.”

Not Black Enough?

‘Obama isn’t Black. “Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves.”

Deborah Dickerson is neither the first nor the most vocal African-Americans to make such objections to Barack Obama’s categorization as Black or to question his racial authenticity. Many Blacks that are products of the civil rights movement object to the idea of a black candidate who hasn’t worked his way up the traditional ranks and hasn’t kissed the required rings. The criticism of his ‘authenticity’ runs the gamut from the expected comments about his biracial heritage to remarks on his East African appearance, but all center around the fact that his ancestry is not African-American. Obama never sat on his father’s lap to hear the stories of what it was like before we could all drink from the same fountain, and to some Blacks that precludes him from truly being black. Black America is scared that he doesn’t share their collective consciousness and therefore will not ‘represent’ them. Inherent in this fear, I think, is a misguided and sometimes subconscious hope that a Black President will be one whose agenda will revolve around relieving the social and economic burdens of black folk. That’s simply the type of rhetoric that they are used to hearing from former black presidential candidates like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who, seeing that their time has passed, withhold their support of Obama in the hope of maintaining some relevance. At the root of all this is the fear that Obama is being embraced by the media and the general public specifically because he isn’t ‘black’.

Not Black (Enough)!

In an op-ed for the L.A. Times David Ehrenstein wrote that to white Americans, Obama was becoming a “Magic Negro”, the literary figure that has no past and simply appears to help the white protagonist recognize their faults and overcome them. Though there is certainly some validity to his point, it isn’t wholly accurate. Nor is it any better to claim, like many critics and pundits have, that the overwhelming white support for Obama’s candidacy is some sort of ‘white guilt’ or rejection of racism. Apparently wearing a “Barack the Vote” t-shirt is the new “I’m not racist! Some of my best friends are black”. Both of these ideas are overly simplistic and, I think, generally unfair. White people aren’t looking for absolution at the voting booth, they are recognizing an opportunity to vote for a candidate whose rhetoric of change and personal multiculturalism is a reflection of what American could and should be.

The appeal of Barack Obama as a black candidate is that he isn’t a product of the civil rights movement, and so he doesn’t have to invoke it as anything more than something we all benefited from. When we look at him at a podium we don’t see a man with memories of burned churches and water hoses, and though to black people that may mean he can’t relate to their struggle, to white people it means he isn’t angry. All of this could be untrue, but people see what they want to and what they want to see is a good man with a good message. An American who happens to be black. Barack Obama is like MLK in that he gives Whites the opportunity to believe in their own tolerance. He gives them the chance to recognize their own patriotism and humanity in embracing social change.

Barack Obama is running as a representation of all Americans. He never mentions the fact the he will become the first black president of the United States; he lets the pundits and our consciousness do it for him. What that means is that when we listen to him speak no one feels excluded or isolated by his words. His race is evident, and so he doesn’t bring it because it shouldn’t have anything to do with how he will run the country. We want to vote for him because he is the best candidate, not because he’s black. That is the beauty of his candidacy- he wont be the president because his is black; rather he will be the first black president because he was the best.

Does it Really Matter?

Two years ago, when Obama’s name started seriously circulating in the same sentence as ‘president,’ I had suspicions about the support he apparently had from white voters. I always imagined that it was a matter of supporting him in the open but eventually voting with a long tradition of white men. But as he continues to win primary after primary and carry the young, white vote, it becomes more and more evident that this isn’t all talk and this isn’t an issue of white guilt. This is an opportunity to elect a qualified man with a vision to change the direction of this country, who happens to be black.

And as for the African-American community, no matter how suspicious it was of him at the onset of the race, as he continues to gain momentum and pick up delegates, more and more black voters are coming out to the polls for him. Because what it really comes down to is that Barack Obama is on the precipice of becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee, and in the end he looks much more like the average black American than anyone that has ever stood on that podium before.

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