The Black Presidency

by Michael Eric Dyson

  Wright shrewdly cited a career diplomat with impeccable conservative and patriotic credentials to support his argument that America’s violence abroad had boomeranged in domestic disaster. Obama surely could not agree with Wright’s analysis and remain a viable presidential candidate; but he might have helped explain Wright better by placing him in an honored tradition of prophets who denounce America’s sins rather than dismissing him as incendiary and divisive. Inflammatory speech is not the litmus test for morality; after all, Jesus argued that he was coming to divide mother from daughter and to bring not peace, but a sword to all those who sought refuge from an unjust political order. And while many black folk do not agree with Wright that AIDS was invented to kill black folk, they do believe that science has been misused to harm black life. This fear was tragically confirmed in the Tuskegee experiment in which scientists tested the effects of syphilis on nearly four hundred unknowing black subjects between 1932 and 1972 and failed to offer them penicillin when it became clear in the 1940s that the new drug could cure the disease.37

  The positive take on Wright’s ideas among black folk did not mask their hostility to any force that stood in the way of Obama’s run for the White House. Talk show host and social activist Tavis Smiley got the bitter brush-off from millions of blacks who soured on his rigorous questioning of Obama’s political aims and his failure to support a black agenda.38 The history of black America’s quest for the presidential Holy Grail had come down to whatever chances Obama had for securing the Democratic nomination. Obama had easily become the biggest thing since King in black America, and the prospects for his success, and the barriers to his ascent, even if erected by well-meaning figures, were taken with deadly seriousness.

  Prophets and Politicians

  The conflict between Wright and Obama was a showdown of two archetypes in black America: the prophet and the politician.39 If history is our guide, the prophet usually prevails in any skirmishes between the two because the prophetic tradition has given black America its biggest boost through brave figures like Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, Reverdy C. Ransom, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Septima Clark, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph Lowery, Benjamin Hooks, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. Most of these figures were clergy or were inspired by the black church to fight injustice. The prophetic voice spoke black politics into existence and cleared space in the American landscape for the just exercise of black power by politicians like Hiram Revels, Blanche Bruce, Robert Smalls, Oscar De Priest, Arthur Mitchell, William Dawson, Charles Diggs, John Conyers, Shirley Chisholm, Charles Rangel, Richard Hatcher, Kenneth Gibson, Barbara Jordan, Coleman Young, Harold Washington, James Clyburn, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Elijah Cummings, Kendrick Meek, Marcia Fudge, Joyce Beatty, and a host of others. These political figures borrowed energy from the prophets and depended on their constant harangue to relieve them of that role, at least as they negotiated their way in the white establishment. Ordained ministers and congressmen like Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Andrew Young, John Lewis, Walter Fauntroy, William Gray, Floyd Flake, and Emanuel Cleaver blended the political and the prophetic and brought religious style to politics and political swagger to ministry.

  Black folk understand that even though prophets and politicians sometimes share professional instincts and hunches, they have distinct roles to play. Most black politicians know that they owe their origins and influence to a sacred sphere that they dare not insult or ignore. Prophets are the parents of the politician and the rightful guardians of the black community’s spiritual and moral trust. Prophets also recognize that elected officials embody the authority and legitimacy for which the black community yearns. Prophets are zealous to bring moral and social correction by urging the sort of radical change most political figures are afraid to endorse. Politicians do not usually experience the free speech the prophet enjoys, and yet, for that reason, they move more easily within the corridors of power to argue for benefits that are the secular version of spiritual blessings. Yet when prophets fall into dispute with politicians, they often exploit their religious authority to snag the allegiance and love of the folk.

  Barack Obama’s rise may not be the first instance of the prophetic taking a backseat to the political, but it is surely the most visible example in black history. That is because Obama’s emergence as the nation’s first black president and the world’s most powerful man—and the most powerful black figure in global history—has been viewed by arguably more blacks than ever before as divinely inspired. The political easily trumped the prophetic in Obama’s case because his candidacy co-opted one of social prophecy’s crucial aims: the embodiment of power in a figure who looks like blacks and who will justly represent their interests. But that aim may have been retailed in the black rush to rule: a black Realpolitik drove blacks to baptize the need for viable representation in the murky waters of political symbolism. What came out in the wash was the understandable if unsatisfying desire to have a black face in the highest possible place as the exhaustive and definitive symbol of the black political journey.40 Such a view threatens to reduce the tradition of black politics to a single personality—a charge, by the way, often made against so-called messianic forms of black leadership, like those glimpsed in King, Jackson, and Sharpton, which rely on charisma more than institutional power. Obama’s example was supposed to reverse this trend, and yet only King has arguably been a bigger messianic figure in black circles, even if Obama is a crossover messiah whose exclusive ties to black piety or politics are dramatically snipped. Unlike King, Jackson, and Sharpton, Obama is not a black leader but a leader who is black, though such a distinction rings hollow in millions of black chests that swell with pride in Obama’s extraordinary accomplishments.

