Is what Reid said wrong? -- Obama, race, and racism in American politics

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If you've been paying any attention at all to national political news -- in the U.S., that is (sorry, international readers, you must think all this ado is so ridiculously misguided given all that's going on in the world that is so much more serious) -- you know that, last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put his foot firmly in his mouth by calling then-candidate Obama "light-skinned" with "no Negro dialect." He apologized for his "poor choice of words" (and the word "Negro" is certainly a poor word to use), Obama accepted his apology, and Republicans attacked, slamming Reid, calling for his resignation, and otherwise trying to score political points.

I've said all I wanted to say about that. But here's the question:

Choice of words aside, was Reid wrong? That is, has Obama benefitted politically from being "light-skinned" and for not having a distinctive black dialect?

Well... yes.

As far as America has come, as liberal as it is now with respect to race -- and there is obviously a long, long way to go (see Obama's brilliant speech on race last year) -- I'm not sure the American people, collectively, are quite prepared to elect a significantly more dark-skinned black man to the White House (just as they are not quite prepared to elect a gay man or woman to the White House). Furthermore, I'm not so sure they are quite prepared to elect a black man with a distinctive black dialect, a strong dialect, to the White House.

At the very least, it seems to me, it is an advantage, and it was Obama's advantage, to be a "safe" black man. (I use the word "safe" in quotation marks because I refer to broad public perception among a predominantly white electorate. I do not mean to suggest, of course, that being safe, in reality, corresponds to the colour of one's skin.) Obama is clearly from America's Other, its internal racial/ethic Other, an Other that for the most part has been accepted and integrated, but he isn't so distinctively of that Other that he was determined to be unacceptable, a bigoted reaction, by enough of that electorate to make a difference in his run for the highest office in the land. I suspect that a less "appealing" member of the Other, a more "distinctive" member, would have had much more trouble getting elected.

Alas, this is just the way it is.

Progress is being made, things are changing, and the country seems to be moving in the right direction with respect to blacks as well as gays and others, but the reality is that racism and other forms of bigotry persist. This is an obvious statement to make, but the more nuanced reality is that a more subtle bigotry exists with respect to degrees of Otherness. Obama is acceptable but a darker-skinned man with a distinctive dialect may not be. With respect to high national office, I would also suggest that a man who is distinctively gay, at least to the majority heterosexual electorate, is significantly less likely to achieve success than a man who is gay but who seems, in a general way, not to be. Harvey Milk, a great man, could achieve success at a local level in San Francisco, but, unfortunately, I'm not sure the country is yet ready for someone like him to sit in the Oval Office. I am ready, and many of you may be ready, but there are still hearts and minds to win over. Many of them.

Back to Reid and Obama.

As Jeff Zeleny noted at The New York Times yesterday, Reid actually sounded a lot like Obama:

The comment – made to the authors of a new book on the presidential campaign – is not so different from remarks Mr. Obama has made himself while navigating the complicated intersection of race and politics in America during his rapid rise to the White House.

It was only two years ago, after all, that Mr. Obama was struggling to persuade some African-American voters that he was black enough. His electoral prospects did not rise among many Democrats in the South Carolina primary, where black voters are critical, until winning the Iowa caucuses, where the vast share of voters are white.

As Mr. Obama moved from state to state in the long Democratic primary fight, his policy proposals sounded mainly the same. But it was not unusual for his inflection and mannerisms to be a bit different.

When he spoke to some black audiences, Mr. Obama's consonants tended to linger a bit. He would speak with a certain staccato and rhythm – particularly in churches – that he had not used when addressing white audiences in Iowa or New Hampshire.

None of this is to excuse Reid, who shouldn't have used the word "Negro" and who should have been more circumspect in his comments. And, to be sure, Reid doesn't understand race nearly as well as Obama does. But the reality is that Reid was pretty much right, sad as it may be.

Obama has sought not to be a black politician or a white politician but to be a leader for all Americans. This has meant talk of "post-racial" politics, but what it has really meant is the ability on Obama's part to speak to different groups of Americans differently, as required socially and politically, while seeking to transcend race as a defining concept in American politics and in American life generally.

But it has helped that he has been able to do this by bridging the gaping chasm between white and black, by being multi-racial himself and by being able to speak the language of reconciliation -- and by speaking to the very hopes and dreams of a more perfect union that have defined America from the beginning.

One day soon, hopefully, shades of skin colour and dialect won't present barriers to political success -- or to full acceptance in American society. One day soon, hopefully, a man or woman with darker skin and a more distinct dialect, or a gay man or woman, won't face seemingly insurmountable obstacles to electoral success, including at the presidential level.

For now, though, we have Barack Obama in the White House, and his election last year, lest we forget, was a great victory indeed.