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OBAMAS EFFECT ON BLACKNESS ``Blackness does not just index race; it also indexes gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, labour, nationality, transnationality and politics.`` (Parameswaran, 2009 July). In the Americas a black face is likely to conjure up unjustly a negative stereotype of who that person is whether male or female. This stereotyping immediately discriminates regardless of his or her talents. The stereotypical image created is based in a socially reproduced and self satisfying system of discrimination and subordination (Mccutcheon, 2011) constructed by white society. The mostly negative attitudes, thoughts, images and prejudices attributed to blackness have been ingrained in white society over the last three to four hundred years. This negative imaging of blacks originated from the enslavement by whites of Africans in the Americas. Whites justified slavery by identifying blackness with negative traits and characteristics which persisted in white society after slavery was abolished. Today every black person who tries to succeed feels the weight of an added obstacle of overcoming these negative stereotypes. Black parents tell their children that they have to be twice as good to get half as much as whites (Picart, 2007 April-June) With the election of Barack Obama the question was whether he as one individual, occupying the most important office in America and the world, could or would try to make a positive difference in the way white society interprets `blackness`? The answer to these two questions would depend on whether he would project himself upon election as a black man as opposed to a biracial man. It is the conclusion of this paper that Barack Obama is neither capable nor willing to project his blackness as a central part of his character and therefore his presidency will have very little impact on changing negative stereotypes associated with blackness. This conclusion is based on his ethnic background, the circumstances of his upbringing, his writings which include his two books , his speeches on the issues of race and his

actions and inactions in framing solutions to problems in terms of his blackness to this point in his presidency. As Tocqueville wrote, It is in the details that man shows what he is. (Boesche, February 1983, p. 81) Any discussion on how Obama projects his own blackness has to be separated from the widespread initial euphoria in the black community in America over his election as president. The possibility of electing a black president had seemed so remote even ten years ago that most African Americans saw the event as truly historic and world changing. The black community in America and worldwide claimed him as one of their own because of its underlying hope that Obama would or even could right the injustices to blacks over past centuries. On the international level his election led to an initial change of attitude towards the United States by citizens of other countries, especially in the third world, who wanted to believe in the American dream that anyone, regardless of colour, could claim the highest office in America. To the world Obamas election was seen as a sign that this longed for goal had been reached. And many believed him when he proclaimed the dawn of a post-racial society following his election. But this reality has yet to be achieved in the United States. A post racial society is not reached simply because of a rise in the number of African American actors appearing in commercials ranging from medical insurance and holiday advertising to those relentlessly grotesque minutes fromCialis to ExtenZe- devoted to alleviating our latest discovery in deficiency disorders (Muldoon). Nor is it reached by increasing the number of black Americans visible on talk shows each proclaiming the end of divisions between the races. Obama in making those remarks clearly was expressing a desire on the part of blacks and liberal progressive whites rather than reality. There is still a Black America which is different in every part of life from that of any economic level of white America. Black America faces discrimination from the white majority in joblessness, poor

health care, failing public education, and homelessness to a degree far greater than other minorities in America. And the source of these inequalities and injustices black America suffers lie in white perceptions of blackness created and maintained by all of white society. While white America can blame these inequities on the personal choices made by black Americans such as out of wedlock pregnancies, single parent families, overeating of fast food, pursuit of lives of crime, and use of drugs, many of these so-called choices are not choices but the only options available to black Americans. Obama had at one point in his life worked among the black community in Chicago and portrayed himself during the campaign as one who knew the problems of the poor. But he has always been careful not to speak specifically about the black poor but the poor in general as if somehow there was no difference based on colour between the two . In discussing Obama and blackness it is important to understand how and why he was elected to the office of presidency. During the summer of the 2008 preceding his historic election I had the opportunity to meet and talk to many Americans while driving through America. I do not presume to place myself in a class of observers of the American scene such as De Tocqueville (Boesche, February 1983) nor to have reached my conclusions based solely on a three and a half week trip across the heartland of America. I simply observed it as a Canadian with personal connections to both sides of the colour line through my Jamaican born wife and through our two wonderful twins who in their own way will deal with blackness and whiteness in the world as they proceed through life. It was an exhilarating time to be crossing the United States as the rivals for the major political party nominations were all talking of a need for change. The primary season was in full swing. Bumper stickers abounded amid the excitement of a political contest. Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois had captured the imagination

