<----passed out on the floor :cool:

TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

An Appeal Beyond Race
By SCOTT L. MALCOMSON

Published: August 1, 2004

ON Tuesday, at about 9 p.m., Barack Obama was an Illinois state
legislator running for the Senate.

A half-hour later, after he had given the keynote address at the
Democratic National Convention, he was the party's hot ticket. Pundits even predicted he would be the first black president.

That's a lot to hang on one speech. But the reaction to his speech
tells you a lot about racial politics in the United States today.

Mr. Obama, 42, was not raised by black parents. His mother, who is white and from Kansas, split with his father, a Kenyan economist, when he was just a toddler. His father returned to Africa - and visited his son just once, when Barack was 10.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama's mother and her parents raised him, mainly in Hawaii. He did not grow up in a black world and his family had no particular connection to the black experience in America. Yet Mr. Obama had black skin and that made him, like it or not, a black man with a place in the centuries-long story of race in America.

Mr. Obama seems to have realized early on that his situation would present him with some odd and complicated choices. In his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," he writes that he did not talk much about his mother's whiteness because he feared that "by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites" - a shrewd assessment of white peoplefor a 12-year-old, and an even shrewder assessment of himself.

He would, therefore, go in the world as black because he thought it was the right thing to do, and because - it's clear from his book - he loved and missed and was mad at his father.

Not that he was always treated "simply" as an African-American. True, he was pulled up several rungs of the ladder by one of the black political barons in Illinois, Emil Jones Jr. But he also faced
you're-not-black-enough criticism from black rivals.:rolleyes:

More important for his Senate race and his new role on the national stage, Mr. Obama's ability to win white votes is what has made him such a rising political figure. In the primary race for Senate, "two of his voters were white for every one that was black, and that makes him a star," said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington research group.

Mark Blumenthal, who did polling for one of Mr. Obama's white primary opponents, said, "I don't think voters look at him stereotypically."

When Mr. Blumenthal removed African-Americans and most
college-educated liberals from his sample of Democratic voters, he
still found Mr. Obama's share going to 28 percent from 5 percent in just a few weeks near the end of the campaign. Mr. Bositis noted that Illinois voters have long been more willing than most to elect black
officials, but this strong an appeal remains remarkable.

Yet some political analysts have wondered whether white voters don't also find him attractive because, while he is black, he is not the direct product of generations of black life in America: he is not black in the usual way.

In a May article about Mr. Obama in The New Republic, Noam Scheiber wrote, "The power of Obama's exotic background to neutralize race as an issue, combined with his elite education and his credential as thefirst African-American Harvard Law Review president, made him an African-American candidate who was not stereotypically African-American."

Certainly, Mr. Obama did not, in his convention speech, sound the
familiar notes of African-American politics. He spoke much more as an immigrant, whose father came to the "magical place" of America.

"In no other country on earth is my story possible," he said.

Orlando Patterson, a sociologist at Harvard, said Mr. Obama is part of "a transcending culture" that goes beyond particular identities.

"I see him as in the tradition of Colin Powell, and of a generation
that wants to emphasize American identity rather than racial
identity," Professor Patterson said.

Mr. Obama's immigrant story echoed President Woodrow Wilson's words to a group of immigrants: "If some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me." (Of course, as a segregationist Wilson did not have people like Mr. Obama's father in mind.)

In citing Thomas Jefferson's opening words on equality from the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Obama also broke the mold;
African-American politicians have not cited those words without
sarcasm and qualification for many years, if ever.

Rather than positioning him within a black tradition, Mr. Obama's
speech evoked, through his and his family's varied races, trades and professions, a diversity that aims at unity.

His biography gave him a credibility no one else could have: he was able to identify with the poor and the Arab-American, with immigrants, with African-Americans. In other contexts, he has identified with white farmers - people like his mother's family.

Most people can find something to identify with in Barack Obama, and he can find something to identify with in them. We have never had a politician quite like this.

It may be a paradox, but only someone this rare could be so universal.

Re: TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

Interesting piece. Not that I think Obama was trying to do it, but it appeared the author was, in a nuanced way, trying to scrub away, de-emphasize Obama's blackness, and to somehow offer this as at least a secondary reason for Obama's rise among white voters. Is he somehow saying Obama's political positions are different than they might be had he grown up in "the hood?" does this make him somehow less polarizing, or less "threatening" to white voters?

I don't know Obamas positions well enough to even partially refute this (maybe Epitome1920 can help) but it's a curious theory to express. I wonder what he would say about Harold Ford Jr., another seen as a rising star in the D party. Does he rise somehow, because he's seen as "less black?"

things that make you go hmmmm......

I wish the dude luck.
 

And I hope HE doesn't let people use him in any way HE chooses NOT to be used.

The divide-and-conquer game is still alive.

