The current US presidential campaign is arguably the most historic in modern history. It has all the elements that makes political debate in this country our true national pastime. We’ve had youth vs. age, conservative vs. liberal and men vs. a woman. For the political punditocracy their cup runneth over.
I confess, I’ve watched enough talking head commentary to claim a carbon footprint the size of Sasquatch. Some of the comments have been thoughtful. The vast majority has been inane, particularly multiple comments that run over the top of each other like a family dinner table discussion gone bad.
But there was one comment that shed a very different light on the campaign. It was during one of the most heated moments of the “D” primary. Barack Obama was navigating his way through the Rev. Wright controversy and Hillary Clinton was starting to really turn up the heat. There were lots of calls for Obama to take off the gloves and come out swinging, as if politicians can’t find a way to beat each others brains out without removing their gloves.
On CNN, network analyst Donna Brazile, an African-American Democratic party activist and former 2000 campaign manager for Al Gore, theorized why it wasn’t going to happen. Brazile explained that Obama had to avoid at all costs showing any anger. “If he appears to be an angry black man, the campaign is over.” she said. Her comment spoke volumes about the current state of race in the US and a double standard at play in the campaign. If Obama bristles, he shows signs of being an angry black man. And that would terrify some white voters. But if his competitors do the same, they’re usually viewed as seasoned, ready and tough.
These are extremely delicate waters for Obama to travel. But we’ve seen this before. In the late 1940s, Branch Rickey, club president and GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Jackie Robinson as the first player in fifty-seven years to break the baseball color line, a segregation practice dating to the nineteenth century. Rickey had to have a man who could restrain himself from responding to the ugliness of the racial hatred that was certain to come. When initially informed of Rickey’s requirement for the signing, Robinson was aghast: “Do you want a player afraid to fight back?” Rickey replied that he needed a player “with the guts not to fight back.” Robinson knew he would face tremendous racial animus, and couldn’t take the bait and react angrily. He agreed to abide by Rickey’s terms. The rest is baseball and civil rights history.
As the general election campaign begins, the attacks on Obama are sure to escalate. Not just the ones rooted in true discourse, like his experience or policy positions, but the ones carefully veiled or even blatant and ugly. Obama knows that if signs of confidence are characterized as arrogance, a single moment of anger will bring down the roof.
Race continues to be a tender point of discussion in this country. We are probably not as racially polarized as the left feels or as reconciled as some on the right claim. But one thing is certain, if Barack Obama is elected the first African-American President of the United States, it will be the result of his restraint, composure and dignity. And it will be unrivaled in political history. Why any man would want to subject himself and his family to such an ordeal is beyond me. The only person alive who may know is Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow.
