| No Black in The White House: Part 2 |
| Ronald Sanders Sunday, February 17, 2008 |
In the years that I have been writing a widely published weekly commentary, I have never received as many responses as I did to my commentary last week on Barack Obama’s quest for the White House.
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| Ronald Sanders |
I concluded in that commentary that, despite his vision and the wide appeal of his message, he would not succeed in occupying The White House, because, in the end, the fact that he is what the Americans call “an African American” would cause a majority of that small portion of the US electorate who actually vote, to vote against him. For, in the American society it is his part blackness that many whites will reject; it is not his part whiteness that they will celebrate.
Having said all that, I am bound to reveal that, if the more than 100 responses I have had are a straw poll, Obama will not only win the Democratic Party nomination, but he will romp home with the presidency.
Whether it is wishful thinking or an indication of gale force winds of change blowing through America, I do not know. What I do know is that Obama has captured the minds of many in the US who are fed up with the war-mongering, bullying stance of the George W Bush regime and, by close association, the Republican Party. They appear to be equally jaded with the slick but flawed aura of the Clintons. Obama is a welcome oasis in a desert of distrust.
Here is a voice from Illinois: “The United States needs this man. We need him to unite a divided nation and a divided world. We need him for us to believe that this country can rise and be great again. We need him to lead us in regaining the respect that we have lost under this sorry administration. We need him to show us that we can have strength without the need to continuously flex our muscle.”
On the matter of race, there are some who believe that part of the reason for Obama’s success in the primaries so far is precisely because he is “part white”.
Here is a white man in Florida: “No one will admit it, but I believe Obama’s mixed racial background has caused many whites to vote for him, they see him as acceptable.”
And a mixed-race person from America , now living in the Caribbean, adds: “I am convinced because of my own experiences and acceptance in parts of Pennsylvania, where the closest whites came to seeing a black man was on television, that white Americans are more likely to accept and vote for a qualified person of mixed ancestry than for a full-blooded black American for president.”
A professor from Wayne University in the US summed up the race aspect of this campaign in the following way: “If only the media could have championed the reality that Obama is as white as he is black, what a statement that would make for progress of race relations in the US and to the world! Overtly perpetuating the notion that ‘purity’ is reserved for a single race does more damage to any ‘gains’ we have made towards equality… my latent wish is that America would seize the moment and make a statement to the world that it really does accept its citizens regardless of colour or ethnic combinations.”
What all this seems to emphasise is that race and colour remain deeply motivating factors in American society, and especially, with regard to the person to whom will be entrusted enormous power over ordinary people and over nations.
So, if this is so widely known and felt, there should be no assumption that the race card will not be played as subtly and carefully as the Republican Party dares when the contest reaches the home stretch and the finishing line draws near.
Indeed, there are keen Washington observers who firmly believe that Obama’s phenomenal success in raising huge campaign funds is part of a dastardly Republican scheme to make him the Democratic Party’s nominee for the Presidency on the basis that, ultimately, the majority of the white electorate will fall back on an atavistic racial prejudice when they cast their vote.
One of them contends: “My gut instincts for some time have told me that somewhere in the DC area Karl Rove has a dirty-tricks boiler room getting Republicans to give to Obama financial help to defeat Hillary, relying on the racist attitudes nationally to reject Obama over any of the clowns in the original GOP presidential candidate line-up.”
Note should be taken that, despite Obama’s remarkable success, he is unlikely to gain the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination outright. But neither will Clinton. The so-called 796 “super-delegates” – members of congress, governors, former presidents and office holders – may well decide who wins, and so far Clinton has more committed votes.
Assuming he wins, however, many of those who responded to my commentary last week -and these are people who fervently support Obama and desperately want him to triumph – are fearful that his song will be abruptly ended, and his vision dimmed in the same way that Martin Luther King Jr was silenced and John F Kennedy stopped.
In championing his quest for The White House, many of his black supporters want to assert their own legitimacy as true equals in a society that has squashed them underfoot; others pray that he can remould America into that society of liberty, generosity and fraternity that has always been more imagined than real.
A heavy burden of hope has been placed on the shoulders of Barack Obama. He will need divine help not only to stride into The White House, but also to satisfy the great expectations now reposed in him – if he occupies it.
(The writer is a business executive and former Caribbean Diplomat). Email responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com
This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article.
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