AP Photo/David Goldman
Shawn Maxam on why our obsession with winners and losers in politics has negative consequences for all of us.
Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews nearly had heart attacks on MSNBC last night after the first presidential debate because President Obama didn’t attack Mitt Romney. Four years later and even the white liberal media doesn’t understand how mindful President Barack Hussein Obama has to be as a Black man about America’s perception of him.
The president has been incredibly calm and rational through his tenure as a presidential candidate and as POTUS and he has still had his legitimacy as a citizen questioned (the birther phenomenon), accusations of him being a secret Muslim (as if being an practitioner of Islam automatically equates to terrorism) and this belief that he wants to socialize every aspect of America. He is aware of the implicit and unacknowledged fear of a Black man being the leader of the free world. Of course white political pundits aren’t aware of this duality or double consciousness as termed by W.E.B. Du Bois.
This “two-ness” of being African and as well as American leads to psycho-social tensions in which individuals or groups are forced into identifying themselves into two social worlds and viewing themselves as insider and outsider refers to their split consciousness and disadvantageous social position. Having such consciousness can harm the psyche of these black people as this dual existence is damaging to their sense of morality. “Double consciousnesses,” according to Du Bois, means a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others in the mirror.”[2] Du Bois views the history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. -via Wikipedia
He can’t be aggressive or temperamental because he will be accused of being an angry Black man. I find it perplexing that Mitt constantly interrupting and not being respectful of moderator Jim Lehrer is interpreted as strength and confidence. This is the traditional notion of masculinity that is still celebrated in the media and the 24 hour news cycle.
Were the debates boring? In my opinion – yes they were. But our expectation is that presidential debates should be entertaining with “gotcha” one liners, zingers and soundbites. Basically we prefer style over substance which is ridiculously ass-backwards. But when you are the first Black president, style and how you present yourself to a still very race-conscious (and in many regions racist) country is crucial. Getting loud and pushy just won’t be effective.
Please share this with friends, enemies and temporary allies alike.
Thank you so much for reading, sharing and commenting.
R.I.P. SKH
About S. Maxam
I think President Obama is just normally a calm person. It is his style to be civil and polite. I do think that he has tried hard not to play into the “angry black man” stereotype. However, I think what happened last night is that Obama tried very hard–maybe too hard–to hide his legitimate contempt for Romney. From the reports I have read, Obama genuinely does not like Romney, and I think he played it safe so that he did not tear Romney a new you-know-what.
I think the second debate will be different.
So how was it that Obama overcame what you see as his built-in disadvantages four years ago?
It is true that it’s always easier to be a challenger attacking the incumbent administration(which is what Obama was doing in 2008) than it is to be an incumbent defending his record, but I think you’re making excuses for Obama.
I had the same impression about Obama holding back during the debate. I hadn’t thought about the possibility he was holding back to avoid looking like an “angry black man.” That’s entirely possible. How would one test that hypothesis, though, especially since I can think of a bunch of other explanations?
I think Obama’s biggest strength is as an orator making a speech. He can be riveting when he’s by himself at a podium and unleashing his skills. That’s where he crushes the competition on the campaign trail. But, he doesn’t do nearly as well when he’s answering reporters’ questions or put into a structured debate. He seems much more comfortable stirring up a crowd than debating head-to-head.
I’m also guessing that he may have adopted a strategy of standing back and letting Romney self-destruct on his own, but that didn’t happen.
Jacobtk is onto something, too. The two were cordial to each other, but I got the sense that Obama was thinking, “I can’t believe I have to defend myself to THIS guy.”
I don’t get this, Obama is as much white, as he is black in his lineage, so why does the media call him a “black man”? He’s not black, he’s only half, why negate the white? Is it because they too want the black vote for Obama, so they label him as “black”?
@kuya- this was a real bone in my craw a while back. “why are Halle Barry & Lenny Kravitz black?” And my brother shut me up- “because they get followed around in department stores”
@shawn- the white male privilege this is kind of tired- most of the people, in the US, who have shoveled shit for a living are white.
