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Obama and the gap in American
history
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
Some call the Obama’s political rise a phenomenon, but in
reality, it is a transformative moment that was meant to happen
since the creation of America..
America’s first president ought to have looked like Barack
Obama. After all what is to be expected of a nation that builds
itself on the principle that all men are created equal, then
goes on to claim the proverbial “melting pot” as the American
condition?
Instead, the principle and the claim got derailed long ago when
America found slavery more profitable. Finally, America has come
to meet Obama, a black man born in the crucible of America.
Obama is now the most exciting presidential candidate, in a
field of all white democrats and republicans, and he is being
compared with the likes of J. F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
But could Obama fill a gap that has been there since the
founding of this nation; namely become its first black
president? A sizeable proportion of the population thinks so.
The flash, the fervor, the style are all factors that Obama has
brought to the 2008 campaign, thereby allowing some to describe
his political rise as a phenomenon, this an interesting
description in itself when the same wasn’t used to describe
Clinton “the come back kid” from Hope, Arkansas, now Old Bill,
the ex-president. Why?
Well, for some, Bill’s presence as a white candidate running for
this office was a given. The ancestral line for all occupants of
the White House to date has been white; regardless of a contrary
claim for one of them.
Good Old Bill Clinton, still from Hope, and now strategically
placed in New York to give his wife a chance to run for the high
office, even went on to garner a
large black following that supported his victory parade to the
White House.
In time and in the White House, Clinton had a black secretary
and managed to earn the title “the first black president” not
for any spectacular thing he did for blacks locally or worldwide
while in office, but for some mysterious reason like his
lackluster performance on the saxophone!
Well, so much for our political sentiment. With Bill away from
the White House, and now rooting for his wife Hillary, here
comes a real chance for a black shot at the American presidency.
Obama.
The probability is that Obama can be elected president and the
factors that point to this are many.
Let’s start with Bill Clinton. Bill rode to the White House in
1992 on the back of 43% of the popular vote. Among blacks, 83%
had voted for Clinton while 10% went to Bush the elder. The margin
separating the winner Clinton and Bush was under 6%
after all the votes were counted.
Considering the massive weight of the black vote for Clinton, you have
to wonder whether he could have won if a sizeable and balanced
shift of this vote had gone to Bush the elder?.
Potentially, Obama should garner more votes. He is a democrat.
Blacks are the most loyal democrats. Couple these two in these partisan
times and you should have as strong a voter base for Obama as
Gore had in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 - or better.
However, the above is not all good news. What if blacks refused
to give en mass the traditional democrat vote to Obama? Already,
there are some doubts among blacks if he is black enough.
And what
if the democrat party turned lackadaisical in its support for a
black presidential candidate and a nominee of their party?
Talks about America not being ready for a black president should
not be the issue here nor should it be about Obama's experience
and qualification. He is smart enough and as Oprah succinctly
put it the experience "one gets in office can no way compare to
the one acquired in the hallways of life."
The issue should rather be whether
democrats, and democrats alone, are ready for a black president.
There is enough happening on the political scene to indicate
that the rest of America is ready.
American culture is already suffused with blackness; starting with
interracial marriages, the absorption of black gospel music,
Jazz, Rock and Roll, revolutionary language like “We shall
overcome” and now Hip-Hop into the popular culture.
America, unknown to itself, has for generations been preparing for
this transformative moment - a
black presidency. Just look at the current crop of white youth
that follows Obama. They have so far provided more steam for his
campaign than his fellow blacks whose loyalties are evenly
divided between Hillary and him. These white youth are the storm
troopers of the change to come.
The mostly white Iowa women’s vote that went to Obama instead of
Hillary should also be considered as signal. Some may
attribute the support Obama got from Oprah, the alter ego of
white middle class women, the most popular television show host
in America today, and a cultural icon, as the reason. All the
same, Oprah is black and part of the cultural assault on the
white psyche.
Then there is Obama himself, affable, clean cut and an offspring
of interracial marriage; his mother an American white and father
an African from Kenya. By all means, he should be all
American. His rise should not be attributed to a miracle.
But there are those who may think so and continue to dabble in
anachronism to insist that Obama is a phenomenon. They
will only reveal that aspect of racism that insists that the
black man cannot amount to anything; that men like Martin Luther
King, Nkrumah, Mandela or Annan are to be considered historical
flukes according to this notion of silent racism.
The fluke only happens if you should dwell solely on what is happening
on the political scene in Africa,
specifically in Kenya, Obama’s paternal origin, where an
exercise in political franchise has turned deadly. Or look at
America's dark underbelly of racism. Then you would
believe in the intention of the phenomenon being hailed about
Obama; the racist notion that all men
are not equal.
But match the
man with the proper circumstance and you will believe that all
men are born equal. And that the opportunity to be a noble man
and to lead effectively is
enshrined in the institutions we build.
In America, Obama stands tall, about to dominate the political
scene. Hopefully, black and white votes will affirm him for the
presidency, a black man governing the most powerful nation on
earth.
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, January 8, 2008
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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