of the public and the media with a strong personal message of hope coupled with the need for change. He was a youthful energetic presence on the campaign trail unencumbered with political baggage from previous administrations. His calls for change recalled memories from my younger days of a youthful Pierre Trudeau who also captured the minds and hearts of the electorate while signalling a change from old politics to the new. In all delegate counts Obama appeared likely to win the Democratic party nomination over his challenger Hillary Clinton. The choice for delegates was between Obama, a non white candidate who was described as black and Hillary Clinton, wife of the former president, Bill Clinton. Most of the Americans I spoke to were generally dissatisfied with the directions in which their country had gone during the eight years under a George W. Bush Republican administration. There was the war in Iraq which had sucked up American treasure and killed or maimed many of its young men and women. There was the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan originally set in motion to catch Osama Bin Laden and the other conspirators behind the destructive horror of 9/11. Afghanistan appeared to have no discernible end date. The voters were tired of financing these never ending wars. There was the collapse of major financial institutions and the deepening economic crisis. The country was in a recession, jobs were being lost and Americans were losing their homes daily in foreclosures. There was a mood in the country that change must occur. The impetus for change was coming mainly from middle class white America which was reeling under the staggering weight of the economic problems. Obama was the recipient of what is termed Interest Divergence: a convergence of interests between what blacks seek and what white policy makers perceive they or the country needs (Bell, 2009 Fall). In the case of Obama sixty-five million voters were the policy makers who believed that their interests converged with the dramatic promises Obama made them. Facing lost jobs and

foreclosed homes, they had to ask themselves if they wanted a really smart young black guy or a stodgy old white guy, John McCain, from the same crowd who put them in this hole. But despite the call for change by Obama and the other candidates there was no talk of race issues in the mainstream media as most Americans were focused on the economy. In fact race and Obamas colour only became an issue in the media because of his church pastors controversial views about racism in white America. At that point , Obama in a speech to the nation from Philadelphia tried to quiet fears among white voters about his blackness. That speech disclosed that, without reservations for the sake of his candidacy, he was prepared to reject the views of his own black church pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, while issuing a call to embrace hope for all Americans whatever their colour . Wright had among other things criticized an America where the government gives black people drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants the black community to sing God Bless America
(Anonymous, 2008). Wrights views mirrored those of many in the black American community.

That Obama was not prepared to deal with the question of blackness is evident by the way he sidestepped the issue of the injustices and inequalities to blacks in that speech in favour of obscuring the problems of black America into the general economic problems of the nation
(Obama, 2008). In the speech he emphasized his own Kenyan/white heritage and related himself

to black America through his marriage to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners (Obama, 2008) as if he was an observer to the American scene. He did not take any steps to link himself to the civil rights movement (Obama, 2008). He characterized Pastor Wrights remarks as portraying a distorted view of America-a view that sees white racism as endemic (Obama, 2008). Obama goes on to say that the profound mistake of Reverend Wrights sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society but that he spoke as if our

society was static (Obama, 2008). It was apparent from that point on in the campaign to any who were in doubt that Obama had no intention of dealing with the country as a black president. As we drove through the towns and cities that dotted the American landscape few conversations turned to Obamas blackness. I wondered whether the voters I met had only pushed that fact to the back of their minds pending the resolution of the economic mess in which the country found itself. Along with our twins we were headed to Kentucky with my wifes niece who was enrolled in a two week basketball camp. I realized that when we reached Louisville we would be in that part of America where whites had oppressed blacks for hundreds of years under the then legal institution of slavery. The legacy of that period of American history with its racial hatred and prejudice I noted from remarks overheard when we entered the south still remained in the minds of Americans both white and black although perhaps repressed to some degree in the summer of 2008. That racism lay just below the surface is evident from the story of a canvasser in a rural white area who was asking how the householders were going to vote. The woman who responded called the question back to her husband Who we voting for? Her husband hollered back We votin for the nigger (Bell, 2009 Fall). Obamas candidacy for president was not the first attempt by a black man. General Colin Powell of black Jamaican background had been encouraged to run as a respected military man in the mould of a Dwight D. Eisenhower. As well the black American Reverend Jesse Jackson had thrown his hat into the ring on occasion. And even the black Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm had tried for the nomination. But 2008 as suggested was an unusual set of circumstances requiring a new start for the nation at least economically.