40 years of cashing paychecks & I’m still waiting for the teller to give me the high sign & slip me an extra $50 while mouthing “cause you’re white”
President Obama is “Black” because that’s what he considers himself. On the contrary, Tiger Woods has never referred to himself as Black. Both are entitled to their preferences.
So, I have to go with what a persons wishes to be referred to. Obviously, the President is bi-racial. However, due to the long legacy of racism in America, such persons, until recently, have been deemed “Black” if the product of a Black White mixture.
Yes, he has privilege. But, Black men with privilege do not get to enjoy such privilege to the extent of most ordinary White males. Even President Obama has suffered slights even as President and with his Ivy League credentials. Slights that a lesser White male would never encounter.
If Gov. Spitzer were a Black man do you really think he would have gotten a talk show on MSNBC? White men continue to enjoy a privileged status in America. It is so odd that with all the crap that took place on Wall Street, the only person prosecuted is a fat guy from Sri Lanka. What about all the White men who orchestrated this giant fraud and fiasco that crippled our country? They got a free pass.
I don’t know, I’m white and MSNBC never offered me a talk show. I guess I just want to cash in on some of this ‘White Male Privilege’ I keep hearing about on this site. I just don’t think I found any yet. I know it must be out there, everyone keeps talking about it!
As a Black Woman, I get the message of this article. President Barack Obama needs to compromise less, regardless of how people feel about race matters. He’s tried to include everyone at the table, however some exist at the table only to block important matters, just because they feel they can. As an adult, we know to place children who want to play with blocks, outside. Continued efforts to compromise with them will only hurt us as a nation, as this country looks more and more to our leaders to navigate and repair the financial mess that we are in. I support my President, and for a next term, I’m looking for him to put his foot down and clean house. We can’t move forward in clean health, if there’s bacteria clogging up our airspace. It’s just time to kick the haters where they keep playing (whether their balls are black or white), in my opinion, because we are all looking to move FORWARD, NOT BACK!
Trying to explain the nuances of living the duality mentioned in this article is like trying to explain what’s it’s like to be an average white man to women, especially to feminist women. On this site men discuss these kinds of things all of time and receive empathy and respect for their efforts. I am stunned ( not really) at how much doubt and cynicism is in the responses from people who, as near as I can tell, have never spent a single moment of their lives as a black man.If you want to be taken at your word that your experiences are legitimate when you complain of hidden biases directed at you, give the same respect to others.From where I sit, i can see clearly all of the racist BS this president has had to endure, unlike any other I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.I can’t tell you for sure if his debate strategy was a response to the angry black man narrative. What I can tell you is that I deal with that angry black man bullshit all the time.@Kuya B; Just the fact that you are confused as to why he is viewed as black and not white is testimony to the relative experience gap. A gap that can be narrowed by making an effort to study with, an open mind, black culture and American history.By the way; it’s called the one drop rule. there were laws that determined that if a person had but one drop of “black blood” they were considered legally black.Even though the law isn’t in vogue any more, the habits it created are still embedded in culture.I am multiracial but I look black and I am treated that way;always have been.Racial identity doesn’t just exist in the individual it exists in culture as well in ways the individual can’t always control.@Jacobtk; If the president actually did what you said, demonstrate disdain for Romney it would be a disaster.Remember 4 years ago, the angry black man narrative was tried and has been kept alive by political operatives from the right.All you have to do find this narrative is a thumbnail search online.
