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Ted Pio-Roda, CNN
Sen. Hillary Clinton responds to a question at the CNN/Congressional Black Caucus Institute Democratic Debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. on Monday. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has lost support among some African Americans for his attacks on Obama's record. |
Posted January 25, 2008
His message is about unity, health care and bringing the troops home. By the way, he also happens to be black.
"We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America," exclaimed Barack Obama, the freshman Illinois senator and Democratic candidate for president, on the evening of his Iowa caucus victory Jan. 3.
The speech represented an electric moment amid the first voting in the presidential nomination process, and Obama's inclusive appeal typifies his understated approach to race.
Ellis Cose noted as much in his 2007 Newsweek essay preceding Obama's announcement of his candidacy: "He isn't a product of the civil-rights movement. Maybe that's why Obama's got a chance."
But as the Obama campaign races among states to court voters, the race issue seems to never lag far behind.
"Sure there are some people who will not vote for me because I'm black, and there are some people who will vote for me because I am black," Obama told Shir Haberman in New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald weeks before Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York would take the state's primary. "I think most Americans are looking for a candidate who can get them affordable health care and less dependent on foreign oil."
Such statements have reminded journalists to consider just when is it appropriate to talk about Obama's race in their daily reporting.
"Early on when we were covering his announcement, you had to bring out the fact that he is African American. He's the only African American in the United States Senate, and only the third elected since Reconstruction," said Catalina Camia, USA Today's politics editor. "But it's wrong to bring it up in every story. If you're just covering a campaign rally, it would be wrong to be bring up his race."
USA Today's second-day story on the Iowa caucuses did briefly mention the historic significance of an African American candidate winning in a state where more than 90 percent of residents are white.
Some news organizations screamed the achievement, such as the Chicago Sun-Times banner headline: "HISTORIC."
Still, others ignored it completely.
Discussing Obama's race has been a difficult issue for journalists from the start. Obama has been described as "the first viable," "most electable," "first bona fide" and, echoing the words of Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, "first mainstream" African American candidate.
"It's hard for journalists not to bring it up. When you have an African American take first place in the Iowa caucuses, it's hard to not take notice of that because it's the first time that this has happened," said Lorraine Branham, a veteran editor and director of the School of Journalism at University of Texas at Austin. "We got away from talking about race, partly at the candidate's insistence, because he did not want that to define his campaign. I think people responded accordingly, but now you can't avoid talking about it."
Despite the candidates' appeals to the majority, identity politics has played a central role in this presidential campaign. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has spoken of his Mormon faith in the Republican race. On the Democratic side, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had to reconcile his Latino heritage with the current immigration debate before dropping out. Hecklers shouting "iron my shirt" interrupted a Clinton rally in New Hampshire.
The racial aspect of the Obama story has continued to evolve since he emerged as a likely candidate for president.
In 2006, as speculation mounted that Obama would bid for the Oval Office, New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch explained many black voters' reticence in his essay, "What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me on Race." Crouch wrote: "So when black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us,' I do not know what they are talking about. ... while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own — nor has he lived the life of a black American."
Soon after the senator announced his candidacy in February 2007, CNN asked, "Is black America ready to embrace Obama?" Also that month, NBC's Ron Allen went in depth with his story about how "Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid raises debate in African-American community."
Biden's characterization of Obama as "articulate" and "clean" snared headlines just as he was announcing his candidacy, which ended after the Iowa caucuses.
During the Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., to support six black teenagers accused of beating a white teen, Jesse Jackson criticized Obama for "acting like he's white" and for not speaking up quickly on the issue.
But as 2007 came to a close and the Iowa caucuses neared, daily campaign coverage largely avoided deeper questions about Obama's acceptance by whites or blacks. That work was left to analytical pieces, such as Kevin Merida's Dec. 27 article in the Washington Post, "The Steepest Climb," which charted the challenges that Jackson and other black presidential candidates have faced attracting white voters.
In the days after Obama's Iowa victory, the Associated Press asked, "Does Obama's Win Show US Is Colorblind?" Some reporters openly began to wonder if race was a political factor any longer. On the other hand, several pundits and reporters attributed Obama's success to his "mixed-race" heritage.
But with Clinton's narrow win in New Hampshire, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and others commented on the "Bradley effect": Former L.A. mayor Tom Bradley, an African American, saw his wide lead in polls during 1982 governor's race in California evaporate on Election Day, a turnabout political analysts blamed on the subconscious racism of many white voters.
In recent weeks, race has been at the forefront of coverage in the Obama campaign, heightened by Clinton's suggestion that the civil rights movement needed a Lyndon Baines Johnson as well as a Martin Luther King Jr., a statement that angered many African American political leaders. And a headline in the New York Times on Jan. 15 read, "In Obama's Pursuit of Latinos, Race Plays Role."
But when journalists are asked at what point does the first African American politician with a genuine shot at the presidency cease to be the "black candidate," they usually respond like this: "Probably up until Election Day," says Sylvester Monroe, a senior editor for Ebony and Jet magazines who has covered elections since the early 1980s.
"I think that's important. It's history and it's historic. You have to walk a line here. You don't want his race to overshadow the significance to the American people in general," said Monroe, who has covered Obama in Iowa and South Carolina. Monroe says Obama's significance in breaking down barriers -- being taken seriously as a candidate for president -- can't be ignored: "We can't get away from race in this, but it ought to be kept in its proper perspective."
Reggie Royston is a feature writer for the Maynard Institute. He has written extensively about race and culture.
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