A somewhat unorganized collection of post-election thoughts. More to come.
Author Shelby Steele, with whom I shared a discussion panel several years ago, writes about Barack Obama’s delusional “post-racial promise.”
After Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, people at my former day job were aglow. (See Barack Obama Goes to Boston) My boss in particular went on and on about this “young man” and his eloquent speech. I told him I hadn’t watched the convention but couldn’t wait to find out what everyone was gushing about. I read the speech and found nothing remarkable about it.
Young, black, and possessed of so-called charisma, Obama was fresh and new. His rhetoric was tired and devoid of substance, but he symbolized a racial idealism, as Steele notes. My co-workers, black and white, were excited about the “articulate” Obama’s potential. It was the idea of him rather than what he said that got people excited. My boss, who was white, could barely contain himself.
It’s safe to say my sixtysomething former boss proudly voted for Barack Obama on Tuesday. No doubt he bought into the “post-racial promise,” the idea that Americans have moved beyond race, and a vote for Obama proves it. For white liberal types, failing to support Obama implies a failure to embrace this ideal.
I read quite a few music and book author blogs, and some are run by Obama-supporting liberals. I can almost see them patting themselves on the back as they try to convince themselves race means nothing, and Obama’s presidency signals the beginning a new era of diversity, tolerance, blah, blah, blah. But they’ve got it twisted. Voting for Obama because he represents some post-racial ideal is to inject race into the equation.
“When whites — especially today’s younger generation — proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation,” Steele writes. “They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer’s ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.”
It the end, it doesn’t matter why white people voted for Obama. He’s the leader of the free world now (shudder). Who I am to interfere with their “I voted for a black man because I don’t care about race” back-patting?
Steele asks what Obama’s election means to blacks. Well, I doubt it will do anything to decrease illegitimacy among blacks (70 percent; as high as 80 percent in some urban areas), or decrease child killing, or strengthen families and communities, or much of anything. It’s a proud moment for many blacks, to be sure, but having a black man in the White House will not motivate black Americans to wait until marriage to have babies, to stop killing their babies (and at three times the rate of white women), or to stop uttering the word racism whenever they don’t get their way.
Of course, Obama never promised that his presidency would have any effect on these things.
As long as families (the foundation of society) are in shambles, conditions won’t improve much. But with Obama in office, white liberals can feel good about themselves and blacks can feel proud, fatherless children and dead babies be damned.
Update: Welcome to post-racial America! Now we don’t have to talk about race anymore!
(Hat tip: MM)