I am an undecided voter, though last night I moved closer to a decision on which candidate I will support. Obama got his ass kicked last night. Jim Lehrer as a liberal got rolled over by Romney. As one friend of mine put it, Obama got Carterized. Frankly I am a bit surprised at how one sided the debate was. I expected better from Obama. When the last question was asked about how each candidate would deal with the partisan bickering in Washington and I listened to Romney’s predictable answer about how he worked with an 87% Democratic legislature I formulated in my mind this response for Obama. Had I been Mr. Obama I may have responded with a question for Romney and that is how would he deal with a Democratic senator standing on the senate floor in the earliest days of his presidencey promising to spend the next 4 years working for Romney’s defeat in the next presidential eleciton as Mitch McConnell did in Obama’s first days in office. When someone is hurling hand grenades into your camp do you approach them unarmed? Romney should have had to either repudiate McConnell’s remarks or own them. I am trying to figure out whether Obama’s poor performance is because a) his performance as president is indefensible b) he is a lousy debater or c) Romney is really much better than his campaign has framed him to be. I am not thrilled with the job Obama has done as president. While I think the health care plan is a good one as compared to repairing the economy it pales in comparison. Instead trying to people back to work he spent way too much time on Obamacare and it may end up costing him. No sitting president with an unemployment rate of over 8/% has ever been re elected. Romney showed a toughness last night that I have not yet seen in his campaign and Obama seemed cowered by it. I will watch the remaining debates, do my research and make my decision. But winning these debates is critical for these candidates because how goes the undecided vote so goes the election and the undecideds are tuning in.
I don’t know this, hope to get a chance to see it, but I would imagine Mitt Romney would request a meeting with that Senator who made those statements on the floor of the Senate – would sit down face-to-face and say something to the effect of, “Look, I get it that you don’t like me. I get it that we don’t agree on policy. But we are in this thing together, we have both been elected to govern this great country of ours. So let’s find common ground and work from there.”
I truly believe that Obama has failed to engage that kind of honest exchange with Republicans. I think partisan politics has done a lot to get us where we are. I don’t blame Obama, alone. There is plenty of blame to go around. But we need leadership from the Oval Office that can cut a way through partisanship and get the country on a more productive path.
I am far more confident in Romney’s ability to do that than I am in Obama’s ability.
Mitt Romney was lauded as being very “CEO-ish” and looking “in charge”….that just means he is a very good actor….
If unions are attacked and seniors see their Medicare evaporate while Mitt’s offshore accounts in Luxembourg or Cayman Islands grow bigger, then will people wake the F%$# up?
“… a black man with a funny name” – pg 7 of the preface from President’s Obama’s book ‘Dreams from my Father’. So he identifies himself as a Black man.
Joe Biden’s description of then Senator Obama “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” -
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/
Also as I said the notion that Pres. Obama is a secret really born here or has a secret religion are all indicators.
Shawn, you are truely one of the most insightful people I have ever read. When I read your articles, I feel as if you see into my very soul! That being said, this country of OURS is at a crossroads. Do we become a larger version of Greece or Spain, or do we pull out of this mess and once again lead the world. We need to pick our leader very carefully and while I personally think it was great to have a ‘Black Man’ as president (I trulely do). This election must be decided by who you feel the most COMPETANT candidate is.
“Four years later and even the white liberal media doesn’t understand how mindful President Barack Hussein Obama has to be as a Black man about America’s perception of him.”
Wow dude, I think you’re really overreaching there. I’m guessing Obama’s campaign was hoping to preserve an image of the president that’s consistent with his optimistic coolness. Obama’s campaign should definitely attack Romney, but having the president do it directly risks lowering the president (I’m sure Biden will have a free license for good reason).
Also, can we stop compounding white privilege with male privilege as though they are multiplicative ideas. White privilege is absolute, while male privilege is relative. The term “white male privilege” both obfuscates the divisions derived of race while inflating the divisions derived of gender.
The entire privilege theme is a political disaster and a gift to the Republicans the more it gets used. Progressive movements in this country somehow sold out to strange forms of identity moralism during the period about 1973 to now. Yes, let’s be against racism and sexism (in their obvious forms.) No, let’s not set up an infinite cultural regress of we’ll never be non-racist or non-sexist enough. Obviously also, these themes are ways of not looking at class. If we had a more northern European economy, though, class would be less of a thing. Yes, I’m a sociobiologist pretty much. No, I don’t think that that means I back unbridled capitalism (with heavy money-backed manipulation of the state.) I do think we can control the big things, and perhaps get to a social democratic economy. I wouldn’t want the heavy PC-oriented control of culture we see in Europe sometimes, but we might be able to conjoin control of the major stuff with a more libertarian style American treatment of the micro level.
