"YES HE (OBAMA) can"- BUT HOW?

Obamas role either as a role model or as an avenger of the racial injustices, is in a domain of ambivalence.
The election of Barrack Obama as the next president of the United States has raised hopes which go beyond a typical Democratic Party victory in US elections. As a person of colour, Barrack Obama could, in principle, be identified with the multiple disadvantages of class and colour in American society. His iconic political status as a man of change obviously has as much to do with this image as with the policies that he has professed or may introduce.There are, however, a few points to ponder here relating to the parameters within which change can happen in the US at the present moment. Do iconic leaders representing a shift towards a relatively less elitist profile, live up to the expectations that they generate? President Clinton emerged from a humble family background, so much so that he was even once described as the first black president of the United States, so strong is the association in the US between race and marginality. Despite this, Clinton’s Yale and Oxford education and a highly successful legal and political career left little room for any politics or policies for the underclass or the deprived sections of American society.Obama’s mixed parentage (white-black), an Ivy League education and entry into the elite legal profession places him similarly beyond the imagination of the average struggling inner city black youth. Thus his role either as a role model or as an avenger of racial or other injustices, is in a domain of ambivalence.But even leaving aside the issue of middle or upper class blacks, the rise of blacks from poor, inner city neighbourhoods to professional and social success, is very often seen as a function of how exceptional individuals can overcome racial prejudice and economic hardships. The question of the thousands left behind in the ghettoes, who may not have been exceptional in abilities and motivation, but nevertheless deserved better opportunities, is rarely highlighted.Perhaps more importantly, Obama, who is only 47, has presumably made his career in the last 25 years, the period that saw the rise of neo-liberalism in the US. In that sense, Obama’s life, career and success could easily be portrayed as a legitimiser of the neo-liberal paradigm, a lasting proof that the American system has not hindered talented blacks from rising to the top of American society.Even a superficial glance, however, at the decline of welfare policies in the US would convey a far grimmer picture as far as large numbers of America’s poor are concerned. While the Reagan years are seen as the most powerful statement of neo-liberalism, it should be noted that Clinton’s two terms of presidency broadened the neo-liberal paradigm by quietly chipping away at some of the strongest pillars of welfarism in the US. Thus the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) which was a federally sponsored fund, given to states to support poor families was replaced by the Temporary Assistance To Needy Families (TANF). The TANF, supported solely by state funding, much more limited in resources and scope than the AFDC, its predominant objective in fact being to move people from welfare to work. The TANF in fact symbolised President Clinton’s much quoted policy objective: “to end welfare as we have known it.”The TANF is frequently quoted by the American policy elite as an example of the success of welfare reform/reduction: that since 1996 those claiming cash assistance under TANF, have been halved in number, about two-thirds of those who go off TANF find employment. Ethnographic studies of American welfarism have found, however, that many who go off TANF find only low wage insecure employment, without any kind of social insurance.For the low wage sector of the labour force the disappearance of public aid has spelt deprivations in terms of health and child care, and have in fact reproduced gender and racial inequalities. It is important to avoid stereotyping the poor, and to recognise the wide diversity among poor families in the US. Nevertheless, the racial and gender profile of poverty has remained significant, thus highlighting that historically disadvantaged categories of citizens remain marginalised and have become further deprived through cuts in welfare.What is important then to question is if much of this happened not only during Republican rule, but also during the Clinton presidency, what are the parameters of the possible under the presumably changed politics to be brought in by Obama’s victory? Politics is indeed the domain of the possible, and one cannot deny the potential importance of individual leaders, and of ideology, even in a context that is darkly cynical. Political possibility is, however, severely constrained by the contours drawn by history, class and economic structure.In the case of the US, if poverty is produced by the dynamics of class, race and gender under advanced capitalism, supported by neo-liberal politics, Barrack Obama’s choices, within the framework of what is politically manageable, may not go too much beyond the familiar.