Community Checkup

There’s still Nevada to go, but I’m most interested in South Carolina next week. It will be the first real test of how much support Obama has from the black community.I also see it as being a gauge of how far some in the black community have come in dealing with the fear of the possibility of the first black president.

Although Obama bills himself as a healer of the U.S.’s reputation in the world he could just as well fill the shoes of a therapist in the business of healing a segment of the black community riddled with anxiety over his success.

Not all blacks are subject to this fear. Some don’t believe Obama to be the best choice for America. Many won’t vote at all. But there is a significant subgroup of blacks who do vote and believe in Obama who are also afraid to punch the ticket for him.

Barack and Michelle Obama correctly identify a “psychology of fear” within the black community with regard to supporting Barack. As Michelle Obama expressed during an interview, this is understandable due to a long history of dehumanization and oppression which has resulted in an entrenched distrust and lack of hope in the “system.” It is also understandable due to the collective memory of what happened to our last great leaders—Martin and Malcolm.

Barack understands that in response to this anxiety, some blacks feel a need to “protect” him by not supporting him. The idea is that if they don’t vote for him, they don’t give him the chance to fail; so failing isn’t really failing. Obama is saved from falling flat of his face, being attacked by Republicans, or worse yet, being assassinated. But make no mistake about it, this sentiment is just as much about protecting the black community as it is about protecting Obama.

By not supporting Obama, the black community is spared from the further diminishment of hope should something happen to Barack. Furthermore, they are spared from yet another collective statement from white America that “they” still devalue “us.” This feeling is voiced throughout the black community in commonly heard reservations about supporting Obama because they don’t know if whites will back him. This is more than just about whether he’d be able to defeat the Republicans — it’s also about whether there would be white backlash towards him.

Some of the concern is dissipating since the overwhelming amount of support shown for Obama in the mostly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, but there is still as sense among black folk that we should play it safe.

And Hillary is the safety blanket. She’s familiar and allows for a feeling of closeness to our beloved Bill without him actually being there. This was best expressed through Andrew Young’s endorsement of Hillary during his interview that has since become an internet sensation. In an odd way, he “supports” Hillary by commenting on Bill’s “blackness” and Hillary’s prowess in protecting him from “all the women he had been with.” In other words, blacks should support Hillary because she reconnects them with Bill.

Not only do the Obamas have an understanding of the problem, they also understand what is involved in the solution. One of the most effective therapeutic strategies for addressing anxiety is exposure – specifically, exposure to the very thing that causes the fear.

The goal of the therapist working with this approach is to progressively guide the client through this fear while preventing him or her from engaging in self-defeating or unproductive coping strategies such as avoidance. Over time, the client habituates to what they fear and the anxiety diminishes.

Barack is the exposure of the fear and therapist rolled up in one. As therapists Barack and Michelle, have been mastering the skill of encouraging blacks to let down their defenses. It’s a very tricky balance. Push too hard and you risk heightening the fear and the possibility of retreat or paralysis; don’t push enough and you risk making no progress.

Their approach has been to act as the steadfast parents standing chest deep in a pool of politics assuring the black community that it’s safe to swim out. Barack’s message has been, “Look–I’m safe and have the best security in the world. Nothing is happening to me. I’m strong and know what I’m doing. It’s okay.”

More importantly, as any good therapist would do, the Obamas have worked to diminish this fear through drawing out the strengths of the black community—strengths that have always been there. Their message here has been, “As a people, we have been here many times before under much worse circumstances and succeeded. We too, will succeed at this.”

The more this segment of the black community digests these messages and are exposed to the growing success of Obama, the more they begin to realize that what they fear so much today only requires a fraction of the courage that it required the black community to get behind a man who advocated non-violence in a fight against tear gas, attack dogs, and night sticks. With Iowa and New Hampshire behind us, slowly, the realization is setting in that this fear is not nearly as bad as it has been built up to be.

If this fear is overcome it will be huge lift for Obama. It will be a bigger lift for the black community.