Response | Cassandra R Veney

Barack Obama:  The Great Black Hope

I was in Santiago, Chile when Senator Barack Obama won enough delegates to become the presumptive presidential nomination for the Democratic Party and several of my hosts and other members of the group were interested in discussing the implications of this for the country, African Americans, and the global community. His presumptive nomination means that for the first time in the United States' history, a major political party has the opportunity to nominate a person of color or an African American for president.  This serves as a history-making event on many levels.

Many African Americans never thought they would live to see the day that someone like Obama would win enough primaries and the corresponding delegates to secure the nomination from either the Democratic or Republican Party.  There are several reasons why this mind-set was hard to break.  First, African American males received the right to vote in 1870 and this was achieved by adding an amendment to the constitution.  They were citizens and should have been entitled to vote for that mere fact, but to wrestle this political right from state and local officials, especially in southern states, an amendment was necessary.  Moreover, for the majority of African American males, especially those who lived in southern states and most of them did at this time, the ability to exercise their right to vote was simply too costly in terms of the physical dangers (lynching in particular) it posed and it literally cost money in the form of poll taxes.  In 1920, when women were granted the right to vote, it obviously meant white women or women who did not live in southern states because African American women still could not exercise their right to vote unless they lived outside the south.

Given this history, African American men and women did not truly receive the right to vote until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Furthermore, they did not have the ability to engage in descriptive representation until the Voting Rights Act was amended in 1982 that allowed for the creation of majority-minority districts.  This was important because many congressional and state legislative districts were gerrymandered in an effort to dilute the African American vote.  This coupled with whites voting as a racial bloc made it very difficult for African Americans to vote for one of their own.  Third, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that majority-minority districts are unconstitutional because race cannot be the single factor that determines how districts are drawn.  That left many African Americans with the belief that their political representation would decrease rather than increase.  Then along comes Obama.   

Many African Americans, including myself, were very skeptical and doubtful that Obama had any chance of even winning the first caucus-Iowa.  Enough has been written about how white the state is along with several others that he won that are just as white.  However, that fact that Obama won in Iowa, Kansas (regardless of his mother's roots in the state), Idaho, North Dakota, etc. is very significant and hopefully will have positive implications for future candidates of color contesting elections in those states.  First, it is an indication that some whites are no longer willing or interested in participating in descriptive representation.  Obama's race and skin color did not deter them from voting for him.  In addition, the thousands of young whites who voted for Obama and donated their time and energy and money to his campaign cannot be overlooked.  What we witnessed was a new generation born after the Civil Rights Movement, white flight from most of America's major cities, and the ugly backlash against bussing that at times produced violence. 

We often hear and read that this country is more segregated than it was twenty or thirty years ago, but the younger generation of white Obama supporters probably have more significant and meaningful interactions with African Americans and people of color than their parents and grandparents. For example, many of these voters have lived in communities and gone to schools with people of color from the first grade through college.  They have worked with people of color and socialized with them on and off the job.  They have more of an opportunity to have an African American as their teacher, professor, judge, doctor, lawyer, nurse, and computer specialist.  This generation has grown up with African Americans being visible in all sectors of society regardless of how the media has portrayed them as pathological and dysfunctional.  In other words, this generation has seen African Americans in positions of authority therefore it made perfectly good sense for them to caste their ballots for Obama because they viewed him as the best candidate before the race was reduced to two.  The same logic applies to the younger white women who chose Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

If the Democratic Party nominates Obama as its presidential candidate in August 2008, the meanings and implications for the United States are varied.  On one hand, it would indicate that the country has moved beyond race in ways that many could never imagine.  On the other hand, it would indicate that race or racial identity is still very relevant.  For example, regardless of the fact that his mother was white and he will be the first to announce it, he did not run as a bi-racial candidate but rather as an African American candidate.  This indicates that the one-drop rule is still very much in effect.  Why should someone who has a white mother automatically be African American?  This leads one to ponder just how much progress the country has made concerning racial identity.  Although he identified as African American, even this was not enough in the beginning of his candidacy to convince some African Americans that he deserved their vote.  Some argued that he was not "black enough" which leads one to ask the question, what is "black enough?"  In the end, Senator Obama proved to millions of African Americans that he indeed was "black enough" and if he was not, surely Michelle Obama was and they overwhelming voted for him. 

This means that elderly African Americans who could not vote or who voted at great risk to their physical safety will have the opportunity to vote for an African American presidential candidate. This means that this group of Americans who drank out of colored water foundations, sat in colored waiting rooms in train and bus stations, bought clothes without trying them on, entered and exited private and public spaces through the back door will finally have the opportunity to cast their ballots for an African American. If Obama indeed gets elected this means that young African Americans will witness early in their lives an African American seriously competing for the highest office in the land.  As Langston Hughes wrote, they can proudly say, "I Too Sing America."

Senator Obama's success in the Democratic primaries has far-reaching implications throughout the Pan-African world.  It would be naïve and unrealistic to believe that even if he is successful in the November 2008 presidential election major changes would take place in the United States or in any other country in the world. In other words, the lives of the haves and have nots will not fundamentally change and Africans and those of African descent will not be better off if he is elected the next president. Institutions, systems, and structures that have marginalized, oppressed, and exploited Africans around the globe will not be torn asunder by a president whose father was Kenyan. But, what his presumptive nomination does for the Pan-African world is that it represents progress-one of its own can have a strong chance of being president of the United States. One of its own can have the possibility of sitting at the table with other world leaders to discuss and have an effect on issues from climate change to intellectual property rights. In other words to paraphrase Anna Julia Cooper, when and where Barack Obama enters, the whole race enters with him. This means that wherever he is in the world, he takes Africans and those of African descent with him.  This does not mean that he is dragging a ball and chain wherever he travels. But rather, he is an embodiment of progress, strength, determination, and yes, change. This is good for the United States, the Pan-African world, and the larger global community.