Some of the writers who commented over the weekend about last week’s Republican National Convention have identified GOP attacks on “community organizing” as coded racism (as community organizing may be associated in some people’s minds with inner-city (read: African American) neighborhoods. (Actually two of the founders of community organizing were white: Jane Addams, who helped found some of the first settlement houses that brought Anglo middle-class volunteers together with folks in immigrant, working-class neighborhoods, and Saul Alinsky (pictured above), the anti-Communist, but anti-corporate 1930s (and after) radical who pushed disadvantaged communities to leverage their people power, if necessary, to win concessions from major institutions through (if necessary) the power of disruption (think Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Americans have long distrusted candidates who seemed to grow up being groomed and aspiring to gain the presidency (for example, Vice President Gore or Senator Kerry), of people who seem ambitious. President (W.) Bush – someone who apparently spent his early adulthood doing drugs, avoiding service in Vietnam, carousing, and bankrupting his father’s businesses – would be the opposite.
Various Wednesday night Republican National Convention speakers painted a picture of Senator Obama as an ambitious young man who went into community organizing in Chicago as a vehicle for a political career, ingratiating himself with Chicago Democratic Party bosses and business elites and eventually enriching himself – via projects around disadvantaged, working-classcommunities – community organizing and Project VOTE – building contacts and a resume. In this narrative, Senator Obama is a kind of poverty pimp (who makes money out of supposed combating poverty) who became rich and influential and – possibly – too big for his britches – an uppity black man in a kind of subtle influence rather than in an in-your-face (Jesse Jackson?) sort of way.
Governor Palin’s encircling of small-town America and small-town values – especially given the demographic composition of Republican National Convention goers – may set up a dichotomy between Anglo, rural and exurban, heterosexual professional-managerial-class and lower-middle-class families vs. African, immigrant (and even gay?) working-class people. In spite of last month’s glowing presentation of the Obama family, Obama – with his GQ look – may present a mix of metrosexual – perhaps even with the “Obama girl” video, there may be a hint of the Obama – as in the anti-Harold Ford ad that highlighted him going to Playboy bunny party – as a would-be sexual conqueror of Anglo women.
I’ve already written about Obama as seeming odd and threateningi not only because of his African American, immigrant, and apparently Muslim or Middle Eastern heritage – but also because of his multiracial and multicultural background.
But this view of small town American vs. urban, “cosmopolitian” bicoastal – which goes back to bitter-gate and I’ve never been proud of America until now – gate – may invoke not only a new “culture war” but may also connect – despite the ostensibly post-racial character not only of contemporary America but also of Senator Obama’s campaign and appeal – with our very old racial divide.
-- Perry
Americans have long distrusted candidates who seemed to grow up being groomed and aspiring to gain the presidency (for example, Vice President Gore or Senator Kerry), of people who seem ambitious. President (W.) Bush – someone who apparently spent his early adulthood doing drugs, avoiding service in Vietnam, carousing, and bankrupting his father’s businesses – would be the opposite.
Various Wednesday night Republican National Convention speakers painted a picture of Senator Obama as an ambitious young man who went into community organizing in Chicago as a vehicle for a political career, ingratiating himself with Chicago Democratic Party bosses and business elites and eventually enriching himself – via projects around disadvantaged, working-classcommunities – community organizing and Project VOTE – building contacts and a resume. In this narrative, Senator Obama is a kind of poverty pimp (who makes money out of supposed combating poverty) who became rich and influential and – possibly – too big for his britches – an uppity black man in a kind of subtle influence rather than in an in-your-face (Jesse Jackson?) sort of way.
Governor Palin’s encircling of small-town America and small-town values – especially given the demographic composition of Republican National Convention goers – may set up a dichotomy between Anglo, rural and exurban, heterosexual professional-managerial-class and lower-middle-class families vs. African, immigrant (and even gay?) working-class people. In spite of last month’s glowing presentation of the Obama family, Obama – with his GQ look – may present a mix of metrosexual – perhaps even with the “Obama girl” video, there may be a hint of the Obama – as in the anti-Harold Ford ad that highlighted him going to Playboy bunny party – as a would-be sexual conqueror of Anglo women.
I’ve already written about Obama as seeming odd and threateningi not only because of his African American, immigrant, and apparently Muslim or Middle Eastern heritage – but also because of his multiracial and multicultural background.
But this view of small town American vs. urban, “cosmopolitian” bicoastal – which goes back to bitter-gate and I’ve never been proud of America until now – gate – may invoke not only a new “culture war” but may also connect – despite the ostensibly post-racial character not only of contemporary America but also of Senator Obama’s campaign and appeal – with our very old racial divide.
-- Perry
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