Monday, June 23, 2008
Scholars say Obama's campaign is history in motion
Already, the adjective ‘historic' seems permanently attached to news media descriptions of Barack Obama's emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
News anchors and pundits deploy the term with abandon, but what do actual historians think?
"I think this will be in a class by itself," said John Hope Franklin, who at 93 is the dean of the American historians who think and write about race.
Obama's campaign "is the most radical, far-reaching, significant (undertaking) by any individual or group in our history," he said. "This strikes at the very heart of national ideology on race and the political patterns of this country's history."
Obama's candidacy is ‘monumental,' said Manning Marable, 58, professor of history at Columbia.
"It can redeem American history from the specter of race that has plagued us for nearly 400 years."
"Race is the original sin of American democracy," said William Chafe, 65, professor of history at Duke, so "this will be historic in a thousand ways."
It could be, added Alan Brinkley of Columbia, "a very important event in the effort to put race to bed as an issue."
These scholars were all talking about the phenomenon - unexpected for all of them of a black man becoming a leading candidate for president in 2008.
They agree that this is something big, even if it is too early to know just how big. And several of them agreed that it is also something complicated.
So Obama began his first speech as the presumptive nominee in St. Paul on June 5 night with eloquent thanks to "my grandmother, who helped raise me ... who poured everything she had into me and who helped to make me the man I am today." She is Madelyn Dunham, Obama's white grandmother.
Race in America has never been a blackand-white matter. Many Americans have a mixed racial background, "but that is something we have never wanted to acknowledge," said Clement Alexander Price, 62, professor of history at Rutgers.
"For a long time, the races (in America) have been joined at the hip." A further refinement: Obama's African ancestry is not traceable to an American descendant of slaves, but to his Kenyan father who in 1959 arrived in the United States, where he met and married Obama's white mother. So the candidate's pedigree, like his new standing in history, is unusual.
"It is one of those exquisite moments in American history," said Johnnetta B. Cole, 71, former president of Spelman College and an anthropologist, "that teaches all of us, especially the young, what is possible in this country."
Ultimately only history can determine what is historic. Obama's status in history will depend on future events that are today mostly unknowable, though the first whether he will or won't be elected president in November - will be known relatively soon.
Even if he wins, the important presidencies are the ones that change the country and its politics, said David Blight of Yale. A President Obama's place in history "would depend so much on whether he truly can develop a new coalition" that creates a new politics.
To read the full article , click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
News anchors and pundits deploy the term with abandon, but what do actual historians think?
"I think this will be in a class by itself," said John Hope Franklin, who at 93 is the dean of the American historians who think and write about race.
Obama's campaign "is the most radical, far-reaching, significant (undertaking) by any individual or group in our history," he said. "This strikes at the very heart of national ideology on race and the political patterns of this country's history."
Obama's candidacy is ‘monumental,' said Manning Marable, 58, professor of history at Columbia.
"It can redeem American history from the specter of race that has plagued us for nearly 400 years."
"Race is the original sin of American democracy," said William Chafe, 65, professor of history at Duke, so "this will be historic in a thousand ways."
It could be, added Alan Brinkley of Columbia, "a very important event in the effort to put race to bed as an issue."
These scholars were all talking about the phenomenon - unexpected for all of them of a black man becoming a leading candidate for president in 2008.
They agree that this is something big, even if it is too early to know just how big. And several of them agreed that it is also something complicated.
So Obama began his first speech as the presumptive nominee in St. Paul on June 5 night with eloquent thanks to "my grandmother, who helped raise me ... who poured everything she had into me and who helped to make me the man I am today." She is Madelyn Dunham, Obama's white grandmother.
Race in America has never been a blackand-white matter. Many Americans have a mixed racial background, "but that is something we have never wanted to acknowledge," said Clement Alexander Price, 62, professor of history at Rutgers.
"For a long time, the races (in America) have been joined at the hip." A further refinement: Obama's African ancestry is not traceable to an American descendant of slaves, but to his Kenyan father who in 1959 arrived in the United States, where he met and married Obama's white mother. So the candidate's pedigree, like his new standing in history, is unusual.
"It is one of those exquisite moments in American history," said Johnnetta B. Cole, 71, former president of Spelman College and an anthropologist, "that teaches all of us, especially the young, what is possible in this country."
Ultimately only history can determine what is historic. Obama's status in history will depend on future events that are today mostly unknowable, though the first whether he will or won't be elected president in November - will be known relatively soon.
Even if he wins, the important presidencies are the ones that change the country and its politics, said David Blight of Yale. A President Obama's place in history "would depend so much on whether he truly can develop a new coalition" that creates a new politics.
To read the full article , click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: American historians, Americans, Barack Obama, black vote, Columbia, Democratic nominee, Democratic presidential nominees, history, Republican Party, US
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Speculation about Jindal running mate for McCain
After a conservative talk show host tossed up the idea of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as the perfect running mate for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, the talk has only grown. Even within the Republican Indian American community, activists see the 36-year-old governor and former Bush appointee, as a buffer against a possible Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The latest is an opinion piece in The New York Times by well-known columnist Bill Kristol entitled "McCain-Jindal?" that extols the governor's virtues as a vice presidential candidate and implies that Sen. McCain is seriously considering the possibility.
"… in separate conversations last week, no fewer than four McCain staffers and advisers mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. They're tempted by the idea of picking someone so young, with real accomplishments and a strong reformist streak," Kristol said in his May 5 piece.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
The latest is an opinion piece in The New York Times by well-known columnist Bill Kristol entitled "McCain-Jindal?" that extols the governor's virtues as a vice presidential candidate and implies that Sen. McCain is seriously considering the possibility.
"… in separate conversations last week, no fewer than four McCain staffers and advisers mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. They're tempted by the idea of picking someone so young, with real accomplishments and a strong reformist streak," Kristol said in his May 5 piece.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Kristol, bobby jindal, Bus, Democratic presidential nominees, John McCain, Louisiana governor, Republican presidential
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
