Letters to the Editor
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I can't believe I am saying this.....I agree!
My postings about D.D.'s articles are usually to disagree and refute her take on things, but I have to say, I think she's onto something.
This country has a history of embracing "exotic" blackness before "American blackness." It's been a well-known fact and common experience among american blacks.
If you read the autobiography of Maya Angelou or Angela Davis, 2 very different women politically, but they both have episodes where they pretended to be from some exotic foreign land and spoke a made-up a language....and were immediately fawned over by whites in the vicinity, because they weren't "regular" black girls....little did these white people know.
Now things may be more subtle now, but I agree with D.D. that Obama's heritage and disconnect from that historical 'baggage' as it pertains to american blacks and slavery has worked in his favor and offers a safe alternative to some whites. He's black, but he's not really black.
And D.D. is right on the money when she talks about white guilt when it comes to slavery.
There's this perspective that SOME white folks just want to sweep it under the rug and let's not speak of it again....why not? Nobody is pointing a finger at you, except for the one that you seem to point at yourself the minute the word is uttered. Trust me, the tension in the room becomes palpable. There is a paranoia and defensiveness that is pervasive. But like D.D. stated, "it Ain't About you." So why the defensiveness? There's no black mob demanding your home for reparations during Black History month or any other time....so what are you afraid of when it comes to discussing this issue?
Nevertheless, I don't totally agree with D.D. and her breakdown of Obama and the civil rights "leadership".....and the standard of supporting ethanol and the corn in Iowa is a bit far-fetched and one that can can be applied to numerous politicians in Wash. D.C....show me a politician not beholden to a lobby in their state and I'll show you a one-term representative.
I don't think D.D. is very politically savvy when it comes to the deeper mechanisms of politics, but she does offer SOME food for thought in this article.
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If everything you say is true
And I'm not disagreeing with any of it -- but this is what campaigning is for. We have 22 months before the election (and heart-sinkingly, 24 before we're rid of Bush). That's plenty of time to see what Obama is really made of. I get chills of anticipatory pleasure as I contemplate the Democratic winnowing process over these months, which I fully expect will be an intensely-felt, well-informed and profoundly intelligent debate between such lights as Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mssrs. Richardson, Edwards and others.
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Thanks, Quidnunc
Richardson works for me, too. He's experienced, eloquent, good on the issues and not from the Northeast. He will add to the gains made in '06, in winning men back to progressive politics. As pleasing as she is to some within the Democratic Party, Hillary will absolutely destroy that, returning the Democrats to where they were in the 80s, when, the mythology goes, they needed to be "rescued" by the DLC. Sounds like a no-lose proposition for them, but not for us.
It's been demonstrated too many times that Democrats have a flair for pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. If that's what you want, then Hillary's your candidate, and you'll do or say anything for her. "Obama's too white." "Richardson's too white." "Only white men can win, so we need to run an upperclass white woman, not these nonwhite guys who are really white, so I hate them."
Doesn't make any sense to me, but racial and sexual politics never does. Just the issues, please, an idea that's as foreign to Dickerson as a white, black, or mixed, man from Africa.
Is this Dickerson's real coded message? "Support a loser, because if we win, I won't have my head-banging wall, and there goes my career."
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ummm..............she's sorta right
Based on the first 6 pages of letters I've read, I do feel compelled to write.
I've written on other topics in this forum before, and hope those who know my sign-off will give me the benefit of the doubt; that I'm neither overstating, nor race-baiting, nor anything else that can then be used to discount or dismiss my perspective.
I don't have time to write much--I'm on break. But I will say this. As a medium-skinned African-American with somewhat Eurocentric features, decent diction, and a fair amount of tangible accomplishments under my belt--it is annoying, but by this time, anything but surprising, when people try to "de-black" me--by this I mean trying to find the Europeans in my family tree, or (yes)asking if I come from West Indian or "real African (their words)" stock.
As this pertains to Mr. Obama, the articles that have come out describing him as "half-black" or "multiracial" springs from the same dynamic. If Mr. Obama was in the papers for something less savory than running for President, you can bet there would be no similar parsing of his heritage. The 'one-drop' rule would still apply.
I am, at best, neutral towards Ms. Dickerson--but ya know, there actually is a pony under that pile. I've experienced the dynamic she described. And, actually, she's not the first to point it out. The fact that African-Americans are, generally speaking, more welcome in Europe than "real Africans" or West Indians--for the same reasons the converse is true here. Less baggage of past and present injustices and legacy.
Tim Wise, a white, Southern, Jewish man who wrote one of the best books on white privilege out there "White Like Me", and who has an amazing website, said as much in his book.
He also speaks about the privilege that dominant culture asserts when those within it refuse to truly hear what the non-dominant voices are saying. I love Obama, not least because of his viability, and a large part of this viability is that he is not considered to be a 'native-born' African-American, but rather one with an asterisk, regardless of the protestations of dominant culture. It's that asterisk that makes him electable. What's funny, is that it can be resonably extrapolated from Obama's own writings that he'd agree with Ms. Dickerson on her main point. He is more than aware of his unique place, like Tiger Woods, in the American racial/cultural conversation/divide. He earns my respect in a way that Tiger Woods does not--it has been very disheartining at times to hear Mr. Woods do the same thing the press has--distanced himself from his African-American heritage. That Mr. Obama chooses to reject the privilege his ambiguity affords him (and it is privilege) is laudable.
apologies in advance for grammar/spelling errors. written quickly.
I don't know from what all the resistiance springs from the letter I've read. I don't think she wrote beautifully, but the gist is accurate.