I wondered how white voters that I met would react to the election of a man who was described as black but was the product of an international union between a black father, a visiting student from Africa, and a white mother from Kansas. Obama had been born and raised in Hawaii with a brief sojourn during his youth living with his mother and sister in Indonesia. My personal knowledge of Hawaii from having vacationed there was that it is one of the most multicultural areas of the United States. The colours of Hawaiis people are like that of the rainbow. Hawaiians have no history of slavery. Hawaii had like Jamaica grown out of many groups including Polynesians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, and whites. It appeared to me that nothing in Obamas early youth and upbringing in Hawaii would have conditioned him to deal with the problems between the races and stereotypes of blackness which exist in mainland America and with which he would have to deal after his election. We tend to forget that Obama is as white as he is black, if not more so, for having been raised principally by his white mother and maternal grandmother in this predominantly non-black environment. When our travels took us south of the Mason-Dixie line to places like Memphis, Tennessee, I was reminded of the killing of the great martyr of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lorraine Motel, in downtown Memphis.. The motel is now a site of an interactive museum for civil rights. I was surprised at being the only white person visiting that day along with hundreds of black people. I had expected that whites would want to see how bad and inhuman discrimination to blacks was less than 50 years ago. Things had changed in Memphis but apparently there was still a noticeable gap between the races. So much of a gap in fact that my wife was surprised as well that she was the only black person on the Elvis Presley tour of Graceland. We visited as well some of the great battlefields of the Civil War such as Shiloh and Gettysburg where thousands had died over the issue of slavery and the emancipation

of black people. All these facts were evidence to me that contrary to what Obama said racism and white attitudes to blackness were deeply embedded in American society. I have to admit that while I believed at the time that Barack Obama represented a suitable choice between the two front running candidates for the major parties I doubted that Americans would elect a black man as president. I had not found during my travels that the issue of blackness had disappeared but only that it took second place to the economic problems. After his nomination in August as the candidate for the Democratic Party I still believed that white voters who supported him openly might vote against him in the secrecy of the ballot box. To people like myself who are not American the presidents of the United States after election acquire two persona. One corresponds to the way how each is perceived in the eyes of the world. To the world the president is the embodiment of the United States and he is graded according to how close he comes to the ideals of what the world believes America represents or should ideally represent. The world looks to America for leadership of the free world and as the symbol of democracy and freedom for other countries to pattern themselves. Following Obamas election the face of America was that of a visibly coloured man Barack Obamas election to the Presidency of the United States was hailed on the world stage as a great moment in world history. Its significance lay in the anticipated change for the better of United States policy towards other countries especially those third world countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In his election campaign he had shown a greater knowledge of international issues than his predecessor as well as an ability to compromise, discuss and reason in setting policy and making decisions. But most important was the fact that as a member of a non white minority he appeared to represent a visible change in America. Clearly Obamas non white face had the power to launch a global makeover for Brand America. After years of suffering a reputation as a

menacing bully, suddenly America had a new countenance (Parameswaran, 2009 July). The award of the Nobel Peace prize to Obama was based on this promise of change. Internationally Obama, a non white male, conveyed the impression that the world wanted to have of the United States which was that even a black man could rise to the highest office in the land. This would reverse the worlds impression of an America that could allow blacks to suffer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina without coming to their aid. Within the United States the views expressed by many editorials were that his election to the post of president, a seemingly last bastion of white power, showed that racism was dying and that the nation had entered a post racial period of harmony between black and white Americans. While the desire for change in race relations in America fuelled this optimism, reality that nothing had changed in white America quickly surfaced within months of his election. That this was fact should have been no surprise to anyone except those who intentionally wanted to think otherwise. Barack Obama was described and continues to be described by most Americans as a black man. Why? Because white America defines him as black under a system set up over three hundred years ago during the days of slavery. To have one drop of negro blood in a persons veins is enough for he or she to be classified as black or given its modern equivalent of African American. Neither term has ever carried with it any respect or equal status but has always been used as a way to denote an inferior race or ethnic group. Inferior that is in the eyes of white America. To be black or negro or even African American is to be on the outside looking in on American society. The Onion in its satirical headline could not omit the term when it stated Black Man Given Nations Worst Job and then went on to state that an African American man Barack Obama ,47, was given the least desirable job in the entire country----As

