In Mandela speech, Obama offers nuanced approach to dealing with white anxiety and resentment
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President Barack Obama gave a powerhouse speech this Tuesday in Johannesburg, South Africa, in honor of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday. Most of the coverage has focused on his warnings about “strongman politics,” his criticisms of nationalist hatred,In Mandela speech, Obama offers nuanced approach to dealing with white anxiety and resentment
President Barack Obama gave a powerhouse speech this Tuesday in Johannesburg, South Africa, in honor of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday. Most of the coverage has focused on his warnings about “strongman politics,” his criticisms of nationalist hatred, and his arguments in favor of pluralism and democracy. Without mentioning any names, Obama thoroughly rebutted the ideas and policies promulgated by the Man Who Lost The Popular Vote. As Jelani Cobb summarized it: “[Obama] offered the sharpest possible contrast between himself and his successor—between statesman and demagogue—and, crucially, the distinction between a man who grasps history as the living context of our lives and one unburdened by the knowledge of how we arrived at the present and what that means for the future.” Let’s focus here on some other remarks made by our 44th president, ones that reflect his long-standing, highly nuanced views on the topic of racial and cultural resentment, in particular the resentment exacerbated by anxiety and fear about demographic change and the increased diversity that results therefrom. Although he didn’t use the words “white anxiety” or “white resentment,” or talk about why so many racially and culturally anxious and/or resentful white Americans voted for Trump, Obama did address those phenomena and explained how economic displacement that resulted from increasing globalization has exacerbated those ethno-cultural anxieties: From their board rooms or retreats, global decision makers don’t get a chance to see sometimes the pain in the faces of laid-off workers. Their kids don’t suffer when cuts in public education and health care result as a consequence of a reduced tax base because of tax avoidance. They can’t hear the resentment of an older tradesman when he complains that a newcomer doesn’t speak his language on a job site where he once worked. They’re less subject to the discomfort and the displacement that some of their countrymen may feel as globalization scrambles not only existing economic arrangements, but traditional social and religious mores. [snip] Within the United States, within the European Union, challenges to globalization first came from the left but then came more forcefully from the right, as you started seeing populist movements — which, by the way, are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires intent on reducing government constraints on their business interests — these movements tapped the unease that was felt by many people who lived outside of the urban cores; fears that economic security was slipping away, that their social status and privileges were eroding, that their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders, somebody that didn’t look like them or sound like them or pray as they did. Look at what Obama did—and did not—do here. Read more