Barack and Hillary: Once Upon a Time in America

Bill Clinton once seemingly dismissed Barack Obama’s phenomenal appeal to the electorate as part of a fairy tale. As we wind down to what looks like victory for Barack Obama in obtaining the Democratic nomination for president, it seems that maybe Bill Clinton was right: it is a fairy tale.

The tale goes something like this:

Once upon a time there was a proud and haughty queen who possessed a magical mirror. Whenever she looked in and asked

“Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

The mirror answered,

"Thou, o queen, art the fairest of all."

Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the mirror spoke the truth.

But a child was growing up who grew more and more beautiful, and one day the child was as beautiful as the day, and more beautiful than the queen herself. And once when the queen asked her looking-glass,

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

It answered,

“You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But the child is still
A thousand times fairer than you.”

Then the queen was shocked, and turned yellow and green with envy. From that hour, whenever she looked at the child, her heart heaved in her breast, she hated the child so much. And envy and pride grew higher and higher in her heart like a weed, so that she had no peace day or night.

Sound familiar? It should—it’s the traditional rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Most of us know how this tale ends. Snow While doesn’t die, despite numerous attempts on her life by the queen. She lives happily with seven little men who sustain her as she grows in strength and beauty, all while retaining her open, trusting nature. Her lack of guile almost undoes her on several occasions as she accepts toxic gifts from the disguised queen. Just when it looks as if Snow White is truly done for after the bite of a poisonous apple, she is rescued by a handsome prince. They live happily even after. The evil queen smashes her mirror in a fit of rage.

Barack Obama, having started out as a little known freshman senator quickly gained momentum as he attracted a larger and larger following with his message of change. Though first tolerated by the Democratic establishment as a youthful comer who could make little headway, toleration turned to disdain to outright enmity as the spotlight shifted from the presumptive nominee Hilary Clinton. Barack Obama deftly avoided political death after being branded an elitist and later a closet radical. Having coughed up the poisonous apple fragments from his association with the Reverend Wright, he survived and was once again victorious. The magical mirror of the media is not broken, but has lost perhaps some of its prophetic sheen.

Real life isn’t usually that easily and neatly resolved nor do real people neatly conform to the motifs and archetypes found in fairy tales. Barack Obama no doubt has many obstacles yet to overcome. He has not yet, after all, been selected as the Democratic nominee for president. This doesn’t mean, however, that fairy tales have no place in the real world of politics, law, or society. While fairy tales are often centered on magic, they address some basic concerns of their audience. Fairy tales depict normative behavior and promote adherence to norms but they do so within a framework of overcoming norms and laws—laws of nature, laws of politics, laws of society. According to Tolkien, fairy tales, while offering fantasy, do so while giving fantasy the inner consistency of reality and freeing us from the domination of observed "fact". Fairy tales suggest alternate narratives and, even once the initial euphoria is over, allow us to see things more clearly outside of the business as usual mode of our existence.

Fairy tales exist to remind us that maybe, just maybe, change can happen, even in the face of tremendous odds.

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Victim Victorious: Does Change of Face Mean Change of Pace in the American Presidential Race?

Happy New Year.

It’s February 5, 2008, and having been on hiatus from this blog during the last few months teaching and writing (see e.g. “A ‘Ho New World...” in my SSRN file), I now return, sticking my head up into the world of comparative racism and the law in Canada and the United States.

What’s been happening? A lot. Take a look at the U.S. There, the news that dominates the airwaves is the primaries and caucuses leading up to the selection of the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. Today is, in fact, Super Tuesday, the day when voters in some 22 states make their candidate selections. Much of America (and the world) is consumed by two historic firsts: in the Democratic contest , the first potential woman nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the first potential African American nominee, Barack Obama, are within striking distance of one another. Obama’s progress comes as a surprise to many. As a United States senator in his first term in office, many felt that his relative lack of experience and name recognition would cause him to be far outdistanced by Hillary Clinton, a senator in her second term and a former first lady whose husband is still much beloved throughout United States. Not surprisingly, these two historic firsts have caused many to argue whether gender discrimination or racial discrimination is the biggest burden in the United States in 2008. Is a vote for Barack a vote for business as usual, male political hegemony, or is a vote for Hillary a vote for business as usual, white political hegemony? Putting it differently, whose history of oppression cries out most for political redress? As between Hillary and Barack, who can better claim “It’s our turn now?”

The answer isn’t that simple. In the matter of dueling victimhoods, I’m afraid that both women and blacks (or, getting beyond the black/white binary, racialized others) can hold their own, with enough past and continuing slights, mistreatment and outright absolute abuse to fill volumes. The problem is that this isn’t really what’s being measured in assessing these candidates. Despite all of the calls for picking a different kind of candidate who will, as a result of his or her difference, be a change agent, in choosing between Barack and Hillary we’re not choosing them because of their victimhood, we’re choosing them for their triumph over victimhood. The irony here is that when one of them succeeds in being chosen, it signifies that he or she will have convinced a sizable percentage of the electorate that despite any differentness, they are regular enough to do the job of president. Either will owe a large part of his or her success to the fact that he or she has “street cred” of a whole other kind—Wall Street cred, the type of credibility that buoys not just American spirits but American markets. Regardless of the extent to which they may represent communities who have suffered and who continue to suffer hard times, both Barack and Hillary are still, at the end of the day, members of the most august governing body in the United States and Ivy League educated lawyers married to Ivy League educated lawyer spouses. After all, the presidency is no job for the too outcast or the too outraged. A cynical take on this would be to see it all as an elaborate iterative process that fosters regression towards the political mean.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t celebrate the ascension of Hillary and Barack? Of course not. But we do need to keep in mind that while the victor of this contest may take the spoils they are little likely, at least at first, to roil—too much change could be hazardous to their political health.

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