I’m Not The Only One

Daniel Cuevas

Prof. Kirkham

Writing 301

9 Dec 2007

The Candidacy Of Barack Obama and Its Challenge to the Ideal of What a U.S. President Should Be

            The status of Senator Obama’s Presidential candidacy is important because he is widely regarded by the media, his peers and various opinion polls as a possible frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  While people of color have run for President before, none of them have ever been more than fringe candidates with little chance of winning the Democratic nomination for President.  The purpose of my research is to measure how much of a challenge the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama is to the universal ideal of what a U.S. President should be.  It is not easy to sum up the many attributes of Barack Obama and compare them to the typical characteristics of a U.S. President because he differs from that ideal in so many ways. 

            His mixed ethnic background is only one aspect that sets him far apart from the 232-year history of U.S. Presidents of unmixed white Protestant heritage (with the exception of President John F. Kennedy, who was an Irish Catholic).  Obama’s genetic makeup is starkly different; his mother was a white American from Kansas and his father an African immigrant from Kenya.  He was born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia.  Obama’s full name alone, Barack Hussein Obama, is not even remotely close to what would be perceived as a stereotypical American name, but rather invokes the culture of the very terrorist organizations with whom we are embroiled in a deadly and complicated war.  As George Vradenburg writes in Here’s To The Skinny Kid With the Funny Name, it is this diverse heritage that enables Senator Obama to have a more inclusive perspective than any other American politician, regardless of race.  In a country where national leaders often represent only one specific demographic, a multiracial, multicultural individual like Obama can easily represent different groups and different interests with a personal stake that other American politicians have failed to duplicate.  Interestingly, Vradenburg, who is white, shies away from any discussion of the complexities of being a black person running for the highest office in the country.

            The Senator’s racial makeup is more closely examined by two other writers, both of whom are of Sub-Saharan African descent.  Gary Younge, a black Englishman, examines Obama’s candidacy on a wider scope, examining the state of race relations in America in Obama: Black Like Me.  Younge describes Obama as a black man who does not scare white people and addresses an aspect of American culture (particularly white American culture) that few are eager to admit: white Americans in general feel uncomfortable around blacks, and outside of music, entertainment and sports, black people are socially acceptable in America as long as they are not too black, that is, so long as they do not embrace or resemble too closely what white Americans depict and view African-Americans to embody. 

            Debra J. Dickerson, an African-American, offers a more polarizing view of Obama as a person who is not black at all.  Her controversial argument, summed up in her article Colorblind, is that unlike African-Americans, neither Obama nor his ancestors experienced slavery, Jim Crow or the Civil Rights movement, yet the Senator has in fact benefited from the struggles and tribulations of other people of color.  While he is genetically black, Dickerson contends, he is not black in the American political, social and cultural contexts.

            Of course, no one can examine Obama’s mixed heritage in further depth than the Senator himself.  In Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama details his personal struggle to find his own identity in a society where nearly everyone is able to more easily fit themselves into neat little categories.  The story details his childhood, adolescence and college years, marked with uncertainty over a question his peers had little trouble answering.  Having been raised mostly in Hawaii by his white mother and her family, Obama, referring to himself as “Barry”, knows little about his father who he has only met once in his whole life.  But upon learning of the elder Obama’s accidental death in Kenya, Barry decides to learn more about his roots, retracing the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii from Kansas and later traveling to Africa to meet the other Obamas.  His journey of self-exploration spans both hemispheres as the 21-year old comes to learn about his father’s family and Luo tribe.  By the end of this unique memoir, the protagonist learns that he must base his identity not around his bloodlines, but around his abilities.

            Given the ethnic consistency (except for Kennedy) of the last 43 men who have served as President, it is almost impossible to imagine any previous or current President growing up with such an identity crisis.  One can imagine most Commanders-in-Chief pointing to one specific area of the world map to pinpoint their families’ origin.  The Senator could also use one finger on a world map to show where his family came from, but it is where his other finger would point, to a location as culturally far from the first finger as it is geographically, that presents the conflict with which Obama and so many other multiracial Americans have struggled.  The conflict becomes more complex, considering that the ancestors of most Americans of African descent came from the opposite end of that continent from his own forefathers.

