President Obama and the “Cool Black Man” Persona: Roundtable

From President Obama's college years

Ever since the primaries, many black people accused him of not being black enough, but they were quickly silenced (consider this season’s episode of The Boondocks that focused on the black community’s silencing of black critics of President Obama). Now, after the President’s cool response to the oil spill, we even have some white liberals (i.e. Bill Maher) accusing him of not being black enough. These accusations have one thing in common: they stem from a disapproval of Obama’s coolness, or, in other words, his refusal or inability to display anger. Do we want him to get heated, for a change? What's the problem with his cool approach? Why is this an important topic of discussion in terms of race

Ms MaShari

I think the Black male is often associated with violence, and it's difficult for people to see a mixed race President (named Barack Hussein Obama) who doesn't live up to that age-old stereotype. I think one of our readers mentioned in an earlier post how people like to categorize one another. Clearly, people don't know what to make of him 'cause he is cool. Just think about that strut across the lawn at Pennsylvania Ave. and the calmness he exuded during the debates that led him to the presidency. He's a BAD man! But no matter what he does, it won't be right in the eyes of everyone else. Long after he's out of office, people will still be talking. Guess what, they aren't the President either! So why should it matter? To me, Obama is doing just what he should be doing, which is all he absolutely can do in his power.

Miss Berneta

You're right, Ms. Mashari, he IS a "BAD" man (shut yo mouth!). But, see the problem is, he's not bad in that Shaft/Gangsta/Samuel L. Jackson sort of way. Obama ain't the kind of negro that's going to snap all of a sudden on the Republicans and be like, "Look, muthaf@%kers, I don said it once and I ain't saying it twice! Ya'll gon pass this health care bill!" I admit, even I am guilty of wanting Obama to get angry once in a while, to display some emotion, to be a little less cerebral and a little more emotional. (It's not because I have no other way of understanding black masculinity, however. It's more so because I understand people in general better when I see them display emotion. People who are always always level-headed, no matter what the crisis, simply vex me; I feel like I can never really understand such a person).

White America (and maybe even black America) is used to the angry black man image I just mentioned: white Americans both love it and fear it. Unfortunately, the worse thing President Obama could do politically is get angry, because it's a guarantee he'll lose some much-needed support from whites (while he might regain some steadily waning support from brown and black folks in this country). It's a guarantee that you'll have white America shouting several things:

1) "That's right! That's right!," white liberals will shout, and from then on expect the angry Obama to make appearances occasionally, especially in favor of their causes.

2) "That's just incredibly unprofessional and not a good look for our country," white moderates will groan, from then on expecting the man to never ever exhibit the slightest emotion, for even the slightest emotion will hark back to angry Obama,

3) "See, I told you they are all angry and violent," white conservatives will say, and proceed to search for violent past behavior from Obama's youth in order to further invalidate his humanity and turn him into a stereotype of black masculinity

Sigh. The man is in a precarious situation. If I were him, I would choose my moments carefully, but I would not choose to remain always completely calm so as to avoid the stereotype. Ultimately, being stereotyped as a black person is unavoidable. Any wise person knows that, and I would hope that he knows it. Look, his wife merely said she was for once proud to be an American, when he won the primaries, and they painted her as a fist-in-the-air-afro-wearing black panther sort (I wish) and Michelle couldn't be further from that.

Ms Qui Vive

Is it just me...or aren't there more important things at the White House (and in the world) to worry about?? Clinton was known for his charm, Bush was known for his, well...lack of intelligence, and now, Obama is known for being “cool.” What's the big deal? I happen to appreciate and have mad respect for anyone who can remain tactful under extreme scrutiny and pressure...

Although Obama DOES seem to keep his cool, I wouldn't expect anything otherwise from a person with his leadership responsibility of ANY race...

Though it WOULD be funny to me if he gave the masses what they were looking for one day!