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part of his duties , the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. To even state that Obama has achieved a rare feat by becoming president is to insinuate that being black is second to white. Robert Kennedy drew the ire of the novelist James Baldwin when Kennedy suggested in a speech during the 1960s that forty years from now a black person could be president. Kennedy, a liberal and supporter of civil rights for blacks was stunned by the reaction of blacks such as Baldwin. Yet here was Kennedy inferring that blacks were not equal enough to whites at that point in time to aspire to such a lofty position. On the other hand African Americans accepted Obama as black because as the primary campaign for the presidency dragged on they saw in him the champion for black causes. It is therefore understandable that his election in 2008 as president of the United States would be seen as an historic event by whites and blacks and as a hopeful sign on the part of African Americans that their centuries old list of grievances would receive some form of redress. Unfortunately the optimism soon began to fade in the months following his inauguration as it became apparent that his presidency had unleashed a tidal wave of antigovernment political resistance in the form of the Tea Party, an increase of tension between black and whites and a spike in incivility in American politics much of which was directed at Obama personally. Yet the slide back into the use of racially charged language by talk show hosts and their callers and the post election build up of bitterness of white Americans towards Obama was to be expected given the nature of the man, his policies and the way he tackled the race question during the primary and the election. As the son of a black African from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, Obamas adult life has always been divided between trying to adhere to his white side while being forced to confront his blackness and where that placed him in American

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society. He had not faced that choice during his youth Having been raised in the multiethnic society of Hawaii, which had none of the racial bitterness of the rest of America, he was not exposed to racism until he moved to mainland America to further his post secondary education. Perhaps this picture of Obama arriving from an island with a high degree of naivet of racial problems was the genesis of the birther movement which questions whether he had actually been born an American. Even his brief interval of life growing up as a young boy in Indonesia did nothing to give Obama any sense of the great divide in America between black and white. Until his adult years Obama had never been exposed to dealing with racism and having to deal with his blackness as a means of identifying his place in American society. He was not an angry black man like previous black candidates such as the reverend Jesse Jackson. He was by birth an internationalist thinking far above the domestic problems of race in America. He was as equally distant in terms of understanding the grievances of African Americans as he was from white Americans. His strengths were in understanding international problems coupled with his views of the world from his experiences Why has Obamas election triggered such a reaction? The US presidential election campaign of 2008 presented a clear choice. It provided an opportunity to choose a youthful Democratic Party candidate, Barack Obama, who was articulate, intelligent and belonged to a non-white minority. He represented visible and intellectual change as compared to a Republican Party candidate, John McCain, in his mid 70s, a long serving senator, and having to carry the baggage of eight years of George W. Bushs costly American entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Change was the election mantra and the winning slogan for Obamas campaign. In addition to the votes of Blacks, Latinos and other visible minorities Obama was able to capture the votes of liberal white voters and those whites who were prepared to take a chance

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that this bi-racial man would bring change to a stagnant American economy. While the election turned out to be a landslide in terms of electoral votes it obscured the demographics of who had voted for him and who had voted for the white candidate McCain. In the states like Kentucky that did not give pluralities to Obama it is clear that white voters were the deciding factor. In southern states like North Carolina that Obama won it was the large black voter turnout that determined the outcome. With this division of voters along racial lines Obama entered the White House with the difficult tasks of having to convince white voters that he was competent to lead the country and that as a black president he could be trusted not to upset their view that America was a white dominated society. Whether Obama recognized these obstacles to the implementation of his policies prior to taking office he quickly recognized them when he was unable to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the white controlled Republican Party in Congress. The legacy of his presidency to date confirms that his attempts to exercise presidential power, in order to make changes to the way America operates in such areas as health care providing, the treatment of gays in the military, the oversight of Wall Street and the financial industry and the treatment of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are seen as threats to white America. These perceived threats have resulted in the rise of right wing white protest and extremist groups ranging from groups challenging his birthplace in Hawaii; to the rise of the Tea Party and the successes of its candidates in the 2010 mid term elections; to the appearance of underground white militia groups; to a steady stream of virulent accusations and racially coloured conversations on conservative talk shows and by their hosts; and to a general incivility in Congress where white Republican legislators openly accuse him of lying. The failure of the Obama presidency to make changes in the souls of white folk rests on the fact of what America is and is not. The United States is a democracy for all its citizens in

