Melvin B. Miller
Editor & Publisher

The challenge against hope

Barack Obama first came to the attention of Americans when he gave a stirring keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. The eloquent son of an African from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas stirred the nation.

Obama reminded Americans that pride in our nation stems from the promise of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That promise imbued Americans with “… a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.” These values empower Americans’ productivity. But Obama pointed out that “… alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we’re all connected as one people.”

Obama cited “the fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. E pluribus unum: ‘Out of many, one.’” In an effort to ford the nation’s racial divide, Obama said, “There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America: There’s the United States of America.”

Obama is a healer. He wants America to move beyond the debilitating racial policies of the past. The recent remarks of Geraldine Ferraro indicate that everyone is not willing to make the leap. She said, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.”

It is hardly accurate to assert that Ferraro is a racist just because she noted that Obama is black. But with charges of racism emerging from the campaign, it was certainly insensitive to make such a statement. Ferraro is clearly no racial healer.

In his 2004 keynote address, Obama warned that “… there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes.’” In this campaign, Obama has tried to rise above the politics of the past. With Obama clinging to a lead in elected delegates, Hillary Clinton seems quite willing to do whatever is necessary to win.

A direct reference to race would have the opposite effect. Americans who want to move on from the nation’s regrettable past would turn against any candidate who resorted overtly to racism. But racial antagonism is buried so deep in the psyche of some Americans that subtle references are even more effective.

Orlando Patterson, a Harvard sociology professor, indicated in a March 11 New York Times op-ed piece that the red phone ad used by Clinton played on racial fear. The children to be protected from danger at 3 a.m. were white and Latino. While the alleged danger was terrorism, Patterson wrote, the message conveyed was that the danger was crime.

Different people have had different reactions to the ad. There is concern, however, that Obama has gained political support because he has transcended race. American voters must not let the “old politics” cloud the “audacity of hope” that Obama has inspired.

“When you’re a surrogate, you can say anything you want.”