What if He Loses?

Poignant piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates for Time magazine:

African Americans have had to cope with disappointment since the days of slavery. With that come certain defense mechanisms, ways of guarding ourselves against disappointment. Frankly, I was perfectly fine with the idea of never seeing a black President in my lifetime. When Obama entered the race, any expectations we had were negative. We started to see the light in Iowa, but even as his support became a popular movement, there was always a kind of disbelief in the idea that America would really vote for a black man. We’d like to be wrong, but we think we’re right. There is no sense in the black community of the kind of entitlement to the presidency felt by some Hillary Clinton supporters. Many of them expressed shock at the sort of sexism that greeted her. But very few black people were shocked that Michelle Obama was called a “baby mama” or that GOP Congressmen seem to have a penchant for referring to Obama as “boy” and “uppity.”

That’s why an Obama defeat would be met with resignation more than rage. No one is more tired of talking about racism than black people. The disenchantment with protest politics, the fatigue from refighting old battles over school integration and affirmative action, even the rise of politicians like Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick point to a shift in the disposition of black America. The big issues of the day aren’t so much racial profiling and police brutality as the achievement gap, the incarceration rate and unemployment. The great race conversation has not only decreased in volume; for black people, it’s also become much more introverted. At this moment, black America is in the grips of a kind of barbershop conservatism that is more concerned with its own progress than with the attitudes of whites.

So, yes, an Obama defeat would be greeted with a loud sucking of the teeth and a deepening of self-doubt. A loss would be hugely disappointing, and to put it crudely, it would also be more of the same. But it is also true that the biggest change has already taken place. The Obama campaign has been the anti–O.J. trial, a 24-hour ongoing drama about a black man cast not as a problem but, potentially, as the solution.