The Impact and Transformational Appeal of Barack Obama

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Liberation, France

The Impact and Transformational Appeal of Barack Obama

"The younger generation, whose hostility against the United States took root during the war in Iraq, is finding something to smile about. One high school student told us that Obama’s victory would mean the 'liberation of all Blacks in the world!'"

By François Durpaire and Jean-Claude Tchicaya*

Translated By Kate Davis

May 13, 2008

France - Liberation - Original Article (French)

Barack Obama, who now has more superdelegates than his opponent Hillary Clinton, is headed toward the Democratic nomination. Thousands of young Americans voted for the first time during these primaries, seeing themselves in the senator from Illinois. This is first of all due to his social background. While previous presidents have been members of great families, Obama’s mother had to use food stamps to feed her family. It is also due to a connivance of culture. Responding to an American journalist about his musical tastes, Obama spoke of Outkast and Wyclef Jean, while Hillary Clinton said that her daughter had concocted a selection of albums and she promised to start listening to it soon …

But the genesis of the Obama phenomenon is that he has crossed a barrier. While it's common to see French enthusiasm for Democratic candidates, they run the risk of being disappointed. But neither Al Gore nor John Kerry elicited such enthusiasm in the suburbs. Products of postcolonial immigration, the older generation - around the age of Obama’s father - say it's extraordinary to see this in their lifetime and didn't dare imagine such a fate for their own children. The younger generation, whose hostility against the United States took root during the war in Iraq, are finding something to smile about. One high school student told us that Obama’s victory would mean the “liberation of all Blacks in the world!”

All are experiencing the advent of Obama’s rise as a kind of compensation myth. Like the inhabitants of the South Side of Chicago where the senator’s wife is from, many have chosen not to live “as one.” Black, Maghreb [North African], White, Asian, they are all products of this mixture which is called by outsiders “communitarian.” Lacking networks of influence, they see the rise of this son of an African immigrant, raised in a family of modest means, as the symbol of a social mobility that they aren’t acquainted with. Because, in spite of its faults - the power of lobbyists and the influence of money - the American political system has managed to turn out a generation of young Black politicians: Adrian Fenty is the mayor of Washington, Michael Nutter is the mayor of Philadelphia, Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, etc. This is a long way from France and its suburbs, where the last municipal elections showed that the rotation of political leaders is slow, and in spite of the rhetoric, continues to lack diversity.

From Bush to Obama, this is the image of an America that's about to change. Many young French, North Africans or Blacks have an aunt or cousin in New York, in Miami or in Atlanta. With an Indonesian sister and a Kenyan sister, Barack Obama belongs to this generation, whose horizons go beyond national borders. When he wants to describe the ethnic mix of his family get-togethers, he evokes not the "United States" but the "United Nations." Like that of many young people in our suburbs, this direction of affairs contradicts the words of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said on the night of his election victory: “Love your country because it’s the only one you have …”

French people born in France have to fight constantly with employers or in communicating and dealing with police against the idea that “being French is something observable.” Tired of having to respond to the eternal question, “Do you feel more Malian (Cameroonian, etc.) or French?” They have begun to dream of a country where when someone asks a Black person from whence they came, it's to find out whether they were born in Ohio or California. They recognize themselves in Obama’s ambiguity of identity, which has embarrassed more than a few journalists: should they write “Black” or “mixed race”? If identifying people this way was natural, it would be “mixed race,” since he has a Kenyan father and a White mother from Kansas. But this is a social construct: Obama is “Black” if society continues to view him as such …

But we shouldn't be naively optimistic. First, because the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, by reintroducing the specter of racial division, showed that America’s old demons could undermine the dream of this new generation. Republicans will surely play on the senator’s “dubious” origins and on these fears.

Because America is not the “postracial” society that some people anticipate. Recent reports attest to this. One in nine young Black men aged 20 to 34 is incarcerated, as compared to one White adult in 106. In North Carolina, the last state to have voted, two-thirds of Blacks and Latinos are enrolled in high schools that are less than 10 percent White.

One must also emphasize the ambiguity of the French appropriation of the Obama phenomenon. If his rhetoric marks a rupture in the American context, it's because the senator stresses going beyond the divisions between communities rather than the success of this or that "minority." Except to again reduce him to his color, it is paradoxical to make him a symbol for “visible minorities.” Because if at the beginning of the campaign Barack Obama seemed too Black for Whites and too White for Blacks, he has since managed to uphold a unifying discourse. Having won 90 percent of the Black vote and the majority of the White vote between the ages of 17 and 29 in the last two primaries (in North Carolina, 57 percent vs. 41 percent for Clinton), Obama gives voters this choice:

"We cannot accept a policy that manipulates the conflicts between communities … nor can we talk of a lack of resources for education, which affects the future of our children, whether they are Black, White, Hispanic …"

Because of this - and the suburbs have understood this well - Obama’s fate involves much more than the future of America: at stake is the ability of new generations to assume their many identities.

* François Durpaire is a historian from the University of Paris-I, Center for Research into North American history and is the co-author with Olivier Richomme of The America of Barack Obama [L’Amérique de Barack Obama]. Jean-Claude Tchicaya is the spokesman for the Collective Duties of Memory [Le collectif Devoirs de mémoires] and is former Deputy Mayor of Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine).