Perspectives

Barack Obama is the superior choice for African American voters

Senator Barack Obama

by Theodore Cross
Part One of Two Parts
For the first time in the history of our country, a Black man has a credible chance of becoming president of the United States.

by Theodore Cross
Part One of Two Parts
For the first time in the history of our country, a Black man has a credible chance of becoming president of the United States.

After the long nightmare years of slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, and enduring race discrimination, one would expect that, in the upcoming presidential primary contest, Illinois Senator Barack Obama would be the overwhelming choice of Black American voters.

Not so! National polls show that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are drawing about equal shares of the Black vote.

The standard explanation is that Hillary Clinton is the inherited winner of solid numbers of Black voters because of the tremendous popularity of her husband among African Americans.

We all remember how President Bill Clinton campaigned in Black neighborhoods and churches, showed compassion and deep concerns for poor Black Americans, and sought out the opinions, advice, and even the forgiveness of Black leaders.

His remarkable ability to relate to African Americans, a quality missing among almost all White politicians, earned President Clinton both loyalty and affection among many millions of African Americans.

In fact, he was so admired in the African American community that in 1998 Princeton professor and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called him "our first Black president."

But Bill Clinton’s success in winning the affection of African Americans is only part of the story. Senator Hillary Clinton in her own right has turned out to be an appealing candidate for Black voters.

In her so-called Team Hillary, she has assembled highly effective organizations of dedicated supporters in Black communities throughout the nation.

Her campaign’s legal counsel is the widely admired African American lawyer Cheryl Mills, the former White House deputy counsel who defended Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

In key states where the Black vote is large, and possibly critical in primary outcomes, she has recruited skilled and experienced African American advisory groups.

At the grass roots, Team Hillary has placed scores of faithful bands of African American campaign workers scattered about in key parts of the country.

Senator Clinton has won a number of flat-out endorsements from influential African Americans.

Her supporters include Philadelphia Mayor John Street, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, author and poet Maya Angelou, composer and recording mogul Quincy Jones, and Robert L. Johnson, founder of the influential Black Entertainment Television network. Already she has the important backing of at least seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

In the style of President Bill Clinton before her, she makes regular appearances at Black churches where she pays homage to Black civil rights pioneers.

She artfully uses Bible references and religious imagery to endear herself to Black congregations. Last spring Hillary Clinton won glowing praise from the Black press when she joined dozens of America’s most famous Black leaders in singing "We Shall Overcome" at the sacred shrine of Black America, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Successfully sidestepping charges of pandering to Black voters, she deftly shifts to a southern drawl as she sings the popular Black hymn:

"I don’t feel no ways tired. We got to stay awake. We have a march to finish."

In her campaign to lock up Black support, there are no qualms about playing the race card. Senator Clinton scored with Black voters when she declared in a June debate at Howard University that the country would be more worried about HIV/AIDS if the disease were disproportionately affecting Whites instead of Black Americans.

The powerful political impact of her statement was not diminished by the circumstance that her facts were incorrect. The annual federal budget for HIV research is $3 billion. This is more than the nation’s entire appropriation for research on either heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or breast cancer.

But Clinton’s assertion that racism drives White-controlled government decisions on the allocations of disease research stoked anti-White anger and won her acclaim among Black voters.

Probably no one at the Howard University event, Black or White, was aware of the fact that in August 2006 Hillary Clinton was the only one of 20 senators of the Republican-controlled Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee to vote to gut a plan that would have redirected more AIDS funds to heavily Black communities in the South.

Her vote prompted the National Black Chamber of Commerce to publish full-page newspaper advertisements denouncing Clinton as being "two-faced" on the issue.

In fact, as I write today, there seems to be a prospect of almost inevitability of her winning the Democratic presidential nomination. It may be that to date upwards of 7 million Black voters have been drawn into the Hillary Clinton camp.

And this has occurred despite the fact, as I shall show, that the announced political programs of the two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination would call for an entirely different result.

Let’s now compare the platforms of Senators Clinton and Obama on a political and social issue of commanding importance to most Black voters. This is the huge and persisting racial gap in the United States in unemployment, poverty, healthcare, and education. To be sure, Black voters in the United States no longer automatically vote skin color in any particular election contest.

Nor do they always ask which candidate is best for Black people. Yet among the majority of African Americans, the issue of race and racial inequality persists as a concern of paramount importance. The famed commentator on presidential elections, Theodore White, once said there are three great and enduring issues in the United States.

They are "war and peace," "bread and butter," and "Black and White." In Black America today, as always, "bread and butter" and "Black and White" rise to the very top where they sometimes challenge even the issue of "war and peace."

What do the campaign platforms of the two main contenders have to offer on the subject of racial inequality? Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign Web site lists 10 issues that lead her agenda in a Clinton presidency.

At the very top of her list is "Strengthen the Middle Class." There then follow nine other Clinton concerns. They are providing affordable healthcare, ending the war in Iraq, energy independence, fulfilling our promise to veterans, supporting parents and children, restoring America’s standing in the world, being a champion for women, comprehensive government reform, and strengthening our democracy.

These admirable goals, aimed as they are at the White American heartland, offer little specific appeal to the aspirations of most African American voters who, in their choice of a presidential candidate, hope for a strong and explicit executive program to defend and advance the life chances of African Americans.

Ever since the 1960s when Blacks won the legally protected right to vote, they have always counted on a Democratic platform that addressed some of their most serious problems. But Hillary Clinton’s platform offers nothing.

It is true that Senator Clinton’s campaign speeches include expressions of support for the plight of poor Blacks. But it is her formal political platform that tells the story. The words "Black" or "minority" never enter the text of her official program for America.

