19 January 2010 By
Habib Siddiqui "It was no accident
that in their failed attempts for the White House both
Hillary Clinton and John McCain played the race card.
Even the former president Bill Clinton came to his
wife’s aid to sully his own global image. But nothing
worked. The American people had enough of anyone who
sounded like George W. Bush. They wanted a change; a
real change away from the Bible-thumping Christian
merchants of war, and the savage labels of Bush and
Cheney’s extraordinary renditions, Guantanamo Bay and
Abu Ghraib." It is said that before Prophet Moses (Musa alayhis
salam – peace be upon him) could settle his people to
the Promised Land, the children of Israel lived in the
deserts of Arabia for decades. It was like a
transition period for the former slaves of Egypt.
There they learned how to live as a free nation away
from the corrupting influence of Pharaoh’s Egypt. Any
change agent would tell you about the wisdom of a
transition phase that allows people to adjust
accordingly and change their paradigm. Anything done
too fast with little preparation and education of the
very people who must live through a change is often
doomed to failure. So with President Obama’s election in 2008, I see a
validation of that change theory. He is a mixed breed
– son of a Black African father and a white American
mother. He is not a pure-bred white or black. Thus, it
is no accident that he appears somewhat lighter
skinned than many Afro-Americans living in the USA.
Being brought up by a highly educated mother and cared
for by his white grandparents, it is not difficult to
understand that Obama does not have an Afro accent,
unless he wants to use that distinguishing dialect.
In their new book "Game Change," authors Mark
Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Harry
Reid, the Majority Leader in the Senate, described
candidate Obama as a "'light-skinned' African American
'with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one,'"
whom many voters would embrace. This revelation has
now become a big news item in the media. Many see the
remark damaging to Reid’s re-election chances in
Nevada where 77% of eligible African Americans voted
in 2008. Some fear that it will inject race into an
already tough campaign depressing black turnout in
Nevada, and eventually hurt Reid. Senator Reid has
already apologized to President Obama on Saturday for
his "poor choice of words" -- and the president
accepted saying that "I know what's in his heart."
Still the Republicans are out to get Reid’s head, who
is a Mormon Christian, and fondly known among his
supporters to have “an ear of tin and a heart of
gold.” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S.
Steele, who is black, said on There is no doubt that the Republicans – the losers
in the 2008 election – are trying everything to hurt
the Democratic Party so that the latter’s margin of
seats in the Senate is reduced from 58 in the upcoming
mid-term election of 2010. They are fired up for 2010.
They want to unseat Reid in Nevada -- long known as
the Mississippi of the West. Their comparison of Reid
with Lott is, however, misleading given the fact that
Sen. Reid was one of the first lawmakers (alongside
the late Senator Ted Kennedy) to encourage Obama to
run for president and worked hard to help him win.
Reid’s point was that he believed the country was
ready to elect an eloquent, mixed race person like
Obama in 2008. And he was proven right. As a keen observer of history and race relations, I
seem to believe that while America was ready for Obama
in 2008, it was not ready for the likes of Jackson and
Sharpton. Even if the latter personalities were to
match Obama’s academic and professional credentials,
and had spoken and behaved exactly the same way as
Obama had done, they would have been rejected by most
White Americans. Race still matters not just in the
USA, but throughout our world. People are more
comfortable about electing or selecting their own
kinds even when they are less qualified. As I have
pointed out elsewhere the corporate world is no
different either. Prejudice runs deep into our human
conscience and has had produced adverse results. The
societies that have been able to bury prejudice and
embrace integration are better positioned to lead and
succeed than those that are not. It was no accident that in their failed attempts
for the White House both Hillary Clinton and John
McCain played the race card. Even the former president
Bill Clinton came to his wife’s aid to sully his own
global image. But nothing worked. The American people
had enough of anyone who sounded like George W. Bush.
They wanted a change; a real change away from the
Bible-thumping Christian merchants of war, and the
savage labels of Bush and Cheney’s extraordinary
renditions, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. And Obama
sold that idea of change rather successfully. He gave
them hope of a better future. With that, Obama was
able to unite not only his Black electorate base and
minority voters but excite all those in the middle who
were White swing voters, and win the 2008 presidential
election. I am willing to believe that it won’t be too long
when one day the son or daughter of Black parents will
occupy the White House. But in the mean time, those
aspiring children of the African Americans must go
through the transition phase of living in the “desert
of Arabia” before occupying the White House. Comments 💬 التعليقات |