I went back and watched the entire video of their appearance on Tavis's show, and then thought some on it. There is a tendency to react to this sort of thing out of anger, and I kinda was angry when I first started watching. But the more I listened, the more I calmed down, as I saw what really seemed to be at work. I didn't hear a single policy disagreement in the entire interview. Not one. What I did hear was a general complaint that Obama isn't claiming his blackness--historically or politically. That sort of talk makes me cringe, if only because it's so open to interpretation and can easily slide into a sort of lazy equivalence between lefty politics and blackness. Barack Obama could have stood up and quoted Boooker T. Washington or George Schuyler and yet, I don't think that's what his critics are talking about.
The specific charge seems to be essentially that Obama--for political reasons--neglected to mention Martin Luther King by name ("the preacher from Georgia" being demeaning"), that he didn't mention Katrina, that he was--in Malveaux's words--"white-washing" his speech so as not to offend good white folk. Hmmm. I took the "preacher from Georgia" riff as poetic use of understatement. MLK's significance is such these days that, in America, he is the air, the symbol of purity that ideologues of all stripes reach for to launder their cause. But, hey, I love poetry, and I'm an Obama fan, so maybe I see too much. That said, it seems to me that an attempt at white-wash which mentions "the preacher from Georgia" and references the March on Washington, is a sorry effort indeed. Are we to believe that Obama's folks, think that white voters--fresh off a week of having history drummed into them--are going to somehow miss these references? If this is the Obama campaign's idea of hoodwinking white folks, they should all be fired.
I got clear when I heard Malveaux salute Clinton for referencing
Harriet Tubman. The beef isn't about policy. It's not about what an
Obama administration would do for black people. It's not even about
Obama's blackness, per se. It's about the "black freedom struggle"--the struggle that West and Malveaux see themselves as a part of--taking credit. Look, I say the following as the son of Black Panther, as a dude who
learned critical thinking from the posthumous words of Malcolm X, who
idolizes James Baldwin. None of that was as important to me as family.
If not for my father, I'd have no idea what "the black freedom
struggle" was. If not for my mother, I would have likely dropped out
school in tenth grade. Barack Obama is black man who received his
essential human values from three white people.
In that he isn't the first. The great Frederick Douglass learned to read from his white slave-mistress. Booker T. Washington--father of organic black conservativism--was a biracial black man. Malcolm X, in some ways inheritor of that same legacy, was a multiracial black man. But Barack is living in another time, and is the progeny of more courageous people. Bear with me if I'm lapsing into either/or, I don't mean to. But this jingoist idea that the exclusive black tradition deserves primary credit for Obama's place in history feels simplistic.
Half of that evening was spent praising King and the Civil Rights movement. King's kids spoke. John Lewis spoke, and Obama spent the last five minutes of his speech connecting his struggle with the Civil Rights struggle of the past. It was cool to see that. But Barack Obama was there to do his best to convince people to vote for him in November. I don't know what other criteria there really could be for judging his speech. The last thing I want to catch this dude doing, is the Electric Slide before the inauguration. Something else also--this keeps happening with a specific group of black people. I'd hate to think that they were conflating themselves and their events with black people and "black interests" at large. Did Obama's absence from the State of The Black Union say something about black people? Or did it say something about the event itself?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Ta-Nehisi,
I took the 'preacher from Georgia' line as poetry and understatement too, but also as a knowing wink to the people that knew (or really know about) King.
If Obama had said "Martin Luther King, Jr." the conservative punditsphere would have lit up with "Obama is no MLK" and "Obama wishes he were MLK, but he's not"
The point of the understatement, I thought, was to point out that everybody loves King now, but it wasn't always so. Forty years ago he was an uppity "preacher from Georgia" who had no respect for the law or the way decent people live.
I.e. what Obama did was gently call out the hypocrisy of those who love MLK now, but would have been against him (or were against him) back then.
Boy, what a kettle of fish. I think the criticism has some merit, but somehow it's almost impolitic to mention it. The real problem is that Obama, being half-black and half-white, can claim the mantle of "first black candidate" while proferring for the unenlightened middle his "white," "normal" credentials. If Hillary had secured the Oval Office, then it would be unambiguous that she was the "first woman" to do so. But Obama's mother was white -- how can she have given birth to the first "black" president? Yet she can.
At the same time that we can say that his burdens here are only half as great, we can also acknowledge that he has a political interest in presenting himself as "white" as possible, in the name of being the first "black" president.