Given Hillary Clinton’s well-known progressive views on social and racial issues, one would have expected to find key words in her platform such as "inner-city schools," "reduction of poverty," "revitalizing America’s cities," "increased access to job training," and "support of Head Start programs for youngsters from low-income families."

One would have expected too that Senator Clinton’s platform would address such issues as community development programs for inner cities, increased support for minority college students, support for Black farmers, programs to create capital and encourage entrepreneurship in Black communities, and tougher penalties for hate crimes. Yet, all of the standard campaign promises that a liberal Democrat typically offers to Blacks are completely absent from her announced program.

The explanation is clear. Senator Clinton, as was the case with her husband before her, is furiously moving toward the political center and redefining herself as a moderate. In her announced program there is not even a dollop of written concern for guarding or advancing the aspirations of Blacks and other minorities.

The reason is that many of her most important voting constituencies are unfriendly to efforts to help Black Americans. Many of the groups on whom she depends for a successful run for the presidency tend to be conservative on racial issues.

They include White ethnics, farmers, union leaders, small business owners, blue-collar workers, conservative Democrats, White parents of public school children, and that very large group of voters called Reagan Democrats. Jewish interests that have suffered in the past from the burden of restrictive racial quotas are especially hostile to most government programs targeted to assist Blacks. It’s safe to say, too, that many White Americans, who are at the core of the Clinton pool of voters, believe that many of the problems of Black Americans are self-inflicted.

They tend to the view that government programs to help Black Americans are ineffective and a waste of money. Many among Clinton’s likely supporters consider that antipoverty programs, even when cast as racially neutral, are really Black programs in disguise.

True, it is acceptable to Clinton voters for the senator publicly to empathize with the severe problems of Black America. But any explicit program that spends public money to help Blacks always has the potential to severely damage her chances for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In short, the leaders of the Clinton campaign appear to believe that if she announces any form of a Black program, she kills the support of voters she needs. Now let’s turn to the platform of Senator Obama. His campaign Web site, published on the Internet for all to see, bears down hard on all of the major issues of concern to Blacks.

These include fighting poverty, improving our schools, voting rights and election reform. Unlike Clinton, he outlines a comprehensive program to reduce poverty, revitalize America’s urban areas, and empower Black Americans.

Here in more detail are the Obama proposals as outlined in his campaign position paper:

o Increased funding for the Community Development Block Grant program which provides housing, job training, and other services to impoverished urban areas.

o A $1 billion, five-year expansion in job and career training programs for low-income Americans.

o The creation of a series of "Promise Neighborhoods" across America patterned after the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City. Low-income families in these promise neighborhoods will be offered parent counseling, childcare, job training, healthcare, financial advice, afterschool programs, technology training and other services to help them escape the cycle of poverty.

o An expansion of the Head Start program for preschool children in high-poverty areas.

o An increase in the maximum Pell Grant award for low-income college students.

o Expansion of the Nurse-Family Partnership where nurses visit low-income expectant mothers at home to ensure that they receive proper prenatal care.

o An increase in the earned income tax credit which will allow low-income working families to keep more of the money they earn.

o A proposal to increase funding for the Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program so that low-income workers can get to their jobs at a reduced cost and the children of these workers can receive free public transportation to childcare facilities.

o The establishment of an affordable housing trust fund that will produce 14,000 new units of affordable housing for low-income families each year.

o Increased access to capital for Blacks and other minorities through Small Business Administration programs.

o Job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities for people who have been incarcerated. Since Blacks are five times as likely as Whites to have been in prison, these programs will disproportionately benefit African Americans.

o To further raise the minimum wage rate and the child tax credit.

Obama has put a lot on the table, maybe too much. Nevertheless, announced here on the Obama Web site is an elaborate and unqualified proposal to use presidential power to deal with some of the most severe problems of African Americans and other minorities.

There are no politically expedient bows to the hardships of America’s White middle class. In his declaration of a concrete program for Blacks and others who have had a difficult time, there is no doublespeak or ambiguous language. Senator Obama deals with racial issues head on. He enters the arena of race with his six-shooters blazing.

Senator Clinton, on the other hand, ducks, straddles, changes the subject, or remains silent. Her evasive strategy on issues of race was revealed in an early August appearance at a convention of African American journalists. Hillary Clinton was asked whether she was "Black enough" to hold the allegiance of African American voters. Sidestepping the question, Clinton replied that she was proud of her party for having a Black, a woman, and a Latino competing for its nomination.

The case I make for Obama rests primarily on the strength of his campaign proposals for Black America. His platform becomes compelling when contrasted with the Clinton program that offers nothing. But there is another important reason why Obama should be the choice of African American voters.

Think back to the great role models of the African American past, such giants as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, and A. Philip Randolph. In fields unrelated to civil rights, one thinks of iconic figures such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, E. Franklin Frazier, Percy Julian, and Carter Woodson. In recent years, there have been unprecedented breakthroughs. A Black man and a Black woman have been named United States secretaries of state. Another Black woman has been chosen president of a great Ivy League university.

Today, a dozen or more African American men and women hold the highest executive positions in America’s largest and most powerful corporations and financial institutions. Only a generation ago, their fathers, who were often college graduates, had to settle for jobs as postal workers or low-level civil servants.

Now in the upcoming election, there is a possibility of the arrival of an African American role model whose influence and stature could far exceed that of any Black person in the past.

There is a chance today, a possibility never remotely considered since the founding of this country, that a Black man, in a multiracial society where Blacks are a minority, may be elected to the most important and powerful position in the world.

When one contemplates this thrilling prospect--however distant it still may seem--one looks forward to a massive surge of Black support for Barack Obama.

Theodore Cross is editor of "The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education."