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Martin Luther King's dream or ole time America?
Sunday, July 06, 2008
My previous commentaries on Barack Obama's candidature for the presidency of the United States have made it clear that I am sceptical about his winning. I am now even more sceptical despite his de facto defeat of Hillary Clinton for the nomination of the Democratic Party.
Sir Ronald Sanders
This is not because I don't want him to win. I firmly believe that his election as US president could make for a stronger America both within its own borders and in the world.
For, if Obama wins, it will be because a majority of white people joined black people in America to vote for him. And, this is a crucial point to remember. If all the black people in the US voted for Obama, they alone could not elect him. They are simply not enough. He needs the votes of the majority white people, and not only the intellectuals and movie stars, but a very large number of ordinary white men and white women.
If that large majority of white men and white women vote for Obama, it would indicate that mainstream America has matured and overcome the prejudice and bigotry that I knew when I went to school there in Boston, and encountered black people who had never socialised with whites, and whites who would never dream of socialising with blacks. That would be a major step forward in realising the dream of Martin Luther King that "one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood".
It would be a wonderful development in the US itself. Black people would, at last, feel that their citizenship is equal to white people. White people would feel that they had, at last, laid down the heavy burden of slavery's consequences, for in helping to elect Obama, they would have demonstrated their acceptance of black people as their equal - with the entitlement to lead a country in whose development black people played as significant a role as whites.
Such an America, as long as there is no triumphalism by black people that "it is our time now", would be stronger as a nation than at any time in its history. In turn, it would be an America that the rest of the world - Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew - would be compelled to respect.
If Obama remains true to the promise that he has offered, not only to the American people but to the people of the world who cheer for him every day, then America could oversee a new age of enlightenment where dialogue with a perceived enemy could avert war and carnage, and where reasonableness and responsibility would replace chauvinism and coercion.
But the task is not easy, and it is by no means a foregone conclusion. Regular viewers of the political talk shows on the worldwide US TV networks, CNN and Fox, would be familiar with the contributions of Lanny Davis. He is a self-confessed supporter of Hillary Clinton and was, in addition to being a White House counsel, Bill Clinton's defence attorney in the Monica Lewinski debacle. What he says should not be dismissed lightly.
I should admit here that I know Davis, having worked with him in the past. The fact that I know him personally does not make me a disciple of his views, but it causes me to take what he says seriously.
In a recent communication, drawing attention to the daily Gallup tracking poll which in the first days of July showed Obama with a small lead over the Republican candidate John McCain of 47% to 42%, Davis makes the point that "this is the first time that Obama has a lead over McCain beyond the margin of error of +/- 2%. The biggest margin he has enjoyed was in the first week of June, where he went up +7%, right after Hillary Clinton endorsed him".
He goes on to say: "What is pretty clear, however, is that Obama leads McCain as of now nationally by a relatively small margin and about the same margin that John Kerry led George Bush in June of 2004". And we all know that despite his lead, Kerry lost to Bush.
This Obama lead over McCain should be bigger. After all, as Davis indicates, Obama's narrow lead comes at a time when all the bad news is on the McCain side of the political equation. These include: "Bush's below 30% approval ratings, fuel prices skyrocketing, and McCain himself conveying neither coherent themes nor projecting positively in the daily TV sound bites".
Davis also makes the point that the historical pattern of elections shows that "in the closing days, often literally the last weekend, Republican moderate conservative undecided "leaners" and Democratic social conservatives who up to then have been soft for the Democratic candidate or undecided, break disproportionately for the more conservative Republican candidate. While they are not great in number, they can swing a close election, especially in the battleground states (as they did in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004)". Read all those fancy descriptions as white people with fears and prejudices.
To win, therefore, Obama has to carry these voters. In Davis' view, Hillary, as Obama's running mate for the vice presidency, could swing it for him.
This seems an unlikely scenario right now despite the attempted show of unity by Obama and Hillary after the bruising contest they conducted for the Democratic Party nomination. But nothing is impossible in politics. Realities could still bring Obama back to such a ticket, however unpalatable it might now be.
If the Obama-Clinton ticket does not happen, that old-time America may yet rouse itself from its seeming stupor to reassert the bigotry and prejudice that has so long been integral to American society. If it does, then the Obama dream will be over, and America and the world will be the poorer for it.
