Sources and Lit review
Writing about politics is a pretty tricky field. I have been trying to follow and study the events that have unfolded in the campaign trail only to get nauseated and dizzy from all the hoopla and misadventure of the donkeys and elephant party. To make matters even more complicated I have decided to write about race and politics in the current presidential primaries. This is like opening a horrible can of worms. Writing about race is a touching subject and even analysing race can even be more troubling and difficult because not only does the writer have to review all the information presented and postulate theories but also has to put their own ethnic identity aside. It is hard to write about race when you only can really be preaching from oneside –the race you were born into.
I am focusing my paper on Barack Obama and how his race is either being ignored, tip-toed around, or barely analyzed by the media. Barack Obama’s heritage is very interesting, he is a child of a black father and a white mother. This makes Obama a very fascinating subject to study because what does this say about his success as the presidential candidate. Obama is able to move through both worlds of the white and black community. To whites he appears as “non-threatening” and to blacks he appears as a voice for them. On top of a smooth character, good looks, and smart talking Obama may well be the very first black president of the United States of America.
I found some literature that surprising has been written and published despite being so recent which also might hurt the books credibility because the events are still unfolding and issues are slightly being altered through the times.
A Bound Man: Why We are Excited for Obama and why he Can’t Win is written by Shelby Steele who shares the same race make-up as Barack Obama, he has a white mother and a black father. In the book Shelby talks about his own feelings about being a mixed race and not believing he truly belongs to one ethnic group or the other and how Obama’s success relates in the election. It is an interesting book although it does feel as though Shelby is just projecting his own thoughts and beliefs into Obama’s.
Another source is a book called Barack Obama: The New Face of Politics by Martin Dupuis and Keith Boeckelman which talks about the statistics of race in politics over the years and specifically focuses on Obama’s previous elections for the Senate and how race played a role. It tells some interesting tales, one specifically about how once Obama was in the lead for Senate for the democrats the republican’s pulled their leading member and replaced him with an African American in an attempt to compete with Obama. It was a poor move and the black community saw right through it as “tokenism.” It is an interesting book and has a lot of valued statistics and research.
The last book I have is Barack Obama’s book “The audacity of Hope” which is his biography on his life in the senate and it’s campagin, his family, his wife, his thoughts on race etc. It is a touching and inspiring book and is loaded with wonderful anecdotes and stories. In one chapter he focuses on race and his views on who he is and how he came to find himself despite being put down by both sides of black and white. What is so interesting and welcoming about Obama’s book is that he is not afraid to address his flaws and fears. It feels like a very personable book and most importantly it is honest and when do we get to hear that.
Writing about race and the media for this election, these books will only get me so far. I have to find the controversy’s and arguments that both sides of that party are flinging at each other. So several of my sources are going to be internet stories from MSNBC, CNN, BBC, FOX News, etc. And they all have their own bias.
What a can of worms I have opened in my paper.
