MARCUS MABRY ESSAY

Perception and Tolerance
On Path to Presidency

How black is too black- Millions of African-Americans celebrated Barack Obama’s historic victory, seeing in it a reflection - sudden and shocking - of their own expanded horizons. But whether Mr. Obama captures the White House in November will depend on how he is seen by white Americans. Indeed, some people argue that one of the reasons Mr. Obama was able to defeat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was that a large number of white voters saw him as “postracial.
In other words, Mr. Obama was black, but not too black. But where is the line- Does it change over time- And if it is definable, then how black can Mr. Obama be before he alienates white voters- Or, to pose the question more cynically, how black do the Republicans have to make him to defeat him?
Social observers say a common hallmark of African-Americans who have achieved the greatest success, whether in business, entertainment or politics - Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson and Mr. Obama - is that they do not convey a sense of black grievance.
Clearly, Mr. Obama understands this. Until his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, forced race into the political debate, Mr. Obama rarely dwelt on it. He gave his groundbreaking speech on race only in response to the Wright controversy.
Indeed, after he effectively won the Democratic nomination, he left it to the media to point out the racial accomplishment, and the relative he thanked most emotively was the woman who raised him: his white grandmother.
There is a reason for this. Race is one of the most contentious issues in American society, and, as with many contentious issues, Americans like to choose the middle path between perceived extremes. “In many ways, Obama is an ideal middle way person - he is just as white as he is black, said Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College.
John McWhorter, who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, put it more bluntly: “White people are weary of the kinds of black people who are dedicated to indicting whites as racists. So, to
be ‘too black’ is to carry an air about you that whites have something to answer for.
Mr. Obama so de-emphasized race that for most of the 17-month contest some of the news media became obsessed with the question of whether he was “black enough’’ to win black votes.
Most African-American Democrats were for Hillary Clinton early on, until voters in Iowa proved to them that whites would support a black candidate.
Mr. Obama is of a different place and time than the generation of black leaders forged in the civil rights struggle. His story is, in part, an immigrant’s story, devoid of the particular wounds that descendants of American slaves carry.
His father was a black Kenyan and his mother a white American. His mixed-race heritage is less discomfiting to whites, Mr. McWhorter said, than the more common source of black Americans’ mixed-race blood: the miscegenation of slavery.
Mr. Obama’s generation of black political leaders have benefited from the gains of the civil rights movement, and are now attempting to broaden them. The smaller and older generation of black Republicans who could aspire to high office seem to generate less white suspicion. The high approval ratings of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice suggest they would be among the most popular black candidates with non-black voters.
Patrick J. Buchanan, conservative commentator and former aspirant to the Republican presidential nomination, said it was Mr. Powell’s military credentials that made him appealing to whites. “Barack Obama’s got problems - in central Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky - that Colin Powell wouldn’t have,Mr. Buchanan said. “Colin Powell did his duty in Vietnam, he’s a soldier, a general.
(Mr. Obama was too young for Vietnam.)
Mr. Buchanan said Mr. Obama’s monolithic support among blacks was likely to stoke white animosity.
“There’s a sense among some folks that if African-Americans are voting 90 percent for ‘one of us,’ then you’re going to vote for ‘one of us,’ he said.
When Norm Kagan, a white 62-year-old supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s, was asked in St. Paul, Minnesota, if white voters in the state would support a black man, he immediately raised the specter of crime . “We’ve all had our problems, he said. “Every now and then someone gets mugged or robbed. The most economically challenged - which are mostly black - are most often the criminals and not to be trusted.
Some Republicans have used such associations to defeat Democrats. But analysts say that the culture-war tactics are not as effective any more . They note the Republican loss in 2006 of both houses of Congress, and recent Democratic victories in traditionally Republican districts in special Congressional elections in Mississippi and Louisiana.
Rick Perlstein, author of “Nixonland, about the G.O.P.’s political strategy since the 1960’s, said issues like crime that allowed Republicans to divide and conquer no longer exist.
One of the biggest issues this year is the economic downturn. Shared distress may trump racial divisions, he said.
Democrats shouldn’t think that things will always be the way they have been, said Mr. Perlstein, a liberal. “Change does happen, he said. “And it happens overnight.