Anticipating the State of the Union Address; Looking Back at the Philadelphia Race Speech

Anticipating the State of the Union address, with Robin Wagner – Pacifici’s recent post in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to remember how President Obama has used the power of his voice to address political problems. I agree with Robin and with Jonathan Alter that one must govern and not only campaign in poetry. I agree with Robin that such poetry is appropriate about significant matters of state, particularly about war and peace. But I think we should remember that key problems of national identity and purpose, not only matters of war and peace, require such poetry. Today the Race Speech.  I will consider other key speeches in subsequent posts.

It was in his “Race Speech,” delivered in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, that Barack Obama addressed the most serious challenge of his run for the Presidency. In Philadelphia tactics and overall political vision were brought together. The vision was used to serve a pressing necessity.

The situation was grave. The project of his campaign was being challenged by the politics of race, which was perhaps inevitable given the deep legacies of slavery and racism in America. The immediate controversy was a video compiled from sermons given by his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright seemed to embody black resentment and anger. If this was Obama’s minister, how could whites be sure that Wright did not say what Obama thought? Why did he stay in Wright’s church? Who is Barack Obama really? In order to have a chance to win the primaries, let alone the general election, Obama had to address such questions. Obama’s campaign advisors counseled a tactical response. Obama overruled their advice and addressed the issue of race head on, choosing to continue telling his story and make explicit that he was proposing, to expand the promise of the American Dream by addressing the legacies of the American dilemma. From the standard partisan point of view, this was dangerous. There was the very real danger that Obama could become identified as a symbolic black candidate.

The setting was formal. He spoke in Philadelphia, across the street from Constitution Hall, from a podium, flanked by 8 American flags. His tone was somber. His immediate audience was subdued. This was far from a campaign rally, far from a speech to a nominating convention. He opened with a reflection upon the promise and limitations of the constitution and the history of racism and anti-racism in America. Slavery is enshrined in the Constitution, but so is its critique. He pointed to the problem and identified his political project with the ongoing solution:

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

And he identified the struggle with his personal story, linking his story with the broad appeal of the American dream:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

With this in mind, he addressed the then recent controversies surrounding  Wright, distancing himself from hateful words, identifying with African American experience. He expressed his ambivalence about Wright and about the complexities of white and black prejudices and sensitivities. He received his first applause fifteen minutes into his speech. If we don’t confront the legacies of racism and suspicion, we won’t address the pressing problems of our day. “And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.”

He compared and empathized with the anger and concerns of blacks and whites, who have in common that their dreams are slipping away. He drew upon his bi-racial experiences to show how closely he feels the pains of whites and blacks as they have confronted each other, often without good reasons. Whites have viewed opportunity as a zero sum game, therefore, turning against busing and affirmative action. The mistake of Wright is that he spoke of American society as if it were static. He does not appreciate the change, represented by Obama candidacy. America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. The challenge is to be cognizant of how race builds resentments, but also to overcome them and address the real problems. In this speech, Obama most clearly formulated his as a project of reinventing a political culture in order to address pressing political problems.

At first the power of the speech was so overwhelming that most called it what it was: the most extraordinary speech given by a Presidential candidate, and now by a man who has become President, on the central problem in American political culture. But this deep meaning of his speech was soon lost. The commentary came to focus on whether he had successfully defused the Wright issue. The most cynical responses were those that denounced his equation of his good white grandmother with his hate filled preacher. Still it was understood as a turning point. He spoke about race in a way that reasonable people recognized was extraordinary. He was able to say things that have not been “say-able.” He turned his lowest point in the campaign to his great advantage. This was the substantive and performative highpoint of Obama’s candidacy.