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S Election Through the Black Americas:Ethnographic Perspectives As a Mirror Mark Schuller INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE:SEEING OBAMA’S ELECTION THROUGH THE BLACK AMERICAS:ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES AS A MIRROR Abstract pantheon of freedom fighters. Large white buses that began to appear shortly after the election— Based on fieldwork in Argentina, Ecuador, Jamaica, imported from Taiwan or Korea—were anointed and Martinique during the 2008 campaign and the the name “Obama.” The previous U.S. president 2009 inauguration, extended to the 2012 election whose name became generalized was for used cycle, these articles build on anthropological schol- clothing, “rad Kenedi.” The kreyol version of arship on Diaspora. Local communities’ responses Obama’s slogan, “wi nou kapab” (yes we can) was to the election and inauguration provide a look “be- quickly absorbed (some say re-absorbed) into the hind the mirror” (Gregory 2007). Specifically, political discourse, as Haitian president Rene building on insights from Kamari Maxine Clarke Preval’s political platform shared another name- (2010), this transnational connection imagined and sake, Lespwa, or “Hope.” called into being networks of black linkages, what Four years later, following a deepening reces- she has called “humanitarian diasporas.” The dis- sion and an enduring military presence in the Mid- cussions, analyses, and political claims-making are dle East, Obama was re-elected. Following examples of Gilroy’s (1987; 1993) articulation of eight years of an exhausting War on Terror and a the Black Atlantic, particularly networks that botched—racialized—response to Hurricane transnationally or “outer-nationally” link black Katrina, not to mention the financial crisis just communities to one another. Taking ethnographic hitting, Obama’s first election inspired astronomi- subjects’ own transnational reflection of the mean- cally high hopes. Writing in Time, Toure said that ings of Obama as a starting point, these articles the re-election was the real marker of racial pro- analyze and extend our understandings of diaspora gress. For a Black person to win a re-election while offering a solid understanding of the many demoted from superhero to ordinary human being ways blackness is being defined and redefined in par- was the real history-making event (Toure 2012). ticular national and regional contexts. [Diaspora, For Obama’s re-election, people reported a pride Blackness, Humanitarian Diasporas, Obama, Latin and solidarity but not the air of celebration. In the America, Caribbean] interim was an earthquake that shook the country to its foundations. Obama was overshadowed by INTRODUCTION his Democratic predecessor, United Nations Spe- November 4, 2008. A wave of cheers passed cial Envoy Bill Clinton, whose presence was ubiq- through the city of Port-au-Prince, as if the Brazil- uitous and whom many Haitian people call ian national team had just won the World Cup. “governor general,” a racialized term referring to Individuals shot fireworks in the sky like January a nineteen-year U.S. occupation begun in 1915. 1, Haiti’s Independence Day. Those still in the Obama’s 2008 election was indeed historic, for street honked their horns. The U.S. presidential many reasons. Based on a highly successful on-the- election has just been called. Barack Hussein ground community organizing effort aimed at gen- Obama was elected as the first African American erating a record voter turnout of younger and Afri- president. It was a day of celebration in the can American voters, Obama’s elevation to world’s first free Black republic. president represented the “audacity of hope” to Quickly Obama’s face adorned walls and tap- many. The fact that Obama became the first non- tap (colorful public transportation), often next to white president of the U.S. and indeed racial minor- international icons of Martin Luther King and ity head of state for any nation in the Global North Bob Marley—but never next to Haiti’s national contributes to this singularity. But what does his Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 23, Number 2, pp. 63–68, ISSN 1051-0559, electronic ISSN 1548-7466. © 2015 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/traa.12044. 63 election and presidency say about race, blackness, links that are of interest to anthropologists (Rah- Pan Africanism, and the African Diaspora? How do ier 2010). various constituencies across the Black Atlantic These articles offer very rich ethnographic understand these phenomena? This special issue analyses to deconstruct blackness from a critical offers a unique set of ethnographic groundings to vantage point. This exemplifies Faye Harrison’s interpret and disentangle the multiple meanings of important call to “decolonize” (1991) and “global- this still ongoing chapter in world black history. ize” (2008) anthropology, as people from the South Based on fieldwork in Argentina, Ecuador, have perspectives, points of view, and analyses of Jamaica, and Martinique during the 2008 campaign their own, and can return our gaze. The gaze may and the 2009 inauguration, extended