Barack Obama's election is a magnificent personal accomplishment, and a dramatic statement about race in the United States.
It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the history of the United States is the history of race.
The framers of the Constitution endorsed slavery in their compromise between North and South to count three-fifths of the slaves in each state when determining representation in the nation. From then until the Civil War, southern politicians were concerned above all to protect and extend their peculiar institution. The War ended slavery, but Reconstruction failed to make anything close to equal citizens of the slaves and their descendants. Jim Crow ruled the South from the late 19th century until the 1960s.
Currently the central issues in national politics are economics and international relations. Yet people of my age matured when the issue was desegregation, and opportunities for African Americans to obtain decent housing and jobs.
When I began as an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia in 1966, a black colonel in the United States Army had been murdered because he entered a white restaurant, and the all-white jury returned a verdict of not-guilty for his killers. By the time I left in 1968, the local schools and the university had begun to integrate. During our ride north to the University of Wisconsin, a white man killed Martin Luther King and blacks rioted.
Barack and Michelle Obama are products of opportunities since then, as well as whites who could vote with enthusiasm for an African American candidate, perhaps many of them without thinking about his color.
Yet race continues to be the most prominent factor that distinguishes Americans. It is the prevailing explanation in studies of income, health, illegitimacy, education, longevity, crime, and punishment.
President Obama will come to office with many aspirations. Wherever on his agenda is a concern for the underclass of blacks and other Americans, it will have to compete with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and something between economic fragility and disaster. Who knows what crises will come to his desk after the celebrations of the inaugural.
A preoccupation of Israeli commentators (What does it mean for us?) is nothing in comparison to the larger story. Yet a bit of local news took a few moments from all-night reports about the American votes. For the first time in months, troops and aircraft attacked targets in Gaza. We can wonder if the IDF timed its operation for the world's preoccupation with something else. The official line is that these were limited operations against specific threats, and should not end the cease fire. Hamas has begun firing rockets and mortars, and is saying that the retaliation should not end the cease fire.
It may not be that simple.
Welcome to the day after, Mr. President-elect.
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Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Home tel: 972-2-532-2725
Cell phone: 054-683-5325
Fax: 972-2-582-9144
msira@mscc.huji.ac.il