Since much of this is well-trod ground, I'll try to focus on a few insights that I think are somewhat different from what has already been written or said. Why was Jewish support so low for so long? Again, many of the reasons have been listed before: he was unknown to most Jews, people believed the smears, racism among Jews cut into his support, Hillary Clinton supporters were still angry, Obama hadn't campaigned in Florida, and McCain was considered a relatively moderate and atypical Republican. I believe all of these played a role. But I am more interested in exploring why so many Jews were such fertile ground for the smears; why so many Jews had a narrative with which to fill in the blanks about Obama. Some background. From the mid-80s through the early 90s, I was a teenager living in New York City. Like many others, I became obsessed with rap music. I probably liked it for the obvious reasons: they songs were largely about sex and violence. But I became fascinated by the insight I believed the music provided into contemporary issues of race. My interest in the topic hasn't waned since. At the same time, the nation's most public Jewish leaders seemed to be at war with the black community. The cycle went something like this: a prominent or even middling leader (or rapper) in the black community would make a statement deemed anti-semitic. Jewish leaders would condemn the guilty party, then call on all other black leaders also to condemn the guilty party. This had been going on for a while, but it got worse during the 1980s and 90s. Few if any black leaders were good enough for our Jewish watchdogs. It is difficult for me to believe that this effort to paint all black leaders - even mainstream intellectuals - as either anti-semites or atleast sympathetic to anti-semites, didn't influence HOW Jews came to regard ALL black leaders. Revs Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, anyone from the Nation of Islam; they became the representative black leader to many Jews. Fast forward to 2008. Not only were some Jews influenced by more traditional forms of anti-black (and anti-Muslim) prejudice, they had been listening for years to a wholesale smearing of black leaders by Jewish leaders. Obama had to prove to some subset of Jews that despite what they had been told, a different kind of black leader was possible. To summarize: some amount of hostility among Jews to Obama was a byproduct of the largely unnecessary and unwarranted black/Jewish battles of the 80s and 90s. Which leads us to a second question: Why did so many Jews end up voting for Obama? What moved the needle from 60% to 78%? I would like to say that the vote represented a wholesale reevaluation by these Jewish voters of black leaders. But based on my experience, I'm unconvinced. Once again, others have listed these before: the bad economy, increased exposure to Obama, an effective outreach operation (in and outside of the campaign), poor performances by McCain, and of course, Sarah Palin. The reasons are not a mystery. But while we will never know with any certainty, in my experience talking to Jewish voters there was no single argument more powerful than Sarah Palin to move Jews from McCain or undecided to Obama. Which allows us to contemplate a delicious irony. Many of the same Jews who stoked Jewish fear of blacks have also stoked Jewish fear of evangelical Christians. When confronted with a choice between Obama (scary black guy) and Palin (crazy Christian lady), people decided that scary was better than crazy. Of course it helped that Obama was not actually so scary; he was actually kinda like the ideal Jewish grandkid. And Palin was not only crazy, she was... well, let's just say she wasn't editor of the Harvard Law Review. Still, in an election that was won by a messenger of hope, too many Jews ultimately made their decision based on fear. That fear is the legacy of bad decisions made by Jewish leaders and organizations in years past. Perhaps now we can turn over a new leaf, and end the politics of fear that have characterized the dominant public face of the Jewish community for so long. I'd say we're ready. |