to the 2012 not be so much directed at the United States as election cycle, these articles build on anthropologi- much as it is back at home, challenging Brazil’s cal scholarship on Diaspora. Local communities’ ideology of a “racial democracy” (Freyre 1957 responses to the election and inauguration provide [1933]), helping darker-skinned Martiniquans chal- a look “behind the mirror” (Gregory 2007). Specifi- lenge the hegemony of the white bek e elites, or sim- cally, building on insights from Kamari Maxine ply demanding recognition (Fraser 1997) for Clarke (2010), this transnational connection imag- African descendants in Argentina or Ecuador. As ined and called into being networks of black link- agents/actors/activists, people from the African ages, what she has called “humanitarian Diaspora are writing a hopeful transnational black diasporas.” The discussions, analyses, and political narrative onto Obama to make claims and advance claims making are examples of Paul Gilroy’s (1987, racial justice at home. These claims and advances, 1993) articulation of the Black Atlantic, particu- if won, will be done at the cost of “strategic essen- larly networks that transnationally or “outer-na- tialism” (Spivak 1987) running the risk of fixing tionally” link black communities to one another. blackness in a U.S. mold and letting racial progress Taking ethnographic subjects’ own transnational be measured by a U.S. yardstick, as Page alludes to reflection of the meanings of Obama as a starting perceived responsibilities for a U.S. Black leader- point, these articles analyze and extend our under- ship. As one of Main’s interlocutors argued, it also standings of diaspora while offering a solid under- runs the risk of depoliticization. standing of the many ways blackness is being defined and redefined in particular national and MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF OBAMA regional contexts (Clarke 2013; Rahier 2010, 2011). Obama’s election is literally rewriting black his- This collection asks what shifts, if any, in racial tory. A colleague in sociology recounted that her praxis are heralded by Obama’s election. intro-level textbook—published in 2008—began with the phrase “no racial minority has ever held TRANSNATIONAL DISCOURSES OF RACE the highest office, the highest level of power in the These articles address the shifts in the transna- U.S.” While it is definitely true that this particular tional elements of blackness, how people in the glass ceiling on our dreams has been shattered, African Diaspora outside the United States and a generation of U.S. Americans will grow up understand race, racism, and blackness, both in seeing a Black person on television not only as a the United States and at home, and how the two sport or entertainment star but also as the Presi- reflect one another. Importantly, several articles dent, African American Studies scholars, students build on Kamari Clarke’s and Deborah Thomas’s and indeed people outside the academy are forced (2006) ethnographic grounding of the concept of to continue theorizing race and racism. In 2009, the Black Atlantic. As Maddox (this volume) U.S. Blacks were twice as likely to be unemployed paraphrased Gilroy, “black subjects of the dias- and three times as likely to be without health care pora share a history of colonialism, slavery, and as U.S. whites, and in 2009, the world-renowned contemporary practices of state-repression and chair of a Harvard University department can be institutional racism—black communities are arrested trying to enter his own house. This is to always going to be linked transnationally because say nothing of the events that transpired in Fergu- of these mutual perceptions.” While the world son, Missouri in 2014 that galvanized a generation events that brought African peoples to the “New of activists asserting that Black lives matter. World” cannot be understated, this conflation of Obama’s race and not just his color challenge experiences of African Americans and Caribbean an essentialist blackness. Some commentators people with those on the continent homogenizes believe that Obama, with a white mother (an and takes for granted the very meanings and anthropologist, no less) fit into the myth of the 64 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY VOL. 23(2) United States being “post racial” (Baker 2010). As creolization and pre-existing intermediate racial Trouillot (1994) and others (e.g., Harrison 1995; categories. So the racial undertones of Obama’s Mullings 2005) argue, there are important social elections are also mixed. In both Jamaica and factors to race besides color, such as class and Martinique, darker-skinned majorities tend to be education. As Anderson points out Obama is “em- poorer and excluded from positions of authority. braceable” because of his Harvard law degree. His Language of patwa in Jamaica as well as Martini- ancestors were not “house slaves”—his ancestors quan kreyol —spoken by the lower-income major- were not slaves at all. As the increasingly powerful ity and blending European words with African and shrill “birther” groups pointed out, Obama’s syntax—are marginalized.
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