Obama Is First Black, Last Black President: David M. Kennedy

[ben_meyers]

So too Barack Obama will prove to be both the first black president and the last black president. Obama's victory has carried us across an important frontier in our national journey. It's a frontier that shimmered on the horizon of a distant future in 1941, one that we will never cross again.

He is both history-made and history-making, as we are permitted to believe that our national sensitivity to race has already gone much of the way of an earlier generation's anxieties about Catholicism, redefining the terms of American identity and social membership, and fulfilling at long last the Founders' promise of a nation where all men and women are created equal.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=a9qHaN271cYU

[amdezurik]

1. true, if we can help

the racist fringe grow-up, otherwise it will be an issue for a while I think...

[peacetalksforall]

2. A favor plese - does this guy say why last? I have no time. If anyone is reading it - why last'?

[FreepFryer]

4. Because after Obama, other black presidents will not be so overtly defined by race.

For example, the 'first Catholic president' (John F. Kennedy)'s Catholicism meant that ostensibly, John Kerry would not have been perceived as a 'Catholic president'.

Read it. :)

[choie]

5. He doesn't really mean *last* black president, but last *black president*...

In other words, he's not saying that there will be no other black presidents in the future. But rather that Obama will be the first and last Black President, someone whose position and race are especially noteworthy and inextricably linked due to his being a trailblazer. The writer's premise is that future African Americans will be considered 'presidents' rather than 'black presidents'.

Another example of this sort of thing is Kennedy -- whom he calls the first/last Catholic President, where subsequent candidates such as Kerry (for example) wouldn't have been considered "the Catholic President" in the same way if he'd won.

Yipe, I'm way too wordy. Sorry 'bout that. You probably might as well have just read the darn article, for all the words I used in summarizing it! :)

Annnnnnd the poster above me did a much better job. Ignore me.

[peacetalksforall]

6. FreepFryer and choie. Thanks. Makes sense.

[Doctor_J]

7. Because the next black president will just be called president

:shrug:

[Mojorabbit]

3. Great article. Thanks! nt