Obama Elitist? I'm Hearing Something Else
So in a recent conversation, Barack Obama tried a little too hard to make that connection between the disaffection of the white working class and the white poor, and their proclivity to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" as a way to make meaning of the diminishing returns of their lives. Guns and religion and "the other," the Senator from Illinois argued were the comfort foods of choice for many. The fact that Obama suggested that some folk in these communities might be tad bitter, should not in and of itself raise any eyebrows, but the speed and derision that the presumptive (I'm sick of this word) Republican nominee John McCain and New York Senator Hillary Clinton asserted that Obama's comments were "demeaning" and Obama, himself, out of touch, suggests that there is something else at play.
There's no small irony that two of the wealthiest members of the Senate would describe a former community organizer as out of touch. But McCain and Clinton's responses have nothing to do with the black and brown urban poor that Obama broke bread with in Illinois, but rather the white working poor and working class in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where high-wage jobs are scarce and hope, increasingly even scarcer. I would argue that none of the candidates, including Senator Obama, are really in touch with what's happening in small town America.
For instance, look how middle-class Philadelphia suburbanites have suddenly become the charmed constituency in the forthcoming Pennsylvania primary. Indeed Senator McCain as recently as at three weeks ago argued vehemently that the Federal Government should not alleviate the financial woes of those in the very communities that Obama talked about, who are losing their homes in record numbers. Bitter? I bet more than few in those communities are bitter in response to the Federal Government's essential bailout of Bear Sterns.
In a country where God and the flag are held in the highest esteem and any bitterness expressed toward the government--particularly in the post 9/11 era--is viewed with suspicion by some, if not an outright act of treason (think about reaction to Michelle Obama's comments earlier this year.), it has often been easy for marginalized communities of all backgrounds, to identify scapegoats, be it in the form of racial conspiracy theories, anti-Black racism and the kind of xenophobia expressed in response to illegal, and likely legal immigration.
In any other Presidential campaign and in any other historical moment, the depiction of an opposition candidate as "elitist" and "out of touch" is slick and potentially effective politicking; it's the reason why Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, dumbed-himself-down in 1992. But the assertion that Barack Obama--an highly educated, upper-middle-class and articulate black man--is an "elitist," is really code for "uppity nigger." In terms of instigating anti-Black racism and violence in this country, few things were more potent than the perception that black people, and black men in particular, did not know their place--whether it be an act of "reckless eyeballing" or too prideful of a demeanor.
What McCain and Clinton are essentially signaling to the white underclass and working poor is that "this nigger thinks he's better than you." But these attempts are part of a dated racial politics that is increasingly giving way to what Ellen McGirt of Fast Company Magazine calls a "postboomer society" where Obama is reflective of an attempt to move "beyond traditional identity politics." Still, it's hard to imagine that there won't be a symbolic "lynching" in Senator Obama's future.
Tags: Barack Obama, Elitist, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
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