The Persistence of the Color Line

June 20, 2011
Harvard law professor Kennedy (Sellout) turns his kaleidoscopic perspective on race in American life upon an engrossing and nuanced analysis of "the racial issues that have surrounded Obama's election and presidency." Kennedy balances his admiration for Obama's achievement with an awareness that the president is "a professional politician first and last." He looks at Obama's courtship of black voters and white voters as a "tightrope" requiring that he be "black enough to arouse the communal pride and support of African Americans but not âtoo black' to be accepted by whites and others." Challenging knee-jerk responsesâfrom the left, right, center, and fringeâto media tempests (e.g., Henry Louis Gates's arrest, the Shirley Sherrod "debacle," the "attacks" on Sonia Sotomayor), he manages to look beyond race without overlooking race, placing events in a historical political context. Distinguishing "racial from nonracial criticism," he finds, surprisingly, "considerably less racial misconduct in 2008 than much of the election commentary has contended." Kennedy's own tightrope to walk is his view that Obama avoids confronting race and his recognition of "the symbolic power of example." That he does so successfully makes his account both provocative and informative, arguable and absorbing.

July 15, 2011

The bestselling author of Nigger (2002) explores the racial issues surrounding President Obama's election and administration.

Obama's historic election proves that race, by itself, is no longer a disqualification for even the highest office. It does not, however, signal any kind of post-racial era, writes Kennedy (Law/Harvard Univ.; Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, 2008, etc.) in this handy compendium of the racial concerns Obama so adroitly handled during the campaign and of the race-tinged issues arising during his first two years in the White House. As a candidate, Obama quietly courted blacks by his ready self-identification, notwithstanding his mixed-race heritage, as proudly African-American, by his marriage to a strong black woman, his church affiliation and his espousal of a liberal Democratic agenda. He attracted white voters by seeming to float above racial considerations, by calmly assuring them of his good will, his patriotism and his allegiance to the nation as a whole. Kennedy teases all this out, and he provides a short electoral history of blacks, a discussion of the "race card" charges during the 2008 campaign, a commentary on the racial dimensions of the lamentable "beer summit" and the Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination and a moving, first-person description of the meaning and symbolism of the inaugural. Avowedly center-left but still an "unembarrassed" admirer of the president, Kennedy retains sufficient objectivity to properly appraise the much-acclaimed "A More Perfect Union" speech, Obama's answer to the controversy aroused by the inflammatory Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Illinois senator's longtime pastor. No, it was not a second Gettysburg Address, nor comparable to the "I Have a Dream" speech. Rather, it was the effective response of an extremely nimble politician to a campaign crisis. It contained nothing novel for anyone even "passably familiar with basic information about black-white race relations over the course of American history." Kennedy's critique may be similarly assessed: nothing especially new here, but all of it well said.

A carefully calculated, sober discussion of why race will continue to haunt American politics.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2011

Harvard law professor Kennedy, the author of best sellers like Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, considers racial politics in the time of the Obama presidency. Does Obama have particular responsibilities to the African American community? What's the racial opposition to him really like? These questions and more should engage the politically savvy. With a four-city tour.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.