recently i've seen a few discussions about whether americans are willing to accept a black president.
i think one factor that isn't much considered is the widespread desire of many americans to not be labeled as "racist." the u.s. still has deep-seated racial problems. but one major success of the civil rights movement is that it completely discredited overt racism in mainstream political discourse. while there are still a lot of racists, these days only the real fringe wears the label proudly. instead racism lurks in the background of other issues that are used as a proxy for race; issues like urban development, crime, poverty, etc. a lot of people who have serious racial biases nevertheless deny that they are racist because the idea of racism is now definitively and almost universally accepted to be bad.
what that means in terms of the presidential question is that there are people who may harbor biases against black people, but who will nevertheless be attracted to individual black candidates. i think this contributed to the appeal of colin powell as a hypothetical candidate ten years ago. as a non-threatening black political figure people who would be otherwise uncomfortable with black culture--people who may be frightened when they see a person who looks "too ghetto" walking down the street or roll up their windows when they hear rap music coming from a nearby car--wanted to like powell to reassure themselves that they are not, in fact, racist. in other words, a lot of people have a desire to support a black candidate, at least in the abstract, because they can use it as evidence to silence the doubts about their own biases.
this phenomenon is really just a form of tokenism. you raise a token black person up on a pedestal and that excuses you from examining some of your other views that might be tainted with some form of bigotry.
anyway, i keep going back and forth about whether a black presidential candidate just might just pull it off because of this tokenism phenomenon. although this kind of tokenism may be rooted in racism and discomfort about race, could it paradoxically make a black president more likely?
ultimately, i don't think it would. initially a black candidate who counters the usual urban black stereotype might have an advantage by being black because he could draw on the support of people who are looking for a "good black" person to support. but i don't think any such advantage would hold up during a campaign. the problem with being a token is that the public will have even less tolerance for the candidate's flaws. no one is a saint and no one could stand up to the kind of scrutiny a black candidate would have to endure, especially a person whose appeal lies in an idealization
if the candidate gets some support for being the antithesis of the stereotype of the "bad black" person, then anything the candidate has in common with the elements of "scary black culture" would become a major liability. it would undermine the anti-black black candidate ideal. and when the presidential campaign inevitably descends into the muck, the opposition (or its proxies) are sure to resort to all kinds of coded racial messages designed to undermine the ideal minority image.
in the end, i'm not sure if this country is ready for a black president. but i think a lot of people in this country want to believe that we are ready.
