Obama's American nightmare

The Jamaica Gleaner ^ | July 28, 2013 | Professor Carolyn Cooper

[2ndDivisionVet]

THOSE CRAZY birthers who insist that Barack Obama is from a foreign country are not completely lunatic. The America of Obama's youth is not the mainland United States (US). And it's not mainstream. Hawaii, Obama's state of birth, was not admitted into the union until 1959. That's almost two centuries after the American declaration of independence from Britain, and only two years before Obama was born.

The most absurd 'fact' I've heard about Hawaii is that it has the highest racial minority population of any state in the union - 75 per cent, according to US census figures. How can the majority of people in Hawaii be counted as a minority? Only in the racist United States where whites consider themselves to be the definitive Americans! Forget about the indigenous people. White is the default race and all others are minority. That's mainland racial politics. But in Hawaii, whites are the minority. That's what the US census figures actually mean.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRAUMA

In a 1999 essay for the Punahou Bulletin, published by his high school in Honolulu, Obama acknowledges the impact of the years he spent in his homeland: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered - to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect - became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."

Obama's Hawaiian 'world view' is fundamentally at odds with racial politics in mainstream America. Born to a black African father and a white American mother, Obama doesn't easily fit into a box. He isn't simply African-American. The hyphen does make a difference. Obama comes to mainland America as an outsider whose personal history does not include the African-American trauma of enslavement and all it entails. Despite Michelle, it is a struggle for Obama to claim the hyphen.

And African-Americans are struggling to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, especially since he's president of all America. Obama is a biracial, multicultural American who embodies many of the ideological contradictions that constitute the US. The unofficial national motto asserts unity: 'E pluribus unum' ('out of many one'). But America is a divided society. Trusting in God seems to make no difference.

'POST-RACIAL' AMERICA

The cold-bloodied slaying of Trayvon Martin and the contested ruling that has freed his assailant have become yet another test case of the fundamental fairness of the US justice system. On all sides of the angry debate about what went wrong, there's the shameful knowledge that race remains a provocative sign of both criminality and innocence in a supposedly 'post-racial' America.

President Obama has been caught in the crossfire. In a much-analysed speech two Fridays ago, he revealed his somewhat ambiguous identification with Trayvon Martin and, more broadly, African-American culture. This is how he began: "I gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on Sunday, but, watching the debate over the course of the last week, I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit."

That's the first problem. Obama's initial pronouncement on the judgment, appealing for "calm", appears to be his instinctive reaction. The expansion of his thoughts comes a little bit too late. And it's really just a little bit too little. Obama shouldn't need to watch the debate in order to realise that, as president, it was his duty to make a much more nuanced and expansive statement on yet another American tragedy.

After affirming the "grace and dignity" of the Martins' response to the contested ruling that freed their son's killer, Obama tried, yet again, to identify with the victim: "You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago.

"And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognise that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away."

RACIAL PROFILING

It is precisely this set of experiences and history that Obama does not own. This "set" is not in his DNA. And it's not only African-Americans who are looking at the issue through the lens of a history that doesn't go away. Euro-Americans have their own set of experiences and history - of lynching, for example - that influences how they view the death of Trayvon Martin. Furthermore, people of goodwill, of all races, are agitated about the killing and the judgment.

Obama gives three examples of racial profiling of African-American males. In each successive instance, he becomes more and more distant. The first example is "being followed when shopping in a department store". Obama says, "That includes me".

The next example is "walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars". Obama says, "That happens to me". Present tense. He quickly qualifies it, "at least, before I was a senator". That's a big leap away from racial profiling. Not to mention president.

Obama's final example is "getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off". Obama doesn't even pretend that he's had that experience: "That happens often".

The race of the generic woman is unmarked. If she's white, it's fear of the predatory black man. If she's black, it's the same thing. But, in the latter case, it's now black-on-black crime. Why don't we ever talk about white-on-white crime? Because white is normative and black is pathological?

In his expanded thoughts, Obama does give some prescriptions for the disease of racial profiling. He pays particular attention to the dilemma of African-American males. But he cannot identify with them fully, no matter how hard he tries to be Trayvon. It's the hyphen again. Obama inherited his mother's American nightmare. But he also possesses distant dreams from his African father.

