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Hearing What We Want to Hear: Barack Obama and the Absolution of White America
I’m now officially tired of white commentators complimenting Barack Obama on the way he “says what needs to be said” about the state of black America. The subtle implication is that Obama is finally a black leader white people can support because he doesn’t constantly play the “victim” card: he blames the attitude and actions of African Americans themselves for their problems, rather than the system that’s rigged against them.
Richard Cohen of the New York Daily News provides the latest back-handed homage after hearing Obama speak in Selma, Ala.:
The speech he gave commemorating the anniversary of the march by civil rights activists from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., is one that could not have been delivered by a white candidate …. As did Clinton, he voiced the expected obeisance to Democratic Party shibboleths about school funding, health care, pensions and such, some of which matter, some of which don’t. But then he turned to what clearly does matter: “discipline and fortitude … sometimes I feel like we’ve lost it a little bit,” Obama said.
There was a whole paragraph of text between the words “discipline and fortitude” and “we’ve lost it a little bit.” Suffice it to say, it was an homage to the incredibly brave and, yes, disciplined civil rights activists of old - ordinary people, most of them black, who practiced passive resistance. These were the young men and women — “backs straight, eyes clear, suit and tie, sitting down at a lunch counter knowing somebody is going to spill milk on you” — who subordinated their anger to something bigger: their cause. They made this country a much better place.
Obama went on to urge blacks to couple their complaints with activism. “Put on your marching shoes,” he said. “Go do some politics. Change this country!” That’s what we need. And then he said, as he had to, that while there are too many children living in poverty — and, of course, there are — “don’t tell me that it doesn’t have a little to do with the fact that we got too many daddies not acting like daddies. Don’t think that fatherhood ends at conception” …
Would a black President make a difference? Hard to say. But a black President — or, for the moment, a black presidential candidate of consequence — permits others to say what needs to be said and that is a step in the right direction.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Obama shouldn’t be making these points. And his urge to activism is particularly apt considering the historical context of the moment. It reminded me, in fact, of a powerful episode of “The Boondocks” that imagines what would happen if Martin Luther King came back to life in our present-day world.
But just like as a teacher I would feel uncomfortable showing that episode to a class of all white students, I am disturbed by the way white commentators latch onto these particular parts of Obama’s speeches and make it sound like Obama is giving them absolution.
Cohen, for example, claims that Obama’s perspective is important because: “After all, the problem no longer is widespread racism but the crushing effect that past racism has had on a particular group: young black men.” Oh, really?
All of this makes me want to revisit Debra Dickerson’s argument that “Obama isn’t black.” Lost in her provocative thesis — and in her misguided claim of an “authentic” African American identity — are many very salient points about the awkward, distorted and defensive way many white people — especially white liberals — approach race in America.
Posted at 3:03 PM | Permalink | | 
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March 7, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Bernie,
You nailed it right on the head. Notice how they skated right over the part about erasing affirmative action programs, police brutality, etc? I am 100% in agreement with Obama’s speech in Selma, but I KNEW that whites would twist what he was saying.
Everyone likes to lay claim to how whatever discrimination they’re experiencing is the same as what blacks have faced. I don’t have anything against Jews, but their Holocaust was 4 years and they were still Jews and had their people, language, and religion afterward. Our Holocaust lasted 4 centuries, we were taken from our homeland, stripped of our families, languages, and religions, and then subjected to 4 centuries of physical, psychological, and emotional torture. The civil rights movement only occurred a few decades ago - not that long in the grand scheme of things for millions of people to recover from such an ordeal. You tell me how well the white community would be doing after that? Just as the decendents of the black civil rights pioneers exist today, so to do the decendents of those hateful whites who would look straight into the eyes of defenseless black men, women and children and bust their heads open for marching across a bridge. They are all over this country, keeping racism alive and well.
They destroyed our communities, but we must fix them. That’s the message from Barack’s speach, not that white people aren’t at fault. Whites aren’t going to do right by us. We must make things right ourselves. But then the side benefit is that we don’t owe them a damn thing.
Also, to those whites who are so quick to absolve themselves, please don’t pretend that whites haven’t fought against equal opportunity laws tooth and nail every step of the way. Watch those hate-filled white faces in the footage from the 60s. Read about how they have tried to thwart change every step of the way in the 70s, 80s, 90s and into the 21st century.
Slavery - Slavery was stuck down, they move in with Jim Crow laws. Same system, different name.
