Obama's Speech on Race in America

You can’t help but be impressed by the speech everyone is calling Obama’s race speech (for the record, Obama entitled it, A More Perfect Union ). It threaded a needle both politically and substantively concerning the matter of race in the United States and at a time when he needed to do it most. That it is one of the most literary speeches given by an American politician—imagine the current resident of the White House or Hillary Clinton for that matter giving a speech as artfully crafted and profound as this on any subject—is almost an afterthought though it, like the splendid Obama memoir, Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is certain to take its place among this country’s literary and oratorical achievements.

Obama’s speech was insightful, courageous and, yes, politically astute. He both reassured blacks that he wasn’t going to jettison Wright or completely discount a view of history, race relations, and politics that many blacks share, while largely bringing back onto the track an issue that was in danger of careening out of control with each playing of the judiciously selected (for drama and ability to outrage) video snippet of Obama’s former “spiritual advisor” and mentor by journalism’s finest hucksters and charlatans. In addition, Obama threw a couple of meaty bones to Jews (he pointedly rejected Wright’s statement that the Israelis are primarily responsible for unrest in the Middle East) and Latinos, and balanced his discussion about the United States’ shameful treatment of blacks with empathy towards white immigrants who don’t feel that they are part of this legacy and who believe that they have started from scratch and have had to overcome obstacles of their own.

Despite its accomplishments, and Obama’s incredible dexterity, the speech didn’t help much with Obama’s biggest problem, which isn’t race but rather his left wing pedigree, something that his association with Wright makes clear and which leaves him open to charges that Obama doesn’t love his country, isn’t a patriot, and can’t be trusted to deal appropriately with security matters. This crude but time-tested strategy will be applied in full by the Republicans in November and very likely with the same success that it was used against McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and John Kerry. And not one of these candidates had as his mentor and spiritual advisor a man who said “god damn America,” or accused it of infecting black people with HIV/Aids. Such an association is political poison for any politician, not because of race so much but because of the perception that Obama may well share Wright’s radical views or that he is somehow unpatriotic.

Truth be told, there is probably little that Obama can do to rehabilitate his political stances or explain away his inexperience. These things are not nearly so important in the primary and his speech was successful, I think, in shoring up most of the constituencies that have been supporting him thus far. What he has lost or is in the process of losing are the independent voters and most any chance of getting the working class white Democrats. He was certain to lose many of these voters, anyway, Wright or no Wright debacle, as his voting record becomes known and his lack of experience juxtaposed with the seriousness of the war, terrorist threats, and other things that terrify so-called security moms and dads. In the 1990s, for example, Obama visited the home of former Weather Underground radical, William Ayers, who like Obama was politically active in Chicago, a story that has no legs now and even less substance but is something about which we are certain to hear more if Obama is the Democratic Party’s nominee.

When this Fall rolls around, after endless evocations of questionable associations imaginary and real, crude exegeses of his writings, votes, and god knows what else, Jeremiah Wright and race will almost certainly be the least of Obama’s problems.