Obama not black enough! I'm sick of it!

The BBQ Pit
1

Watching 60 Minutes tonite, I’m listening to the interviewer commenting to Obama that there are some blacks who don’t think that he’s black enough. All week I’ve listened to this, as I’m sure all of us have.

Who are these black people, folks?

The pundits who keep talking about this are all white. The people who keep posing this as a question and making it a topic of discussion on their talk shows…white. This black woman is scratching her head, wondering how many black people they’ve talked to. Are they just imagining all these bullying, narrow-minded black people, or are they drawing their conclusions from actual data?

Yes, I am aware that polls show blacks, as a group, feel warmer towards Ms. Clinton. But does this demonstrate anything about their feelings about Obama’s “blackness”, or lack thereof? What, black people can’t back a horse they think has a better chance at winning, just like EVERYONE ELSE DOES? They have to vote out of some kind of “skin loyalty”?

It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation for black people. If we vote for the black guy, irrespective of his issues, then we’re racist simpletons. If we don’t express undying love for the black guy and dare to express concern about his position on the issues, we must not think he’s black enough. Meanwhile, everyone else gets to pick their candidate without scrutiny. It’s not fair.

I like Obama and plan to vote for him, if only because of his views on the war. But I understand people’s hestitations about jumping on the Obama Bandwagon. The guy is a neophyte, the campaign season long and just waiting for irrepairable gaffs and scandals. I don’t like the “rock star” image the media has created for him. It seems like a set-up, like someone’s rubbing their hands together, waiting for us to get Obama fatigue. He’s just another celeb to cram down our throats so that we can eventually gag him right back out. I like the guy, but I want to like him based on his ideas and visions, not because the Sunday Talking Heads can’t stop talking about how “charismatic” he is. How “well-spoken” and “smart” and “unique” he is. Every time I stop thinking of him as a “black” candidate, some douche has to insert the adjective and go back to the “Is he black enough?” shit. Stop it, I say. I’m sick of it.

Black people, IMHO, are not the ones who are drumming up his race and making it an issue. It’s white people. I’m not going to bother asking people to stop focusing so much on the guy’s race, because that would pointless. I just want people to stop hyping up controversy that doesn’t exist. The villification of black people and their voting decisions will not do much to warm them towards Obama. It will only polarize people further and hurt Obama’s chances for winning. And I want him to win, dammit!

Unless someone can produce evidence of a bunch of black people calling Obama a “wannabe”, “sell-out”, “oreo”, or “Uncle Tom”, I want folks to stop asking whether he’s “black” enough. 'Cuz the question is driving me insane.

2

::Applause::

As an outsider, I must say that the deal being made out of his race in the US media is not only puzzling, but rather sad. That said, the BBC interviewed him the other day and banged on about it too, but they couched it in the context of US racial politics. But still.

As an aside: given his stated policies to date, I suspect that if he were running over here, he would be something of a shoo-in - but I am interested to see if he’s just too damn honestly left wing for the US to vote for him, racial issues aside?

3

On a similar program that I saw, the commentator’s beef was that he wasn’t descended from slaves in America. Apparently his father had emigrated from somewhere in Africa?

I’m sitting here thinking, you know, blacks in America have a hard time of things, but not necessarily because they were descended from slaves. Its not like, “I don’t know about hiring that black man, his great grand-daddy was probably an enslaved fieldhand” or any such thing. And since he grew up here, I would think he’d have the same racial experience as any other black man, since people who you see on the street don’t know your heritage.

The speaker also made it sound like he didn’t “know” oppression or something. As I understand, blacks in Africa didn’t have it so great either! Colonialism was no picnic, either.

Since when is African not “black enough” anyway? I’m not black, but I think the whole thing is dumb.

4

Actually, his is pretty standard fare for the media and the Democratic Party. Aside from Carter’s loss, Clinton’s second term and Gore running from the position of vice-president, I can’t think of any early lead Democrat who was not lionized to the point of hagiography 18 months before the election and then destroyed by the death of a thousand pin-pricks so that someone else wound up with the nomination. My specific memory of Mondale is a bit vague, but Dukakis was not the early lead front-runner. Carter and Clinton both got the nominations after earlier “frontrunners” were destroyed. Kerry was a late pick after the early pumping of Dean. Even going all the way back to McCarthy: he was hardly considered a “contender” until well after New Hampshire in '72.

As long as the U.S. electorate is more interested in seeing the election as a “race” than a “vote,” we are stuck with idiotic pundits and media twits making stupid comments that have nothing to do with issues. It is unfortunate for those of us who prefer to look at issues that the general populace tends to get the government it deserves.

5

Here’s a few of those black people you were looking for, Monstro, including (to my dismay) the great columnist Stanley Crouch.

6

Debra J. Dickerson
I’m curious who described Obama as “well-spoken”, being as that’s the cliche/stereotype thing to say. Hard to imagine anyone not getting called on it.

7

In fairness to Ms. Dickerson, she also went on to say

I do not read her comments as anything resembling a claim of opposition because he is “not black enough.”

8

I have a free NYT account online, and it asks me for my credit card when I click your link. May not be awfully useful to most of the folks who read this…

9

Stanley Crouch and Debra Dickerson. Two people, the latter whom I have never heard of until a week ago.

What? Jesse and Al, our favorite punching bags, weren’t available for comment?

Mehitabel, your link is asking me to register. Is it the same article as this? Because in this article, we get signifying quotes from Crouch and Dickerson and a couple of other “experts”. But we also have positive remarks from others, such as Julian Bond and John Lewis. What, they don’t count?

