Organizing for America | Articles of Support: Double (un)consciousness-The New Yorker

Double (un)consciousness-The New Yorker

By steph:) - Jul 14th, 2008 at 7:14 pm EDT

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    The problem with the New Yorker cover isn’t that it is satirical or that it reaffirms the whisper campaign regarding the Obama’s. The problem with the cover is that this is the first time there has been a Presidential nominee that is of another race other than Caucasian. I’ve read many of the news articles, blogs and watched many of the cables news programs regarding this issue and more pointedly the issue of who is Barack Obama. The problem I see in all this reporting is not that the general public doesn’t know who he is but rather, for one reason or another, the general public is unwilling to accept who he is. Is it race? Quite possibly. Is it his name? Again, quite possibly. I understand the fact that in the Washington political structure, he is the new kid on the block; nationally he isn’t as well known.
But the way I see it is Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and their two children do not fit the pervasive stereotype of what black is. Here is a man, who is intelligent, has a strong an un-abiding faith in God, who is actively parenting his children with his wife, who is also intelligent with a strong and un-abiding faith in God. In America the idea of what is black did not include these characteristics. Only within the last two years have we seen a broader scope of African-American life portrayed in media, entertainment and fine arts.
    Again I say it isn’t that America doesn’t know who Barack Obama is, to me it is more that He in his historic bid is coming up against hundreds of years of unfair, inaccurate, biased and hurtful stereotypes of what it means to be black in this country.

"the Negro
is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with
second sight in this American world, -a world which yields
him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see
himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a
peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense
of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.
The veil is a metaphor for the separation and invisibility
of black life and existence in America and is a reoccurring
theme in books about black life in America. ~ W.E.B DuBois

There will always be people whom, for whatever reason, will continue to believe the whisper campaign rumors about the Obama’s, and unfortunately no amount of dialogue will dissuade them.

We as American want to believe because we have taken this step in nominating the 1st African American candidate to the Presidency of the United States, that we have somehow made it past our past issues of race, identity and cultural awareness. But sadly we haven’t. It is evident in the amount of times Barack Obama has had to state he is not Muslim, and more importantly in the fact that in this country supposedly founded on the idea of religious tolerance, that he would even have to. It is evident in the fact that so many people took offense to the comments Mrs. Obama made about having pride in her country. When her critics are unwilling to look at the country Mrs. Obama has lived in from her perspective as an African-American woman. It is not that America doesn’t know Barack Obama; it is that it may be unwilling to see America from a different perspective.

We have a political figure like John McCain, a decorated war hero and veteran. Through out the course of his campaign Americans, and the media are able to accept him, his personal story and his ideas because they fit with what many have come to understand as truly American. But why is that, what in his history makes him more palatable than a Barack Obama? This is the question that needs to be asked. What is it that is making Mr. Obama’s story a question mark? If this were a Hollywood script, there is no doubt in my mind that the story of a Barack Obama would in fact be the quintessential American story, yet here it is in life in reality and there are things people are unsure of. Here with this satirical look at the Obama’s, I can’t help but wonder when the satirical look at the McCain’s will be presented? How long will it take for us to be able to look at and truly see them?

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