OK, so a long election cycle is over. I wondered if the chattering class – a class to which I aspire – would have much left to say. I mean, seriously, so much has been said already. I’m of course wrong. I should have known that the big and apparently only question would be raised: will this election lead people to say that racism is over?
This is no innocent question. There’s so much at stake, so the conversation in writing or on the radio is somber and even a bit fatalistic.
And that has bothered me a lot. For a bunch of reasons I wanted to write out, even if in short-hand.
First, I’m saddened that so many us on the left or progressive wing of politics can’t feel pleasure. I thought of this from the opposite perspective after 11 September 2001, where political critique began instantly and few seemed capable of just being sad at so much death and destruction. And now what seems to be a lack of pleasure at a breakthrough most of us thought impossible. Just as pain gives deep meaning to analysis, so too pleasure. Think critically all you want, but don’t forget the pleasure of something as debilitating and 
despairing as “no black person could be president” falling away, in such decisive fashion, accomplished by a coalition of random, committed people. My first thought: feel good, damn it! Critical analysis can wait. Ain’t nothing going to change in the next couple of weeks. (Bush is still presidente! Ay!)
Second, this worry about people declaring “racism is over” seems poorly placed at this moment. I’ve actually not heard a person say that, so this is a comment on commentary on a hypothetical case. Still, I ask: is there anyone who thought a week past that racism was a problem and suddenly, now, today, thinks racism is gone? I doubt it. Fact is, many people already believe racism is over and out. This just gives them another anecdote when making the case. Fretting about Obama’s election because he is another anecdote seems pretty lame. Not sure how else to put it. After all, the alternative is pretty depressing. Are we supposed to not want a black president in order to limit the number of examples the “there is no racism” folks can evoke? Nah. So what are we really talking about here?
Third, I listened to a great interview on NPR’s Morning Edition today while dropping my son at preschool. I liked the interview, but mostly because it was a concise summary of the other issue: the claim that Obama’s election is just an empty symbol.
I have a lot to say about this, but will be brief. To begin, I’m not sure why symbols are so unimportant – is anyone that radical of a materialist?! Symbols move the world, for better or worse. They have a real human effect. Were it not for the power of symbolic figures, acts, and events, the world would lack myth and literature. And political imagination. Not so empty in Obama’s case, I’d say. It is a symbol that this one thing, the presidency, is now accessible to African-Americans. For so many in my generation and prior, that was unimaginable. Glad to be wrong.
As well, electoral politics are a symbol for which many have sacrificed so much. I have a hard time imagining telling folks facing down police, hoses, and rabid police dogs in Alabama that, hey, this is just an empty symbol. At the very least, it is a symbol that matters in the body and soul. At the most, it changes the world.
Which is my fourth and final remark: what if Obama is just a symbol and he governs like a regular, mainstream Democrat? I suspect he will. His platform was pretty mainstream Democrat idea-laden, after all. He is a symbol the country needs, though, and I’ll say this specifically as a white person. I think we white people need, as a matter of daily, walkabout habit, to see a world in which we might work for, depend for a livelihood on, and ultimately be a citizen under a black person. Progressive politics around, say, affirmative action labor for something specific: a diversified workplace. But the point is not to have horizontal work relations alone. The point, I think, it to eventually have diverse vertical work relations. The reality of diversity in power relations is good for anti-racism at the level of habit, which is where so much political change happens. The symbol of the presidency matters right there, just so much.
In the end, I felt so happy when Obama was elected. I hugged all of my friends. I felt pleasure. I felt cynicism die just a bit, a cynicism Clinton and Bush share – a sense that nothing matters. And I’ll feel all sorts of critique in the years to come. I don’t think racism is over. I’ve not met a person who thinks that who did not think it already.
But I will say this: racism sustained a serious blow in this campaign season. That’s never a bad thing.
-
Thank you, John. Well said, all. You brought me back to weepy joy this morning, and I really, really needed that.
