treachery

i know that this may sound like treachery, but i’ve been pondering a question for quite some time now. ever since the reverend wright fracas broke out, i’ve wondered if there is any downside to barack obama being president? for a moment, let’s try and be intellectually honest about the question and set aside bush-rage. i’m not really talking politics here, i am much more interested in race relations with this question that anything else.

i don’t know much about wright, and i don’t think that i really need to. after all, i’m not talking specifics—i’m speaking much more generally than what he may or may not have said in the course of 30 years of sermonizing. i am using wright as a particular kind of embodiment of black thought and black rage. fundamentally, the reaction of america to wright was not merely predicated upon the incendiary or offensive or uncomfortable things he said. i think it was a complete rejection of his entire epistemology. of course, part of the media circus was that he was so intimately connected with a presidential front runner. of course, of course. but, i think that america was asking him, “what do you have to be angry about? your guy is running for president and might actually win. doesn’t that make us even?”

is that a fair assessment of the reaction to wright? *shrug* i think so. i believe that most of america was very, very happy that wright said things that were easy to decry. it was easy to marginalize him—reminiscent of dave chappelle’s defense of people like martin lawrence. chappelle said that calling lawrence crazy (after his exploits in NC during the shooting of the black knight movie) was a successful attempt to marginalize lawrence without trying to understand the pressures under which he lived. the same thing with chappelle’s africa trip. the same thing with wright. and, by extension, the same with black america. i believe that most intellectual black leaders in america knew what he was getting at—i believe that’s why it took so long for b. obama to finally distance himself from wright. the process of distancing himself was so convoluted and tortured b/c b. obama understood the underlying philosophical principles—it’s just that the expression of those principles made it really hard for him to stand up for them.

(i’m loving dashes right now—makes people think that i am taking a dramatic pause—and i am)

so, if you accept that premise, then let us go back to my original question. is there a downside to b. obama being president? i mean, ok, as it pertains specifically to race relations irrespective of your individual political concerns. and, in particular, i’m thinking of this question in two different lights. sub-question one: would there be a sense (overt or otherwise) of “ok, your guy is president now. you can shut up about all inequality crap. i’m tired of dealing with it.” sub-question two: what does an obama presidency mean for the mingling of black culture (no, not hip hop—i mean our cultural identity as slave-descended africans) with mainstream culture?

thoughts?