Ms MaShari

LOL, Miss Berneta! I remind you that Obama's campaign slogan was a "Change We Can Believe In," and that change meant a new attitude, a new swag, and a "NEW BAD." Think about it, he's mixed race and was raised by his Caucasian mother, having been exposed to a multitude of cultures and raised in Hawaii and overseas until middle school or so, and people really want to see Obama go Black Dynamite a time or two. Yeah, right! It seems like some of us signed up for the change, but weren't quite ready for just what the change meant. A cool dude that just happens to be brown skinned, wears his trousers a little high but looks just dandy doing it, and remains calm under a world of pressure. Miss Qui, like you, I'm enamored by the man we call Mr. President and I applaud him for what LL Cool J calls "doin' it well.”

Mz. Kewe

I don’t know about the you guys... but I am kinda tired of these age old stereotypes just because he’s a black man... now you’re telling me that there are white liberals saying "he’s not black enough." That just sounds way too ignorant to me. What is Not Black Enough?? Exactly? How do you act "black" ( or as i use to ask as a child... " how so you act a color?")? Just because he’s African American does that mean he has to be Angry, short tempered? Etc, etc? To me, this really just boils down to ignorance. Personally, I like a strong yet cool demeanor, which is how Obama comes across to me. There are other ways of showing strength, and it’s not always blowing up and showing emotion all the time... actually... he probably displays more strength in NOT letting his emotions get the best of him.

Miss Berneta

I agree with your sentiments entirely, Mz. Kewe. Although, I have to say that whenever I hear a black person indignantly ask, "How do you act black?" in debates like this, I automatically shake my head. Lol. No matter how bourgie we all are, we ALL know what it means when someone says you're acting black (and, likewise, that you're acting white). Let's not even pretend.

But like you said, Mz. Kewe, there are other ways of showing strength. Personally, I think all the hubbub about his temperament distracts us from some of the real work (for better or for worse) that President Obama is doing and also neglecting to do.

Positive stuff he's done: health care bill (albeit it's a watered-down version); executive order to protect queer individuals’ right to see their partner when/if his/her partner is hospitalized; loan forgiveness for individuals who have dedicated 10 years to public service; extending unemployment benefits.

Negatives (stuff he's done or failed to do): hasn't repealed the anti-prostitution clause in our HIV/AIDS funding program (which basically prevents any organization that supports sex workers from received funding from the program); the huge corporate bailouts; merit-based teacher's program; took abortion coverage out of the health care bill; he put Elena Kagan, yet another Harvard (inexperienced) law professor, one of his buddies, on the Supreme court (now, all but one of the justices is a Harvard or Yale graduate).

I could go on and on with this second list for sure. But all this…this is the stuff we should be talking about. And the whole focus on Obama's temperament is a mere distraction that's working in his and his administration's favor and not in our, the people's, favor.

Mz. Kewe

Do we really all know the "what acting black or white” is? Even if so...does it not change the ignorance, given the fact that defining what is black and what is white varies from each individual to the next? For me, I feel that characteristics of an African American male would be Pride, egotistical, protector and strong. I, personally, never associated angry or temperamental behavior exclusively to a black man. (Actually, I hear it more associated with black women.) Now these are my personal opinions about their characteristics, not to say I'm right or not to say I'm wrong, but this goes to show that not everyone has the same idea of how a person of a certain race should act. If I were to judge a black man and say that he's "not acting black" according to MY belief of what a black man should act like, that's total ignorance because his beliefs may differ from mine. What do these white liberal believe characteristic of a black man should be? Do all of them agree? I'm sure we could find some individuals out there that would say " oh yea... he's definitely a “n*66a" just because he does have a cool calm demeanor. I heard an interview he did for a radio show in NY while he was campaigning and one of the hosts asked jokingly " so Mr Obama, do you still have sex with your wife?" And Obama replied jokingly as well: " as for my wife, that's none of your business" and all the hosts of the show laughed and said "he IS a BLACK MAN Y'ALL!" So, according to their definition... Obama meets it. I know I'm rambling and probably over stressing my point (as usual) but the fact is everyone’s definition of how a certain race of people acts varies from person to person, so in essence saying someone isn't acting the way they should according to what race they are IS ignorance.

