{"id":45154,"date":"2016-01-18T18:40:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T18:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45154"},"modified":"2019-03-05T13:11:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T13:11:45","slug":"ladies-and-gentlemen-is-this-the-next-president-of-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45154","title":{"rendered":"Ladies and Gentlemen, (Is This) The Next President of the United States(?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ladies and Gentlemen, (Is This) The Next President of the United States(?)<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Vibe Magazine<\/a>
\nSeptember 2007<\/a> (Volume 15, Number 9)
\npages 172-181<\/p>\n

Jeff Chang<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nPhotographed by Terry Richardson<\/a> on June 20, 2007 in Washington, D.C.<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Can the freshman senator from Illinois<\/a> stick to his ideals and still become the first man to rock Air Force Ones<\/a> on Air Force One<\/a>? \u00a0We’re entering the most hotly contested election of our lifetime. It s time to decide. Is Barack Obama<\/a> our man?<\/em><\/p>\n

On a Tuesday afternoon in May, the lines fora Barack Obama<\/a> rally are as long as they would be for the rock concerts that are the normal fare here at the Electric Factory<\/a>, a vast, converted warehouse in North Philadelphia<\/a>. Even for this mixed city, the crowd is stunningly cosmopolitan. The orderly line includes a coed reading The Bookseller of Kabul<\/em><\/a>, South Asian engineering majors from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Arab-American law students from the University of Pennsylvania, veteran activists from the National Hip-Hop Political Convention in crisp suits, community organizers in ACORN<\/a> T-shirts, youngwhitc, black, and Latino parents with kids in strollers, elderly people in wheelchairs, and everywhere, high schoolers \u2014some sporting HOT CHICKS DIG OBAMA buttons, some from North Philly in their school uniforms, others from South Jersey<\/a> in Abercrombie & Fitch, drawn like the faithful to Mecca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They have all donated $25 to $50 \u2014 star prices for the B-Rock<\/a> \u2014 to be, in Common\u2019s<\/a> words, ignited<\/em>. Obama pitches himself as the candidate of change, and many here hope he can turn around a nation polarized by George W. Bush<\/a>, war, the economy, race, religion, political parties, and even hip hop.<\/p>\n

Beverly Washington from the Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church<\/a> is wearing her red Sunday power worship suit and gripping her varnished brown cane. Four generations from her congregation have come on buses. The last time she felt this good about politics was two decades ago. \u201cJesse<\/a> was real. But now Barack is coming,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s fresh, he\u2019s new, he\u2019s inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmen Mitchell, 14, got her cousin Anthony Lewis, 17, to ask his mom to write them fake doctor’s notes that morning. They dressed in their summer-bright polos, grabbed their black D&G stunna shades<\/a>, and skipped classes to catch a train from the boondocks<\/a> of Conshohocken<\/a>. Then they hiked two miles from 30th Street Station<\/a> to be the first in line at their first political rally. They want the wars in Iraq<\/a> and in their old West Philly<\/a> neighborhood to end. \u201cHe makes us feel like he\u2019s really talking to us,\u201d Carmen says.<\/p>\n

