David Dante Troutt

No Country for Old (Black) Men

Until his pastor’s most incendiary soundbites recirculated on the web, Barack Obama had managed to be the “post-racial,” “post-partisan” candidate to all America, if not the most beautiful, an unimposing buddy to white men, an attraction to women across racial and ethnic lines.  But Rev. Wright’s selected sermons suddenly threatened all of that just as racial divisiveness emanated from his Democratic rival’s camp, and Obama was called upon to address race in America head on.

The question is whether the master orator and personification of racial unity could show a cynical nation how to talk to about race amid a battle of metaphors about Wright.

The tightrope cliché doesn’t begin to describe the challenge Obama faced.  It is not just blue-collar white men in Pennsylvania whom Obama had to reassure, but a significant number of educated white liberals there and elsewhere concerned, for instance, about Wright’s statements about American foreign policy in the Middle East.  The endless repetition of four or five Wright snippets are often characterized as racist and hateful, but their actual content suggests a deeper fear that could join white constituencies: radical anti-Americanism.

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Theater of the Patently Absurd or “Bitch Is the New Black”

“The knock on the Clintons—the candidacy as well as the campaign—has always been that they would say anything to get elected and exploit divisions rather than build bridges.  Both of those traits were on fatalistic display when Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton fundraiser, recently asserted that Barack Obama is lucky to be a black man or he could not hope to come this far.

“The country,” she added, “is caught up in the concept.”What makes these comments so consistent with the campaign has less to do with Ferraro’s position as a fundraiser for Hillary than their tone.  Anyone can do that and anyone can opine.  It’s the familiar vituperative ring tone and an emerging take-no-prisoners attitude toward race from people who seem resentful that black voters have left them.

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