Obama as Politician

• • journalism, politics, racism

The article in the July 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker magazine that accompanies the tasteless satire on the cover (which we discussed here) does not mention the cover picture and its “satirical” portrayal of Obama and his wife. The subtitle of the article is “How Chicago Shaped Obama,” but the subtext and tone of the article suggests that the purpose of the article is to characterize Obama as an opportunistic, ambitious, calculating politician, ready to oil the political machine that has dominated Chicago for decades. The article mentions Obama’s political moves throughout his career in order to characterize him as a calculating cog in the political system. The author of the piece, Ryan Lizza, writes:

“Obama seems to have been meticulous about constructing a political identity for himself.”

From Lizza’s perspective, it seems that each move by Obama contained another motive, always with an eye toward moving up to higher political office. Lizza’s point seems to be that this is the work of a typical, if extraordinarily gifted, politician. This is not particularly shocking news, afterall he is running for office within the established political system. Why would anyone be surprised to find that he fits the job description? Lizza also seems to be making the point that Obama has had less than impeccable personal integrity in his relationships with other politicians in Chicago, as in this passage about a former mentor and ally, Toni Preckwinkle, a city Alderman:

“… in 2004 Preckwinkle supported Obama during his improbable, successful run for the United States Senate. So it was startling to learn that Toni Preckwinkle had become disenchanted with Barack Obama.”

Preckwinkle feels Obama has been disloyal to his base of devoted supporters in Chicago, and she is particularly disaffected with Obama because he failed to endorse a local candidate that she supported. Seems like politics as usual. Yet, Lizza treats it as if he’s uncovering a scandal. Lizza continues in this “uncovering” style in his writing as he sets up the rest of the piece this way:

“Obama likes to discuss his unusual childhood—his abandonment by his father and his upbringing by a sometimes single mother and his grandparents in Indonesia and Hawaii—and the three years in the nineteen-eighties when he worked as a community organizer in Chicago, periods of his life chronicled at length in his first memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” He occasionally refers to his time in the United States Senate, which he wrote about in his second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope.” But his life in Chicago from 1991 until his victorious Senate campaign is a lacuna in his autobiography. It is also the period that formed him as a politician.

The fact that Obama has left this period unexamined in his books or campaign literature, Lizza seems to suggest, makes this all the more important. The big take away from all this reporting is summarized by Lizza like this:

“Like many politicians, Obama is paradoxical. He is by nature an incrementalist, yet he has laid out an ambitious first-term agenda (energy independence, universal health care, withdrawal from Iraq). He campaigns on reforming a broken political process, yet he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game. He is ideologically a man of the left, but at times he has been genuinely deferential to core philosophical insights of the right.”

And, despite the teaser in the introduction to the piece about Preckwinkle’s disillusionment with Obama, most of the other people quoted in the article have good things to say about the candidate. For example, political consultant David Axelrod, recognized Obama’s potential to bring opposing sides together in bipartisan agreement and his natural charisma. He’s quoted in the article saying:

“He met people not just in the African-American community but in the progressive white community.”

Lizza interviews another close friend, Bettylu Saltzman, who recalls:

“I honestly don’t remember what it was about him, but I was absolutely blown away, I said to several people that this guy, who is now thirty years old, is someday going to be President. He will be our first black President.”

While some in the blogosphere call this article “great,” we see it differently. The combined effect of the cover image, the investigative tone of the article, and the association of Obama with the seamy world of Chicago politics, converge to create an overall negative impression of Obama as both a person and a politician. The article is, overall, emphasizing Obama’s readiness to embrace the political system that every other politician makes use of; yet, it does little to explore his policies and practices that more accurately speak to what kind of president he will become.

~ Amanda & Hannah

Amanda and Hannah are advanced undergraduate students at Texas A&M University doing a major research project on the numerous racial aspects of the current U.S. presidential campaign–with a special focus on the unique reality and impacts of having the first Black candidate for a major political party in the campaign. They will be guest blogging with us on their research findings over the next few months. ~ Joe

Tasteless Satire at the New Yorker

• • gendered racism, politics, racism

On the cover July 21st issue of the New Yorker magazine, the Obamas are the subject of extreme racial and religious stereotyping. Their patriotism, religion, foreign policy and character are all called into question through a controversial, some say tasteless, satirical cartoon.  Andrew Malcom, blogging at the LA Times, writes this description of the cover:

The cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine depicts Obama in one-piece Muslim garb and headdress fist-bumping his booted, Afro-wearing wife Michelle in camo clothes with an AK-47 and ammo-belt slung over her shoulder beneath a portrait of Osama bin-Laden while the American flag burns in the fireplace — in the presidential Oval Office.

