The American Race

Post-Election TV

I was honored to talk about race, identity and politics in the age of Obama on the Brian Lehrer Live show in New York recently. Check the show's blog here.  My friend and former colleague Jim Sleeper of Talking Points Memo and I compared remarkably similar notes during the segment, which originally aired on November 5th.

Enjoy!

Race Relations with Leon Wynter and Jim Sleeper from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.

Barack Obama's American Skin

"Oh what a morning
I feel so good
Oh what a morning
Of brotherhood...."

(—from "Brown Earth," by Laura Nyro, from my "People Get Ready" playlist)

So much to observe, to think about and to feel. I'm not ready to write very much new.

So, in my next few posts, let me quote some from what I wrote in American Skin, published in 2002.

The game has changed. For years I've been convinced that the future is not about black people leading black people, in the old mold that was first stamped for black preachers and teachers. The future is about black people leading all Americans, especially white Americans. That leadership will be accepted only if it comes from individuals who only happen to be black. Just ask Colin Powell....

Transracial popular culture has created a new mold for black leadership, one that is based on individual example rather than on group allegiance. Tiger Woods may have no politics that an old-school black nationalist would recognize, but he leads white people, and not just on the golf course.

And if you can imagine somebody like Tiger Woods selling you a car, how about somebody like Opra getting your vote for Congress or even president? You heard it here first.

Hey-What If...?

Here's a new, quick hit category just to tickle your right (as in renewed) brain:

What if the United States saw a man with a white mother and an African (or otherwise black) father the way they do in most of Latin America?

Well..then Barack Obama would be on his way to something other than the first black President of the United States. He'd be on the verge of something like the first mestizo or mixed-race President, as many, many people would prefer.

In Brazil, for example, most people with much less "white" blood than Obama are not considered (and definitely do not consider themselves) black. They actually call themselves white.
Ditto most other Latin countries with significant amounts of African "blood" running in the national veins.

Now, Brazil of course has never come close to putting someone of Obama's hue in as head of state. But if (or when) it happens, the "white" (i.e. the whitest, most entitled) part of the electorate will not have as far a bridge to cross as American whites do. They would be far more culturally (if not politically) prepared to say what Americans still have a hard time saying: "He's just as much one of 'us' as one of 'them'. "

Because "us" and "them" are far more fluid concepts in Latin America, where race is as much about your family name or what an individual makes of themselves as mere skin color.

In other words, when Brazil's Obama rises and puts it all together the way America's has, his merit will immediately overrule the question of his race. If we here had a different perspective—i.e. if we saw no "One Drop" rule—it would be the same for our Obama.

And we would then move way ahead of Latin America, because this revelation about the falsity of race would follow and complete the ordeal of the civil rights movement that's barely begun in Latin America.