News Mistake Likely Prophetic of an Obama Presidential Race

It’s been less than a week since Senator Barack Obama announced his possible plans to run for the presidency. And, it’s taken less than that for us to get the first taste of what Obama will likely face throughout a presidential campaign should he decide officially to run.

This segment of a newscast was first posted on YouTube, actually preceding by three days Obama’s January 16 announcement that he’d formed his presidential exploratory committee (though the expectation of his candidacy has of course been extremely high).

We fully expect that this was a mistake. Some director rolled the wrong footage during the sex offender story. Many, if not most, viewers would see it as such, but some, particularly if they are not paying close attention, are watching it without sound (such as in a restaurant), are just not too bright, might really think, if just for a few days, that Obama was accused of being a sex offender. Mistake notwithstanding, however, it seems perhaps the news anchor might at least venture a passing explanatory comment or disclaimer.

The insinuations and connotations of the Obama’s appearance here need no explanation. However, sadly enough, such images that intimate Obama’s black visage to negative racial stereotypes are likely to flourish throughout and Obama presidential run – purposefully – particularly by conservatives who are so adept at constructing such messages.

But we’ve come to expect as much. What will be more tragic is if the media, as it some times has (and, in did in this case albeit, perhaps, accidentally) aid and abet such race-baiting strategies by refusing to frame the image or message for what it is, or otherwise decline to critique such messages – leaving open the possibility that viewers might consciously or unconsciously associate the image of Obama with (in this case) the unsavory feelings we attach to sex offenders. Though the sex-offender angle is quite novel (and peculiar, since blacks have rarely been guilty of such crimes) in terms of visual associations, its linkage to criminality in general, and the depth of disdain associated with this form of criminality in particular make it especially revolting.

Recent polls have consistently shown that Americans say we are ready for a black president. But the political reality is that America would choose to do so over the vociferous objections of many in this country who do not embrace the ideal of full racial equality and who would see the election of Obama as upsetting the last remaining vestige of claims to white superiority.