Now might be a good time to have that talk about race
THE DAILY BLADE: Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has told “Meet The Press” host David Gregory that he prefers to be referred to as a “black American” than an “African American” because "the roots of my heritage are in the United States of America, so I consider myself a black American."
He explained his preference a bit more fully during a more recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan:
I trace my roots back in this country, the majority of my roots – the ones that are more meaningful to me were the slaves that were my foreparents, my forefathers. … But my heritage is mostly here in the United States … I prefer the term black American rather than African-American. That's going back too far.
Perhaps unwittingly, Cain has revived the debate that began amongst black Americans during the previous presidential campaign about whether Sen. Barack Obama (he wasn’t using his middle name back then; only “racists” were) – who had a white mother and whose black father could not trace his ancestry back to someone who was brought here on a slave ship – was “black enough” (related article, fifth item on the page).
In November 2006, New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch wrote: “Other than color, Obama did not - does not - share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves."
On the other side of the coin, Caribbean blacks, for instance, hoped that Obama’s exotic parentage would broaden the definition of what it meant to be “black” in this country. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed published in February 2007, Louis Chude-Sokei, an associate professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz, noted:
The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American.
These blacks feel cramped by the narrowness of American racial politics, in which "blackness" has not just defined one's skin color but has served as a code word for African American. To be heard and to be counted, these black immigrants must often pass as African American, sometimes against their will.
But regardless of their cultural roots, Democrats expect blacks to fall in line again during the 2012 election. Radio host Tom Joyner has been urging his 8 million listeners to “Stick together, black people,” The Washington Post reports:
“Let’s not even deal with the facts right now. Let’s deal with just our blackness and pride – and loyalty,” Joyner wrote on his BlackAmericaWeb.com blog. “We have the chance to re-elect the first African-American president, and that’s what we ought to be doing. And I’m not afraid or ashamed to say that as black people, we should do it because he’s a black man.” …
The calls for racial solidarity have not come from the White House, and Obama has been careful to speak in broad terms, even when talking about how his policies have helped African Americans. At the same time, his campaign has welcomed the support of black media figures. Those “validators” make clear that they back the president’s policies, and a White House aide noted that their support is deeper than the color of Obama’s skin. “You don’t see them supporting Herman Cain or Alan Keyes,” the aide said.
Ironically, should Cain find himself running against Obama, this time around he may be the one who isn’t considered “black enough,” even though both his parents are black and his family tree does include slaves – the criteria against which Obama’s blackness was measured. But in a match-up that could be the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of being judged by the content of one’s character rather than by the color of one’s skin, the rap on Cain comes uncomfortably close to political “colorism.”
New York magazine interviewed several black NYers at a barber shop on Fulton Street about the prospect of each party putting up a black candidate for the presidency. One unemployed fellow whose “distressed dreadlocks” were being tended to called Cain “a buffoon and a shill … a damn fool pizza CEO signed up to do whatever people in power say as long as he keeps getting his.” Another patron described Cain as “the No. 1 Negro in charge of Obama-bashing.”
For his part, the Reverend Al Sharpton said, “Cain reminds any black person of anyone, it isn’t themselves, it is their grandfather, that old southern guy. Things have changed since then, just the Republicans don’t know it.”
Given that Obama is of mixed race a more subtle insult to Cain’s authenticity as a black man than calling him an “Oreo” is necessary. Thus, Cain is described as ingratiating, servile – a Time magazine column asked, “Is Herman Cain the most unctuous black man alive?” In other words, Cain = Stepin Fetchit.
Black conservatives – a minority within a minority – certainly don’t see Cain the way their brothers and sisters on the other side of the political divide do. Especially those like Hoover Institution senior fellow Thomas Sowell, who grew up poor like Cain did. Here’s what Sowell said in an interview on Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto” last week: “My gosh, he is certainly one of us far more so than Barack Obama. Raised in Hawaii and going to a private school, an expensive private school."
HipHop pundit AlfonZo Rachel wants to know, “What will it take for the race establishment to believe that Herman Cain is black?” If he had been at that barber shop on Fulton Street, there would have been a real debate on what defines “blackness” in the 21st century.
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