The Lynchpin of Racism

Whether he admits it or not, Barack Obama has already brought change

When President-elect Barack Obama gets sworn in next Tuesday, one day after Martin Luther King Day, will the world be a different place?

After raising more money than anyone in history, and beating John McCain in what amounts to a modern day landslide, this is a reasonable question to ask. But the color of Mr. Obama’s skin has been an ingrown hair on the face of the political world ever since he declared his candidacy for the Oval Office. The issue never exactly revealed itself, but instead remained below the surface while Americans argued around the issue instead of addressing it directly.

Moderate critics of Barry-O have preferred to cite his lack of political management experience, which is a reasonable argument, considering the dearth of legislative issues that Barry-O actually weighed in on while in the US Senate. But the extremists, as Peter Beinart argued in a piece for Time magazine, have preferred to tap dance around the race issue in favor of questioning Mr. Barack Hussein Obama’s citizenship and whether he was actually born in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, Obama supporters have preferred to cling to the broad concept of “change”, which historically is a fantastic way to decapitate regimes. But identifying what sort of change an ivy league-educated, millionaire attorney with no executive experience is capable of bringing, is still difficult to quantify.

That’s not to say that our 44th President will do a worse job than #43. In many ways, the tenure of George W. Bush has been unprecedented in terms of failed opportunity, cronyism, and indifference to the views of the American public. And whether he deserves it or not, George W. Bush’s legacy will be based on the historical crises that occurred under his watch;  the worst terrorist attack on American soil in US history (9/11), the worst financial collapse in 75 years, the destruction of a major US city (New Orleans), and two separate wars that have lasted six and eight years, respectively. Additionally, six of Mr. Bush’s eight years in office were accompanied by GOP control of the legislative branch.

So it’s safe to say that even a comatose Barack Obama will likely outshine the departing Bush administration. But the promise of change carries more responsibility than merely doing better than the previous guy. Mr. Obama has assured supporters that his ascention to the oval office is the first step to restoring the average american’s faith in the political system. But by surrounding himself with ex-Clinton administration employees, where are these new  ideas supposed to come from?

The answer this question may end up only being skin deep. US Presidents, like most world leaders, live mostly ceremonial lives. They can pressure people to adhere to an agenda, but there are simply too many tasks and issues for a commander in chief to properly micromanage. Instead, it’s the broad brushstrokes that shape how 300 million people live their lives, and one undeniable brushstroke is that Americans can look at their President for the first time, and not see a white man staring back at them. The democrats and republicans may attempt to look beyond this fact, but skin color is absolutely the political issue of the 2008 presidential election. The majority of people in this country are not white males, and the sight of one white man after another ascend to the presidency is bound to demoralize substantial portions of this country.

So even though we refuse to directly talk about it, race belongs in any conversation about Barack Obama’s presidency. Every day after Mr. Obama takes office will become a day that African Americans can look to the highest levels of leadership and see the spot where a glass ceiling once rested. That’s not to say that skin color will define Barry-O’s legacy, but it’s naive to say that we never noticed it in the first place.