Re: Re: TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

It's hard to say for sure. Obama seems to be a liberal, and I'm sorry, I don't think there are that many white liberals left in this country.
Also, what I suspect is the combination of being a first-generation American, as well as being biracial, may account for his appeal. He doesn't come from what is called "resentment block" black politics. I first read about this years ago, in a Miami Herald column.

The writer talked about black politicians being in two basic camps: the opportunity block and the resentment block. To my interpretation, someone like Harold Ford Jr. would be opportunity block, while John Conyers would be resentment block.

I saw that basically as being a class issue. Opportunity block people generally represented the middle class, while resentment block represented the underclass and those others left behind.

This was years ago, but I think it still applies today.

Hope I made sense. I'm in a lunch-induced coma.
:p

Re: Re: Re: TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

You usually make sense to me, Steeltrap. (except when you talk shopping; then I'm lost) :p Interesting point, though; does it boil down to no more than old/new school generational politics? As Ford-Obama mature do they move from opportunity to resentment block pols? Who would the author identify as opportunity block Afam politicians over 60? any?

Obama made a good speech, and showed he can move people to see his vision, but it was still just a speech. I have to study his policy positions before deciding how much I'll buy. I know a bit more about Ford but not much, same deal. It will be interesting to see how these men shape themselves....or allow others to shape them.

This reminds me of the early Colin Powell situation of 1995/96. Everybody "loved" him, I think because nobody really knew his policy stances. We had allusions about certain topics, AA, but had he declared for president (and had to make take position stances), I think his support would have dropped by nearly 50 percent right off the top. But C. Powell played it right, and sold a lot of books in the process.

...but I have learned a new term----->resentment block politics. Thank you, Professor Steeltrap. :)

Lawd Alan Keyes is running for Senator of Illinois!!! A state he doesn't live in...:mad:

To be fair, E1920, Hillary Clinton did it in 2K. Bobby Kennedy did it in 1964 (notice a pattern here with New York?)

Hopefully this race will spur a thorough examination of some issues; but I do think your boy is going to win.

I just think its a BAD tactic. Of course it has historical implications, two Black people running for Senator, but I just think its a dirty move. They couldn't find annnnybody in the state of Illinois to run :confused:

Re: Re: Re: Re: TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

You're welcome. In terms of opportunity block over 60, I'm not sure who that author may identify as such.

More thoughts on opportunity block: What I suspect is that pols who think like that are those who don't see the society as hopeless. I don't see them as excusing institutional racism, but I also think that they believe that they don't necessarily see it as a total life-killer and that we have to take some responsibility for behavioral choices. The Cosby remarks and Henry Louis Gates' writings seem to address this line of thought.

I don't know if Ford/Obama/Denise Majette/Artur Davis/Cory Booker etc. become resentment block pols as they get older. If they continue what they're doing now, I doubt that will happen.

If I'm not mistaken I do believe that he OPENLY citicized Hilary for running in NY, because she wasn't a resident of NY, now four years later it's ok for him to run in IL.....SMH:(

I'll see if I can find it quoted.

Strategic move
 

I think that after the Jack Ryan issue broke and Obama came out so strong at the DNC, the Republicans feel the seat will go to Barak. Thus they don't want to take the chance of harming the political career of any promising IL candidates. So they are using a sacrifical lamb and decided the best bet would be a Black candidate not from IL.

Re: Strategic move
 

...maybe, but from what I read/hear, the Illinois R party operation has seen stronger days. I think Obama wins in Nov. but the Rs should have run a stronger candidate. Even in defeat, a disciplined, well-run campaign yields strong name recognition, which can be helpful in later races.

Several successful politicans were defeated in earlier races before winning. Nixon/1960, Reagan/'76 R primary fight, Clinton/defeated as incumbent Arkansas Gov. in 1982, to cite just 3 examples.

Also, incumbents are usually most vulnerable to defeat in their first re-election campaigns. So maybe the candidate who loses to Obama in 04, is in better position vis-a-vis the voters in 2010.

...maybe Illinois' own Political Socrates, TheEpitome1920, will come in here and drop some science on us. :)

Re: TTT/Interesting Obama article
 

I know I am a little late on this one but...

I agree with TonyB06 when he said "...but it appeared the author was, in a nuanced way, trying to scrub away, de-emphasize Obama's blackness, and to somehow offer this as at least a secondary reason for Obama's rise among white voters."

To me, the article subtly asserts that Blackness is related to upbringing and social class. It brought back memories of my childhood being told that I wasn't "really" black by White classmates (intended as a compliment) or somehow less authentically black by Black peers (intended as an insult) as a result of a middle class upbringing and the ability to articulate in standard English. I guess to me it is one thing to say he stands in opposition to the false stereotypes of Black Americans that have become old hat these days and another to say he is Black in some sort of way that is different from the rest. A more model minority, if you will, than the rest of the ragamuffins.