“Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory” read the New York Times front-page headline on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, a day after Barack Obama defeated John McCain to become the 44th president, and first African American president, of the United States. “I hate this title,” exclaimed Melissa Harris-Lacewell, startling a full house in the Science Center Kennedy Auditorium on Nov. 18.
Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton, went on to argue that the headline is misleading; just because someone overcomes a barrier does not mean that the barrier has fallen. Harris-Lacewell went on to describe, in a lecture titled “Subjects or Citizens: African American Citizenship in the Age of Obama,” the effect that President Obama’s election has had on the meaning of black citizenship in the United States.
First Harris-Lacewell asked, "what is a citizen? Before we can know what a citizen is, we need to know what a state is," she said. Put in the simplest terms, the state is the only institution that can use violence, force, and coercion legitimately. The state is allowed to use those methods with legitimacy because it has entered into a social contract with its citizens. The basic outline of this contract is that the state will keep the citizen safe if the citizen takes on certain responsibilities such as paying taxes and serving in the military. It is essentially an exchange of rights on the part of the state for responsibilities on the part of the citizen.
Since the beginning of our nation, African Americans have been subjected to a compromised citizenship. Even after slavery ended, Jim Crow laws and segregation violated African American citizenship. African Americans fought to become a part of the whole, to join in the contract of citizenship with the state. The turning point, as Harris-Lacewell sees it, was not the end of segregation or the election of Barack Obama, but rather the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
A display of incompetence on the part of the United States government forced Katrina refugees to fend for themselves for five days following the initial flooding. According to Harris-Lacewell, footage and images of struggling African Americans in New Orleans was shaming for white Americans, as the idea of failed citizenship became explicitly obvious. It served as an embodiment of the W.E.B. Dubois idea that African Americans have two identities; one is that of an American and one is that of a black person. Until social injustices and prejudices end completely, Dubois thought there was no way for the two identities to coexist.
This sense of shaming set the framework for Barack Obama’s campaign, because if racial pride can drive politics, so can racial shame. Black Americans united behind Obama under the spirit of “fictive kinship,” that Obama could serve as a hero and a role model for African Americans because of their shared social heritage. White Americans harbored guilt and felt inclined to prove their acceptance by supporting a black candidate for president, Harris-Lacewell said.
The problem still standing in the way of the Obama campaign was one of “schema.” The idea that a president could be black was not something that was standard in the American mind. Harris-Lacewell reiterated that this did not necessarily indicate racism, just cognitive dissonance. The word “president” conjured images of old white men in blue suits, because all presidents up until 2008 had been old white men in blue suits. The campaign set about this problem by trying to make Obama look the part, setting him in front of great white pillars reminiscent of the White House’s, trying to convince America that just because presidents have been white, they don’t have to be.
Although Obama’s election is certainly an achievement for African Americans, Harris-Lacewell was quick to insist that the election of a black president does not mean a complete end to structural racism. Hurricane Katrina and the age of Obama have marked a new age in the definition of black citizenship and there is cause for optimism, but racial injustices do still exist in our society.
Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton, went on to argue that the headline is misleading; just because someone overcomes a barrier does not mean that the barrier has fallen. Harris-Lacewell went on to describe, in a lecture titled “Subjects or Citizens: African American Citizenship in the Age of Obama,” the effect that President Obama’s election has had on the meaning of black citizenship in the United States.
First Harris-Lacewell asked, "what is a citizen? Before we can know what a citizen is, we need to know what a state is," she said. Put in the simplest terms, the state is the only institution that can use violence, force, and coercion legitimately. The state is allowed to use those methods with legitimacy because it has entered into a social contract with its citizens. The basic outline of this contract is that the state will keep the citizen safe if the citizen takes on certain responsibilities such as paying taxes and serving in the military. It is essentially an exchange of rights on the part of the state for responsibilities on the part of the citizen.
Since the beginning of our nation, African Americans have been subjected to a compromised citizenship. Even after slavery ended, Jim Crow laws and segregation violated African American citizenship. African Americans fought to become a part of the whole, to join in the contract of citizenship with the state. The turning point, as Harris-Lacewell sees it, was not the end of segregation or the election of Barack Obama, but rather the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
A display of incompetence on the part of the United States government forced Katrina refugees to fend for themselves for five days following the initial flooding. According to Harris-Lacewell, footage and images of struggling African Americans in New Orleans was shaming for white Americans, as the idea of failed citizenship became explicitly obvious. It served as an embodiment of the W.E.B. Dubois idea that African Americans have two identities; one is that of an American and one is that of a black person. Until social injustices and prejudices end completely, Dubois thought there was no way for the two identities to coexist.
This sense of shaming set the framework for Barack Obama’s campaign, because if racial pride can drive politics, so can racial shame. Black Americans united behind Obama under the spirit of “fictive kinship,” that Obama could serve as a hero and a role model for African Americans because of their shared social heritage. White Americans harbored guilt and felt inclined to prove their acceptance by supporting a black candidate for president, Harris-Lacewell said.
The problem still standing in the way of the Obama campaign was one of “schema.” The idea that a president could be black was not something that was standard in the American mind. Harris-Lacewell reiterated that this did not necessarily indicate racism, just cognitive dissonance. The word “president” conjured images of old white men in blue suits, because all presidents up until 2008 had been old white men in blue suits. The campaign set about this problem by trying to make Obama look the part, setting him in front of great white pillars reminiscent of the White House’s, trying to convince America that just because presidents have been white, they don’t have to be.
Although Obama’s election is certainly an achievement for African Americans, Harris-Lacewell was quick to insist that the election of a black president does not mean a complete end to structural racism. Hurricane Katrina and the age of Obama have marked a new age in the definition of black citizenship and there is cause for optimism, but racial injustices do still exist in our society.
