(NAME-MCE) Real Origins of Clinton as The first Black President

[Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)]

Our first black president?
It's worth remembering the context of Toni Morrison's famous phrase
about Bill Clinton so we can retire it, now that Barack Obama is a
contender.

By Elizabeth Alexander

Jan. 28, 2008 | Toni Morrison's statement that Bill Clinton is America's
"first black president" has been repeated so often that it even came up
as a question to Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential debate on Jan. 21.

We are now at a moment where more and more voters are showing that they
are willing to elect an actual black president. In his historic and
overwhelming South Carolina victory, Obama won a majority of whites
under 30, along with the vast majority of African-Americans and most
women. Real and urgent issues affect black people all across the nation.
Endless joking about Bill Clinton's being America's first black
president steers us away from serious and long-overdue conversations
about race, as well as accountability on the part of both Clintons -- as
well as all of the presidential candidates -- with regard to
African-Americans. Even Morrison (who endorsed Obama today) might agree
that her phrase has been distorted and overused, and is confusing our
discussions about race today.

Morrison made the comment only once, in a short essay in the New Yorker
in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impending
presidential impeachment proceedings. As far as I could find, she has
never used the phrase again and has not disseminated it beyond the New
Yorker piece. Her words have been used frequently and almost always out
of their original context, as a way of signaling Bill Clinton's supposed
comfort with and advocacy for black people, to the extent that Hillary
Clinton even attempted to joke that she was "in this interracial marriage."

A look at the context of the words at the source is illuminating.
Morrison began by describing a nation glued to unseemly details of Bill
Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, as Kenneth Starr pursued
his investigation and Republicans cheered him on. She questioned the
pitch of Starr-fueled hysteria, and said: "Years ago, in the middle of
the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin
notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any
actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime
... The always and already guilty 'perp' is being hunted down not by a
prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of
pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks."

Morrison was not saying that Bill Clinton is America's first black
president in a cute or celebratory way, nor was she calling Clinton an
"honorary Negro." Rather, she was comparing Clinton's treatment at the
hands of Starr and others with that of black men, so often seen as "the
always and already guilty 'perp.'" Even in its original context the
comparison doesn't quite work. African-American men have been demonized
for centuries without having done anything but be black men, while
people of all political stripes would likely agree that Clinton put
himself in a compromised position with the Lewinsky situation, even if
the political reaction was out of proportion to his alleged "crime."
Morrison seemed here to be making a dark admonishment about what it
means to be tarred with the same brush that has punished
African-American men throughout this country's history.

Once we stop rehashing this term out of context, we can stop accepting
as a given that African-Americans have already had their black
president, and focus instead on this actual African-American candidate
we have before us, Barack Obama. We should also ask real questions about
the Clinton legacy vis-à-vis African-Americans, instead of accepting
uncritically that they have always worked to advance the interests of
black people. We shouldn't forget the fates of Lani Guinier and Jocelyn
Elders, for instance, as we evaluate President Clinton's record in
advancing African-American appointees.

I am not arguing that the Clintons have done nothing to advance the
cause of civil rights. I am saying that they get too much credit for
their record, as well as for their supposed cultural comfort with black
people. Both Clintons came of age during public desegregation, in which
they like many other whites were exposed to black people in schools and
in the workplace to a greater degree than those who came before them.
Their apparent comfort with black people is generational, not an
occasion for widespread celebration. I daresay George W. Bush shares
that same comfort being in proximity to African-Americans, given all the
hours he spends sweating on the elliptical machine next to Condoleezza
Rice. His appointments of Colin Powell and Rice are inarguably historic.
Given the way the phrase has been used, you might think that Bush could
be termed a black president, too.

"Black" isn't a cute moniker, a stylish accoutrement, nor a "down-home"
way of speaking. An actual black man now stands before the nation,
making the case for why he thinks he is the best choice for president.
Regardless of what happens in the weeks and months to come, America is
listening.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/28/first_black_president/print.html