By Regan Crisp
Between Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright, the Obama camp has fallen into an embarrassing place lately. Caught early in the morning without their makeup on, as it were. Last Tuesday, Obama sought to fix that problem by inviting the media into a press conference, sitting them down, and essentially rubbing their own fodder in their faces.
Race has been a main issue in the candidate’s campaign, though he has tried to distance himself from the subject, hoping perhaps that no one would notice that he isn’t an old white man like our presidents have always been. Well, somewhere along the line someone leaked that juicy bit of gossip, so the secret’s out.
And, finally, Obama is addressing it. It took a preacher saying “God damn America” and the indictment of a fund-raiser close to the campaign, but at least the cards are on the table. In his response, Obama rose to the occasion. With great aplomb and a raw honesty rarely seen from candidates tackling the same subject, he basically told the press to “Get over it.” Aren’t we all tired of hearing those speeches of Wright, as if Obama wrote them for the man and sat in the front row cheering? And how many times can we dredge up Geraldine Ferraro’s sentiments as if she, above all people, is held in the highest of political esteem? Obama is a lucky man. He is rallying the people in a way that hasn’t been seen for decades, and if that brings unity between different races and ethnicities, more power to him.
While condemning the overzealousness of his preacher, Obama reminds us that the black journey is not an easy one. There is a “bitterness and bias” there that isn’t so easily pushed aside. He seems to think that the press may have forgotten that the black man is a slighted man, a man held back for centuries, still struggling. (But hey, don’t feel bad; we all make mistakes.) Obama doesn’t justify Wright’s opinions – he is sure to make that plain. Instead, he offers a path leading up to the anger, an explanation, if you can call it that. Slavery makes an appearance, and Jim Crow. Even Brown v. Education makes a cameo, and of course, the ever-elusive American Dream. It’s a history lesson we’ve gotten before, in similar situations, with one distinct difference: Obama gives us both sides. White anger – did anyone else know this was fair ground? Yes, folks, he brought it out in the open. White people are mad too, he tells us, about having to hear that their race is an advantage, about fear being masked as prejudice and affirmative action as a solution, not another disadvantage. Basically, it doesn’t matter what race you are, we’re all pissed off! Everyone just relax, now. Stop pointing fingers, stop calling each other names.
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Once his finger stops wagging, Obama’s message is a refreshing one: both sides are angry, and both sides feel slighted. But racial divides don’t dissolve with one election, and one man, and they don’t go away by being talked to death. Anger and resentment are counterproductive, but they don’t necessarily translate to racism, and ignorance. So instead of laying blame and avoiding the real issue, let’s ask ourselves why we care so much about Obama’s heritage. Personally, I’d like to stop hearing about where he ranks on the scale of black-enough, and not-black-enough. I say move on, let the man talk about what matters – how’s that universal health care plan going, Barack?
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Regan Crisp is a junior in the journalism program at Columbia College.
Posted on March 24, 2008