‘White skin notwithstanding, this is our first Black President’- Toni Morrison, 1998.
When you think of the first Black President, one person comes to mind: Obama. On the morning of November 5th, 2008, a new dawn was breaking in America. His landslide victory in 2008 saw renewed optimism for the country after the reign of George W. Bush came to an end, the reinstatement of the American Dream, and the belief that things could be better. His victory rode on the idea of ‘hope’, that America was diversifying, liberalising, and changing. Indeed, they had just elected their first Black president, only forty years after Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and segregation ruled both the hearts and minds of citizens, and the policies of politicians. After a tough primary battle versus Hillary Clinton, many young people understood the importance of electing a Black president and seemed to postpone that of electing a woman. Yet Obama was neither the first person to come from hope nor to ride the support of a diverse coalition. And arguably, he was not the first Black president.
One of the founding persons to formally associate Clinton with this honorific title was acclaimed author Toni Morrison in 1998. Her somewhat laissez-faire essay in the New Yorker served to critique the treatment of Clinton by the media following his sex scandal. She metaphorizes the scapegoating of Clinton, the upholding of him against these imaginary standards of conduct, which the populace is expected, nay mandated, to follow, to that of a black man, already a perp, already guilty. ‘Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime’, she writes, vehemently defending what she saw as a metaphorical interrogation, torture, exposition, of his conduct and character by the feral media, the unrelenting cable channels, and the pious American public. By likening his treatment as guilty-until-proven-innocent to that of the Black man at the time, Morrison critiques the skittishly sanctimonious contemporary society and its tendency to label anything somewhat distasteful as the work of the Devil, and therefore worthy of dissection, destruction, and degrading. She saw his actions as neither a tarnishing of the bedroom, nor the Oval Office, the Presidency nor the ballot box, only a lapse in judgment from a President who all too often demonstrated that by taking the oath of office, one cannot negate one’s status as a human or nullify the possibility of mistakes. ‘Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. ’
The very idea of blackness is deconstructed by Morrison. She stylises the ‘Black experience’ to that less of colour than of socio-economic status, stating that ‘blackness’ is an idea, a class, a way of life, therefore a term uniquely available to those that have struggled, and overcome adversity, in the context of a system that is more divided by class than by colour or creed. That ‘blackness’ in America depends less on the colour of your skin and more of the context of your upbringing, the want for social ascendency and desire for a more fulfilling life, is the way that Morrison describes Clinton’s qualifying factors and comes to make such a classification.
The labelling of Bill Clinton as “the first Black President” seems to derive less from the colour of his skin and more of the representation which he brought to the stage. The idea that a poor boy from the little town of Hope, Arkansas can succeed despite overcoming loss, adversity, and poverty, to find community, and to undertake the ultimate embodiment of the American Dream, the Office of President, demonstrated that success can be achieved by anyone. Despite creed, colour or ethnicity, context does not disqualify possibility of accomplishment; hard work, resoluteness, and perseverance are universal traits, after all. In spite of his social background, he persisted, not only providing a metaphor for, or a role model towards, the black community, but for the socially immobile,
He acts as a figurehead of encouragement, suggesting that wherever you come from, whatever you may desire to achieve, your dreams can be realised. That is the real description of Black America, and Clinton undoubtedly embodies it.