"Obama is a graduate from a first-class university," the editorial
continued. "He is a symbol of assimilation rather than a representative
of different races coming together. Obama did not break the superiority
complex of white people. On the contrary, his appearance strengthened
the superiority complex of white people."
The article is interesting throughout.
The editorial has it right. Obama is not typical of black people in the U.S. by virtue of his social class, which means everything in the U.S. when it comes to power and privilege. One only needs to consider the median salary of any senator in Congress, their business connections, their post-congressional prospects or the alma mater of most presidents. These people enjoy wealth and social connections which put them in a network of wealth and access that few of the people they claim to represent enjoy. And Obama is on the periphery of ‘blackness’ in the U.S., and thus on the periphery of the under-class. He’s biracial, he’s lived abroad, he went to Harvard, he’s a politician, and a millionaire. He’s unusual. He is even unusual in most respects compared to most white people. To the extent that people are comfortable with him is the extent that he fits the mold of the social group that already enjoys power. A non-American view isn’t the only source of perspicuity we can expect on this, but in the U.S., we’ll likely dismiss such views and replace them with various forms of denial.
Some of his appeal is surely that he is, as the astute Mr Biden observed, “clean”. The contrast with Slick Willy is striking.
For context, it should be noted that there is still quite a bit of outright racism in China, particularly toward blacks and Japanese. There have been riots in the very near past concerning black students who dated local Chinese women.
Now certainly this is not true of all Chinese, but it’s fair to say the sentiment is widespread and colors a lot of commentary about race in that country.
I would point out that Barack Obama is an American, born in America, and raised mostly in America. He’s half white, raised by a white parent and grandparents. How has he ‘assimilated’ into elite white society, other than by working his way out of the middle class? If there’s been any assimilation at all, I think it’s been into the black community of Chicago, whose mores and traditions were never his own, nor were they those of his father.
He is distinctly lacking in the racial baggage that often comes with the politicians who rise through all-black power bases. His race is less of an issue because he never made it an issue for political gain. That’s what the good people of China should understand. In order for a man with minority blood to succeed he had to have the courage to define himself as an individual, and succeed on his own terms.
But I suspect a message of triumphant individualism is not something that usually makes it’s way past the copy desk at the People’s Daily.
Last years there were a post here about this subject.Every time a member of a group succed were others of the group failed. The former is no more seen as part of the group.
He is caleed like a cookie or like certain novel:
Tiger Wood , half asian
Hale Berry , half white
Clarence Thomas, called traitor
Um… if graduating from a “first-class university” is a white thing, then it seems Asians are better at being white than whites!
Green Apron Monkey is right. The purpose of the article is not to really analyze the US, but to neutralize the impact in China if Obama is elected. Overseas, the US is synonymous with racism, and many countries who are actually far more racist than the US like to rest on their own laurels in this regard especially if they have significant minorities of their own. They tell their own people to take it because the US is far worse in comparison, and if the US treats their own people worse how can you expect them to treat their own minorities better? Instead, they should be happy that their situation is better than blacks in the US.
An Obama presidency would be a shock and greatly discredit this line. People would think the US is perhaps not as racist and discriminatory as they have been lead to believe. They would then feel like their own government was merely using this story to excuse their own discrimination (which is true). They then might challenge their own government for better treatment.
This is what China wants to avoid. If the US has progressed to the point where a black man can be elected, then China will need to account for its own treatment of its minorities.
It may seem strange that events in the US would cause this, but in many regards the US still sets the benchmark fir behavior. If we raise the bar, then other countries need to respond to it somehow.
The commenter who said that this is far more about China than Obama got it right. My sister-in-law is a famous academic in a major Chinese university, and buys the “US is irremediably racist” line completely, despite having lived in the US and seen many Americans. Once, during a discussion last year, I shocked her when I mentioned that a friend of mine was an immigrant from Nigeria; she figured that no African would ever want to go to a racist hellhole such as the US.