What's sad is that the same logic that applied in the days of slavery still applies: if you have a drop of black blook in you, you're "black" in the eyes of society. It's an upsetting subject.
But Obama appears to be trying to secure as many advantages and incur as few disadvantages as his identity supplies him as any candidate. In that he's no different from McCain.
Not to be rude, but what does presenting yourself as "white" mean? Are we actually saying that by referring to MLK as "the preacher from Georgia," he's making himself "white." I need to hear that defined. I went to college--almost exclusively--with black people. I don't see how he's any whiter than some of the dude's in the business school, or the engineering school, or the school of communication.
On Some Twisted Logic!
One is a product on one's environment and experiences, PERIOD!
Obama as well as most individuals did not hear nor were alive when King made his speech.
Tavis Smiley is best avoided, in my view he is basically toxic.
The speech was about the Office of the President of the U.S.A., not about the March of Washington, D.C. circa 1963. The DNC gave King his historical due, the past is that.
At some point political calculations are nonsense and meaningless, some do this obsessively.
A cynic may ask, why not have Allan Keys on the panel?
The evening was more about the future of Barney Smith than Smith Barney( Smiley' s self promotion)!
ENUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tavis, who I am a fan of, has been treading on thin ice for a while. His criticisms of Obama under the guise of accountability seem to take on increasing creative arcs. Black people have a every reason to be skeptical but that's not an excuse to suspend practicality, there can be a healthy balance of both. West, Malveaux and Smiley all seem to suggest a kind of posture from Obama that would be unrealistic to expect from any other politician on his level and in that context. They see flying the banner of racial injustice as the most important issue. Obama on the other hand attempts to harmonize a large group of concerns, an approach to my mind that is much stronger and points toward the future. I think what cuts a bit about their comments is that it's hard to tell if they are being as vigilant in monitoring their own creeping self righteousness as they are of Obama principles.
Well - I'm sorry. I'm glad you got over being angry, but I'm not quite so generous. I'm just about sick of Cornell West and his nonsense. He and some others are trying to carve out some sense of authenticity at Barack's expense, and I find it offensive.
I find the thought-policing offensive. I think it's just fine that Obama stated about the preacher from Georgia and I appreciated his understated reference to Katrina. Let's keep in mind that that night was HIS night - and he provided for ample tribute throughout.
Even if I don't take the most cynical view of West and others - I wind up wishing they would not be so cynical.
Pardon me while I hurl my lunch.
QT
I think everyone ought to see things in an American context. Our history and experiences shape us in profound ways, for this reason I can understand why its inescapable to some. To someone who was around in the 60's, issues of race and discrimination will always have an almost visceral feeling to them. In these days however blacks can do anything. Sure there are structural problems in our society, but this is shared. We can be bloggers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers with effort. I think Barrack speaks to our generation and I think this is why its hard for some to see beyond their memories. He appeals to tomorrow and is making history in the process.
What did he have to say his name for??
Is there somebody, anybody, who was watching that speech and heard
"And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream."
And thought, Wonder who Barry's talking about? There are far better ways of describing the man, than by simply stating his name.
In terms of whitewashing the day, I would've liked to see a little more diversity in his parade of everymen though...
Maybe because I'm a white boy from Vermont, but I didn't really understand the argument that West and Malveaux were making. I'd like to hear more about HOW not mentioning King by name, and not situating himself in a historical context were disempowering (to Obama? to African-Americans in general?)
Also, one of the things I've appreciated about Obama's campaign is the understated way he approaches its historicalness. In contrast to one of his opponents in the primary, he has let the obvious fact that his candidacy is a huge step forward speak for itself.
Am I talking crazy?
No, Amos. That's the whole point. It's kind of classles and gauche to get up there and spike the ball in the name of some amorphous, ill-defined, Orwellian-sounding "Black Freedom Movement."
Deleted. Off-topic, borderline spam.
Well, this explains a lot. I wondered why Malveaux, after Hillary's speech, interviewed at length an unusual Hillary supporter (a black woman)who wept and wailed about Hillary's campaign, about sexism being such an obstacle, complained about Obama's lack of experience and his just graduating from Harvard. Malveaux kept this interview going ad infinitum. Even the panel seemed stunned by it.
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, even mentions the lack of attention to civil rights or the black struggle in Obama's speech and attributes it to Obama's reassurance to the whites whose votes he needs that he won't be "getting even" if elected president.
