August 2008 Archives
Barack Star Power
Last week, John McCain launched a "negative" attack on the stature of Barack Obama, which became all the rage for pundits on talk shows, blogs, and newspapers. For those who haven't seen it, check out the clip below.
When I first saw the ad, I have to be real, I laughed. Comparing Obama's star power to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears is a joke in and of itself. Unless you were already against Obama to begin with, I don't see how an ad like this has you ordering a "McCain in '08" bumper sticker. But the more I thought about the ad, the more I thought about this idea of political celebrity and what it means to Barack Obama and his supporters like me.
As many have pointed out, Obama is now on rock star status, and somehow, someway, Republicans, and Obama haters (the two can be mutually exclusive) have found some way of using this as a way to damage his credibility and question his ability to lead. The attacks on these merits alone are some of the most baffling I have ever witnessed. If you can deduce all political attack ads down to glorified high school snaps sessions, McCain's camp has basically gone ahead and told Obama he is too popular, too cool, and too liked by the whole world, thus, he should not be voted homecoming king. I wish that would've worked back in my high school days.
More ridiculous than the ad itself, is this idea that America deserves better than a political celebrity. Go back and take a look at some of the more popular politicians in our nation's history and you will see how some have either been celebrities before they were politicians, or became beloved politicians for their ability to become celebrities. Ronald Reagan, a hero of McCain's party, was an actor before he became governor of California and eventually President of the United States. Speaking of California governors, the current one is some guy named Arnold Schawrzenegger, who is, you guessed it, a Republican too. One of the most important and savvy moves Bill Clinton made in his 1992 race for President was appearing on the Arsenio Hall show. John F. Kennedy supposedly used to kick it with Marilyn Monroe. When Al Gore won an Oscar for Inconvient Truth, people were actually using it as a reason he should've run for President again in 2008. And now, because Barack Obama is more famous than all of these guys, we supposedly have a problem? That dog don't hunt.
The more troubling part of McCain's message is it pokes fun at a black man for being a celebrity for the best reasons why any one can become a celebrity. Since when did a person's ability to inspire people all around the world became a bad thing?
Ever since I discovered Barack Obama after reading a profile on him in The New Yorker in 2004, I have witnessed a rise to fame that makes Lil Wayne look like an underground artist. And you know what? I'm fine with that. I see nothing wrong with a black man being arguably the most popular, well-known person in the world because he wants to be President of the United States. It's certainly better than all the other reasons black people have become famous.
How many black people have become as popular as Barack Obama for doing something other than being able to sing, rap, dance, crack a joke, or play a sport? I can only name one, and that's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was taken from us far too soon. When I think about the Obama family, and I see them on the cover of People, I can only think of one other family like theirs. The Huxtables, and they weren't even real.
I have no frame of reference in my 27 years to which to compare all this Obama-mania. I always wonder out loud to my friends, what would it have been like to witness all of this as a 10-year-old? I was only three when Jesse Jackson ran for President the first time; only 7 when he ran in '88. So unless Jackson was a toy in the bottom of my cereal box or a guest voice on Transformers, he wasn't registering with me.
When I did come of age to admire real people and not cartoons, I wanted to play ball like Michael Jordan and fight like Mike Tyson. When I became a teenager, I was a fan of rappers like 'Pac and Snoop, but I wanted to be cool like Miles Davis and Marvin Gaye (yeah, yeah I was old school like that). Being like a Barack Obama? How could that happen if only ten years ago, I didn't even know black star power like his existed? Oprah, excluded.
For once, an American black man is the most famous person in the world because he wants to actually change the world. And though that may be a pipe dream (shared by him and yours truly), at least it's a change from what I believed in before.
