Obama Elitist? I'm Hearing Something Else

Mark Anthony Neal --In any other Presidential campaign and in any other historical moment, the depiction of an opposition candidate as "elitist" and "out of touch" is slick and potentially effective politicking; it's the reason why Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, dumbed-himself-down in 1992. But the assertion that Barack Obama--an highly educated, upper-middle-class and articulate black man--is an "elitist," is really code for "uppity nigger." In terms of instigating anti-Black racism and violence in this country, few things were more potent than the perception that black people, and black men in particular, did not know their place--whether it be an act of "reckless eyeballing" or too prideful of a demeanor. What McCain and Clinton are essentially signaling to the white underclass and working poor is that "this nigger thinks he's better than you." But these attempts are part of a dated racial politics that is increasingly giving way to what Ellen McGirt of Fast Company Magazine calls a "postboomer society" where Obama is reflective of an attempt to move "beyond traditional identity politics." Still, it's hard to imagine that there won't be a symbolic "lynching" in Senator Obama's future. [MORE]

David K. Shipler --When his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross. This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. "Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

At the bottom of the American psyche, race is still about power, and blacks who move up risk triggering discomfort among some whites. I've met black men who, when stopped by white cops at night, think the best protection is to act dumb and deferential.

Furthermore, casting Obama as "out of touch" plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as "others" at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole. Despite his ability to articulate the frustration and yearning of broad segments of Americans, his "otherness" has been highlighted effectively by right-wingers who harp on his Kenyan father and spread false rumors that he's a clandestine Muslim.