In March 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama “A More Perfect Union” The speech clearly and thoroughly outlined his thoughts on race and what America should do going forward.
In his speech, Obama seemed not to take sides: he explained the actions of conservatives and liberals alike with cognitive and emotional empathy and he defended everyone, regardless of race or status: no one was blamed, and everyone was praised for at least the possibility of being a good citizen.
Obama’s speech was aimed at easing fears among American voters who have never previously voted for a black presidential candidate — but the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for 2024 is sure to resurface those fears.
Some of the already fired-up anti-woke elements in the current culture wars see her as“DEI Candidate”This isn’t surprising, but it raises an important question: How does modern anti-racism affect the presidential election?
First of all, calling Kamala Harris the DEI candidate is inconsistent with her actions. The Vice President is known as a progressive, but her work as a prosecutor and attorney general is politically unclear. Furthermore, when people say the words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion,” they mean different things, and it is unclear how Harris interprets those words.
Finally, there is a backlash against DEI that Harris may not have a way to address without further emboldening her critics, and she may not want to spend too much time and energy rearranging the furniture on a sinking ship.
But Harris has to talk about race somehow, even if only for her base, and to get it right, she may need to take a leaf out of Obama’s book.
Perhaps one could argue that, given the history of our country, it was a false double entendre for President Obama to compare the issues of whites and blacks in his speech, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he said it, and that it established his credentials as a candidate.
The country watched as a black presidential candidate argued that as Americans we are greater than race and that we can and should transcend it. The accuracy of that statement was not of great importance.
Moreover, Obama, as a multiracial candidate, relied heavily on the idea that he was the embodiment of America. His story was “the story that baked into my genes the idea that this country is not just the sum of its parts, but truly one nation made up of many.” His identification with the American people was an attempt to erase the us-versus-them mentality. Harris needs to do something similar.
Perhaps most interestingly, Obama’s views on virtue and responsibility were more conservative than liberal by today’s standards.
For the African-American community, that path means accepting the burden of the past without becoming a victim of it. It means continuing to insist on full justice in all aspects of American life. But it also means connecting our particular grievances for better health care, better schools, better jobs with the larger aspirations of all Americans: the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the immigrant trying to provide for his family.
And that means demanding more from fathers, spending more time with their children, reading to them, and taking full responsibility for their lives by teaching them that while they may face difficulties and discrimination in life, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism, and must always believe that they are in charge of their own destiny.
This quote is a departure from much of the language of contemporary anti-racism, where despair and cynicism are badges of honour. For Obama, victimhood is poisonous and stifles both individual and collective agency.
Finally, we need to recognize that Obama’s speech was written in an emergency. His pastor,Jeremiah WrightWright’s plea to “Fuck America” was addressed to the US in a video that was leaked to the media. After Wright’s plea to “Fuck America” made headlines, President Obama was forced to respond.
This response was crisis management, but it was a positive one for the Obama campaign. Obama’s speech would have received a completely different response if it hadn’t been for the accidental trigger. It would have been rife with accusations of “racism-inciting.” But after Wright’s fierce criticism, people wanted Obama to talk about race issues.
So does Harris need to have a similar incident to spark a debate on race? Does she need to be accused of being un-American in the same way that the Wright incident condemned President Obama? Given the fact that post-George Floyd America is very different from Obama’s America when it comes to race relations, people on both sides of the political spectrum may already be hoping and expecting Harris to voice her views on race.
This isn’t the whole story: Donald Trump’s campaign will likely accuse her of being racist, but the big difference between Harris and Obama is the intense scrutiny she faces. Ethnic minoritiesespecially Black womenThis can present as an undeniable emergency.
Either way, we should expect Harris to speak out more about race — she may not have a choice.
Dr. Elec Smith is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and an associate professor of rhetoric at York University of Pennsylvania.