I do find it galling that Hillary and women can crowe about women's rights, women's struggles, sexism, discrimination--even Obama takes up the cry in his speeches and his nod toward womanhood--but nothing about the black struggle explicitly.
Some also wonder why there are few blacks in his inner circle. Is it that dangerous to discuss race during this campaign?
I attended a camp obama last summer and was surprised to find over half of the participants were white. In addition, in training exercises only the white people were chosen to speak in front of the group, and they were appointed to be the leaders of congressional district canvassing groups.
I'm going to trust Obama on this one. Yes, it bothers me--I haven't come this far to pacify skittish white people. But his election promises much more than one of McCain.
We'll take him at his word and hold him accountable.
Obama answered this nicely in the 60 Minutes interview yesterday, pointing out that he didn't need to say King's name because everyone watching knew.
To address some of Martin's points, Obama will be the first black president in the same way Halle Berry was the first black Best Actress, the same way Bob Marley, Lani Guinier, and, as TNC pointed out, Booker T. Washington, are/were black. This is a potentially huge can of worms I'm opening, but "blackness" has always worked this way - it's a more porous category than "whiteness," which is usually treated as the *absence* of race, and thus requires purity.
I'm really not sure that his white parentage is a big asset for him. It complicates his identity & feeds into the "foreign" stigma that his Muslim father and Indonesian upbringing raise for some. Of course, if we had a "fully" black candidate, I'm sure we'd be seeing a whole other line of attack...
gerry:
Even Hillary didnt really embrace the whole Women's movement mantle until she had effectively lost (e.g.Hillary's large tsticles etc.).
Electorally, there is little to gain and much to loose from making race pillar of his campaign message.
Obama talks up womens rights and hillary specifically so much now because there is an electoral benefit- gaining her disaffected voters.
And that above all else is what these next two months are about. All the discussions on race in the world will mean little if in November Obama heads back to obscurity as another Democrat looser.
One of the things we fail to see when we allow ourselves to see only race is that we are all Americans and I don't mean that in some BS, "we are the world way." I mean that the particular ethnic and national strains from which most of the native born in this country come from are unique to us.
Obama is a prime example. The Kenyan father, the Kansan mother? Where else does this happen? So, is he "black?" Given the politics of race in this country of course. He is also biracial? Yes. Is he uniquely American? Yes. His job as a candidate and as a President, is to be all of those things more or less simultaneously. Will that be hard? It shouldn't be any harder than what most of do every day when we're not wearing our identity hats.
And as an African-American and an academic, who loves Malcolm and Jimmy Baldwin too, and has read Cornell West for more than twenty years, I must say this. I don't get it. Why is he taken so seriously? Skip Gates I get. William Julius Wilson I get. But West and for that matter Michael Eric Dyson and his book of the month club? Not. So. Much.
@gerryburns -
The "Malveaux" in this instance is Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College, not Suzanne Malveaux the journalist.
The real econo-toxic and social issues are as follows. Palin is 100% against these things Biden and Obama support which further rip the economy and country.
Biden as Co-Savior?
Biden's and Obama's politically correct bashing of men and fathers IS the BIG issue. Palin is the exact opposite in these issues. Biden and Obama favor ripping more and more families apart instead of offering real solutions, or even the truth in most cases. They both avidly support the politically popular DV (domestic violence) lies and hysteria. This drives and rewards endless double standards and false abuse and rape allegations against boys, men and fathers.
Cohort prosecutors refuse to prosecute the real abusers, false accusers, in myriad cases. They seem to prefer choosing to encourage, drive and reward this unethical moral slide. It's naively silly to ask why prosecutors simply refuse to prosecute false allegations.
Why do Biden and Obama support the rest of the PC lies and anti-male hysteria of the divorce/DV industry which excuses women while vilifying tens of millions of good men and fathers? Why do they help drive them in droves from families with no wrongdoing while blaming it all on fathers themselves? Hearsay and unbacked accusations alone are plenty enough for the machinery of this PC (politically correct) agenda.
Biden is the very proud author of VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) which capitalizes on politically popular hysteria, paranoia and propaganda. As for the worst part of Biden and our own Senator Hatch's beloved VAWA? It may well be that it exploits women and abuses them and especially their children all in the name of being their Saviors.
