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A Brutal Reality: How Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, and Barack Obama Might Not Be Changing America
The three black men grabbing all the headlines the past few weeks are Barack Obama, the Illinois senator/presidential candidate, and Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, the head coaches of the two Super Bowl contenders. Their ascendancy is remarkable on many levels — most obviously for the barriers they are transcending in politics and sports. But possibly the most remarkable, but generally unspoken, aspect of all the attention shown upon them is that these three men defy — in almost every way — the stereotype of what it means to be a black man in America.
The stereotype of the black man as a savage, animalistic and ultimately criminal “brute” has a long history — and it persists in way we continue to portray black men in our news coverage, television, film, sports. Exceptions certainly emerge, but the image still haunts American culture.
So the recent portrayals of Dungy and Smith, in particular, are noteworthy. In a Miami Herald article, Mikal Smith, Lovie’s son, explains the uniqueness of the present moment while revealing, maybe unintentionally, the continuing power of the stereotype:
“The thing about my dad and Coach Dungy that I’m most proud of is that they showed you can get to the Super Bowl by being soft-spoken and treating people with respect … It doesn’t mean they’re soft people. They’re both pillars of strength. They proved good things happen to good people in due time.”
Mikal’s self-consciousness over portraying his father and Dungy as weak might have more to do with expectations of the football world than expectations based on race, but, in any case, the very mannerisms and style of the two coaches are clearly hard to categorize — creating a certain type of tension only reserved for the unfamilar.
And I can’t help but think that the more media attention they get, the better it is for America — especially white America. Watching quiet, respectiful, and extremely intelligent black male leaders go about their work and succeed undermines a huge part of the racist mindset that still corrodes American life.
The same, on the political front, could be said for the media’s recent obsession with Barack Obama.
But wait. Wouldn’t that be a little too easy? Enter Debra J. Dickerson of Salon who provocatively suggests that the only reason we are comfortable with someone like Obama is because “Obama isn’t ‘black.’” Speaking to white America, she writes,
Swooning over nice, safe Obama means you aren’t a racist. I honestly can’t look without feeling pity, and indeed mercy, at whites’ need for absolution. For all our sakes, it seemed (again) best not to point out the obvious: You’re not embracing a black man, a descendant of slaves. You’re replacing the black man with an immigrant of recent African descent of whom you can approve without feeling either guilty or frightened.
I’ll go so far as to say that a white woman will be the Democratic nominee for president before a black descendant of American slaves. Even if Obama invokes slavery and Jim Crow, he does so as one who stands outside, one who emotes but still merely informs. One who can be respectfully tolerated because there’s a limit to how far he can go in invoking history. He signals to whites that the racial turmoil and stalemate of the last generation are past and that with him comes a new day in politics when whites needn’t hold back for fear of being thought racist.
Gary Kamiya, also writing in Salon, provides a thoughtful response:
The heart of Dickerson’s equivocal uneasiness with Obama is her fear that embracing him is just too damn easy for white people, who haven’t really settled their accounts with black folks yet …. But having said that, I believe that white America’s embrace of Obama is a virtually unalloyed good. It’s good because Obama is a dynamic and exciting candidate who is offering not only a racial truce but also a fresh and progressive take on many issues.But it’s also good because that embrace demonstrates that we’re moving toward racial invisibility. It is in everyone’s interests — blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians and the growing number of mongrels like me — for racial quotation marks to disappear. And the best way to get rid of them is to establish greater trust and communication between blacks and whites. The more black people come to trust white people, the more they believe — to quote Dr. King — that they are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, the less they will be compelled to define themselves as “black,” and the more liberated they will be to explore a purely human destiny, not one bound by something as meaningless and stupid as race. The fact that so many whites have embraced the black senator from Illinois, even if he does not share the experiences or worldview of some African-Americans, will, I hope, help build that trust. After all, the guy is still black.
While I share Kamiya’s optimism at times for the power and possibilities of an Obama candidacy, Dickerson’s stance is an important reminder that race is America is never simply black and white but always includes plenty of shades of gray. Blackness, for example, comes in many forms.
Dickerson’s sharp distinction, though, between black descendants of American slaves and other black men and women who more recent immigration waves doesn’t recognize someone caught between those two worlds — someone like Brendon Ayanbadejo, one of Lovie Smith’s star players, headed to the Pro Bowl as a special teams standout.
His story, for better or for worse, can only happen in America.
Posted at 11:01 PM | Permalink | | 
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Obsession with Obama’s racial status is a new way of obscuring the most important aspects of his political stance. People like Dickerson are so concerned with the internal tensions of the left that they forget the principles that unite us. She would have us believe that Obama’s political success is due entirely to his racial identity, which makes him palattable to the left. She forgets that all of us informed voters, of whom the left has many, support him because of his fresh take on politics and transparency, not because we’re desperate to get a black man into a position of power. Race is an adornment that’s being used to make Obama’s campaign artificially “controversial.”
