Race, Culture, and the Conversations We Don't Have

I usually stay out of "political" discussions because, in my role as an academic and writer,  I feel it's important to be able to present multiple perspectives on an issue  -- to present the "evidence" so to speak  and allow my students or readers to make up their own minds. However, today, I feel compelled to comment on the firing of Shirley Sherrod and the discussion that has followed. Today, prior to his conversation with Ms. Sherrod, one of the questions posed by the media was whether Mr. Obama would hold another "beer summit" (a reference to his meeting with the police officer and the professor last year). What occurred to me when the words "a teaching moment" were uttered -- teaching moments are dear to the hearts of all professors -- was that if I were president, specifically Barack Obama, what I would be aching to say at this moment is "Hey, this is tough. You try being the first African American president in a country with four hundred years of racial history and you'll understand the balancing act that I'm engaged in at every moment." Of course, then he might be accused of "whining" because he asked for the job and he certainly should have known what he would be getting into if he got it. He should have known that he would be a walking "Rorschach test" for all of the hopes, fears, and anxieties of every American of whatever color. He should have known that as a black male (or rather biracial male, but brown skin negates that visually), he would have to deal with four hundred years (and more) of beliefs about black men (stereotypes raging from "Sambo" (lazy and stupid) to "Nat" (angry and aggressive)). 

In the beginning, Mr. Obama symbolized not only change but hope. He was "the One" as one news commentator was fond of saying. He came into this with the weight of the world on his shoulders as "the leader of the free world". From an economy on the verge of melt-down to an environmental disaster in the Gulf, he has been expected to achieve near instant results ("to swim down there and fix the leak himself," as my aunt said about the BP oil well). He has certainly, as he himself admits, made mistakes. He has been a politician at moments when some of us might have wished him to be a new breed of presidential creature. But the fascinating question from a cultural standpoint -- the question I find so intriguing as a social scientist -- is how much his choices (good, bad, and don't know yet) are evaluated by Americans (of all races/ethnicities) as those of a "black president" versus "the president". If he were a white president who had governed as he has thus far, would his poll numbers be where they are at this moment? Of course, it's possible that white presidents are never simply "the president" either. Those Americans who are not white are always aware that a man who may not understand their lives is making decisions that affect their present circumstances and their futures. And notice I have not even mentioned the fact that thus far the president always has been a man -- which raises sex/gender issues. Maybe it's impossible to simply be "the president" or "our president" in this country. Or maybe it's only possible at moments of crisis when what is right seems (at least for that moment) clear and we are too scared, angry, and/or patriotic to remember what divides us. But those moments are fleeting -- and for obvious reasons not to be desired.

But back to Mr. Obama. How does social history (including the evolution of the concept of "manhood") and popular culture (e.g., a few black actors played 'the man' in the White House before a black man moved in) influence the president that we see when we look at Barack Obama? What connections do we make in our minds when we see his face, hear his name, think of how he speaks and moves? What do those connections that we make say about us?

I'm thinking out loud as I write this. I teach a grad seminar on race and crime and we look at such concepts (i.e., race/ethnicity, class, gender, religion) in historical perspective. We examine the encounters in what would become the United States among  those who were here first (Native Americans) and those (Europeans and Africans) who arrived later. "Race" in America -- as elsewhere -- is a "social construct," a concept that has acquired its meaning in the course of human interactions. As Ms. Sherrod observed about black farmers and white farmers, being poor  (i.e., "class") is certainly important in determining our life chances and the opportunities that are available to us. But we are clearly not at a point that can be described as "post-racial." Just ask Barack Obama.