Obama vs. the Status Quo

A blogger friend wrote a thoughtful blog post on the number of Americans who eagerly believe the flat out lies masquerading as news tossed about in the media and cyberspace about President Obama, his wife Michelle, and his administration. I think that he is correct about the people who orchestrate the lies and misinformation; they are not stupid and they act with well thought out deliberateness. The problem is that their target audience functions on a mix of fear and ignorance, a dangerous combination.

If their beliefs weren't so destructive, they would be laughable. Their litany goes something like this: Obama is a Muslim, who since birth has been laying the foundation to become president and destroy America and its Constitution that's why he faked his birth certificate. Michelle hates the United States and as a bonding exercise, the two of them burn the American flag. Presumably to diminish any opposition or just to strike terror in the hearts of Americans, the president supports using death panels to kill grandma.

Why would sane people fall for any of this? I have a theory and a lot of people won't like it. Ultimately I think it is because they perceive Obama as "other." It's not as simple as racism; most of these people would never think of themselves as racists and are genuinely appalled at exhibitions of racist beliefs. However, Obama makes them uncomfortable in ways that they can't quite fathom. It's not a new discomfort. They've always been uncomfortable with dealing with issues of race head-on. These are the people who believe that the most non-racist assertion that they can make is, "I don't see color. All people are alike."

They become defensive when there are those of us who tell them that being colorblind is not a desirable end. If you don't see my color, you don't really see me. All people are not alike; we are all of value but every group or subgroup has its shared cultural norms and beliefs that make the group unique. What I value most about my diverse group of friends is the diversity. Who wants a box of crayons of all one color?

Obama, who is both black and white, creates cognitive dissonance in many people. They can't admit that they are uncomfortable with his perceived race--black, so they are quick to adopt any other theories offered for their distrust of him. He lies; he's not really one of us; he's anti-American; any theory other than that an intelligent, articulate, well-educated black man scares the hell out them.

These people easily embrace black professional athletes, black performers, because they don't feel threatened by them. Black people who achieve in accepted categories are fine.

So how did Obama win? Because there was a massive get out the vote campaign. People who were desperate for change saw hope embodied in Obama. People went to the polls in record numbers, but it was a momentary fever of involvement; the thrill has long faded and the general apathy has returned in record numbers among those who were inspired to vote to put Obama in office. In addition, many of Obama's strongest supporters have succumbed to disillusionment. They read Obama's message as a promise to implement sweeping change with all deliberate speed. Unrealistic expectations engender disappointment. In spite of all that the Obama presidency has accomplished, there is more attention focused on complaining about what is yet to be done rather than being enthused about what has been done.

As the vocal support for the Obama administration has diminished, so has the criticism become louder. The more outrageous the allegations made against the president, the more that they are believed by those predisposed to fear what his election means to their way of life. Obama's election has rocked the fundamental beliefs of many Americans in the myth of Euro-ancestry superiority that has served them well since the beginnings of America. The country that they want back is the one that existed before the election of Barack Obama as president capsized their boat. What they fear most is the very thing that Obama made the cornerstone of his campaign--change. When the status quo serves your interests in maintaining your perceived superiority, the last thing that you want is someone suggesting that the times will be a-changin'.

Sister Girl Is In The House

I have a friend and his name is Marc. He has a knack for posing probative questions that challenge me to do some healthy self-introspection. Recently, his question was, if I could choose to change either my race or gender, which would it be? I couldn't make a choice.

Yesterday, he posted a comment to my entry on Senator Obama's speech on race in America:

Eventually, Obama is going to show some flaws, and I want to make sure we don't put him too high on a pedestal ,that we punish him for revealing himself to be human. Right now, I'm just incredibly grateful that it looks like we might have a President who's smarter than a 5th grader's teacher's teacher, as opposed to the 4th grader we have now.

I sent him an email response to his comment and he sent me a response to my email, actually, he sent two responses, but I'll share the short version first because it made me laugh (Marc is really good at making me laugh):

Now, how about blogging in this voice, sister-girl, un-hunh, hunh!

His second email was a tad more serious reiteration of the first.

I had to dash off that last email before running out the door, but what I meant was there is a personal voice here that is very compelling. Your assessment of the political scene is always unassailable, but often written almost in third person, somewhat at a remove, like a very sharp op-ed article.
I love "I like being a black woman," your very personal reporting about what it's like to navigate two worlds simultaneously.

Just as he intended, it got me thinking about who I am and who I choose to be. I admit that my first thought when I read Marc's emails was that I don't choose to write in a removed voice, it's just who I am, but then I really thought about it and realized that I do present a certain voice as my public self, almost without thinking about it. (In other words, Marc hit the nail on the head!)