  For those blacks, only Martin Luther King Jr. exceeds Obama’s place in black history, and that priority may be temporary as Obama’s reign as the face of America eclipses for many even King’s exalted status. The stenciling of Obama’s face next to King’s on T-shirts symbolizes the passing of the torch of “most important black man in history” from the prophet to the politician.

  That backdrop made it clear that while black folk understood why and how Wright’s controversial words were spoken, they also believed that Obama had to distance himself astutely from his former pastor. After all, whether he or the rest of blacks like it or not, Obama represents not simply himself but all black folk and all their traditions, with all their inherent conflicts, all at once. It is a sign of how confused racial politics are that, at the same time, Obama is seen by many whites as quite unlike most other blacks, and therefore an exceptional member of the race. In the rift between Wright and Obama, the political leaped onstage and seized the historical microphone as the prophetic watched from the wings at a silent distance. Obama’s and Wright’s eventual war of words underscored a paradox in black America: the prophetic was widely seen as an obstacle to the political power it has always argued should exist. Wright’s prophetic words were viewed as a roadblock to Obama’s divinely appointed political destiny.

  If God could not be said to be only on Obama’s side, God was at least squarely in his corner as Obama struggled to honor Wright as much as possible by uplifting his priestly and pastoral roles while criticizing his prophetic pose. Obama shrewdly split the difference between complementary aspects of Wright’s religious vocation—actually he divorced them outright and set them at war to pursue a remarkable if risky undertaking: to satisfy blacks and whites with the critical embrace of his pastor. Obama had to convince blacks that he was not really dissing Wright in his pastoral role, a taboo in black circles where “mother” and “pastor” are keywords of reverence and portals of heavenly blessing. Besides, the bread and butter of pastors is to deepen the congregation’s spiritual life, while all the political stuff is extra trimming. If Obama pummeled Wright’s politics but prais
ed his priestly duties, he would come out of the skirmish unscathed in most black quarters.

  That was only half the battle, though, and not necessarily the more important one for his immediate purposes. Obama also had to convince whites that he detested Wright’s racial and political perspective, which had little to do with either Wright’s primary religious duties or with Obama’s political views. “He hasn’t been my political adviser,” Obama told the media. “He’s been my pastor.”41 Obama was surely no prophet, but he appeared to be playing one on television to great effect. Obama’s extraordinary visibility and far bigger bully pulpit offered him an unfair advantage over Wright in their competing attempts to shape the perceptions of the righteous duties of the black preacher and to shed light on the prophet’s real role. Though Obama’s was by far the most powerful interpretation of prophetic power, it was not the only one going—in fact, it surely was not the one favored by critics familiar with prophecy’s rich history. It also contrasted sharply with the interpretation offered by Wright when he broke his silence and sought to defend himself in the media. But it was certainly the one favored by the masses of black folk who fervently prayed for Obama.

  When Obama said in his “More Perfect Union” address that Wright used “incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide” but also “denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike,” he snatched the mantle of the prophet, and the prophet’s benefits too, one of which is that one need not tell the literal truth to get at the moral truth behind one’s words. Obama thus exploited his honorary prophetic standing to skirt Wright’s intention and instead divine the effect of the prophet’s words on the mainstream’s eardrums and worldviews. Obama also took license to do all that he could ethically do to secure the nomination and fulfill his divine destiny. Obama did not have to believe his run for the White House was divinely inspired for the idea to catch on. All he had to do was to blend his political aspirations with the aspirations of black folk and the nation and let the critics figure out what it all meant.

  Forgiveness Knowledge and Tough Choices

  Black folk were even willing to forgive the thumbs-down Obama gave to Wright’s words in an effort to appease whites who resented the criticism of their culture by unapologetic black voices. We’ve seen that Wright’s words were meant in truth not to denigrate the greatness and goodness of America but to help the nation recognize that it was hurtling away from democracy. Wright’s words were not offensive in the least to those who understood the nature of prophetic speech throughout the nation’s history. Damning sinners to hell is a raging prophet’s heaven, whether it was Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century or Billy Graham in the twentieth. Even earlier, Puritan divines like John Winthrop preached a form of sermon called the jeremiad to warn folk of the divine retribution that lay in store should they neglect doing justice in the land.

