Are Americans Ready For A Black President?
One of the key questions about Barack Obama’s candidacy for the presidency is whether Americans are willing to elect a black man (or woman) to the highest office in the land. The issue is racism and just how deep and wide it runs through the nation’s electorate. Is it so widespread that no African-American can be elected, ever, or have Americans progressed to the point that the majority of voters would vote for a black candidate.
“A recent Gallup poll reveals that Americans are much more likely to elect a black man or a woman president than a Mormon or an old man.” The poll found that 94% of the voters surveyed would vote for a black candidate and 88% said they would vote for a woman. (outsidethebeltway.com, February 20, 2007). The question is, how reliable is such a survey? Most observers speculate that many people do not answer truthfully when they are asked if they would vote for a black candidate because they don’t want to be seen as prejudiced.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson both ran for president, and although they were probably motivated by reasons other than an expectation that they could win, they at least showed that it is possible for an African-American to seek the office. As distasteful and these two may be to many people, my sense is that Barrack Obama is benefiting from their trailblazing efforts, whatever their motivations.
I’m also reminded of the overwhelming support for Colin Powell as a potential Republican candidate to run against Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election. Powell’s highly successful leadership of coalition forces during the Gulf War paved the way for him to run for president if he chose to do so. Although he declined, I am firmly convinced he could have won.
The flip side of the white vote is black solidarity at the polls. Although blacks are only about 13% of the U.S. population, they often vote as a block, which enables them to influence the outcome of certain elections, in spite of their minority status, especially in regional or local political contests. Ralph Brauer, author of “The Strange Death of Liberal America,” notes: “The African American candidates who have attained higher office all follow a similar pattern – they come from states that have significant numbers of African Americans, mostly in large cities such as Chicago or Boston, Illinois accounts for 40% of our African-American Senators and two-thirds since Reconstruction.”
Richard Thompson Ford, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, recently observed, “Defeatists insist Obama cannot win because the average American will never be able to let go of racial prejudice. Yet he somehow speaks to overflowing houses, packed with enthusiastic voters from the American heartland.”
I don’t agree that the average American voter is as prejudiced as the “defeatists” claim, that they will be unable to “let go of racial prejudice” in the voting booth. Thomas Sowell, a highly regarded economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, who also happens to be African-American, commented: “No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president…The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.”
If Barack Obama doesn’t win the general election, it won’t be because of white prejudice, it will be because of his qualifications, or lack thereof, and his policies. The nation is ready for a black president. It just may not be this candidate.
© 2008 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved
Questions About Senator Obama’s Speech
Senator Obama’s March 18 speech has stimulated more questions than answers and leaves open the matter of whether it adequately explains his 20-year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, considering the Reverend’s many biased, inflammatory and prejudicial statements.
Obama: “I can no more disown him (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community.”
Does disowning the “black community” mean that Obama must always accept any and all Blacks no matter what they may say or do? I can think of many people for whom I have no respect because of their values, beliefs or conduct, and I would not hesitate to distance myself from them with nary a thought that I might “disown” my own “community” in doing so.
Obama: “Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place…?”
Good question. The Senator explains it this way: “And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentator, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.”
However, that doesn’t adequately explain, at least to me, why Obama would willingly listen to the prejudiced rants of a pastor for 20 years, even if he has been “like family.”
Obama: “I can no more disown [Rev. Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother.”
Does this imply that there are no conditions under which any of us should “disown” a close relative: brother, sister, cousin, even a parent or grandparent? What if they abused you? What if they were just plain worthless? Must we always accept our relatives regardless of what they might have done to us or to others? I can think of plenty of reasons for disowning someone, and near the top of my list is that they are prejudiced to the point of being offensive.
Senator Obama also describes “Legalized discrimination – where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments…”
All true. But, this is also true of many other minority groups at various times in our history, including the present: The Poles (“Pollocks”), the Irish, Czechs, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Mexicans, Philippinos, American Indians, women and others. They have all experienced and many continue to experience prejudice. We can argue about the degree to which each group has been discriminated against, but they have all had to live with their share.
Obama’s speech contains appeals to the poor and underprivileged with such statements as, “But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans – the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family…we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Native American children…we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington…we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life…it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it (your job) overseas for nothing more than a profit.”
This is nothing more than the standard Liberal appeal to minority and underprivileged voters. His litany includes just about every conceivable populist grievance against business and government and foretells budget busting government programs as the remedy.
In the final analysis, the Senator’s speech did not adequately explain why he sat in a congregation for 20 years listening to the repeated prejudiced, anti-American diatribes of a “friend and mentor” who was also his pastor. Nor has he disassociated himself from this pastor, excusing it on the grounds that to do so would also mean that he would be disassociating himself from the Black community.
Barack Obama is a gifted speaker, with a talent for weaving words together that inspire hope and confidence. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, they don’t really seem to say very much at all, except perhaps that he is just another politician trolling for votes.
© 2008 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved
NOTE: Read more of Harris Sherline’s commentaries on his blog at “opinionfest.com.”