Dear Editor,
The presidential vote in the United States on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 was more than an expression of the constitutionally required quadrennial civil electoral exercise. Yes, it had all the usual ingredients. Lots of money. Lots of ads. Lots of spinning, swift-boating and circumlocutory responses to direct questions by the candidates and members of their campaign entourage. But there was one component in this year’s cyclical exercise that had never been seen in previous elections. Previously the physical characteristic of the candidates was not an important operant in a voter’s decision when he or she was secluded within the confines of the voting booth. But on this occasion it was going to be different.
On this occasion the candidate representing one of the two parties just happened to be black. Well, at least in appearance anyway. White America was being presented with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world whether their concept of democracy was still influenced by historical prejudice and anachronistic stereotyped perceptions. And some 43% of them took advantage of that opportunity to shout loud and clear to the curious watching world, that they had, at last, evolved beyond that kind of thinking. In so doing, they converted the usual quadrennial presidential election into a national plebiscite on where America stands at this point in time, in terms of tolerance in race relations.
For many African Americans, particularly those of older generations with actual experience of what life was like for blacks in the US in the ’60s and before, the thought of one of them ever ascending to the highest office in the land was, at best, an elusive dream.
To paraphrase the great lyricist Bob Marley, it was an illusion that African Americans could only perceive, but could never beyond their wildest imaginations hope to attain. In fact when Barack Obama began his campaign in the democratic primary he was finding it difficult to win over African American support from his main opponent Hillary Clinton. It was not until Obama won the Iowa Caucus, a crucial microcosmic validation of his viability as a contender among a majority white electorate, that African Americans began gravitating in large numbers to his side.
Even as his support increased among white Americans, there was still cautious optimism in many of the voices of African Americans as they discussed his chances. “Yes he had a chance, but whites say one thing in public and do something else when they are alone in the voting booth,” they cautioned. Many drew attention to what is termed ‘the Bradley/Wilder Effect,’ two situations in which exit polls showed African American gubernatorial hopefuls for their respective states, Tom Bradley in California and Doug Wilder in Virginia, leading their white opponents by double digits, but with end results that had Bradley losing in the final vote count, and Wilder barely scraping out a win by just 1/10 of a per cent. That caution began dissipating as Obama began winning primaries and caucuses in states where the black electorate was barely existent.
Eventually what had first appeared to many African Americans as a symbolic gesture in a pattern set by forerunners like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, became a substantial journey towards the American presidency by a cross-cultural charismatic and inspirational African American candidate.
For African Americans who had made that journey from the civil rights and voting rights struggles of the sixties, to the November 5, 2008 realization of one them actually winning a presidential election, the feelings and emotions that inundated their very being could not be vicariously experienced. The nation to which they had historically given so much and had received so little, comparatively speaking, had, at this point in time, lived up to its creed that all of them were created equal and “endowed by that creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” They locked eyes and smiled at each other as they passed, sharing and communicating an experience that can only be imagined by many of us.
Barack Obama’s ascension to the American presidency might represent a small step in the annals of human accomplishments. For people of the world in general and African Americans in particular, however, a black man being elected to the presidency of the United States of America represents an enormous leap forward for this paradoxical nation.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