            Obama is constantly regarded as a member of only one community, even though his parents come from two distinct communities.  American culture prefers to stuff people into neat, manageable personal (racial, national identity, linguistic, etc.) categories and someone like Obama defies such a narrow-minded system.  Younge’s and Dickerson’s assessment of Obama as a black man is reflective of this age-old practice as they dismiss his Caucasian heritage and label him according to the racial background of his African father.  A multiracial individual like Obama can inspire Americans of different backgrounds to come together and reduce racial tensions in the United States. 

            In the game of identity politics which seems to have marked the last several Presidential elections however, being roughly painted as a solid member of one demographic group as opposed to being depicted as an undefined hybrid of two distinct communities may actually work in Obama’s favor as according to Katherine Q. Seelye in Clinton-Obama Quandary for Many Black Women, African-American women may not immediately rush to support Senator Hillary Clinton, the only female candidate in the 2008 Presidential election.

            It is true that Obama is not African-American in the historical sense, and that neither Obama, the first prominent black American too young to have participated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, or his ancestors ever participated in that movement.  Despite all this, Obama’s election to the Presidency would definitely mark an important milestone in that social revolution.

            Ideology is yet another aspect in which Obama Barack differs greatly from every other President in the history of the United States, (or at least every President who has served in the last century) one that has been attributed to his unique ethnic background and multicultural upbringing.  Vradenburg focuses on how this background plays an integral role in the Senator’s ideology, beliefs that are even alien to members of his own party.  The title of his article, Here’s To The Skinny Kid With the Funny Name, is taken from a line in Obama’s famous keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.  Vradenburg compares Obama to then-Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, an interesting aspect of the article considering Vradenburg had no idea at the time that Obama would be running for President three years later. 

            Criticizing Kerry for conveying a message of inclusiveness but embracing policies that contradict that message, the author distinguishes Obama as a person who personally embraces an ideology of inclusion rather than one of opposition to others who see things quite differently.  For example, Vradenburg notes that Obama’s speech demonstrates an understanding rather than contempt for those who may see things differently from himself, with Obama stating that there is not a liberal America and a conservative America but a United States of America.  The author is not as kind to Kerry, castigating the Senator for continuously emphasizing on his own disparity from the foreign policy of the Bush Administration.  Vradenburg opines that Kerry should have instead emphasized that the United States is committed to the United Nations Millennium Goals of reducing oppression, gender inequality, poverty, disease and illiteracy and that America’s military intervention in Iraq is a hopeful step in achieving such goals in what has been a historically oppressive country.  Vradenburg dismisses Kerry as “playing old politics” and not showing a willingness to work alongside people who see things differently from themselves.

            Younge compares Obama’s ideology to that of other African-American politicians and community leaders, whose political bases have always been in the black church.  Historically, the African-American community has always used churches as places to come together and exchange ideas, as slaves were not allowed to assemble freely anywhere else.  Even after Reconstruction, African-Americans continued to depend on their churches and spiritual leaders to spearhead social movements to defeat institutional racism and the disenfranchisement of their community.  Spiritual leaders such as the Reverends Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Calvin Butts and Muslim Ministers Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X have all played various roles in organizing many segments of the African-American community.  Reverends Jackson and Sharpton have both run for President, Jackson in 1984 and 1988 and Sharpton in 2004.  Although Obama is a registered member of the Church of Christ, it is unlikely that anyone would regard him as a spiritual leader of any kind.

            Obama makes absolutely no attempt to hide his irreligious upbringing, a fact that certainly distinguishes him from the last dozen or so Presidents, perhaps a byproduct of the Cold War in which mainstream America used its collective Judeo-Christian identity to backlash against the atheistic aspect of communism.  Two of Obama’s competitors in the Presidential race as ordained ministers, fringe Republican candidate Mike Huckabee (Southern Baptist) and Prohibition Party candidate Gene Amondson (Free Methodist) and many of the other Presidential candidates would not dare pass up the chance to publicly embrace a Christian voting bloc, whether it be Roman Catholics, the Southern Baptist Convention or any other Christian organization (some national Jewish organizations such as B’nai B’rith are also wooed).  In a country where politicians are barraged with moral litmus tests by everyone from the media to various religious groups, few politicians or political candidates would dare mention any upbringing in a non-Christian faith or worse, in no particular faith at all.

            As for black leaders, with the exception of Malcolm X (who in The Autobiography of Malcolm X admitted that, prior to converting to Islam, had earned the nickname “Satan” in prison due to his constant cursing of God and religion in general) no prominent member of the black community has ever claimed to not have embraced religion in any time of their life.  But in The Audacity of Hope, Obama fearlessly discusses his religious upbringing, or rather lack thereof.  He describes his father as being raised as a Muslim, but becoming a confirmed atheist by the time his parents met.  His mother is described as being raised by non-practicing Christians and Obama’s Indonesian stepfather is depicted as seeing little use for religion.