What is your take on this topic?

So What’s Wrong With Voting for an Unemployed Black Military Veteran (Who's Facing Felony Charges)?

Apparently everything is wrong with it, according to many folks, including leaders in the Democratic Party, members of the media, and Youtubers and commentators throughout the blogosphere. After native South Carolinian Alvin Greene beat Vic Rawl, a well-known former legislator and judge in the state, the Democratic Party flew into an outrage. Immediately, accusations that the Republicans had planted Greene hit the media waves. Now, Vic Rawl and party leaders are suggesting voting machine irregularities may be to blame. See, what’s amazing is that Greene spent very little money and didn’t bother to put out campaign signs or create a website. According to Greene, with the help of his family and friends, he simply called folks and went door to door to average citizens in South Carolina and listened to their thoughts and complaints. What did he hear? That people were fed up with the unemployment situation, that they wanted better healthcare and better education. Rather than seeking to raise dollars, he sought out voters. Oldschool, grassroots campaigning.

Well, both South Carolina’s Democratic Representative Jim Clyburn and the party’s state leader Carol Fowler asked Alvin Greene to withdraw. What are their grounds? They suspect shady origins of the $10,440 Greene paid as a filing fee to the Democratic Party. Greene maintains that the money was two years of savings from his military earnings.

To make matters worse, the man has a felony charge from more than six months ago that has yet to go to court. Of course, the media is treating him as though he is already guilty or has been convicted. The felony charge stems from a case that is dodgy, at best. According to the alleged victim, 19-year old Camille McCoy, while at a campus library at the University of South Carolina, Greene pulled up some sexually obscene images on his computer screen, showed them to her, laughed, and then asked if she’d like to go back to her dorm room with him. Greene will not speak about the case.

So, now that you have all the facts, so to speak, here’s my opinion.

About the alleged crime: personally, I find the scenario creepy, but certainly not warranting a felony charge. I hardly even think a misdemeanor is appropriate in this case.

About his unemployment: so what? In some major U.S. cities, like Detroit, the unemployment rate is as high as 15% and 20% amongst African-Americans. I'd say that makes Greene a pretty typical victim of our recession.

I think that folks are most angry that an everyday, average Joe somehow managed to sneak into the election, which, like all elections, are unofficially reserved for rich and (let’s just be honest) white men with elite educations and no criminal backgrounds. Let’s face it: our Supreme court is dominated largely by Yale and Harvard graduates. Only two justices (one after Kagan is sworn in) are not from one of those universities. For the last twenty years, the White House has been dominated by Yale and Harvard graduates: George H.W. Bush (Yale), Bill Clinton (Yale), George W. Bush (Yale and Harvard), and Barack Obama (Harvard). Greene's Democratic opponent, Vic Rawl, has a law school education. We reserve politics for the wealthy and for those from elite educational backgrounds.

Greene is not uneducated though, having received a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of South Carolina in 2000.

But he is, ultimately, the total opposite of those things we've come to expect from our politicians. He's poor, unemployed, black, average. Add to all that his less than clean criminal background, and we can see why the Democrats are so outraged.

As a result of this controversy, I've developed a new slogan for the Democratic Party: a party that stands for “the people” but which refuses to let any of the “the people” stand for themselves. In my view, Alvin Greene is one of the people, ostensibly trying to stand for himself and the people. Yeah, he may not be the most articulate. Yeah, he may not have a squeaky clean background or a fancy education. But the man is an average American. Shouldn’t average Americans have a chance to represent themselves, to enter the world of politics and make a difference?

What are your thoughts on Greene? Are folks just hating on him because he doesn't fit the typical politician profile? Or, do you think folks have a legitimate reason to be concerned?