The Black Commentator - Can Obama Become the Person Some of Us Envision?

Allow people to be themselves has become a manta of sorts. Just be yourself seems to have trumped the slogan, be like Mike. Or has it? Be yourself or be like someone else?

Be like Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a Euro-American mother, is not exactly a slogan in the U.S.—yet. But I cannot help think of what is behind the rock-star like celebrity campaign now cheering for Barack Obama when just a few months ago, Congressional Representative Cynthia McKinney (GA) had folks plastering ads everywhere suggesting that voters get rid of Cynthia.

I am one of those Illinoisans who lives outside the state. If you are from that state and, particularly from Chicago, you continue to the follow the politics there. At one point, since I had just arrives in Platteville to teach there at the university, I thought about sending in an absentee ballot to vote for Barack Obama. But then the Republicans decided to run Alan Keys. Please! Election night in November 2004 found me at least happy to experience one election victory. So I pinned my hopes on Obama for Senator.

Like most blacks, I see in Obama the potential for some positive change in the conditions blacks face in the U.S. Obama would see beyond the occasional burbling of racial slurs of a “few individuals” overflowing with hatred to challenge the complexities of race, gender, and class oppression among everyday folks in everyday life. He would point to and expose the ways in which the interests of leadership attempts to control the domestic living arrangements by calling for the social “death” of the LGBT community, fences between Mexico and the U.S.’s southwest border, and more criminal laws and even the death penalty (might this be for inner city blacks?). I had hoped Obama would call the war in Iraq with over 650,000 Iraqis and nearly 3000 U.S. dead—a crime against humanity.

He may yet become the Obama some of us envision, but what is this call by the media for Obama for president? The New York Times columnist David Brooks wants to see Obama run for president. The Time says he could be the next president. Here in Wisconsin, The Capital Times followed Obama as he campaigned for Governor Jim Doyle in Milwaukee. The headline, story, and photos focused on Obama. The Audacity of Hope, Obama’s new book, is adding to the clamor surrounding him. He’s been described as “handsome,” “articulate,” and “charismatic.” He’s a “poised” young black man.

Cynthia McKinney, on the other hand, has been described as a “loony” who needs to see a psychiatrist. She is articulate too and has tossed some heavy questions toward the current administration, particularly at Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld about that “war” and Hurricane Katrina. Just take a look at the documentary American Blackout about the strategies—urging Republican crossover votes—used to rid Georgia of Cynthia. McKinney spoke as a mother, identified with the families of the victims of 9/11 as well as the Iraqi mothers who are losing their children daily. Then there is that hair reminding some of black people in the inner city. But it is McKinney’s voice that distinguishes her from Obama—or rather how she says what she has to say! It is almost as if she is not aware of the backlash against intelligent black women who stay focused on such “outdated” subjects like the poor and the children left behind. McKinney does not say—Jesus said we should consider the least among us, and then wait to be dismissed, nor does she speak softly, and then wait to be dismissed. McKinney speaks frankly about issues and people others would like to forget.

I cannot see how an Obama or any black for president would be allowed now.

I have to wonder—if Obama and McKinney are speaking for the same constituency then might the distinction, that is, the media frenzy over Obama and the vilification of McKinney point to what is an acceptable image of opposition?

Obama and McKinney have been converted to useable images, traditional tools to instruct folks on what is acceptable opposition, that is, a less feared image of a black person. If Obama grew dreads, spoke out of line to important folks like Rumsfeld and if McKinney “permed” her hair straight as silk and spoke with “poise”—less emotion, would the media respond to them differently?

The media response to Obama and to McKinney is an example of how some things have not changed. The image of black opposition has to be acceptable, so the business about those annoying issues and folks that go with them would be easier to tolerate. Comfortable opposition?

To allow people to be ourselves. Anyway, go Obama! Some of us have the audacity to hope for the best.

Dr. Jean Daniels writes a column for The City Capital Hues in Madison Wisconsin and is a Lecturer at Madison Area Techical College, MATC.. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.