-
Yep. Post-September 11 was a really difficult time for me. On the right we had calls to war and revenge, and on the left we heard the constant cry, “Don’t mourn, organize!” Misguided, both, I thought at the time, and still do. Action informed both by reason and the kind of deep understanding that feeling brings seems best to me. At least, it works in my personal life, and ought to scale up, right?
And thanks for your thoughts on the post-race-ness. I’ve been struggling with how to keep that in perspective.
And yeah, the death of some part of my cynicism–that felt extraordinary yesterday, and I’d like to hold onto that. This entry helps me towards that, so thanks.
-
Thank you much for this post, John.
This is so nicely written, and I’m especially glad for your comments on why symbols matter. I don’t understand the progressive/leftist anxiety about this and I feel somewhat distanced from the wave of cynicism washing over my peers. I think you were there when a student totally kooked out on me about my disappointment in certain members of the admin who weren’t making appearances at Action Awareness Week events last year. The student told me that those appearances are meaningless and purely symbolic, so I shouldn’t mourn their loss. But that’s precisely why those gestures matter! “Purely symbolic” gestures are some of the *most* meaningful gestures because they *do* register psychically and emotionally.
I’m thinking now that there is a large group of young people who are going to see an African American president and that will be habit for them in the same way that turning on the T.V. and seeing a white president was habit for me. I think the psychological impact that will have on young people of color will be especially remarkable since they are too young for the kind of cynicism that folks are feeling post-election. There is going to be a whole crop of people who will remember Obama as the person who was president when they first figured out what/who the president is. Considering that I most clearly remember George H.W. Bush, this is no small thing. I hate to pull the “what about the children” card, but I think it’s true. Obama-as-symbol is incredibly important.
I think on some level I do worry about how the collective “we” will deal with the “redemptive” question: I do think that I will hear the declaration “I can’t be racist [anymore] — I voted for Obama” at least once in my lifetime and I’ve already heard a snippet of a discussion on the news talking about how affirmative action may no longer be necessary. Does this mean that we’re not supposed to want a black president? Course not. But the question the left should be fretting over isn’t as much about how to deal with the “racism is over” anxiety because, as you say, people don’t think that now unless they’ve already thought so before. I think the left now has to honestly deal with the “racism is still alive and now we have to find smarter ways to talk about it” reality.
-
I like the phrase: “find smarter ways to talk about it.” And therein lies part of the problem posed to cynics.
While I’m all for the continued analysis of racism, the fact is that Obama was elected president in decisive fashion. This, despite the often racist attacks on him by Clinton, then McCain-Palin. The attacks didn’t work. They didn’t defeat his candidacy. In fact, the number in polls barely moved.
That’s a challenge to how we think about racism. That is, now we have to account for racism without making Obama’s election impossible. That requires nuance. It might also require giving up some major talking points on race.
All for the better, if you value insight and a true account of things. But if you’re in love with your talking points, then the Obama election will freak you out. Something real happened. It’s hard to wrap my brain around, largely because I was convinced that, say, the Rev. Wright thing would bring him down. Why? Because I assumed that racist white Americans would lose their minds at the sight of a passionate, angry black preacher. Know what? It didn’t kill Obama’s candidacy. Hardly effected it, really.
Speaking only for myself, I need a smarter way to talk about race. Why? Because my way of talking about race meant Obama didn’t have a chance, period. And especially when the Wright thing erupted. And yet I was totally wrong on both accounts.
Sometimes I think the hardest thing in the world is “rethinking.” Compared to rethinking, thinking is a friggin” breeze.
-
Hi John,
I really like this post and I completely agree–and I did feel great joy and wonder (and still do–even though the economy is tanking..) especially with the thought that while my older daughter’s first 7 years were under Bush, her next 4 and possibly 8–when she really comes into political awareness, will be under Obama. What an extraordinary thing for her and for us.I will say that while I think you might be right that Obama will govern like a mainstream Democrat, his position on reproductive rights is one the strongest I’ve seen on the democratic platform. While this should not be a litmus test, I do find it interesting that he did not modify that position–even for an election.
so thank you for this post. And your son is adorable!
Claire
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicjfBWRfw8
That’s all for now, in response to no one claiming racism is over.