- The writer is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat
Responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com
Sunday, July 06, 2008
My previous commentaries on Barack Obama's candidature for the presidency of the United States have made it clear that I am sceptical about his winning. I am now even more sceptical despite his de facto defeat of Hillary Clinton for the nomination of the Democratic Party.
Sir Ronald Sanders
This is not because I don't want him to win. I firmly believe that his election as US president could make for a stronger America both within its own borders and in the world.
For, if Obama wins, it will be because a majority of white people joined black people in America to vote for him. And, this is a crucial point to remember. If all the black people in the US voted for Obama, they alone could not elect him. They are simply not enough. He needs the votes of the majority white people, and not only the intellectuals and movie stars, but a very large number of ordinary white men and white women.
If that large majority of white men and white women vote for Obama, it would indicate that mainstream America has matured and overcome the prejudice and bigotry that I knew when I went to school there in Boston, and encountered black people who had never socialised with whites, and whites who would never dream of socialising with blacks. That would be a major step forward in realising the dream of Martin Luther King that "one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood".
It would be a wonderful development in the US itself. Black people would, at last, feel that their citizenship is equal to white people. White people would feel that they had, at last, laid down the heavy burden of slavery's consequences, for in helping to elect Obama, they would have demonstrated their acceptance of black people as their equal - with the entitlement to lead a country in whose development black people played as significant a role as whites.
Such an America, as long as there is no triumphalism by black people that "it is our time now", would be stronger as a nation than at any time in its history. In turn, it would be an America that the rest of the world - Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew - would be compelled to respect.
If Obama remains true to the promise that he has offered, not only to the American people but to the people of the world who cheer for him every day, then America could oversee a new age of enlightenment where dialogue with a perceived enemy could avert war and carnage, and where reasonableness and responsibility would replace chauvinism and coercion.
But the task is not easy, and it is by no means a foregone conclusion. Regular viewers of the political talk shows on the worldwide US TV networks, CNN and Fox, would be familiar with the contributions of Lanny Davis. He is a self-confessed supporter of Hillary Clinton and was, in addition to being a White House counsel, Bill Clinton's defence attorney in the Monica Lewinski debacle. What he says should not be dismissed lightly.
I should admit here that I know Davis, having worked with him in the past. The fact that I know him personally does not make me a disciple of his views, but it causes me to take what he says seriously.
In a recent communication, drawing attention to the daily Gallup tracking poll which in the first days of July showed Obama with a small lead over the Republican candidate John McCain of 47% to 42%, Davis makes the point that "this is the first time that Obama has a lead over McCain beyond the margin of error of +/- 2%. The biggest margin he has enjoyed was in the first week of June, where he went up +7%, right after Hillary Clinton endorsed him".
He goes on to say: "What is pretty clear, however, is that Obama leads McCain as of now nationally by a relatively small margin and about the same margin that John Kerry led George Bush in June of 2004". And we all know that despite his lead, Kerry lost to Bush.
This Obama lead over McCain should be bigger. After all, as Davis indicates, Obama's narrow lead comes at a time when all the bad news is on the McCain side of the political equation. These include: "Bush's below 30% approval ratings, fuel prices skyrocketing, and McCain himself conveying neither coherent themes nor projecting positively in the daily TV sound bites".
Davis also makes the point that the historical pattern of elections shows that "in the closing days, often literally the last weekend, Republican moderate conservative undecided "leaners" and Democratic social conservatives who up to then have been soft for the Democratic candidate or undecided, break disproportionately for the more conservative Republican candidate. While they are not great in number, they can swing a close election, especially in the battleground states (as they did in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004)". Read all those fancy descriptions as white people with fears and prejudices.
To win, therefore, Obama has to carry these voters. In Davis' view, Hillary, as Obama's running mate for the vice presidency, could swing it for him.
This seems an unlikely scenario right now despite the attempted show of unity by Obama and Hillary after the bruising contest they conducted for the Democratic Party nomination. But nothing is impossible in politics. Realities could still bring Obama back to such a ticket, however unpalatable it might now be.
If the Obama-Clinton ticket does not happen, that old-time America may yet rouse itself from its seeming stupor to reassert the bigotry and prejudice that has so long been integral to American society. If it does, then the Obama dream will be over, and America and the world will be the poorer for it.
- The writer is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat
Responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com