Tags:
Journalism of Courage
As he readies for the South Carolina Democratic primary this Saturday, Barack Hussein Obama has another worry — fending off the latest from the right-wing rumour mill, which claims that he is a ‘Muslim plant’ in a conspiracy against America. For a candidate whose radical appeal lies in his unifying rhetoric and his attempt to transcend the partisan impulses that have torn up American politics, Obama has had to answer for each little bit of his hybrid heritage.
His Iowa victory proved that he was a genuine crossover candidate, and in fact it was Clinton who seemed to be wooing the African-American vote as her husband had done. But the idea that Obama is a post-Civil Rights contender who could inaugurate a new progressive politics appears to have fallen flat. As the campaign hots up, identity issues have become central, for better or for worse. For instance, when Clinton remarked that it took Lyndon Johnson to fulfil Martin Luther King’s dream, she was making a point about visionaries versus those who ploddingly convert promise into policy, but it was immediately interpreted as race war. Which goes to prove that whatever the candidates themselves believe, their public still has all too many exposed nerve endings on these matters. South Carolina is a crucible for the Democratic candidacy, where the Black vote is all-important. While an internally riven America needs an inspiring ‘change agent’ to rally around, the idea that race and gender are obsolete categories is a patent untruth, as long as injustice on either of these grounds persists.
