The New Moral Majority – Black It Ain’t!

- Vasee Nesiah

An African American is in the White House and this time he ain’t going to be shining no shoes. No, sir!

 

Whilst it is understandable that most African Americans and others of a certain vintage would see the election as a ‘win’ in the battle for emancipation, the election of Barack Hussein Obama has signaled a far more significant development in America’s psyche. The World has witnessed a quantum leap in how Americans perceive themselves and Obama has laid bare the presumptions of a White and Black America, a Democratic and Republican America, a Religious and Secular America, etc., etc. Not just in his campaign rhetoric, but also in his vote tally on Election Day.

 

Despite the media hype about hordes of African Americans lining up to register to vote, it is notable that the African American share of the total votes cast had only gone up by 1% over the previous elections that put Bush in office for a second term. Similarly, the fear of rampant youth voters hijacking the election, didn’t materialise as they only increased by 2% over the previous presidential election. In their first interview after the election, President-elect Obama’s campaign team confirmed that their campaign over the last 21 months was not built around their candidate’s age or race. Barack Obama won because he won over the new moral majority.

 

The majority of the people who voted for Barack Obama did so because his message resonated with their values. His steady demeanor underscored his consistent message and he carried the electorate with him. Neither his skin colour, nor his shocking middle name, proved to be a distraction to the 66 million voters who placed their trust in him.

 

Barack Hussein Obama out performed the previous Democratic contender in almost every demographic, among voters of all genders, races, education levels, and income classes, and virtually all religions. Obama only underperformed John Kerry amongst older (65+) voters, and gay and lesbian voters. Not since Jimmy Carter have so many evangelical Christians voted for a democratic president and yet in California, that liberal bastion, they voted to ban Gay Marriage. No Democratic primary contest has been as divisive or as fiercely contested and yet Obama won over 80 per cent of Hillary’s 18 million voters. This election has shown that the American electoral landscape is rife with such conundrums.

 

It’s not just The Economy, Stupid!

America is fighting two wars, has an economy in tatters and desperately needs a leader to make America feel good again. On the face of it, John McCain seemed the ideal candidate with his impeccable foreign policy and defense credentials, Republican badge of fiscal conservatism balanced by an image of being more centrist than any other Republican contender. McCain was the only Republican who could win Democrats over to his side and the election must have seemed within grasp with the endorsement of Lieberman, a recent vice-presidential nominee of the Democrats. Conventional wisdom would suggest that John McCain was a safe pick, but conventional wisdom is often the domain of those whose memories outweigh their ability to think ahead. Or as Obama defined, it, HOPE!

 

Obama and his team, weren’t about to follow in Jesse Jackson’s footsteps. To assemble a Jacksonesque rainbow coalition would only do to the Democratic ticket what Palin eventually did to the Republican ticket. Energise the base and then what? Instead, Obama and his team decided that American voters were truly more mature and rational than they’d been given credit for by the media and most politicians. Obama worked hard to stay on the high road, first with Hillary and then with McCain. He refused to be drawn into personality clashes, instead he hammered home the basic tenets of his platform with monotonous rigour.

 

This election wasn’t about equality for people of colour, or the economy, or stem cell research or the war in Iraq. This election was about electing a leader who had the attributes of a leader – somebody who could steady the ship in a storm and lead it to calmer waters. The country responded to Obama’s presentation of himself as somebody with a vision of where the country needs to go and how it could get there. The medium, Obama, was the message.

 

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds – Bob Marley.

The real impact of Obama’s election will not have dawned on most African Americans, yet. This is not the dawn of Black Power, nor is it a sign that racism is dead. On the contrary, everyday reality is not going to change for most African Americans. Obama’s election has cruelly robbed the black man of the right to feel sorry for himself. No longer can society take the blame for violence, drugs, teen pregnancies and dead-beat dads. The Obama era will inspire a new generation of African Americans to emancipate themselves from mental slavery and join the new Moral Majority. Those who choose to remain a bitter minority will wake up to the rude shock that their crutch is gone. The white man’s conspiracy to subjugate the black man is no more – ‘The man’ is dead.

 

Moral Majority? Us too!

Almost everybody in every country must know somebody who cried whilst watching Obama’s acceptance speech. What is it about Obama’s election that would make a white woman cry in Melbourne or an old Indian cry in Singapore? What heart strings does a German in Hamburg share with a Brazilian in Rio? The answer, perhaps, is in America’s brand promise and what it means to the rest of the World. Obama’s Berlin speech drew unprecedented crowds and that was no accident. They didn’t come for the rock music in the park atmosphere – they came to HOPE. The World has long swallowed sugar coated American ideals, only to find it a bitter pill. The eight years of Bush and the opportunistic politics of terrorism had sapped most of the World of the desire to celebrate life and just as the economic shutters threatened to plunge us into darkness, America presented us a bright new shining star.

 

We may not have been able to vote for Obama but we could certainly share in the hope that he infused in Americans. He spoke intelligently, not condescendingly. He came from a terribly disjointed and broken family and yet he was a model family man. Obama and his team realised that America’s might was not in the dollar or the bullet but in the brand promise of the American constitution. Obama had ideals that we can all relate to – in sharp contrast to George Bush, and even Bill Clinton. It’s no wonder we cried tears of joy. No longer do we have to tacitly acknowledge or secretly admire tyrants around the globe, just for the fact that they stood up to a bigger bully in George Bush.

 

If Obama stays ‘on message’ as he has done for the last 21 months, then surely these must be the last days of Mugabe and his like in our miserable corners of the Globe? Or is that too much to HOPE?

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Note: Please click on ‘comments’ to respond.  This piece was first published atTranscurrents

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