Race to the finish

By now you will know the answer to a question lurking behind Barack Obama’s presidential campaign: “Is America ready for a black President?” As I write this, I do not. But I think it is the question, much as religion was the question of John F. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960. Then it was Catholicism that frightened us.

We imagined a country under the tyranny of the Vatican (a much gentler Vatican under Pope John than the one under Benedict now.) That tyranny never materialized, and John Kennedy managed, better than most Protestant Presidents since him, to keep state separate from church.

When Obama won the Democratic nomination, I became aware of my own closeted feelings about how a black President might change the balance of power in this country. It was not a conscious process at first—in my mind it didn’t matter that he was black. But when encountering black people in my community, I began to wonder what it would mean to them to have a black President. I began to feel they would have a credibility in society that is still lacking. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be black under an Obama presidency. An absurd challenge to the imagination of a very white Irish American, I know, but I was not thinking rationally. I was thinking, if you will, emotionally.

Deep in the emotional well of all Americans is the taint of racism. We know we are collectively guilty of heinous crimes against our fellow man, even if those crimes occurred before we drew breath. We live in a society that still considers race in decisions that affect employment, education, religion and entertainment. We are not one nation under race. We are white, and all others.

As an early Hillary supporter, I was as conscious of her gender as I was of Obama’s racial heritage. I supported Hillary because I thought she was a dynamic leader who could win against an Republican orthodoxy with which I disagreed. But deeply, I also wanted a woman to win the presidency. I felt it would give women a place in our national identity that we still lack, a credibility and worthiness. Would I support an Alaskan governor for that reason alone? Certainly not. But a candidate who met other criteria for me, as Hillary did, and had the added benefit of being a woman—well, it was a factor.

Acknowledging that visceral, reflexive attitude in myself, I assumed it might also translate to that segment of our society labeled “other.” That blacks and Latinos and Asians and Native Americans might feel an empowerment previously unknown to them. And what would that mean to me? Would I somehow be diminished by this new equality?

These thoughts are anathema to my “liberal” conscience. I should not be thinking them, let alone writing them down. Yet, I feel that if I am thinking this way, how must those who do not subscribe to the rational notion of equality among races be thinking?

A woman in Florida, in a radio interview, said she was “afraid of rioting in the streets” if Obama was elected. Even more rational thinkers express fears of a “mass redistribution of wealth”—a polite term for looting?

In the final weeks of the campaign, the undertow of race has become more vigorous. From the time McCain called Obama “that one,” race was on the table. Euphemisms abound. “Socialist” means “black,” “hero” means “white man.” When Palin says “The real” America, she means “white” America.

One hundred and forty years after the Civil War we are still fighting among ourselves, still craving division in the face of unity. Only the experience of black leadership will dispel the buried fear of white America. I wonder if we are ready?

- Cass Collins