THE MOUNTAINEER

Black power (1)
EDISON L. BADDAL

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- Now that Barrack Obama has clinched the nomination as the standard-bearer of the Democratic party of the USA for the forthcoming presidential elections this November,2008, it can be arguably said that blacks have already arrived as a power to reckon with in American politics. This is not to say though that they will not be undergoing some form of prejudice, overtly or covertly, but from hereon, they will no longer be taken for granted by the whites.
In a way, it points to USA gradually shedding its racist spectrum after a literally apartheid prism of the past centuries that gave birth to the civil rights mass movement in the decades following the second world war. Nevertheless, the feat was no fluke as Obama trounced a formidable adversary in Senator Hillary Clinton after a nerve-wracking and grueling race. The victory was no less spectacular as Hillary has always been a frontrunner in the primary election surveys since the battle for the primaries started sometime in March,2007.

Hence, Obama having edged out Hillary, despite her seemingly insurmountable advantages at first, in the final legs of the campaign is no doubt a matchless come-from-behind victory for some years to come. Besides, Obama is a neophyte senator of Illinois while Hillary was already a senior senator of New York before they raced for the Democratic nomination. Hobbling Obama’s candidacy in the seminal stage of the campaign was the predominant belief that Americans are not yet ready for a black president.. But what could have militated against such prejudice by white Americans was that they were not also ready for a female president.

In this context, the primary election voters could have been faced in an awkward situation of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. In the end, though, it boiled down to the fact that whereas Americans are not ready for a black president, the more that they are not ready for a female president.

It is thus that Hillary’s being a woman, although white, proved to be more her downside than that of Obama, who being black, is a true-blue male. Supposedly, the average American voter prefers a male, despite being colored, than a woman as leader although she is white. And to think that in the history of the United States, no woman ever became president as no woman also was ever been elected as Vice-President. Walter Mondale, though had a female running mate during his fight for the US presidency against the Gipper in 1984 but the candidacy was fruitless. His dark skin notwithstanding, what proved to be a clincher for Obama’s nomination was his huge organizational ability. With his canny communication skills, he was able to persuade many groups of voters of varied backgrounds to pitch in for his candidacy.

Thus, his comparative lack in resources was surmounted by a smooth and well-supported organizational network. At this point, his strong showing in the race certainly made him a man to watch in the political field and a black president may yet be in the offing.

Down the rough and crooked trail of American history, the blacks have always been the subject of racist economic and political policies characterized by segregation in schools, hospitals, transportation and facilities like lunch counters, drinking fountains, public toilets, public transport among others.

This is on top of some 250 years in which blacks were traded as chattels or objects of commerce subject to bidding and all forms of human indignities like rapes, beating and murder. It is estimated that about 100 million blacks have been murdered for various reasons at the height of slavery, during the Civil War and during the first reconstruction period following the civil war. In the latter, many were mercilessly lynched and murdered by white supremacists and other racist groups bitterly opposed to biracial, multicultural democracy and racial equality.