Government Saviorism has historically been the gateway to the very worst of abuses and attrocities. Growing numbers of women tell these facts on VAWA best: www.true-equality.org
More on VAWA and it's many PC supporters (many beloved republicans included), milking and bilking the American people by "saving" them: www.mediaradar.org
Rampant VAWA abuse is where most "leaders" show their ultimate non-partisanship.
Join us and millions this October for Domestic Violence INDUSTRY Awareness Month, shedding daylight on the marriage of the "legal" industry, femi-nazis and KKKampuses.
Good piece, Br. Coates! I am older than Malveaux and West, which entitles me, I suppose, to assert that I have been black longer than either of them. I think both of them are simply limousine liberals in black face. The amount of concern they express about the black electorate is, in my opinion, directly proportional to the amount of notoriety they can generate to support their own self-aggrandizement.
Whenever I hear Dr. Malveaux going on about the black community I have to shake my head and laugh. This is a person who I know for a fact refused to walk precincts to register voters in the predominantly black section of San Francisco (her hometown) known as Bayview-Hunters Point because she considered it undignified for someone with a doctorate degree to do. We do not need the Drs. Malveauxs and Wests of this world to serve as gatekeepers and guardians of black authenticity.
I second that on Malveaux. I started tuning her out a long time ago. West actually makes some interesting points after you translate them to plain english. Smiley and Malveaux both seem to me to just be envious.
The bottom line is neither of them would be successful politicians. Imagine if Bill Clinton would have got up there at the 1992 convention and said, "This is for all of the poor white boys from Arkansas", he would have lost the black vote and the election.
The Right would love for Obama to "claim his blackness".
All this talk makes me think of that old Groucho story about being invited to a restricted country club with his family. When told that they wouldnt be able to use the pool, he asked if his daughter could go in up to her waist, since she was only half Jewish.
i pretty much agree with what QueenTiye wrote. i have heard cornell say several times that he was going to make sure that he'd be looking over obama's shoulder to be sure that 'my brother barack' did not stray too far from west's perception of the black american experience. obama's not tip toeing around the "skittish white people" as far as i can tell.
cornell west has been on this 'keeper of the holy grail of the black experience' trip for several years, at least. i have often found him to be provocative and thought provoking although he turns himself into a parody of himself from time to time. i mean a 1001 comedians could 'do' cornell west with 10 minutes of prep. chappelle would need 35 seconds. that's too bad because west undercuts his unique analysis of race in all it's iterations by his swirling distractions.
there are a lot of very smart and insightful posts in this discussion. you have attracted some bad band of baddies, tnc. good for you and your readers!
adin
After watching that rediculous video (how can it be that such smart people can say such stupid things) I read Bob Herbert's column quoting several Black people in their 80's and 90's who were watching Sen. Obama's speech in Detroit. Their attitude by and large seemed to me to be "Alright Baby Boy, you go do what you need to do, come back and see me when you can, cause I've got your back." So smart, so genuine, so Black.
"The preacher from Georgia" accomplishes a few different things.
First, by letting the audience guess who he's talking about (and making it such an easy guess that everyone will get it), the phrase flatters the listener.
Second, by emphasizing King as preacher the phrase contains an explicit nod to Christianity, which helps with voters who have read all the e-mail smears and are still a little leery that Obama might not really be a Christian (or who don't think of Democrats as Christian). As unfortunate as it may be, that's important. Conservatives who want politics to be more religious like to mention that King was a preacher (which in fact may be a source of objection to the phrase from the left); this pre-empts that.
I agree with Mr. Coates: I thought the reference to "the Preacher" was an aesthetic choice, poetic even, perhaps, rather than an evasion. It's also kind of ridiculous to compare Hillary's mention of Harriet Tubman(?) as some type of indication that Hillary "gets" the moment more than does Obama. Even more ridiculous is the notion that negroes should have been crying after Obama's speech and, thus, since they weren't, will campaign with less vigor. Speech sounded fine to me ... a different point is what I will call the "trap of the public intellectual." the trap is that they often do not know when to acknowledge that they have nothing substantive to add to a particular discussion. This requires a level of discipline and restraint that the microphone has apparently sucked out of the. Ms. Malveaux sounded angry. She was disappointed? She thought the speech failed? Again, everybody I talked to post-speech was fired up. Mr. West, in between his legitimate points, is a bit too engaged in his theatrics. I would say that their opinions re: this matter are greatly in the minority.