The cover image plays into the “dangerous black man” and the “angry black woman” racialized and gendered stereotypes.   It also further fuels racist perceptions of the Obama campaign.  This cartoon adds one more racial reference, one more false identification of his religious background and another fabricated depiction of Michelle Obama.

Together, these combine into a powerful image of what many white Americans are already thinking about the first African American candidate for presidency. The problem with this image is its openness to individual interpretation that relies overwhelmingly on the white racial frame.  Regardless of the artist’s (and the magazine’s) satirical intentions, there will be voters who interpret the image as an accurate depiction of Obama will use it to bolster racially-based stereotypes already in place.  For others who realize that Obama is not what the cover suggests will get the joke, understand the punch line and perhaps, disregard it as tasteless (like both campaigns have done).  In many ways, this is related to the issue that Jessie posted about yesterday, about racism, satire and the questionable humor of the “technigga” incident.

The question becomes, when faced with tasteless and racist humor, how do you respond?   What do you think?

~ Amanda & Hannah

Amanda and Hannah are advanced undergraduate students at Texas A&M University doing a major research project on the numerous racial aspects of the current U.S. presidential campaign–with a special focus on the unique reality and impacts of having the first Black candidate for a major political party in the campaign. They will be guest blogging with us on their research findings over the next few months. ~ Joe

White Voters Flinch Racially in Voting Booth

• • politics, racism

In March 2008 Gregory Parks and Jeffrey Rachlinski published the article, “Expertinent: The Political Psychology of Race and Gender,” which discusses the thought process behind choosing a candidate for election. They touch on implicit decision making at the last minute in voting booths. For example, many white Americans, not wanting to be called racist, outwardly (photo: mhaithaca) support Obama but inwardly are in conflict with their decision and carry that inconsistency into the voting booth.

The article states that implicitly that, “People associate black with negative imagery.”

Obama, in his campaign, is seeking to overcome the negative associations of being African American with—among other things–images of patriotism and family, funneled through the media and especially his website, with a photo of his wife and daughters on the home page. They point out that his task in fighting racialized attacks is very difficult:

When a black leader seems to be running away from his image as a black person, that’s viewed negatively. In order to keep his base, then, he can’t deny that he’s black. It’s a thin line that he has to toe.

He must work to replace the negative racial imagery generated by the white racial frame with positive images and associations of who he really is, though all of these form a layer that is in front of the already existing, often covert, white racial frame. The positive images are evaluated by many whites through the negative white racial frame, resulting in a clash of identities, a crisis of sorts. They note:

If images of Americanness make white Americans see Obama as less American at the implicit level–while at the explicit level rivals are questioning his patriotism–then he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

Since every Obama image is sifted by whites through the white racial frame, will Obama’s positive images stick, when it is already recognized that evidence refuting the frame does not affect it but evidence to support it only makes it stronger?

The reaction to act implicitly on an election decision on the basis of race is called the “Bradley Effect” (more accurately, the white racism effect) referenced to the New Hampshire primary:

The tendency for poll numbers to overstate support for a black candidate in a black vs. white election. The states that showed the paradigmatic Bradley effect are New Hampshire, California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The states that showed the reverse effect are Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

The “Bradley Effect” is a perfect example of frontstage racism versus backstage racism where voters appear to support Obama or another black candidate in their public comments, like to pollsters, but inside or with relatives and friends they harbor or espouse racist views that keep them from voting for that candidate in the backstage or the voting booth.

~ Amanda & Hannah

Amanda and Hannah are advanced undergraduate students at Texas A&M University doing a major research project on the numerous racial aspects of the current U.S. presidential campaign–with a special focus on the unique reality and impacts of having the first Black candidate for a major political party in the campaign. They will be guest blogging with us on their research findings over the next few months. ~ Joe