Thank you for this post. It was my first thought when I saw how the debate was shaping up and I was so proud of our President for not getting baited into anything that Mr. Romeny threw at him which would immediately be spun in the ‘undercurrent’ of racial stigma as “angry Black man”. That is the real story as far as I am concerned. President Obama is a phenomenal speaker and could have trounced Mr. Romney in a million ways should he have wanted to. The real winner was our President who refused to be manipulated into the much deeper agenda of the Romney Republican strategy. Better a non-adversarial performance with the short-lived news cycle having as little as possible to spin than playing into racist hands.
It’s so strange that the media (liberal– huh?) want to pick a winner (based of very primitive perceptions of style.)
Shawn,
Spot on, and frankly I’ve said as much elsewhere (Twitter, FB, blogging) that Obama made a conscious choice to act… presidential, to avoid the “angry Black man” stereotype, to avoid the drama of White people’s tears at how “oh-so mean” Obama is for telling Romney his a** is showing. More importantly, Obama didn’t call out Mitt’s lies in a dramatic fashion, but he did call them out. He talked about what Mitt has said and then pivoted to Obama’s plan/accomplishments. Mitt came to zing and lie and act like the schoolyard bully he was way back when he terrorized his possibly homosexual classmates by chopping their hair off. Meanwhile, Obama’s trying to get his message out to the people.
Frankly, I was watching the MSNBC/CNN coverage and thinking, “what debate were these guys watching??” Obama clearly “won” (as much as winning can happen when one candidate lies through his teeth). But if the White male world’s definition of “winning” is whoever is the most aggressive, rude, lying, low-down, sumb!tch… well, then yeah, Romeny wins in that regard. I think it also says something about what’s wrong with masculinity that people respond to that. Hell, I shudder at how people expect politics to resemble a high school popularity contest more than an adult conversation,
But EVERY SINGLE Person of Color I’ve talked to has said the same thing: Obama won, and Romney looked like a d-bag. Nearly all the women I’ve talked to said that Romney’s tactic to steamroll actually made Obama MORE likeable for being patient, calm, and collected. This is very telling; only the White men in the room (even Tim Wise!) seemed to be upset that Obama wasn’t mudslinging. (But, let me be clear: not ALL White men.) And that seems to be a very instructive lesson in privilege: Romney can lie and make an a** of himself and still get away with it. Obama cannot.
But lest you think Obama’s down, trust me he’s not. The man is playing the long game, and I approve. He’s got 2 more debates to pivot back at Romney now that he knows what the people want: a bloodletting. Meanwhile, the fact-checkers are eviscerating Romney’s entire 38 minutes at the podium. In fact, I daresay he’ll lose credibility, making this debate AT BEST a Pyrrhic victory.
Also, just want to add, Obama’s style may not be flashy or loud, but for all of it he was the most sincere, the most classy, and the only one who actually talked specifically about how he’s going to make/been making the country better.
Romney, on the other hand, admitted he’d kill Big Bird. C’mon!
Oh, and Jim Lehrer is a TERRIBLE moderator. Totally lost control.
That’s my two cents. Spend ‘em how you will!
So, if Obama is afraid to come across as an angry Black Male while debating, what happens when he is on the campaign trail? He is far more forceful and confrontive and in attack mode on the campaign trail. I think he just had a very bad debate. He didn’t look presidential to me. He looked timid and unsure. He chose not to challenge some of Romney’s positions. I just think he was not well prepared for the debate. He has been far better than that in other debates, and other situations. I think his strategists let him down. They thought Romney would damage himself on his own rhetoric – and that didn’t happen.
I don’t know about “win-lose” in a debate like this, but it appeared to me that Romney accomplished what he needed to accomplish – which was to challenge the charactoerization of his positions and tax plans. I don’t know what Obama wanted to accomplish with his performance, but it doesn’t appear to me that he accomplished much. And the activity of the Democrat spin machine the next day suggests to me that I’m not the only one who thinks that.
You guys can offer this argument, but it’s all unfounded assertion. I mean, it’s possible. But so is everything else.