I think that a lot of black folks slip personas on and off like most people change clothes. I think it stems from a need to prove that we are worthy. Most of my professional life is spent in predominantly white circles; often all white except for me. I never feel that I'm just Sheria, there is always a sense that I represent my people.

I don't think that it's black paranoia. Whenever a white person does something illegal, stupid, or cruel, it is that person who is judged. When a black person behaves badly, it is the race that is judged.

The list of white men who have stolen from their own companies and destroyed the lives of countless people have not led to any conclusion that you can't trust white men to invest your money, but the list of black men who have stolen some woman's purse on the street has led to a conclusion that all black men are violent and if you see one coming, clutch your purse tightly.

Perhaps the best example of this dual system of judging the actions of an individual as representative of the group occurred with Timothy McVeigh. He was a home grown terrorist, part of a gun-hoarding, Midwestern, all white, self-proclaimed militia, out to overthrow the government. Yet when he was caught and tried, there was no profiling of white men in their early twenties as suspected domestic terrorists. Then there was 9/11 and any person who looked remotely as if they could be Middle Eastern was a terrorist suspect. Black people have put up with this type of profiling for generations.

Today, my friend's email made me realize that I don't generally share my sister-girl personality in my professional life or on this blog. I slip into my alter ego, Sheria the lawyer, also known as former high school English teacher, who speaks and writes standard English and thinks analytically at all times. Don't get me wrong, that is a part of who I am, but there is also the woman who loves her black culture, who can't sit still when I hear Aretha sing anything, who appreciates the richness of our slang and the rhythm of our speech.

So I'm sharing some of the thoughts in the email that I sent to my friend, the one where I get personal about who I am.

I share Marc's worries about placing Obama on a pedestal. Idols always fall and then we hate them for their human fraility. I also worry that Obama will be held to a higher standard than he would be if he were racially identified based on his white heritage.

I don't think that Obama is perfect, nor do I want him to be. I think that it is his ability to be fully human, flaws and all, that attracts me to him.

I love the historic significance of Senator Obama's speech. When has any candidate for any political office ever dared actually talk about race, truthfully, especially the part about black anger and white resentment? I feel as if I've been waiting my entire life for this level of engagement about the racial divide.

I've spent a great part of my life moving back and forth between a black world and a white one, between my family life and my professional life. I suppose that it is no surprise that eventually my social and personal life merged the two worlds, but always at a cost. In my black world, there were questions about my blackness; in the white world, there were those who made it clear that they did not welcome my blackness. Many black people have the same experience, so I don't think of it as poor pitiful me.

I like being a black woman; I draw my strength from all the black women who have come before me and who surround me. Yet I also draw strength from friendships and relationships that I've had across color lines. I feel that I've learned a lot from multiple perspectives and that I'm better for it.

I think that I had so much trouble simply answering Marc's recent hypothetical about choosing to change race or gender because I honestly can't imagine myself as anyone other than a black female. After all, no other group has mastered the art of indignant head wagging to better effect.

The video has nothing to do with this post; I just love Jackie Wilson. Before Michael Jackson ever moonwalked, there was Jackie Wilson. He was a phenomenal performer.

In Order To Form A More Perfect Union

The elephant that has not only been in the room, but sitting on top of us, has finally been revealed and we are stronger for it. Senator Barack Obama, in his speech in response to the littering of the Internet with videos of his ex-pastor's sermons on race in America, talked openly about the progeny of a nation conceived in liberty and yet mired in the most heinous of institutions--slavery. Sen. Obama identified that progeny--racism, Jim Crow laws, discrimination, black anger, and white anger, and the world did not come to an end.

Finally, someone has just flat out said, "Let's talk about race." If we listen, and I mean really listen to what Sen. Obama has to say, we can move towards an understanding of America's race problem that is an essential step in healing the racial divide that weakens and undermines our nation.

I became a lawyer because I believed in the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. When I re-read those documents, which I frequently do, I am still moved at the ideology expressed therein.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I am not naive, and I do not believe that we, as a nation, have always lived up to these ideals, but what gives me sustenance is the ideals themselves, something worth striving for, worth working to achieve. In the words of Robert Browning, "Ah, if a man's reach does not exceed his grasp,then what's a heaven for?"

Obama's speech today joins my list of inspirational documents. I hope that it is the catalyst to begin conversations at the dinner table, around the water cooler, and in our places of worship about the the ways in which we relate to one another. I hope that we engage in dialogues in which we acknowledge our biases but also recognize our commonalities; I hope that we work together to discover a healing place, grounded in respect and love for all of humankind.

To read the full text of Sen. Obama's speech, please click here. If you would like to watch and listen to him deliver the speech, please see the video below.