I do agree wholeheartedly that Obama’s election is more symbolic than material. But I actually have the opposite concern – that in a hyperreal society we will value symbols more than material reality; we will have rhetoric of change without any actual substantive, material change.
-
Bill Bennett is neither a serious thinker about racism nor someone who thought racism was a problem prior to the election. That’s a point I hadn’t made, but will make here: blowhards aren’t much of a measure, except insofar as they reflect something amongst the electorate. Which brings me to my biggest point about this “end of racism” stuff…
If you thought race was not a problem before the election, you probably still think so. I’ve not seen someone say racism was a huge problem prior to 4 November, now it isn’t.
But what I want to see, and have nearly zero faith that I will, is intellectuals taking this seriously as a counter-case to so many theories of race and racism. From now on, a theory of racism has to account for Obama’s election. I don’t think most operative notions of racism can actually accommodate his election. That’s not only a problem, it is immanent critique and has to be taken seriously, lest your theorizing become a decorative item, rather than a description of the world. So, you have folks saying a year ago “no black man, especially with that name, could be elected president in the U.S.” who are now saying “it’s not really a big deal.” That concerns me. Time will press the case, though, as very few people actually say “I need to rethink this stuff” on the spot. Most prefer (ha!) to retheorize, then pretend that’s what s/he thought all along!
For the record, I know that I have to rethink some stuff.
(I tend to be more concerned about people on my side of things. Not so concerned with the Bennetts of the world, who are and always will be haters. Maybe I’m part of the left that eats its own? Not sure.)
RE: symbols, now we have an interesting discussion. I think symbols, especially when freighted with such historical violence like slavery and the Middle Passage, are actually just as material as anything. And certainly counter to the hyperreal. The hyperreal is the play of images. Symbols tell a story about material suffering or ecstasy, so I see symbols as completely interruptive of the hyperreal. To put it concretely: I don’t think all those black (and other colored) people weeping at the acceptance speech were responding to an image. I think it was real human catharsis, through a symbol of struggle, in the same way – now inverted – that rioting after M.L.K., Jr.’s assassination was not a response to an image, but a catharsis of another sort.
The relationship between image and symbol suddenly becomes something deeply social, cultural, and political, eh? Suddenly philosophy is NOT just for the classroom or dorm room. And that’s a good thing.
-
Maybe that’s my issue with the post in general; I think racism is a huge problem but I never said Obama couldn’t be elected.
Not to be egotistical, but the way I think about race can accommodate for that. But maybe I’m just fooling myself and I’m actually one of those people who is retheorizing and going to pretend that’s what I thought all along.
I don’t really follow your discussion about symbols. Baudrillard makes no distinction in his analysis between “symbols” and images”, so I think that’s preventing me from seeing your point. My point is that symbols function discursively and therefore ideologically. Thus they can give an illusion of, oh say, “change” without actually producing any. Meanwhile we all go on with our lives thinking we live in a drastically different world when the only thing that has changed is the rhetoric.
p.s./fyi I’m also really immersed in posthuman stuff right now which is weirdly bringing back a lot of dualism. so maybe that explains my obsession over the symbol/material split. i would say i am a radical materialist though.
-
“Racism is no longer a major problem in the United States.”
This kind of statement doesn’t appear to be any different from any other statement of empirical observation. Thus it is fair to ask: what are the truth conditions for this statement?
The problem you’ve touched on is an interesting one. The people who thought racism was a huge problem before the election and are not rethinking that position are the people for whom “Racism is no longer a major problem in the United States” has no truth conditions. That is to say, it is meaningless, literally meaningless, because it could not possibly be true. (The same holds, of course, for those who didn’t and still don’t consider racism a problem.)
Presumably one of the conditions that would satisfy the statement is “A black president is a plausible idea.” Checking that box does not mean that the problem is solved or even that it is close to being solved, but it does serve as a reminder that anti-racism efforts must be directed towards real and thinkable goals.
9 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://theoryculture.com/2008/11/post-election-post-racism/trackback/