If you recall, Obama was hammered for giving a milquetoast convention speech too. That was before the Daily Caller video which supposedly caused him to hold back his anger. Pundits said that he’d lost his mojo and seemed a bit dull – not the same candidate from 2008. It just seems that this is his strategy – to play it cool, calm, and collected – rather than a knee-jerk reaction to a single news item.
To add to that, there was such a huge gap between Obama’s demeanor last night and an interpretation that he was overly angry. If this was his reasoning, he misjudged the gap by a mile. Romney is just a stronger debater. Obama himself has been telling everyone that he’s not a good debater. Most people thought he was just trying to lower expectations. They should have just taken him at his word.
Chuckles,
First, thanks for letting us have a different opinion — really, it’s so nice of you! ; )
I mean, it’s only a very real part of what happened that is rather inconvenient for most people who want to deny racism exists, especially those in the GOP. But hey! I’m sure they won’t even notice it.
Anyhoo, I don’t really expect that you, who still believes in human bio-diversity (HBD), “race-realism,” “Blacks behaving badly” (BBB), and is an infrequent contributor to the alt-Right (such as at the Daily Caller) would really understand the content here. I mean, if you can’t even accept that reality of racism in America, frankly you’re not going to be able to have a conversation on Obama’s strategies as POTUS or as a candidate.
But I can help you with 2 things:
1) The speech that Tucker Carlson tried to manufacture into a controversy at his rag (the Daily Caller) was actually already covered by EVERY SINGLE NEWS OUTLET, including Carlson and Hannity, back when it took place. Nobody found it surprising that Obama talks to Black people in a specific cultural tone because most people know the meaning of the phrase, “code-switching.” They also understand that he didn’t actually say anything controversial, if you read/listen to the speech itself.
2) Most people didn’t hammer Obama’s post-convention speech. As you may recall, if you read the pundits, Obama had a serious “bump” from the convention. (As opposed to Mittens, who had a slump because Clint Eastwood lost a debate with an empty chair.) And, in fact, Obama won the debate because he maintained his likeability rating, improved his perception by voters that he cares about their issues (which he does), and set Romney up to get hoisted upon his petard of lies when the fact-checkers get thru with his 38 minutes. And, as we’ve seen, everyone has been pointing out that Romney pretty much lied the entire time he was at the podium.
Except, of course, for when he said he’d defund PBS. Because I think that Romney really is the kind of guy who would kill Big Bird, Arthur, and all the other great children’s programming on that station. Why? Because, as he said, “I like being able to fire people.” And he doesn’t care about 47% of the country.
Now, if Romney WERE a “strong debater” then why act like a high school bully? Why feed the audience lie after lie? Why interrupt the moderator? Why play the short game for zingers and not the long game for voters? Obama is ahead in nearly every swing state Romney needs to win. So why play for a short-term “win” (if you can call lying a win in a debate) when the public will forget about it but still remember his many many gaffes? Why not actually improve his image by connecting with the voters, as Obama did?
Reason: because Romney just isn’t likeable, not even to his base. So he plays the short-game, because that’s all he’s got. Unfortunately, that won’t get you to the White House.
Zek,
You and Shawn haven’t offered any proof whatsoever that Obama was impacted by that video (which I admitted at my blog was not newsworthy and was overhyped). I see you want to try to make me look bad here in the comments or something. Fair enough. Have at it. I’ve written for Daily Caller. Nothing they’ve reported is untrue.
Point is, you guys are just spouting out this theory and haven’t backed it up with anything. Did Obama or anyone in his camp suggest that he was hindered by that video? No, they haven’t.
Obama didn’t pepper his responses with so many “uh’s” because of a fear of seeming like an angry black man. He didn’t ramble as so many have observed because of that video. He just sucked it up in that debate format. He’s much better giving a speech (though his DNC speech was so flat that many wondered what happened to him) or interacting with a crowd than is Romney. That isn’t because of any pressure against Romney; that’s just how these guys are. No deep searching explanation is needed.
