The ultimate cop-out: “Is America ready?”
Everyone is talking about Sen. Obama these days. His charisma, his momentum, his potential. But when it comes to the practical issue of whether or not he should seek the presidency in 2008, the question on many lips seems to be the same:
“Is America ready for a black president?”
That’s what Newsweek asks in its new cover story. It was all over the Sunday morning talk shows, too, with Chris Matthews & Friends tittering over poll numbers like “83% of the American people say they would be comfortable with an African-American president” (though a lower number thinks their friends and family would be comfortable). Anyone talking about Sen. Obama’s chances is apparently deeply concerned over the answer.
But this question — is America ready? — is actually a complete and utter cop-out, and one that misses entirely the point it claims to pursue. It’s also not a question that can be answered by either speculation or polling (which is notoriously unreliable on questions of racial tolerance — most everyone will SAY they’d vote for a black candidate, but a voting booth is a very private place).
While it can sometimes be valuable to think of the country as a collective unit on questions of public opinion, in reality America is a nation of individual voters, each of whom will (hopefully) have the opportunity to contribute to an answer to the pundits’ favorite question by way of the democratic process, and all in good time. In the interim, perhaps the more pertinent question is one Americans can ask themselves:
“Am I ready for a black president?”
This seems to me to be the really pressing question when discussing an Obama candidacy (or a Rice candidacy, or, with a different adjective, a Sen. Clinton candidacy). If the answer is yes, then there you have it, Mr. Matthews. If it’s no, then we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about why. At this point in our history, we should welcome such a public discussion.
Asking whether America-at-large is ready for a black president, on the other hand, is just a way to pass the buck and speculate without the danger of having to draw a conclusion. America will demonstrate the state of its readiness soon enough.