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theory and form only but not in substance. It has always been described in liberal democratic terms such as land of the free, land of opportunity, cradle of liberty, home of democracy with equality of all men and guarantees of the protection of life, liberty and freedom of speech, religion and racial tolerance. Yet its history confirms that these opportunities and freedoms were for most of the countrys existence reserved for white Americans only and to be extended grudgingly to visible minorities in a form of second class citizenship as long as they respected white dominance. For the negro in America the road to equality has been more difficult than for other visible minorities because of the history of the enslavement, oppression and violence towards him by whites. White Americans have lived with the guilt of their actions for over three hundred years while at the same time refusing to allow the negro the basic civil and political rights of democracy including a fair opportunity to earn his living. When a black American speaks on an issue of national importance his opinion is viewed and dismissed as that of a negro rather than that of an average American. Negro voting rights from the days of Reconstruction have been allowed only to the extent they do not threaten the power of whites to dominate American society. When negroes threaten white supremacy it leads to a white outrage. Given that the American definition of negro as any person with a drop of black blood clearly the reaction of whites in America to Obamas election has been one of a violent reaction to a perceived threat to their power structure. Black Americans have had many types of leaders and spokesmen since emancipation. Some like Booker T. Washington have proposed accommodation of black society to white society through solutions whereby blacks would remain economically useful and politically docile, that they would provide the backbone of a mobile and modernistic New South while reminding whites in every possible way of the comforts of the past (Ferguson, 2005, p. 31).

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Others such as W.E.B. Du Bois thought the Negros problem arose from black double consciousness, a condition of the heart and mind stemming from the duality of black and American identity under conditions of segregation and racial oppression (Ferguson, 2005, p. 31). This doubleness penetrated every part of black existence. He advocated radical protest to break down social, political, economic and cultural barriers and a program of cultural recovery. Neither ever held elective office but both were always active in black politics and were not reluctant as Obama to express their black side openly to white society. These leaders as well as others by continually talking of the negro problem were suggesting that some time in the future a great man would come along and provide a permanent solution to the race question. This perhaps made it likely that much would be expected from the first black president. In 1926 George Schuyler wrote his famous satire Black No More (Schuyler, 1931)in which blacks are able to be transformed through a new medical process into white people making everyone happy until the point was reached where the two races could not be distinguished from each other except through the birth of black babies. Barack Obama for all that has been written about him as Americas first black president is neither capable nor interested in changing the majority stereotypes of blackness. His philosophy is more oriented to being black no more. Like Schuyler wrote there were three ways for the Negro to solve his problem in America, To get out, get white or get along (Schuyler, 1931, p. 13). Obama expresses none of the drive for equality that drove the Reverend Martin Luther King. Obama has no dream of blackness being made a positive attribute. Perhaps in terms of his contentment with the current state of blackness in America he prefers the words of an old Negro slave We aint what we ought to be and we aint what we want to be and we aint what were going to be . But thank God we aint what we was (Lewis, 1970). Obama does not meet the standard set by Mohandas

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K Gandhi. I am, indeed, a practical dreamer. My dreams are not airy nothings. I want to convert my dreams into realities, as far as possible.

Bibliography
Anonymous. (2008, April 6). Slavery, Capitalism, and the "Perfect Union". Retrieved February 11, 2011, from Revolutionary #125: http://revcom.us/a/125/obama-en.html Bell, D. A. (2009 Fall). On celebrating an election as racial progress. Human Rights vol 36 no 4 , 2-9. Boesche, R. (February 1983). Why Could Tocqueville Predict So Well. Political Theory vol 11 No 1 , 79103. Ferguson, J. B. (2005). The Sage of Sugar Hill: George S. Schuyler and the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Yale University Press. Lewis, D. L. (1970). King: A Critical biography. New York: Praeger Publishers Inc. Mccutcheon, M. (2011, March 15). Re Post-Forum Student Moderation: W.E.B. DUBOIS and the Conservation of Races. Muldoon. (n.d.). Questionnaire on Barack Obama. Journal of Visual Culture Vol 8 No2 . Obama, B. (2008, March 18). Transcript: Barack Obama's speech on Race. Retrieved February 11, 2011, from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88478467 Parameswaran, R. (2009 July). Facing Barack Hussein Obama; Race Globalization, and Transnational America. Journal of Communication Inquiry Vol 33 Number 3 , 195-205. Picart, C. J. (2007 april-June). Beyond good and Evil: the Black-White Divide in Critical Race Theory. Human Rights Review , 221-228. Schuyler, G. S. (1931). Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful workings of Science in the Land of the Free,A.D. 1933-1940. New York: Negro Universities Press.

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