Much of black America is still struggling to grasp the full meaning of Barack Obama's election to the presidency. The overall mood is awash with pride but shaded with angst and the larger question: Now what?
On Wednesday, the Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. appeared on Oprah Winfrey's celebratory post-election special. After learning the news, Gates says, "we jumped up, we wept, we hooped and hollered." It is hard to overestimate the historical significance of the election of the first black U.S. President. For many blacks, and certainly for much of the country and world, Obama's victory is an extraordinary step toward the redemption of America's original 400-year-old sin. It is astonishing not least for its quickness, coming just 145 years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation effectively ending slavery and four decades after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And it is even more astonishing for its decisiveness — Obama carried Virginia, once the home of the Confederacy, a place whose laws just five decades ago would have made the interracial union of his parents illegal.
"Just a little more than 10 years ago," Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin told TIME this week, "it was inconceivable to any of us that we would see an African American win a national party's ticket and then compete effectively. It's mind-boggling," she continued, "how much this means about the opportunities available to all people — Asians, Latinos and other people who've historically been locked out of the system."
Obama isn't like the leaders who have traditionally spoken for black America. As president, he's unlikely to embrace the confrontational identity politics that have defined black activism for so long. He won't tolerate an African American brand of racism or a culture of violence. Nor is he likely to be patient with the long-standing narrative of victimhood that has defined black America to itself and to the mainstream for more than a century.
Obama is already constructing a new black political and cultural narrative -- gathering together the best of the past, including the coalition politics that characterized the early civil rights movement and an image of strong black males that doesn't involve bling-bling or hip-hop misogyny. He has decried the low-hanging pants fashion so popular with young black men, blasted rapper Ludacris for offensive song lyrics and called on fathers to take responsibility for their families.
There are important universal issues that must take priority: the global financial crisis, relief for homeowners, potential vacancies on the Supreme Court. "I think some of the demands are unrealistic," says New York City-based finance expert Brooke Stephens, who believes that African Americans are forgetting that Obama "is not there just for us."
But Obama is a different kind of leader. More than a decade ago, on tracking the rise of new black leaders, noting their slow but deliberate walk away from racial politics - all part of the race-neutral leadership class. These savvy, sophisticated political leaders are comfortable in corporate boardrooms and on urban street corners. They understand the nuances of race and racism but refuse to wear them as albatrosses around their necks. They are innovators, exploring new and better ways of serving the disenfranchised and bringing various people together to improve our communities. They embody the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s insistence that people should be judged by the content of their character. Obama's arrival in the White House underscores the reality that the post-civil rights era is in full swing in American politics.
But some African Americans don't get it. Despite measurable advances over the past 30 years, they still perceive themselves as beleaguered, as the once and present victims of discrimination, struggling to keep pace with their white counterparts.
If African Americans want to be taken seriously, they have to get with the program. Obama's election isn't just about a black president. It's about a new America. The days of confrontational identity politics have come to an end. The era of coalition politics and collaboration has arrived. Besides, Obama could never be a Rev. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton -- something even they acknowledge.
"We need to change the thinking of some kids that the only way they can make it is by singing, dancing and shooting hoops. It's about time we have a different meaning of what it means to be a black man and a black father."
Instead of demanding another discussion about racism or clocking when the incarceration crisis appears on the radar, black Americans should work to sustain what Obama's campaign set in motion. They should seek to hold together his coalition -- reaching out to non-African Americans -- and use it to drive a progressive agenda. Not a black agenda, but a human agenda.
Obama's real contribution is allowing blacks to see ourselves as victors. That's more valuable to black advancement than any item on a pre-fabricated list of demands
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