Most of you have heard this line from me before. Feel free to move along. Nothing new here...Obama has made a particular point of invoking the individual will of African Americans, but anyone who has spent time in a black church or barbershop--or just watched the crowds when Obama puts forth the message--can tell you that it isn't exactly a tough sell. When Jesse Jackson claimed that Obama was "talking down to black people," there was no real rush among blacks to defend Jackson. That's because, in terms of their outlook, their belief in hard work and family, African Americans aren't any different from white Americans.
The belief in Obama as a force for moral reform rests on another shaky pillar--the idea that people should get their values from what they see on television. This goes for entertainers and Presidents. Obama can't do the work of the family. It's not his job to buy your kid a belt or teach him to box. His job is to monitor this nation's nuclear arsenal, not your daughter's iPod.
In this post--civil rights age, with the media hungry for a single black narrative, there is a strong desire to have one voice speak to--and for--us all. But that impulse is wrong, whether it's focused on Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Barack Obama. It's wrong because it distorts and flattens the very complexities and contradictions that ultimately make black people human. In 2006, this magazine reported on a University of Minnesota study that found, not surprisingly, that blacks were more likely than whites to see racism in the world. But the same study also found that blacks were more likely than whites to blame the lack of black progress on individual factors like hard work.
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Here I am in TIME tackling the debate over Obama and black culture:
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Link to this discussion from earlier in the week, in which we learned that doing well in school is/is not acting white, depending on one's neighborhood, and being a nerd is/is not acting white, again depending on one's neighborhood.
Is Barack the magic Negro that lives by the sea? Is he Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance?
Like Megan Mcardle pointed out:
"Anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice didn't suddenly disappear one fall day in 1960 when Kennedy was elected our first Irish-Catholic president."
TNC: I have heard the line before, but don't remember you flipping the argument like you did in the last sentence. "The real question is what black people, through Barack Obama, have to show America and the world."
This is an interesting notion that you should explore. What do you think black people are showing America? Outside of Obama the individual what do you think that black people see in Obama that they want to show to the world. I can guess plenty, but would like your thoughts.
P.S. How long do you think it will take until Barack and Obama are no longer flagged by spell-checker?
I'm disturbed that you would compose this piece without quoting Billy Dee Williams.
Here we go again, I knew this would happen if Obama were to be elected the era of "Black Guilt" which started during the culture wars of 1980's would be in full effect. I have news for "Bougie Niggas" like John Mc Worter, Johnetta Barras, and the rest of the black accountablity crowd and whites who saying the racial debt is "paid in full", you don't get rid of 389 years of racial animus in one election of a Biracial African Immirgrant/White American man. That Dog won't hunt folks and those trying to push those angles are either naive or seriously deluded.
And it's my opinion that it's a parent's damn responsiblity to monitor their children's listening clothing and viewing choices, if anyone believes that "Weezy", T.I.,50 or Rick Ross lives these violent lives or you aspire to be a Reality T.V./Stripper/ Video Hoe (ala Tiffany "New York" Pollard) there's nothing a President Obama can do you need a shrink you low self-esteem popular culture junkie. If President Obama wants to restore the fairness Doctrine and appoint people to the F.C.C. to take back the airwaves from these comgomerlates who play this trash that's his job not to be a racial monitor.
Elite Blacks and Whites need to stop putting their agendas on regular black folks like myself, we are intelligent human beings who can think for ourselves and know right from wrong. I don't want a "Black Messiah" nor do we need one. The only "Black Jesus" I want to see is in a NBA greatest games replay in a Baltimore Bullets/New York Knicks uniform.
Kinney,
We have a piece coming out soon in the Atlantic that will address that very point. I've only hinted at it, mostly out of fear of saying too much. I'll revisit it, in detail, when the piece comes out.
Brucds,
You're right. That is all.
The deal, however, is you can't just say we have been screwed for 389 years, you have to move from an abstract to a specific. Reparations suffers from that argument because how do you identify specifically who gets the reparations? Yet, there are specific things that should be done, and can be demanded. This is the real agenda of the civil rights crew abd black people. Obama represents the United States of America not Black America, which is still, last I checked, a domestic colony in the U.S. Thus, Obama doesn't change that dilemma; in fact, he will be asked to keep the colony in its place now. So, how does the colony obtain self determination is the real issue? That question is separate and apart from all the euphoria over his impending coronation. Keep you eye on the sparrow, folks.
"In this post--civil rights age, with the media hungry for a single black narrative, there is a strong desire to have one voice speak to--and for--us all. But that impulse is wrong, whether it's focused on Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Barack Obama. It's wrong because it distorts and flattens the very complexities and contradictions that ultimately make black people human."
yes, exactly. check out this article from gq. it's page upon page of a bourgie white dude trying to decipher these inscrutable aliens known as "BLACK PEOPLE!!!!" and completely missing the damn point at every turn. it's like he's incapable of just seeing people as people, his mindset is so wrapped up in the media narrative mindset that he can't see the forest for the trees.
i don't even get how people can be like that and cope with day to day life.
I guess I'm different than the black majority who were surveyed in that poll. I definitely DO NOT think that we lack progress because of the lack of hard work. Basically, poor black people are lazy? I'm frankly tired of that whole debate. Why can't we all just take responsiblity like grown-ups and admit that it is a combination of racism AND individual choices? Isn't it about time that we shake off the burden of needing superhuman strength to make it despite racism? I resent that old line, "We gotta work twice as hard....".
And I'm far less interested in how Obama is going to save black people than I am how we can use this moment in history to save ourselves.
We can't hear this message enough.
We as in Americans
We as in Black Americans
We're complex and can't be reduced to a monolith.
I don't find any distinguishing points between what is popular culture and "black" culture. I wonder if black culture, organically, is deemed popular culture, or if popular culture is a mash-up of filth created by the most vulgar people alive, and shoved at the public as "black" culture.
Betty Chambers
I don't find any distinguishing points between what is popular culture and "black" culture. I wonder if black culture, organically, is deemed popular culture, or if popular culture is a mash-up of filth created by the most vulgar people alive, and shoved at the public as "black" culture.
Ms. Chambers you hit the "nail on the head" stuff like that would have been played at the local juke joint or bar or redneck dive for that particular auidence or the stripper culture that has bubbled up is now "mainstream". Cora Daniels calls this part of "ghettoifcation of america" and it has no racial or class barriers, it's about people like Dr. Dre, Easy- E (yeah I said it)Shock Jocks and big white corporations and their enablers of all colors pushing bad taste and tacky culture all in the name of "Freedom of Speech" and "it's just entertainment" and for fun let's market this as "Black Culture" so it's racialized.
"Why can't we all just take responsiblity like grown-ups and admit that it is a combination of racism AND individual choices? Isn't it about time that we shake off the burden of needing superhuman strength to make it despite racism? I resent that old line, "We gotta work twice as hard....".
And I'm far less interested in how Obama is going to save black people than I am how we can use this moment in history to save ourselves."
shanilink, thank you.
It's both. Racism didn't disappear when Obama got elected. However, racism isn't the reason why sometimes I'm late to work ;)
Of course, it's more nuanced than that but it's basically a combination of the two. I don't see how or why that's so difficult to understand.
South Africa's Globe and Mail:
"The only lesson we can learn from him is to reimagine the art of the possible. "
Really captures Obama's impact...
TNC,
Sometimes I read your blog and wonder why you've been given such a great platform here. And then I read your articles and it makes sense again.
Your blogginess is very emotional, from-the-gut, and sometimes less-than-professional. But your writing is very concise, compelling, well thought-out, and hits just the right balance of professional and personal. Good work.