The CCP has made a determined effort to “deconstruct” the US from a shining example of democracy to a whateverist hellhole after the 1989 events. It’s actually been quite successful, but Obama’s rise has challenged a crucial pillar of this “deconstruction”.
Superheater, are you seriously — seriously — suggesting that it’s Senator Obama’s choice as to which “race” he’s considered? That he just went and picked black because it’s politically useful and if he had instead picked white, then when he ran for the Illinois Senate and spoke at the Democratic Convention, everyone watching on TV would have said “oh look, there’s a white guy”? Everyone would have just read some announcement that Mr Obama chooses to be considered white, and then magically everyone would see him that way? It’s almost not worth trying to rehabilitate such willful obtuseness, but just in case, this might be a good place to start educating yourself.
What’s fascinating about this thread is that half of the participants aver that it’s really only the Chinese who have such screwed up ideas about race and they’re simply projecting. Meanwhile, the other (presumably non-Chinese) half enthusiastically agree with the editorial. Physician, heal thyself and so on.
To be honest, I found the editorial (as described by the Washington Post) to be a propaganda piece in the way of the old joke about the Soviet Union:
It seems like the Chinese, like the Soviets before them, are throwing out the old trope of American racism in order to make the grass on the other side look a little less green.
mpowell,
What? “He is married to a culturally black woman, he plays basketball, he does not pretend to like nascar.”
The latter two don’t appear to be markers of any sort whatsoever; I can find dozens of white people within a stone’s throw that play basketball and don’t like NASCAR. As to “culturally black woman”, what is that, exactly? Or what is it not? Please clarify.
Recall how Shakespeare’s Richard III ends with a marital alliance between the rival royal houses of White and Red that ends the War of the Roses.
Obama has positioned himself from 2004 onward as the product of a marital alliance between the rival racial houses of White and Black who will end the War of the Races.
Anti-Black racism is widespread in Asia, which is interesting because there are so few Blacks there. Then again anti-Semitism was present in late 1930s Japan.
It’s surprising how many people are utterly convinced that Obama’s election would a) change the way America sees itself b) change the way the world sees America c) change the way the world sees itself (!) d) all of the above.
I don’t even think that a) has much chance of coming true (except in a superficial way during a limited honeymoon period), much less any of the others. It’s a bit of a navel-gazing exercise.
Annoyingly, the Washington Post doesn’t even bother to link to the very thing it spends an entire article talking about! When will the mainstream media ever learn? Here it is: Obama phenomenon in U.S. (People’s Daily Online).
To those peopel who say that the editorial is far more about China than Obama, please note that the editorial was published in the overseas edition of China Daily, rather than the domestic edition, so most Chinese officials would not read the editorial.
To the person who says Han Chinese has a terrible relationship with most minority ethnic groups in China, please note that Han Chinese only have some problems with Tibetans and the Uighurs, two of the 55 minority groups in China. Han Chinese’s relationship with the other 53 groups is nothing hostile at all—they mingle with the Han so much that it’s often very difficult to distinguish who is Han and who is not in a crowd.
Not that people in China do not have racial discriminations against Black people (I always tell friends in China that Black people are far less discriminated in the US than in China, at least in people’s overt attitudes), but the courage of some commentators above in making comments without really knowing things on the ground is surprising.
And here is a theory about China’s racism with regards to the Blacks. Most Chinese people have not been to the US or personally interacted with black people, and their racism against blacks is copied from the supposed discrimination against blacks by the white people, which many in China view as a powerful/intelligent/culturally advanced group, for whom they have hidden admiration. Maybe the supposed discrimination against blacks among the whites have changed in the US, but this change’s impact is lagged in China (and for that matter, in many other countries that admire the US).
“Turbulent prospects, a face-off between the fledgling, young black lawyer Obama versus the seasoned yet crafty white veteran John McCain”
McCain For President
Seasoned Yet Crafty!
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