The argument inThomas Chatterton Williams‘ essay on black culture and Obama is basically identical to a Washington Post Op-Ed he wrote last year, and bears many of the same problems. Though this time he offers a new one, the “An Obama presidency will civilize the Negroes” thesis. The basic notion that the black middle class “cleaves” to ghetto culture simply isn’t supported by statistics that show the black middle class growing, despite substantial difficulty in transferring wealth relative to white families. Only 17% of black folks think 50 Cent is a good influence, compared to high 80s for Oprah and Bill Cosby, who are considered substantially better role models than Obama, whose rating is in the 70s. His selective quoting of Biggie and Jay-Zmerely reinforces the weakness of this argument.
But the impact of the most famous black man in America wearing a suit to work everyday extends far beyond the sartorial sphere and addresses what Ellison had in mind specifically. Black children would be able to avoid internalizing what James Baldwincalled “the propaganda of race inferiority,” since every night on the news there would be a visible reminder that there is nothing whites can do that blacks cannot. That is the real change Obama offers—all of a sudden the world young black kids imagine themselves inhabiting would seem a richer place to live, one without an upper limit. To Biggie Smalls’ dismal list of career options afforded young black males—”You either slang crack rock / Or you got a wicked jump shot”—we could add the office of president. And in response to what Jay-Z cynically defined as the black man’s lot in life—”All we got is sports and entertainment/ Until we even, thievin”—we could say, No, not anymore.
The full Biggie line is “The streets is a short stop/either you slanging crack rock/or you got a wicked jump shot”. Jigga’s full line is “”All we got is sports and entertainment/ Until we even, thievin/ can’t knock the way a nigga eatin'”. Both of these, then, are not critiques of “the career options afforded young black males” but the career options afforded a particular class of young black males. To make the case that these ideas are solely specific to race rather than class, you’d have to omit the relevant context, as Williams does above. Also, these songs are both more than ten years old, and the case that the songs themselves remain relevant to poor young black men would have to be made. They certainly aren’t relevant to the circumstances of Obama’s upbringing, and he would be the first to admit that.
The idea that Hip-hop, rather than social and economic circumstances, is responsible for black poverty is about as compelling as the idea that Barack Obama will magically heal the ghetto through the magic of self-esteem. Rather, this provides a rhetorical framework for rationalizing that persistence of these problems beyond a potential Obama Administration as proof that racism, institutional or otherwise, is not a factor. This oddly enough, is the opposite of what is most appealing about Obama, which is a rhetorical argument for social responsibility that is nominally colorblind but in reality merely posits “black issues” as American ones. This is very Baldwinesque, and Williams quotes James Baldwin almost as selectively as he quotes Biggie and Jay. Baldwin also said “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them,” so he probably would have found the idea that the ungrateful Hip-hop generation was birthed from a generation of saints, a fundamental tenet of Cosby Conservatism, as unconvincing as I do.
To the extent that the black middle class is threatened, “ghetto culture” is a less compelling explanation than say, the wholesale loss of wealth through declining equity in housing. Owning a home was once considered the best way to pass on wealth to one’s children, and with the credit crisis this is likely to become even more difficult. But the quickest way to please conservatives on issues of race is to ignore such factors and blame Hip-hop, since a large number of people get their understanding of and strong feelings about the hood from sports and entertainment. Which is part of what made Jay-Z mad in the first place.
–A. Serwer