Posted by Jesse on January 29th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Very good comment Jesse. I agree wholeheartedly.
Posted by trebo12 on January 29th, 2007 at 11:23 am
While it is true that Obama can’t trace his family to slave days, we need to be honest that the racism that exists does not ask for a family tree. He does have a small shield, but it can’t shield him from all of it.
Posted by Roni on January 29th, 2007 at 11:29 am
In the paragraph you quoted, Dickerson states that Obama is an “immigrant.” He is not. He was born in the United States. If he were an immigrant, he could not run for president.
As to making distinctions between people for being descendants of American slaves or descending from other parts of the African diaspora: the people who are now splitting resentful hairs between Obama and “real” black people are the same ones who love to say that blackness is defined by how white America views a person, not by their self-definition, i.e., Tiger Woods is a “nigger” no matter how he defines his ethnicity. Yet, in the case of Obama, who embraced the African-American experience by working in community organizing on the South Side of Chicago, he is not “black” enough for some black people.
Posted by Jim on January 29th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I think Dickerson gives racists too much credit. Skin color is far more important to them than the actual racial background of an individual. For example, a recent NY times article reported that a recent study found that darker skinned immigrants were more likely to face discrimination than lighter skinned immigrants from the same country. By the way as Spike lee has pointed out in his movies darker skinned African Americans face discrimination from lighter skinned African Americans. If Sen.Obama successfully overcomes racial obstacles it will be because of his message and character not because he is biracial.
Posted by kyle on January 30th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
This comment is a tad OT, but I have this theory that the TV show 24 has probably done more to make it possible for a black person to be president than we realize. I don’t think we realize the power of getting a message every single week for the better part of several years. I’d always sort of thought that the complaints about a lack of diversity in television were valid, but only effected actors and weren’t that important. Now I have to wonder if television shouldn’t do a better job of reflecting the world we want to live in and lead the way.
Posted by Maya on January 31st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Thanks for the comments so far — I agree all around, for the most part. But I would point out that Dickerson is speaking about America’s perception of Obama. I don’t get the feel she herself is judging him in the piece, although her provocative language makes it feel that way.
And her thought that America finds him less threatening because he seems to represent a different type of black man seems to have a good deal of truth in it.
And I also worry myself how Karl Rove’s descendants will attempt to Willie Horton/Swift Boat Obama on race, if he wins the nomination. I think they will be more than ready to play off the anxiety that Dickerson is speaking of.
Posted by Bernie on February 1st, 2007 at 10:17 am
I just want to say a few things to all of you out there that look at race in all, and for all the wrong reasons. You can say what you want to say until the moon turns to cheese, but it will not alter the clear and obvious facts. Barack Obama IS NOT BLACK! His father was a Black Kenyan and his mother a White Kansan American, hence, a Mulatto, Mixed, Multiracial person. The only way a Mixed child could be considered White or Black exclusively is if he/she looked predominantly White (Mariah Carrey), or predominantly Black (the Cuban baseball playerAnguilla Bustamante). Being Black, White, or Mixed is not a choice. It?s not up to your personal feelings or biases. It?s not a political axe to grind. It?s not a one-drop rule. It?s not dependent upon anything but what you as an individual physically look like in a lineup. This modern-day trend of certain Blacks considering themselves White, certain Whites considering themselves Black, and certain Mixed people identifying with which ever they choose regardless if they look Mixed, mostly Black or mostly White, is totally insane and ridiculous to say the least. Tony Dungy, coach of the Indianapolis Colts, is another clear example of a Mulatto person claiming to be Black. He is just as light, if not a tad lighter than Obama! Now, I don?t know if one of his parents was Black and the other White, or if it goes further back than that, but what I do know is Mixed is Mixed no matter how you slice it. Dungy is definately not Black. Colon Powel is another example. I, myself have a smidgeon of Black in me so by the old Anglo one-drop rule I could be considered or consider myself Black, in spite of the fact I have blonde hair, hazel, green eyes, fair skin, and look like an average White person. I?m White, not because I want to be, choose to be, have an egenda to push, or anything. I?m White because that?s what I am, period! The one-drop rule is very ludacris! When you have Blacks calling themselves White and Whites calling themselves Black, it really makes them look like total nincompoops! I?m glad when I go buy a can of white paint, people don?t tell me it?s not really white paint, but black paint that looks white! Can you say, ?IDIOT!?
Posted by Billy on March 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm