If Obama Wins, We All Will, Too
Private Banking Magazine
“They said this day would never come” These were the first words of the speech that Obama gave this January when he pulled off his surprise victory at the Iowa caucus. The timing and intonation had a hint of a Southern Baptist preacher. And the meaning was crystal clear. Who could have guessed that a black man could win in lily-white Iowa and set off down the path to become a viable candidate for the presidency of the United States? Like millions of Americans, I had not paid much attention to the Chicago senator with the funny name before. But that night, just like millions of others, I was riveted by the elegant black man on my screen. Could I really be seeing history in the making?
To grasp the significance of Obama’s candidacy, you have to understand the history of race in America. It is a narrative soaked in blood. Less than fifty years ago most black people in the American Deep South were not allowed to vote. Registrars used literacy tests to keep blacks off the voting roll; creating standards that even highly educated people could not meet. Employers fired blacks who tried to register and landlords evicted them. Attempts to register black voters were met with arrests, beatings, arson and the murder of voting activists. In 1968 the iconic black political figure Martin Luther King was assassinated. Political commentators now pontificate about how some white Americans are reluctant to vote for Obama. But surely the truly astonishing thing is that so many millions of white people are happy to vote to do so?
Obama’s candidacy illuminates current day race relations in America in many fascinating ways. White people’s shock at the over-the-top Reverend Wright bemused black people both here and in America. What black person has not attended a church with a Reverend Wright sound-alike? Obama’s wife Michelle is highly intelligent, tall, svelte and confident. Consequently she has thrown white commentators into confusion. White people prefer their black women fat, humble or mourning a dead relative; preferably all three. But, the former top advisor to George W Bush, Karl Rove has made the most revealing comment to date. He has described Obama with increasing vehemence as “arrogant” Then this slipped out “Even if you never met him (Obama), you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." Could it be that the decidedly unattractive pudgy white Karl Rove is jealous of Obama, the archetypal cool black man?
I am not naïve about Obama. He and his advisors waged a brilliant, ruthlessly tactical, primary campaign. I believe that he is more moderate than many of his left-wing supporters think and will gradually move to the centre in the course of the coming battle with McCain. And having fought the mighty Clinton political machine to a standstill, Obama now has to take on the Republican attack dogs. Nor is it certain that enough white Americans will, in the privacy of the polling booth, be willing to vote for a black man. But, if he does triumph and stands on the steps of the Capitol in Washington on a freezing February day next year to take his oath of office, it will be a transforming moment that will be flashed onto television screens around the globe. And in that moment I and millions of other black mothers, on every continent, will turn to our sons and whisper “Yes We Can”
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