Obama arrives backstage, a retinue of Secret Service<\/a> agents trailing behind. He introduces himself to the employees, looking them in their eyes. On the decks, King Britt<\/a> cues Aretha Franklin\u2019s<\/a> \u201cThink<\/a>,\u201d and she wails, \u201cOh, freedom! Freedom!\u201d Now it really is Obama time. This crowd of 3,000 isn\u2019t the biggest he has seen \u2014 there were 12,000 in Oakland<\/a>, 20,000 in Atlanta<\/a> and Austin<\/a> \u2014 but as he ascends to the stage, it is deafening. \u201cSpring is here in America,\u201d he says in his soothing baritone. \u201cIt\u2019s time for us to renew the spirit of America, and that\u2019s what this campaign is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he first ran for state office in 1996, Obama continues, \u201cPeople would say to me, \u2018You seem like a nice guy.\u2019\u201d The crowd laughs. \u201c\u2018You\u2019ve got a fancy law degree. You could be making a lot of money. You\u2019ve got a beautiful family. You\u2019re a churchgoing man. Why would you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics?\u2019\u201d Obama talks slowly, as if he\u2019s unsure whether he\u2019s really made up his mind, and when he has an opportunity to go hard, he often gets complicated instead. But while his voice is doing one thing, his body is doing another. He carries his slim 6′ 2″ frame with a hint of streetball swagger. And when he comes to a money line, he holds his position like he\u2019s daring you to charge. His is the opposite of in-your-grill. Obama\u2019s game is finesse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel as if we can\u2019t make a difference, and so half of us don\u2019t even vote,\u201d Obama says, to swelling cheers. \u201cThis nation is founded on a different tradition.\u201d he says, his voice rising, \u201ca very simple idea that we all have mutual obligations toward each other, that we all rise and fall together, that we can value our individualism and our self-reliance, but ultimately we have to lift up this idea that we are connected. And if there are children in Philadelphia<\/a> right now that are killing each other and shooting each other, and without an education and dropping out, that impacts all of us.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd goes bananas.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s done, he comes offstage to shake hands, followed by the men in headsets. A throng of bodies push toward the barriers. People hold up copies of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope<\/a><\/em> (Crown). An elderly black woman fights back tears. Carmen and Anthony reach out to clasp his hand. Aretha sings, \u201cYou need me…and I need you<\/em>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Obama\u2019s \u201cblackness\u201d has also come into question. \u201cObama isn\u2019t black,\u201d Salon.com<\/em> columnist Debra Dickerson<\/a> wrote. \u201c\u2018Black,\u2019 in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African<\/a> slaves.\u201d The debate exposed fears that a discussion about race that expands to include immigrants of color and their descendants might thwart continuing attempts to address the terrible legacies of slavery. And could someone who grew up in Hawai\u2019i<\/a> and Indonesia<\/a> really be \u201cblack?\u201d Obama\u2019s Southside<\/a>-for-life wife, Michelle<\/a>, plays this line for laughs on the campaign trail when she talks about her first impressions of him: \u201cI kind of thought any black guy who was raised in Hawai\u2019i had to be a little off!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as a culture are still confused about race,\u201d Obama says carefully. \u201cThere\u2019s this assumption that there\u2019s only one way of being black. That if you are not conforming to a certain pattern of behavior, that somehow you may not be authentic enough. And those of us in African-American culture know that there\u2019s as much diversity in the African-American community as there is in any other community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some took just one look at him to make up their minds. On May 4, CBSNews.com<\/em> disabled all user comments on its articles about Obama because the Web site was receiving too many racist posts. That same month, he was granted full Secret Service protection, the earliest ever for a presidential candidate who had not previously served \u2014 for reasons which reportedly include racist emails sent to his office. Only Jesse Jackson Sr.<\/a>, during his 1984 and 1988 runs, required similar arrangements. \u201cHe is both black and black enough for whatever individual or individuals unnerved his handlers enough to seek Secret Service protection,\u201d observed Miami Herald <\/em>columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.<\/a>: \u201cThat\u2019s a truth that cuts the clutter.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked what he thinks of the \u201cIs he black enough?\u201d discussion, Obama grins. Perhaps it\u2019s that bit of Ali<\/a> in him. \u201cIf you go to my barbershop, the Hyde Park Hair Salon, 53rd Street on the Southside, and you ask my guys in there, people don\u2019t understand the question,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s something I worked out a long time ago. I know who I am. My friends, my family, my constituency know who I am, and by the time this campaign is all over, America will know who I am.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can the freshman senator from Illinois stick to his ideals and still become the first man to rock Air Force Ones on Air Force One? We’re entering the most hotly contested election of our lifetime. It s time to decide. Is Barack Obama our man?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,13743,8,26,20],"tags":[18718,19795,19796],"class_list":["post-45154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-jeff-chang","tag-vibe","tag-vibe-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45154"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57750,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45154\/revisions\/57750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}