Calm the Obama drama

Apparently there’s an election campaign going on in America, and it’s quite an important one. A black man is running, you see. If you watched the Olympics you’d know that they’re rather good at that, but this is different.

Let’s be honest – from that paragraph alone, you’ve probably already decided whether you think I’m racist. I’m reducing the black male to a single characteristic of athletic ability and extending this characteristic to all black males, right? Or maybe I’m making a harmless joke and cutting through the ridiculous political correctness that stifles our society?

Either way, the chances are that you made an instant judgement. Race and racism are very sensitive issues right now, and people are only too alert to perceived racism. And nowhere has this been clearer than in the U.S. presidential election race.

Take the criticism of The New Yorker’s now-notorious cartoon, which depicted Barack and Michelle Obama in Muslim and Black Panther outfits respectively. Obama’s campaign condemned the image as ‘offensive and tasteless’, while John McCain called it ‘totally inappropriate’. Both completely ignored the image’s intent, which was to lampoon the totally inappropriate, offensive and tasteless accusations levelled at Obama of anti-Americanism and, er, being a Muslim.

It was a simple lampoon, but it is significant that both Obama and McCain responded. Mainstream presidential candidates must not appear racist, and perhaps particularly Republican candidates as the right is so often associated with racism. But now anything Obama attacks on grounds of racism, whether implicitly or explicitly, McCain must be seen to just as forcefully decry. After all, Obama would know whether something was racist, wouldn’t he?

There’s more. In January 2007, Joe Biden, now Obama’s running mate, described him as ‘the first mainstream African-American presidential candidate, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy’. It’s not a contentious statement, but after Biden’s appointment as Obama’s prospective Vice-President it enjoyed considerable coverage on the premise that it implies he is racist.

Biden would never be on Obama’s ticket if he were racist. The reaction just displays the accepted response to anything race-related that is slightly ambiguous or negative: clumsily denounce it as intolerant. It seems everyone either wants to catch a Nazi or wants to cause trouble, and both make people unnecessarily cautious.

There is a definite risk of branding any criticism of Obama as at least implicitly racist. My own initial reaction to the McCain camp’s sly suggestions that Obama is unpatriotic was that it was just nastily playing on his ethnicity. But then the same accusation was directed at John Kerry in 2004. Maybe some voters give it more credence because Obama isn’t white, but that is not the Republican Party’s fault.

Obama’s nomination is undoubtedly historic. It says a lot about him that he dared to stand for the nomination. It even says a lot about the Democratic Party that they voted for him, although I wonder whether he’d have won were his main opponent not a member of another under-represented group in U.S. politics but a ‘safe’ white, older male.

Either way, for the first time in history, it’s gonna start raining me- no, hang on, I mean there is a major African-American candidate for the Presidency of the United States. He may even win. If he does, commentators will surely start making grandiose statements about how America has thrown off its oppressive racist shackles. And if he loses, they’ll gnash their teeth and wail about how the U.S. remains intolerant and bigoted, unable to accept a black man into the highest office.

The problem is, it won’t actually show anything. You can’t reduce the complex reasons behind votes to a single issue, however clean and simple it might make things. Policies, for example, can make a difference, as can sheer partisanship. No-one seems to be considering the fact that Obama’s ethnicity might just be effectively irrelevant.

Obama will not win votes from white voters due to positive discrimination or ‘white guilt’. Yes, he may persuade black voters to the polling stations, but it is a crude and patronising suggestion that they will vote for him solely because he too is black. And the majority of hardcore racists, the ones who would vote for anyone to keep a black man out of office, live in strongly Republican states, in which Obama could not win if he were white.

Even if Obama’s race is a significant factor, it is impossible for us to know to what extent. It’s a presidential election, not a referendum on what America thinks of black men. The election will show whether American citizens prefer McCain or Obama. It will not show why. Some voters might vote for Obama primarily because he’s black, some might not vote for him primarily because he’s black, but we can’t know the motives for certain.

Any conclusions from the election result must be carefully drawn. If a state votes for Obama, that state is not automatically a beacon of racial tolerance. It is not impossible that he will even win votes in spite of his ethnicity, as the lesser of two perceived evils. And if a state votes against him, it does not automatically cast racist aspersions on that state.

This can be extended to America as a whole. If Obama is triumphant on November the 4th, the U.S. will not suddenly be without racial issues – no British woman would argue that Thatcher’s election victory in ‘79 ended sexism. Equally, if he loses the election, then America is not necessarily a bitterly divided, racist nation.

An Obama victory would not cleanse America of its racial problems. Once it became clear that he would not enslave the white man, Obama’s presidency might win round the merely prejudiced (those with private misgivings about a black President that they would never share or act on out of shame). But it would change nothing for the staunch racists who practice their prejudices.

I’m not saying Obama or McCain’s presidencies would be indistinguishable. It’s just that whether or not they would be has nothing to do with Obama’s race. Electing Obama would prove nothing new: much of America is comfortable with black people in powerful positions. He is the Democratic presidential candidate, and no more because of his skin colour.