Obama’s Mama II

Two days ago I discussed (here) Stuart Taylor’s hope that Sen. Barrack Obama’s candidacy, and even election, would not only break racial barriers but also break the strangle-hold conventional “black leaders” have over black politics. This is not the first time Obama has suggested these possibilities. There has been considerable discussion in the press over whether he is “authentically” black, black enough to secure the black vote. (I discussed some of these here, here, and here.)

IIn the first of those posts I noted the objection of the Washington Post’s Vanessa Williams to Scott Malcomson’s assertion in the New York Times Magazine that “Obama is not black in the usual way.” Williams noted that there is no “usual way” to be black, unwittingly undermining the assumption of racial essentialism on which “diversity”-justified racial preference depends.

The case for Obama’s difference (from “usual” American blacks) was best made by critic Stanley Crouch, whom I quoted in the second post linked above:

If Barack Obama makes it all the way to becoming the Democratic nominee for President in 2008, a feat he says he may attempt, a much more complex understanding of the difference between color and ethnic identity will be upon us for the very first time.

….

After all, Obama’s mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not — does not — share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves.

….

So when black Americans refer to Obama as “one of us,” I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own — nor has he lived the life of a black American.

A long article in today’s New York Observer cites a number of “usual” (or usual suspect) “black leaders” — Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Charles Rangel, etc. — in arguing that those doubts may be overblown. By far the most interesting observation was this comment from Jesse Jackson:

… he said that questions about Mr. Obama’s background and ability to connect with African-Americans amounted to “a cheap shot. If you are going to tackle him, tackle him with substance, not on trivia.”

Jackson thus implies — indeed, he all but asserts — that a person’s cultural, national, and racial background (Obama had a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, was raised largely by white grandparents in Hawaii, attended both Muslim and Catholic schools) are “trivia.” Since it is hard — no, make that impossible — to believe that Jesse Jackson thinks race itself is trivial, he obviously believes Obama is black. He thus reduces blackness to nothing other than pigmentation, aligning himsef with the recent decision (discussed here) by the Congressional Black Caucus to limit membership to Representatives who look black, excluding non-black representatives who represent heavily black constituencies and who vote the correct way on all black issues (whatever they are).

Perhaps Stuart Taylor is right. Perhaps Obama’s unconventional (but very American) way of being black, or whatever, will make the very idea of race trivial, as Jesse Jackson unintentionally demonstrated, no matter how conventionally “black” Obama’s “substance” remains.