Prometheus 6

Around September of last year a number of media outlets made of point of decrying identity politics. Partly inspired by the flap over MEChA during Cruz Bustamente's run for Governor in California, identity politics was cast as the reason Progressives didn't connect with the mainstream. Well, it turns out all politics are identity politics and as proof I present Mr. Barak Obama. Obama's bipartisan appeal is blatantly race-based. The power of his oratory is based partly in what he says and partly in the fact that a Black man is saying it.

Here's the interesting thing though: You can't slide the deuce of spades between what Obama's and Powell's biographies represent to the America and American politics.

Both men have a biography that is part Abraham Lincoln allegory, part child-of-immigrant-makes-good story, and part rags-to-riches story all. It's everything every American wants to believe every American can achieve because most Americans, irrespective of race or politics, really do identify with the nation. That identification is why we all find racism so embarrassing.

The down side of racism is obvious from the minority perspective but its irrefutable existence does damage to the American self-image…this has subtle but powerful repercussions. Obama and Powell represent resolution, the Progressive and Conservative views of what Black America can become as well as the means of doing so. They assure Americans that, in the final analysis, we can be counted on to recognize talent over race and this is important because if Americans do not believe they can overcome the race issues we face they will not be able to do so.

That's why there was so much talk about Gen. Powell running for President a few years back (which was nonsense but made a lot of people feel good about the Republican Party's future). Gen. Powell was considered living proof of the GOP's inclusiveness, but to America at large he was proof that America is putting racism behind it… if even the Republican Party will appoint Black folks to high office, racism must be over, right? The very slightly increase in Black folks who are registered Republicans are the direct rewards the party received for allowing the General to represent them.

It's also why so many people immediately declared Obama to be Presidential material. Barak Obama is the Democratic response to Colin Powell and a quite effective one because at the moment he has a few advantages:

And though Mr. Obama's new prominence does as little directly for Black Americans as Gen. Powell's prominence did, the Democratic Party will be rewarded for elevating him just as the Republican Party was rewarded for elevating Gen. Powell.

I believe over the next two or three years Obama's presence will literally wipe out any gains the Republican Party made among the Black constituencies over the last ten or so years. And he doesn't have to be what George Carlin called "openly Black" to get these results. The majority of Black Americans will support a position that reduces the social separation between Black and white Americans and though General Powell is respected in the Black communities the vision he serves is not.