Desegregation - The government desegregated the schools, whites move in to pull their kids out of school to make sure they don’t go to schools with blacks.
School funding - School funding is based on property taxes so when peopled move to the suburbs and business moved away, school funding dried up and we were left with “separate and unequal” again.
The police - Blacks tried to organize in the 60s and the police moved in to start tearing down the fabric of the community by arresting and imprisoning black men (and women) at 3 to 10 times the rate of whites for the same crimes, and throwing them in jail for a long time, leaving single parent or parentless households.
Affirmative action - employers still don’t hire and promote fairly, and whites have been working hard at tearing down affirmative action more and more every day.
Lending - Blacks with the same credit rating are much more likely to be given higher interest rates for mortgages and loans than whites in comparable situations, making it much more difficult for blacks to buy a home, and they pay a lot more in interest when they do.
And on and on and on.
They are hypocrites and liars.
March 8, 2007 at 1:07 am
I think it would help this discourse if polemicists would remember that Mr. Obama received an Islamic education.
In Islam we have a core beleif that runs 100% against the core beleifs of victim discourse.Namely protestant American and 60’s califorinia marxism.
To begin with Muslims do not beleive in the protestant doctrine of grace . That is the beleif in undeserved favor from God. Muslims beleive that favor from God is earned by good deeds and leading a life free of sinful deeds.
Muslims also do not beleive in a savior or the concept of salvation.
Muslims also do not beleive that anyone ,including Jesus ,peace be upon him can remove their sins or take any responsibility for them. Only the individual is able to do that. So in Islam personal morality is pre-imminant and we have no special set of rules for any “out group”, race or minority. In Islam we all are obediant to the same standards of morality and law.
Lastly, there can be no reparations. No person alive today can be “made to pay” or punished for what some other person did in past centuries. If you did not commit the deed then you can not be punished for it- so no person alive today can be made to pay for what their ancestors did. Therefore all these car bombs are sins because you cannot kill innocents to punish some 3rd party, terrorism same deal and certainly Muslims in Afghanistan are not guilty of what Gulf arabs (maybe ) did on 9-11!!!. Islam is above all about JUSTICE and justice means a direct correspondence between actions and results.Islam forces people to take responsibility for how their lives turn out. So if you want dignity you make it happen Inshallah.
Similarlywith slavery people alive today did not suffer those abuses , so they cannot acquire any compensation for oppressions they have not experienced. They can sue for discrimination.
What American blacks need to do is live in the here and now and realise that late 1960’s marxist ideas are not working for them. They also need to abandon fantasy. They were deceived by evil men like ” maulana ” Kerenge’ who grafted Islamic lexicon(Ummah, Niyyat,ect) to marxist ideas and african spiritism. This is very deceptive and evil. Kerenge mutilated and hurt women and he was not a learned scholar or a Muslim but a crimminal liar and a communist!
70% of Africa belongs to Islam and in Islam we have no special consideration for American blacks. If a person wants special treatment they should become a protestant then they can have all that consideration. Compared to the suffering people of other lands America’s blacks are just plain spoiled. People every day get intelligence and see that a firm set of moral guidelines will help them escape poverty, hardship, abandonment and ultimately oppression too.
March 8, 2007 at 9:05 pm
So, Bernie’s sick of Obama granting absolution, eh? Well get used to it. If he gets the 2008 election, he’ll continue to condescend to all of us and keep on grinning at what fools we all are for tolerating him in the first place. All he needs to do now is write a book entitled ‘My Ego’.
March 9, 2007 at 9:14 am
Whether Sen. Obama is giving “absolution” to white America is debatable,but what is more important is how to improve the socioeconomic status of African Americans today. Any sincere attempt to do so must begin by focusing on young black men who are at the greatest risk of dying prematurely, dropping out of high school,being unemployed or underemployed, and becoming part of the criminal justice system than any other demographic category. The answer is not idiotic “pro marriage” programs promoted by the Bush adminisrtation or exhortations to black men that their obligations go beyond conception as stated by Obama. What are needed are effective educational and employment programs as well as a more serious effort to eliminate racial discrimination in education and employment.
March 9, 2007 at 11:03 am
Just to clarify, Lee, I’m not saying that Obama is granting absolution. I’m saying many commentators are — perhaps unconsciously — interpreting his speeches that way.
If one listens to the entire context of his speech in Selma, he moves back and forth quite astutely between the need for personal responsibility and the need for supportive, well-funded educational and social programs.
He’s walking a very fine line here — and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt right now, as far as his sincerity and humility.