Two things stuck out to me:
1) Romney sounds like a supervillain. Just from hearing his voice, before I knew who was speaking, I was freaked out. Dude needs to work on that skeevy voice of his.
2) Obama hesitates too often in the middle of his sentences. He had more “um”s than an undergrad presentation. There’s being nonaggressive and then there’s being sloppy.
To be frank this sounds like a bunch of Obama supporters trying to come up with some reason to excuse the fact their guy got rolled. In 2008 President Obama defeated McCain in the debates. Why didn’t this handicap him then? Even if you didn’t like his substance- Romney was more forceful, more specific, better organized and concise. Both sides had some “fact check” issues but Romney painted a picture of what the world could look like, President Obama didn’t. This was an even bigger shellacking in a debate than Biden’s victory over Palin.
If your team gets beat because your middle linebacker got hurt- its still a loss. Good teams overcome adversity and find a way to win despite disadvantages. President Obama has obviously done this in the past or he wouldn’t be president now. Lets see what happens next time- Romney put the Obama camp on notice, how will they respond?
Full disclosure- I voted for President Obama in 08. I’m undecided so far in 2012.
@Texpat:I don’t think most are making excuses but are merely describing how the playing field shifts based on cultural co factors like race, gender, c;ass, wealth,religion. You seem to act as if we live a colorblind society,which we don’t .Having a black president didn’t end racism or it’s effects.Whether or not Obama or Romney got rolled is besides the point.It’s a debate and proves little as too a person’s readiness to be president. The only reason it takes on so much in importance is because we have a lazy misinformed electorate who prefer to get their info from a preselected, self serving news media who serve one interest, to make money.This is true of the right and left.Only 56% of the electorate know who Paul Ryan is.Many will use the debate as definitive proof of their candidates abilities. Just because some kid wins the Harvard debates doesn’t qualify them to be the preisdent of the school.
@Jule: Just because The president identifies himself as black doesn’t mean that society will comply. Which we see examples of all the time. In America, how one is viewed racially and in other ways by society, has impact and can define you whether you like it or not. We see this in Scott brown’s attempts to define his opponent racially as a white woman because she doesn’t look obviously Native American.It works, partially, just because most people are absolutely ignorant of the countries racial history.I had an uncle who passed, melted into white culture, in order to be an FBI agent.Thousands of blacks have done so and continue to do so to this day.Why? Because it is necessary to avoid being penalized.
You know, Derek Jeter , the shortstop of the NYYankees is bi-racial’ I mention that because of his ‘Hall of Fame’ carrear no one seems to give much thought to that fact. My point is if you can ‘come through’ especially ‘in the cutch’, no one is going to give a rats ass about your color or race. O.K. some yahoos with their bedsheet outfits hanging in the closet, yeah there a lost cause. But the other 99.9% of us, we’ll give you a parade in the ‘Canyon of Heros’ in Manhattan!
Censorship is a form of intellectual cowardice.
The fact that comments critical of Obama are being censored, reflects the weakness of the pro-Obama argument.
Hey, E.P. , don’t speak out like that against ‘Dear Leader’ lest you find you comments ‘Disappearing’.
I did actually criticise Obama. And my comment did actually disappear.
But never mind. They can censor this webpage, but they can’t censor the whole Internet. Obama’s incompetence is widely seen, and nonsense like this article will be rightly ignored.
Regardless of who you plan on voting for. The psychology of politics will play a major role in how people, perceive, react and ultimately vote this election. The perceptual outcome of this debate was clearly based on each individuals, cultural experiences and intuitiveness which really affects how diverse people act. Shawn Maxam was absolutely correct in bringing to light the strategic behavior exhibited by President Barak Obama. Although President Obama holds the highest political seat in the land, the President is well aware of every move he makes and how it will be examined.
In that case, why was Obama so aggressive in tonight’s debate?
Has the perception of black males suddenly changed in just a few days? I don’t think so.
Maxam is just peddling race politics in a place where it doesn’t belong.
Evil Pundit – this article does a solid job of explaining my feelings about the 2nd debate – http://www.theroot.com/blogs/blogging-beltway/2nd-presidential-debate-2012