The media has jumped on this because it’s interesting–as is anything involving race–and makes the presidential race that more entertaining. It seems like a tempest in a teapot to me, and yet another way to paint black people as divisive, hard-to-please whiners.

10

My apologies; as a paper subscriber, I’m automatically enrolled and get to see for free archived articles from the distant mists of time like last Sunday. :wink:

Yes, that’s the same article.

11

“In fairness”? WTF? I never said she opposed him and my shortened quote doesn’t imply it. She was just an example of a non-white pundit commenting on Obama’s “blackness”.

And monstro, I only knew about her because she was on the Colbert Report on Thursday talking about this very subject/article. Apparently she’s written a few books as well as writing for Salon.

12

The whole thing reminds me of a time not too terribly long agon when the white Americans that came from England and Ireland were scandalized by the thought of Italian immagrants being thought of as American too.

One socialite commented that they weren’t really American by giving the quote - if a cat has kittens in an oven, it doesn’t make them biscuits.
Now blacks are re-doing the immagrant thing - to them Obama is a kitten, not a biscuit.

13

Hmm, I guess on re-read monstro was maybe looking at purely negative reviews coming from White people, rather than just discussing the issue? She does seem to think Clinton has a better lock on the black vote than Obama does and her reasons for still cheering Obama are distinctly on the cynical side.

14

I’ve seen this same thing, monstro. What I find hard to believe is that so many white people–Dopers included–seem to actually believe that there are all these black people out there rejecting Obama because he’s insufficiently black. Everytime I see that idea trotted out I feel like peeing my pants with laughter and then slapping some sense into anyone who takes this seriously.

For Christ’s sake, America. That whole idea is so goddamn ridiculous and you don’t have to be black to figure that out. Let me get this straight: Obama–the son of an African, the husband of an African-American, the father of black kids, a member of a black church, an orator in the tradition of MLK and other black legends, and most importantly, a man who has spent a goodly portion of his career being a champion of the poor and underserved–is supposedly so deficient in Black Bonafides that we’re really supposed to seriously entertain the notion that he is in danger of losing black support in favor of Hillary “Whitey McWhiterson” Clinton?

Bwwhahaha. Just peed my pants once again.

In none of the infinite parallel universes that exist does this story sound even remotely plausible. This idea is too unrealistic for even a fantasy novel. Black people still talk with pride about how Beethoven and Dumas were reportedly black men, for crying out loud. And yet a man with a name like Obama ain’t black enough for blacks? Bwahahaha! It just happened again.

Want to hear what I think all this talk comes from? I think white people are projecting their own views about Obama’s blackness on to black people. It is easier to go around acting as if the whole “Obama isn’t really black” meme is coming from black people, because it looks racist when whites say it. After all, Obama has Ivy League diction and doesn’t talk about racism like those other black folks do (i.e Jackson and Sharpton…because you know no discussion about about black politics is complete unless those guys get mentioned at least five times). And plus, he has a white mama and grew up in a white household, ergo he’s not like those other blacks. He’s different. He’s special. So let’s play up all the divisions that might exist in the black community and use them to make Obama look more inviting to white people who have problems with those other blacks.

In short, what we are seeing is an attempt to make Obama seem more appealing to those who are worried that African-Americans might actually like the guy as much as they do. In a sick, twisted way, this is a brilliant plan. Don’t know if it’s enough to get the guy elected, but I hope that if he does win, it’s not because racist white Americans are duped into thinking blacks have a problem with Obama’s blackness and take that as some kind of evidence that he’s “safe and good”. I’d like to think people are smarter than that.

15

I saw the 60 Minutes bit, and I loved the way he answered the question (and the way that he answers – I mean actually answers – questions in general). He pointed out that the people in the Chicago neighborhood didn’t have a question about his Blackness, and then went out to offhandedly muse about how he often finds it particularly difficult to hail a cab.

16

Gary Hart was the rock star candidate that year.

Regarding the OP, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks Friends of Hillary are responsible for trying to plant the “Obama’s not black enough” seed of doubt among black voters.

17

I saw him on 60 minutes and laughed at that, too. I think Obama handled it extremely well. It would be nice if the these journalists would tell us who these Black people are who say Obama isn’t “Black” enough.

Obama is a rare politician in that he really doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. His answers to the other questions about race were quite good, too, I thought. I can really see the appeal of this guy, and while I want my presidents to have more experience than he has, I could definitely see myself voting for him if he wins the Democratic nomination and the Republicans put up a social conservative again. Still, I don’t see how he’s going to beat Hillary with all her money and influence. He’s young, though, and he’ll have plenty of chances.

18

Seriously. I wish journalists would ban the “Some people think/say/claim …” construction from their repertoire altogether. Who are these people? Or are you just putting forward an unsubstantiated point because it makes for an interesting story?

19

Someday, not that I will live to see it, but wouldn’t it be really fucking nice, if someday it wouldn’t matter to most people in this great “land of the free and home of the brave” what fucking color a candidate is, or where his grandparents or parents came from?

I like Obama, he sounds great, but I wonder if as a freshman senator he is experienced enough in politics to do a decent job in the oval office. Frankly, he just seems too nice to be in such a dirty office. Also the fact that JFK was the last Senator to become president, they’ve all been governors & VPs since then.

Not black enough my hairy caucasian ass.

20

Actually, it almost sounds like Dickerson is saying that she supports Obama because he’s not black enough, at least not black in the same way that she as a descendant of American slaves is black.

To me, it seems like she’s saying that because he doesn’t have the same history as American blacks, he can do something that they can’t, and thus open up possibilties for all of them. But that no one should take it as success for real American blacks.

Does anyone else get that idea, or am I nuts?