Barack Obama was supposed to be the harbinger of “post-racial” politics in America. He was the candidate whose appeal transcended race, whose support base included Whites, Jews, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans and African-Americans. After Obama, race was supposed to become irrelevant in America, his election having established that any American of any race or class could rise to any position in America. Post-racial my…foot! As it turns out, Obama’s election may even worsen rather than improve race relations in America, especially God forbid, if one of the gun-totting White activists attending his rallies eventually shoots at the first black President.
Is it the case that white racism in the US was only barely suppressed just below the surface since it was viewed as politically incorrect? Has watching a black man preside over America apparently so excited repressed racist sentiments that true instincts are now bubbling to the top? That in any event is the hypothesis offered by no less a person than Jimmy Carter, former President of America and a strong moral voice in US and global politics. According to Carter, the excessively “demonstrated animosity” towards Obama purportedly over healthcare, is really a mask for a deeper (and difficult to verbalise) matter-the unacceptably dark colour of his skin!
Even before the elections in November 2008, there were signs that the right wing, evangelical base of the Republican Party was uncomfortable with Obama’s person. The politically correct term for these people during the campaigns was “cultural conservatives” but since explicit racism was likely to backfire, they spoke about his Pastor (Jeremiah Wright); wondered if he was in reality a Muslim; claimed he had attended a “madrassah” (Islamic School now identified with fundamentalism and terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan) in Indonesia; questioned his links with “terrorists” (the only evidence of which was his fairly casual relationship with Chicago Professor William “Bill” Ayers); and Sarah Palin the Republican pit bull conjured to save John McCain’s faltering campaign accused him of being a socialist (even though it was the Republican President George W Bush who was nationalising banks, insurance companies and auto companies).
But since the election, Obama has graduated beyond Islam, terror and socialism. If Rush Limbaugh and the petulant right are to be believed, he is not a native-born American and he is actually implementing a plan to convert the US into a Soviet-styled socialist state. He is depicted in cartoons as a swastika-bearing Nazi and compared to Hitler, an African witch doctor, or even Satan himself. Some say he is the “anti-Christ”! A Republican Representative from South Carolina, Joe Wilson has acquired notoriety for proclaiming Obama a liar, right on the floor of Congress. Now even a speech by the US President to returning school children is an objectionable attempt by Obama to convert innocent children to his evil agenda, prompting some parents to withdraw their children from school on the day of the speech and some school districts to refuse to broadcast the speech. A peculiar kind of malady is evidently taking hold of the right wing in the US!
I watched on satellite TV a US Baptist Pastor actually pray that God should kill Obama; Protesters are carrying (and openly displaying) guns to rallies addressed by the President and I have seen several emotional and teary-eyed couples lamenting about the future of America under Obama, and saying they want their America back. The sub-text indeed seems like racism, or are we to believe all this angst is all because of healthcare reform? Isn’t the argument compelling for doing something about a system which leaves out the poor and people with “pre-existing conditions” from healthcare coverage, bankrupts those who suddenly require expensive treatment and on most accounts is more expensive yet less efficient than those of other developed nations? Clearly if you believe this is all about healthcare reform, then you’ll believe anything!
But then I doubt that it is all about race either. There is political strategy-cynical calculations by the Republicans who see healthcare as the issue on which they can “break” Obama (Van Jones, an African-American appointee (perhaps correctly) described them as “assholes”, but was then forced to resign by an over-careful Obama); then there is ideology-many Americans on the right have a genuine fear of government taking over their lives, not surprisingly given that the country itself was founded on notions of liberty and freedom; there are also genuine faith-based concerns by the Christian right who believe that left to the liberal (Democratic) left, America would become a nation devoid of any religious compunctions where abortion and gay rights and perhaps legitimised drugs would be the order of the day, reservations which even I share. And then there is the illogic of a predominantly white electorate voluntarily voting a patently black President and then turning against him precisely because of that.
But it seems undeniable that race is a huge factor as well. All these rational concerns are being allowed to develop into hysteria, I think, because of white fears that the notion of America as a white nation is slipping away, maybe irreversibly if Obama gets to spend eight years in the White House. Obama has wisely refused to get into an argument over race, which given American demographics he is guaranteed to lose. Whether or not it is true, Obama’s best bet is to remain the post-racial President!
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