Character beneath the color

By Huy Dao, staff writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A greater say in government marks the progress of this increasingly diverse society. Bountiful is the opportunity to become a councilman, state congressional leader, or other governmental position hitherto denied to ethnic minorities but now within the grasp of anyone willing to invest time, effort, and no small amount of intellect, imagination, and integrity. I daresay that even you, my Baron Banner readership, might become President of the United States. The only problem, however, is that this is much more noticeable, especially if you are not a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, with a penis.

Some people just can\’t vote well. Our Founding Fathers, the same ones who said that all men were created equal, knew that people can be easily swayed with the winds of the zeitgeist. Some issues that are easily waved as red herrings and thrust into the faces of the voters should not matter, but do, sadly enough. When Barack Obama first announced his campaign for presidency, talks sprang up on YouTube and major news programs alike of how Black he was.

As Senator Biden put it, “Barack Obama is the first African-American who is clean and articulate,” implying the schema for Blacks is hardly so. (Unfortunately for the senator, these jabs were not lightning-quick enough to avoid scrutiny.) Ultimately, the main concern is not “Is Obama Black?” but would it make a difference if he tried to respond to what others perceive as Black. If he walked it out to the DNC, pimped out baggy jeans that sagged to reveal leopard boxers, grills gleaming, and freaking with every vixen that he met? If he came bouncing to his inauguration in a Cadillac with the hydraulics on max and 23-inch chrome wheels spinning? If he played the National Anthem, “Get Low,” at the State of the Union? If he were to uphold the current funhouse-mirror images of black culture, no one, not even he himself, would take him seriously.

Such stereotyping offers a brutal double standard that pigeonholes the candidates and unfairly instructs our decision-making and thoughts of race relations. We are told as schoolchildren that differences do not matter, and that everyone is equal. To approve otherwise would invite harangues of being called intolerant. All the while, the differences always sat in front of us, but, told to be color-blind, we become just that: blind the meaning of the color dyed into every fabric of American life. For all the leaps the United States has taken as a country, its people cannot change the way they look at each other. The glaring differences from the “norm” turn the democratic process into a debacle of “Hell no, I\’m not going to vote for some…” Whatever happened to Lyndon Johnson\’s upholding of social equality: “We seek not just freedom but opportunity, not just equality as a right and as a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result”?

A vote means choosing a candidate whose ideals, not color, best reflect mine. That is a premier hallmark that I hope America achieves, for if not, informed citizens can easily become marionettes led to the ballot box. For those who believe that political power should be delegated through the tactics of a frilly high school election, consider our current situation a triumph of public policy. But for those who are hungry for a different type of politics, now is the time for social change in which we begin to see the character beneath the color.