Are We Just Crabs in the Barrel?

After the Iowa caucuses in January I had brunch in New York with a good friend who is the one and only born and bred Iowan I know. (I actually know her sister and brother as well, but "Beth" is a good friend of mine from business school back in the late 90s.) Rather condescendingly (in retrospect), I told her that I was quite impressed that Iowa--a state that is 97% white--had so strongly supported Barack Obama and basically turned him into the first viable African American presidential candidate. She dressed me down for my presumptuousness about Iowans, but props to her for showing this Northeasterner that Iowans take their politics seriously.

At the time I was neutral in the democratic race but starting to pay attention as I'd heard so much about this Barack Obama. I'd heard essays on NPR refuting the charge within the African-American community that Obama "wasn't black enough." My friend Beth strongly supports Clinton because she believes she's the most qualified and she wants to see a woman in the White House. With the charge of "not being black enough," I felt kinship with Obama because I too have felt the sting of that charge from other African-Americans my whole life and I too wanted a president who reflected my life experience as a black man making it in a white world.

In considering Obama as a candidate, I was also dismayed that some (Andrew Young et al) in the previous generation of civil rights leaders were throwing their support to Clinton or hesitating to support Obama, stating that they were being loyal to their friend Clinton and that it wasn't Obama's turn. Never mind that Obama's candidacy is the embodiment of Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of America's future! That's politics though. Loyalty to one's friends is important and everyone who wanted a seat at the table surely expected Clinton to emerge decisively as the democratic nominee. Pity poor John Lewis if Clinton pulls it out!

Personally, I explained to my friend that day that some of the old guard were acting like "crabs in a barrel," a phrase that is used in the black community when we pull down a brother or a sister because we don't want them to get above or ahead of us, like crabs in a barrel clawing at each other to try and come out on top. Now I see this same dynamic writ large with the re-emergence of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Obama went to great lengths not to disown Rev. Wright, much to the dismay of some critics who thought that he'd ducked the most important question: How can you explain and condone your relationship with a man who said such hateful and patently false things? Obama no doubt felt that he had provided a full contextual explanation, but now that Wright has spoken up for himself in such an angry and self-aggrandizing way, Obama will have to address the role his "spiritual mentor" has played in his life.

The real questions are twofold:

1. How are we to believe that Obama has good judgment in aligning himself with Rev. Wright? His pastor has so actively denigrated the chances for one of his flock to rise to the greatest political office in the world. Yet Obama proudly declared that he could no sooner disown Wright than he could his white grandmother, a woman who raised him for a time when he was young. He must provide some explanation to all Americans, especially those in Indiana who will vote next week. Frankly, I don't think he has the time to fully explain and turn the tide before next Tuesday.


2. Can Obama rise to the challenge of defusing this situation and move on politically? This is something he must demonstrate to the superdelegates lest they start to buy into Clinton's argument that he is not ready for the fall and he cannot win. It is completely within Barack Obama's power to win on this if he's willing to dissociate himself from the reverend and answer the questions before him. My sense is that he wants to put this behind him by acting as though the reverend doesn't have great influence on him politically or that this is political noise not worthy of his attention. This may be true, but if he thinks his opponents are going to let slide a chance to weaken him, he's crazy! And if the voters in Indiana don't buy his explanations, Hillary Clinton will have even greater evidence that "he can't win" demonstrated emprically because he will have failed to win over voters.

The bottom line for me is starting to become that if Obama is not willing to fight for this, then maybe he truly doesn't deserve to win. There. I said it and I hope I don't regret it. Hillary, reincarnated as a political version of The Terminator, has shown she keeps on fighting when knocked down. What kind of fight is Obama going to show the American people?

• Update: I purposely wrote my post above without reading my usual media sources to gather perspective. I wanted to get my own ideas down before turning to the web to see what else is being written. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, no friend to Obama's candidacy certainly, summed it up the best: "Rev. Wright is exacerbating [racial politics] in a way not seen in recent years. Barack Obama cannot remain on both sides of this. He has to make a decision. He is not running for national Mediator. He is running for President. In time, that job brings tough decisions. He's there now." Conservatives might oppose Obama philosophically, but I'm sure many, George Will and Sean Hannity excepted, do not wish the nation's first viable Black presidential candidate to be brought low like this.