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Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Vist her bilingual blog at http://carolyncooper.wordpress.com. Send comments to; columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com

[AmericanVictory]

the contested ruling that has freed his assailant have become yet another test case of the fundamental fairness of the US justice system. The professor should be more attentive to the truth. There was no "ruling." There was a unanimous verdict based on a lengthy and careful analysis of well thought out instructions on the law by jurors who took their duty seriously. Jamaica has an English based judicial system. I came to be friends with one of the judges of it who had an excellent grasp of the rule of law. It's not as if she could not learn how it works if she bothered to take the time to find out. She clearly would rather focus on a kind of non-law "status" system based upon deference to what group one is a member of rather than trials based on the evidence.

[GeronL]

bump

law is about the facts and truth, not about groups and castes

[driftless2]

"forbidding employers"

Name a city please. I can't believe an employer would be forbidden for asking about a prospective employee's criminal record. For instance, how could a convicted pedophile not have his past checked when he applies for a job?

[353FMG]

“There will never be racial harmony in America as long as there is a Congressional Black Caucus....”

.
There will never be racial harmony in America.

It’s way too late for that — the damage is done and cannot be reversed.

Only racial homogeny will work. Isn’t that why the word ‘balkanization’ was coined?

[sphinx]

"getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off".

The woman must've been a taxpayer.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Yeah, but it didn’t help, did it?

[jonrick46]

"Obama comes to mainland America as an outsider , , "

When Barry lived in Hawaii until graduating from Punahou School in 1979, he lived in a very multicultural community. His high school was a private school where only the kids from wealthy parents attended. Here is a photo of his racially mixed school:

It is when Barry Obama went to Occidental College in Los Angeles, in 1979, did he find the cultural malaise of the black community and the reaction to it by the main stream culture. It was then he experienced "walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars". It was the main stream culture reacting to a culture that had been sickened by the effects of the Democrats and LBJ's Great Society sickness that had blighted American cities like the plague. It was an epidemic of food poisoning from the government trough that has plagued economic populations like a soft genocide to rid society of the unfit. This genocide continues.

The race card hides what is an American tragedy. Like a kabuki costume hides the real identity of the player, the race card hides the monstrous identity of government policy. The real player is the welfare state that discourages a mother and father to raise children as a family. It also is government that over-regulates and over-taxes free enterprise Capitalism out of the inner city and throughout our land.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Funny, most cars didn’t have automatic door locks back then, remember?

[Lancey Howard]

Schaedenfreude BUMP!!

LOL, I can’t get enough of these whining liberal scumbags and race whores.

[jonrick46]

Zer0 said that the automatic door lock thing happened before he was a senator. Let’s see, Zer0 was a state senator from 1997-2004. If it happened then, that places him in Chicago. When I was in Chicago, back in 1973, the inner city was a no-man’s-land. I can imagine how the demise progressed to the state it was when Zer0 came to Chicago in 1983. I saw the guards at the upscale apartments to control who had access. I have a 1986 automobile with automatic door locks. I bet those automatic door locks were clicking like crickets when Zer0 walked down the street.

An interesting bit of word-of-mouth information has told me that Zer0 was dealing with the Black Gangster Disciples when in Chicago. And that was not just to help one of their members beat a jail sentence. Zer0 was making drug purchases. I bet Zer0 walking all wobbly on drugs made those doors click like castanets.

[Eva]

I don’t remember the names of the cities, but the article is on the WSJ. I think that the latest one was called Richland, CA., but the names didn’t stick in my mind, but this is not the first article that I have read about this.

[driftless2]

You are correct about some aspects. Minnesota is close to passing a bill barring asking about criminal pasts until later in job interviews. But they’re not outright bans. So conceivably a combination pedophile-axe murderer could get past the first round of interviews.

[Jabba the Nutt]

Bingo! Same here.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"THOSE CRAZY birthers who insist that Barack Obama is from a foreign country are not completely lunatic."

Ah, the original birther is Barack Hussein Obama. On his own bio that he wrote for his publisher, Barack Hussein Obama reports that he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia. He also is a lunatic, but not completely.

[Eva]

There is a city in CA that is trying to pass the ban as well. Later in the process means after a job offer has been made, but they are still only allowed to ask about serious crimes, like murder. Jobs working with children will still use criminal background checks.

[Eva]

Ten States and 51 cities now have laws banning criminal background checks, and I was wrong about the laws not applying to jobs working with children, only SOME of the laws allow background checks for jobs in critical areas, working with children.

So, potentially, all those teachers that we have been reading about for having affairs with students, will be able to get their jobs back when they get out of jail