Inspiration and Realism in Denver
posted by Frank Pasquale
Mary Dudziak provides some much-needed historical perspective on the Democratic nomination of Barack Obama. She notes that less than fifty years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer was brutally attacked for her civil rights work. Though she failed to get the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party seated at the 1964 Democratic Convention, Hamer laid the groundwork for a more inclusive party. To many, Obama’s nomination is the culmination of her and the MFDP’s struggle.
But there are many signs that the struggle is only beginning. Jacob Weisberg canvasses the lingering legacy of racism in the US, and Patricia J. Williams puts it in vivid detail:
[W]hile some of us are listening to the soothing tones of National Public Radio, a much larger audience—and larger by millions—is listening to Rush Limbaugh singing those subterranean fears of “Barack, the magic Negro,” or to radio shock jocks cackling about “jigaboos,” or to Pat Buchanan fretting that Obama is a radical, unpatriotic, extremist “elitist” to whom the liberal media hands a pass as a “special-ed,” “affirmative-action” candidate. Not that any of them mean it in a racist way. Hey, lighten up. Don’t you have a sense of humor?
I have even heard reports of these sentiments from my mother, who, while in the waiting room for her podiatrist last week, overheard another woman declare she was voting for McCain because “the blacks are taking over.” And this was in New Jersey, a long way from the South that terrorized Hamer.
These are the types of frightening and depressing sentiments that the US has to try to confront this election season. . . even as immense challenges mount elsewhere. All I can say is that it is heartening to see the pride at the Obama nomination here in Newark–a largely African-American city devastated by the slow-motion Katrinas of bad (or nonexistent) health and education policy for urban areas. When I think of the incredible challenges that the US faces, the courage and persistence evidenced by Hamer’s and Obama’s organizing work seems not merely helpful, but necessary.
August 27, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Posted in: Politics
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