            Obama’s background in academia is yet another characteristic that would certainly challenge the ideal of what a U.S. President should be.  A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990, making him the first nonwhite person to ever hold that position in the school’s long and prestigious history.  His involvement in higher education however, did not end when he earned his Juris Doctorate degree magna cum laude in 1991, as Obama lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

            Obama’s remarkable commitment to learning and using his knowledge to help enlighten the minds of others distinguishes him from the last dozen or so men who have served as President of the United States.  Most other Presidents in the last 100 years have either had previous careers exclusively in the private sector as lawyers or corporate executives or in the public sector as elected or appointed officials.  In fact, the last President to have any sort of career in academia was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had served as president of Columbia University (of which Obama is ironically an alum).  It is perhaps this extensive experience in the academic community that may have contributed to Obama’s sophistication and ease in working with others who may be very different from himself.  Obama’s three-year stint as an attorney, on the other hand, would put him in good company with the 25 individuals who also worked as lawyers prior to being elected to the Presidency.

            The Senator’s globe-spanning upbringing also challenges the ideal of what many would view a U.S. President to be, as many past Presidents have made relatively few international trips prior to being elected.  As Younge points out, Obama’s multinational upbringing is just one of several factors which provide him with views and experiences that few African-Americans can claim to parallel.  But as Vradenburg notes, this is even true of white Americans as well, attributing Obama’s international background to his inclusive views which as he noted continuously, separates him from such politicians as Kerry. 

            This is most certainly true of many of the men who have served as President.  The most recent President to have made such pre-election overseas visits is Bill Clinton, who studied at Oxford University in England.  But even this brief stay across the Atlantic cannot compare to Obama’s four years in the multi-ethnic city of Jakarta, Indonesia as a child as well as his birth, childhood (with the exception of his four years in Indonesia) and adolescence in Hawaii, a chain of islands in the South Pacific with a predominantly Polynesian, Japanese and Filipino population vastly cut off from the mainland United States by 2,300 miles of water.  Obama’s experience outside of the U.S. sets him a world apart from the current President, who before his election had only visited Mexico, which borders his home state of Texas.

            Interestingly enough, the one trait Obama shares most with the other men who have served as President of the United States is genealogy.  According to Ancestors of American Presidents by Gary B. Roberts and Julie H Otto, the genealogical makeup of the men who have served as President is so ethnically homogenous that 19 Presidents are actually related to each other, a disturbing fact considering this republic was founded partly to avoid being ruled by the incestuous royal families which reigned over the monarchies of old Europe.  This same idiosyncrasy rings true for Obama who according to the New York Times is a very distant cousin of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

            The Presidential candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama is typical and reflective of the United States, particularly of the wills and notions of the people who founded this nation and of the people who have called it home.  The U.S. was created as a challenge to the ideal of how citizens should live, of who and to what they should pledge their allegiance.  Over and over, through the abolition of slavery, through the women’s suffrage movement, and through the fortitude of millions to strive for equal rights for all, Americans have relentlessly proved themselves to be able to challenge, if not overcome, various contemporary ideals.  And as this nation reaches the dawn of the first decade of the 21st Century, it should be of little surprise that yet another ideal is once again to be challenged in so many ways.

Works Cited

Dickerson, Debra J. “Colorblind.” Salon.com 22 Jan. 2007.

Haley, Alex.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  New York: Ballentine, 1966.

Mendell, David. Obama: From Promise to Power. New York: Amistad, 2007.

Obama, Barack H. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.   Reprint Edition.  New York: Three Rivers, 2007.

Obama, Barack H. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York:        Crown, 2007.

Seelye, Katharine Q. “Clinton-Obama Quandary for Many Black Women.”  New York            Times 14 Oct. 2007.

Roberts, Gary B. & Otto, Julie H. Ancestors of American Presidents. 3rd Ed. Santa   Clarita: Carl Boyer/New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1989.

Vradenburg, George. “Here’s to the Skinny Kid With the Funny Name.” Tikkun Vol. 19.5 (2004): 6.

Wade, Nicholas.  “Cheney and Obama: It’s Not Genetic.” New York Times 21 Oct.    2007.

Younge, Gary.  “Obama: Black Like Me.”  The Nation, 13 Nov. 2006: 12.