October 16, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Is it important to me that Obama is Black? Is it significant? Yes, and no. It’s not controlling my vote. I won’t be voting for or against Obama based on his skin tone or racial heritage. I won’t, as a white person, worry about a President Obama favoring Blacks in America over whites, or that he’s some kind of “reverse racist” (a term I dispute, but it works here).
But Obama’s race is significant in a couple of important ways
First, anyone’s heritage, their life experience, contributes to the adult they are. Obama can’t escape that influence any more than I can. It’s significant that he grew up as a Black man in a racist nation. It’s also significant that he grew up within a white family, as a brown kid. It’s significant that that as a Black man, he attained a Harvard education. It’s significant that his Black heritage comes not through the ancestry of people who were once held as slaves in this country, but rather through his Kenyan father, even if his father wasn’t a daily figure in his upbringing.
But it doesn’t stop at race. It’s significant that his income is higher than most. It’s significant that he’s male. It’s significant that he’s relatively young. It’s significant that he’s a family man, that he is raising two young children. It’s significant that he’s in a long-term relationship. It’s significant that he is religious, that he’s a Christian. It’s significant that his early political life was formed in community organizing, and it’s significant that Chicago was the site of that early political experience.
And one could switch around the variables – upbringing, race or ethnic heritage, religion, family, education, early political foundations, what cities or populations he worked with and for. And all of those experiences would shape a different person, with a different slant on the world. But race, or religion, or any of the items on that list are not litmus tests, they are not defining points which in and of themselves make him fit or unfit for the job of president, or senator for that matter. Each of Obama’s influences, along with many others, have shaped him, as McCain’s have shaped him. This, I believe, is the only real bearing Obama’s race has on who he is as a man and a politician. And it’s very important, but it’s not a simple as “hey, he’s Black – does it matter?”
And, though it’s not really talked about, McCain’s white heritage is just as important as Obama’s Black heritage. And in much the same way, but with obviously different results.
Second, it’s significant that Obama is black because of what it shows about the slow but steady disintegration of racism in the United States. I’ve been thinking a lot about this during the whole campaign, but it notched up a bit after Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC. I was sparked by hearing the comments of (I think) John Lewis, on the 45th anniversary of King’s “I have a Dream” speech. I won’t be able to quote him directly, but the essence of his reflections were that, 45 years ago, the great hopes for him and many other blacks at the gathering were for fair treatment in jobs, in housing, in education, in daily life. That a black candidate for president could be sponsored by a major party, that a black candidate might have an actual chance at the presidency, was not really in the picture half a century ago; it would have been enthusiastically welcomed, but not considered a realistic hope.
And yet here we are, 45 years later: a viable Black candidate for president. It’s stunning. It brings tears to my eyes, accompanied by a silly, happy grin. It chokes me up on a pretty regular basis. Like many others, I feel that history has been made, regardless of whether Obama wins the race or not. And of course, as someone who childhood coincided with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, I get quite the tingle in my toes at the thought of a black American in the White House. Who’da thought?
It’s not that “racism is dead in America.” It’s not. But it’s slowly breaking down, in the face of reality, and I think largely due to the increase of families which are themselves multi-racial. Obama’s background is one example. Kids who grow up in diverse families are more realistic about the abilities and humanity of folks whose heritage is a little, or a lot, different than their own.