GREAT BEND, Kan. - Most white people in America are apprehensive of angry black men. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball. Sidney Poitier broke the color line in Hollywood. And Barack Obama broke the color line on the Presidency of the United States. And all three of them did it by keeping their cool.
Jackie Robinson was a terrific baseball player. But that's not why Dodger G.M. Branch Rickey chose him to be the first black in Major League Baseball. Robinson was a UCLA graduate, and an Army veteran. But Rickey would not sign him until Robinson agreed NOT to fight back at the inevitable racism. "Are you asking me to be a black man who doesn't fight back?" asked Robinson. "I'm asking you to be a big enough man NOT to fight back," said Rickey.
Robinson ignored the racism that came his way, but most importantly, he delivered the goods on the baseball diamond. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1947, batted .311 lifetime, and stole home plate 19 times!
But what if Robinson has batted .190 his first year in Brooklyn? If Robinson had failed to deliver, he would have been run out of Brooklyn on a rail, and everybody knows it. Robinson was a sensational baseball player, which made it easier to "turn the other cheek."
Now, let's talk about Poitier. When Barack Obama was unknown outside of Illinois, his handlers showed focus groups videos of Obama giving speeches and interacting with others. And after the focus group, the audience was asked what they thought of him. Remarkably, almost everyone in the room said he reminded them of Sidney Poitier.
I recently spoke to the Wichita NAACP about one of my favorite subjects: Great Bend native Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American movie director, who is featured on a U.S. postage stamp this summer. After showing a video, I tried to engage the audience in a discussion about films, and the role of blacks in films. I was greeted with silence.
Trying to get the conversation going, I asked: "What did you think of Sidney Poitier in "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner?" And that's when the fireworks began. An elderly black man in the back of the room said: "White people accepted Poitier because he was CIVILIZED!"
I said: "So, you think because he was mild mannered and friendly in the film white audiences accepted him more?" "No," the man replied angrily. "WHITES ACCEPTED HIM BECAUSE HE WAS CIVILIZED! He was a doctor and he acted like a doctor!"
Yes, the thing that made "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner?" so interesting is that, in the film, Poitier seemed, like Jackie Robinson, to be the "perfect black man" - well-educated, well-spoken, civilized. In other words, Poitier didn't scare white people. Like Jackie Robinson, Poitier exuded "coolness," and by that I refer to temperament.
And many years later, Barack Obama ran for President. And Obama seemed to know not to lose his temper. As the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, no one could claim Obama wasn't bright. And being married to a woman with even darker skin than himself, no one could raise the hobgoblin of "interracial romance" or "miscegenation." So in Obama, you have a black man who is incredibly bright, who married within his perceived "race," and who is a good family man. But most importantly, he exudes coolness.
Several things about the public's reaction to Obama are interesting. First of all, he's half white. Yet the "one drop of black blood" rule that dominated our country for centuries continues. When Obama makes a big mistake, nobody shouts: "That stupid
cracker! We never should have hired a white guy whose mom is from Kansas!"
Another thing about Obama that is interesting is the "birther" issue, which is wholly false. Obama's birth in the USA in 1961 was accompanied by a Hawaiian birth certificate, and local "birth notices" in the Hawaii Advertiser, Hawaii's biggest newspaper.
So why do people believe he was born in Kenya? The denial mechanism -- to somehow push out of people's mind the fact that we have a black President -- is so strong that people concoct fantastic theories so they can believe that "he really shouldn't be President; he is not constitutionally eligible!"
Obama needs to stay "cool" -- and hope his luck changes on the economy. If he gets results, as Jackie Robinson did, things will get easier. These are incredibly frustrating times for our President; let's hope he stays cool. Ronald Reagan was probably more unpopular at this point in his Presidency, and he won 49 states when he ran for reelection. Things can change fast in politics. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Marty, for the quick review of Jackie Robinson and Sidney Portier breaking the race barrier in their chosen fields. I remember when Jackie made his debut. The remarks were bitterly racist at first. But when he proved himself to be one of the best players on the field and ignored any jeers or booes, he soon became very popular with the true baseball fans who knew talent when they saw it. He struck out and was tagged out many times, but even if some of the calls were wrong and appeared to be racially biased, he never cried fowl. He never argued the bad calls were because he was black, even when some of them were clearly so.
When discussing black actors I've always wondered why the name George Romero and his landmark movie "Night of the Living Dead" is never mentioned? In that movie, and all subsequent zombie horror flicks, Romero always cast the "hero" as a black man. Up until then most scary guys (ex. vampires & werewolves) were pasty faced white guys, usually from Europe. Sure Poitier seemed bigger from "Guess Who's Coming" but really that was a flick designed for the older crowd while "Living Dead" was shown to the younger audiences at the drive ins. A group in much more need of influence.