  Black folk were eager to extend Obama the privilege of using what might be termed forgiveness knowledge: the pardon offered in advance to one who gives a negative spin to ideas that might otherwise be interpreted positively if the choice to do so were not deemed so costly to the greater good. Forgiveness knowledge preempts criticism of a figure who says harsh things about a person or beliefs because that figure is unfairly painted into a corner with no option except to act and speak as she does. Forgiveness knowledge is knowledge that, once one has it, one will be forgiven for having to possess and use because the conditions do not allow for a reasonable or effective alternative. Forgiveness knowledge in this case is best summarized in the question many blacks asked: “Well, what other choice did Obama have than to say what he said about Wright under the circumstances?” Blacks forgave Obama even before he spoke about Wright because they believed that he had no choice but to agree with the white mainstream’s negative reading of Wright’s words as a starting point before attempting to set those words in historical context. Black folk forgave Obama because they realized that if he had not offered his criticism of Wright first, he would not have had the opportunity to offer his qualified defense of him later.42

  Obama’s offering at best a qualified defense of Wright was a choice seen as largely out of his hands. But the terms of Obama’s defense rested solely in his imagination. Obama’s forgiveness knowledge would permit him to say why he loved Wright and loathed his words in one fell rhetorical swoop. True, he would have to misrepresent Wright a bit so that he might represent him as best he could to a white mainstream that simply was not accustomed to hearing complex black views about too many issues. The fault was not entirely, or even primarily, Obama’s but that of a white mainstream that had the power to dismiss what it did not want to know as illegitimate and immoral—or in the case of Wright, as utterly illogical and indefensible. Obama had to, in effect, tell a white lie to a white audience to get some black truth through. In this case one must heed the street admonition vigorously: do not hate the player but the game. Obama was not making up the rules but following them to perfection. Obama told as much truth as white ears can hear about black life. He also gave whites permission to be angry with Wright without fearing that they would be seen as bigots, and without feeling that they alone were responsible for racial healing.

  Obama did not feel he could be nearly as generous to black folk—or that it was even necessary to try. He relegated black anger to the sixties, as if no current troubles might incense a righteous and reasonable black person. Obama also put black anger at racism in the same moral orbit as white resentment of having to bother with fixing the racial problem. And he may have overplayed the extent of blacks’ displaying a victim mentality while underplaying their true victimization.

  Obama admits that he knew Wright was an “occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy” and that he made controversial statements with which Obama strongly disagreed—just as the candidate’s listeners sometimes disagreed with their pastors, priests, and rabbis. (Under current racial conditions, Obama’s qualified defense of Wright here seems all but heroic.) Wright is taken to task not simply for being controversial and divisive but for “a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

  Obama may have carelessly accused Wright of believing that white racism is endemic and peculiar to the nation without realizing he had already made a similar claim in his speech. Obama had just called slavery America’s original sin, which sounds fairly endemic as well, since it is the notion in Christian theology that Adam’s original act of disobedience causes all human beings to be born in sin. White racism is the womb in which slavery took shape, or to shift metaphors, it is the moral ecology, the spoiled Garden of Eden, as it were, in which slavery took root and makes sense. Judging by how they approach their respective careers, Obama and Wright may not be as far apart as advertised in their method of combating racism. Most good preachers have battled the notion that it is impossible to fight sin, a sentiment that flares in the fatalistic cry “The devil made me do it.” And most politicians have mounted campaigns against the sort of cynicism that is heard in the jaded lament that “all politicians are corrupt.” For prophet and politician alike, the remedy to our problems is conversion—a transformation of attitude and belief as each figure touts a change we might believe in. Some conversions are cool and mellow, while others are sparked from the threat of fire and brimstone. The style of conversion might differ but the goal is still the same: to change the hearts and minds of human beings so that they become believers and remain faithful to the cause. No matter how much Obama and Wright differed as they sought to cast out the demons of racial bigotry, they were both motivated by the same desire to see change come.

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bsp; Obama may also have undersold his former pastor’s critical patriotism. Wright’s vigorous disputes with white racism express a robust belief in the country’s ability to change. Why would he try to get things right by talking about how bad things are if he did not believe they could be changed for the better? Like all good prophets, Wright had to tell the bad news before he got to the good news of the gospel. He had to say what is wrong with America before he could say what is right with the nation. Politicians operate the same way on a less apocalyptic scale when they cast doubt on an opponent’s record: it is all mess and madness before the change they envision takes hold—or at least that is what they would have us believe. Prophets and politicians are both heavily invested in painting the status quo as sorry and hopeless until their respective solutions help set things right—in the case of the prophet, his brand of preaching, and in the case of the politician, her brand of politics.

  Obama reinforced the sense that Wright was wrong about race by suggesting he was wrong about foreign policy, a clever if cynical rhetorical gesture that may not withstand scrutiny, since one has no necessary or logical relation to the other. Obama took issue with Wright’s reading of Israel’s aggression against Palestinians, though not enough to keep Obama from saying a week before his race speech at a small fund-raiser in Iowa, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”43 It is clear that one can love Israel and support its security against radical Islamic attacks and yet, like thousands of Jews around the world, be critical of Israel’s policies against Palestinians. Obama’s criticism may have strengthened the perception that his former pastor was unreasonable and dangerous. Obama was also curiously silent about his pastor’s take on acts of American terror and aggression against Native Americans, Grenadians, Libyans, Iraqis, Japanese, and South Africans, as if such acts do not cause the same offense or concern for people of color, as if they do not really matter in the same way.