A Knife
Michael Omi and Howard Winant report, “A reporter once told Malcolm X that the passage of key pieces of civil rights legislation was a clear proof that things were getting better for blacks. In response, Malcolm countered that it did not show improvement to stick a knife nine inches into someone, pull it out six inches, and call it progress. ‘But some people, Malcolm observed,’ did not even want to admit the knife is there. (Malcolm X, quoted in Lipsitz 1998, 46).” The knife is representative of systemic bigotry which is profoundly ingrained in America. Pulling the knife is not progressive for it is not corresponding to the outright removal. The reluctance to admit the reality of the knife illustrates the ever-present repudiation vis-à-vis the exactness of racialism in America.
Blackness
Michael Omi and Howard Winant expound, “The depth and degree of Obama’s blackness was widely debated. On the far right, he was branded an African revolutionary, enacting his father’s anticolonial revenge fantasies (D’Souza 2012).In the black community, Debra Dickerson and Cornel West, among others, as Obama’s blackness- his authenticity-into serious doubt (Dickerson 2007)…In various statements, Obama somewhat inconsistently wrestled with his blackness, discussing his growing recognition and acceptance of it in his youth.” Disputes concerning “Obama’s blackness” typify the convergence between race and politics. The misgivings regarding the legitimacy of Obama’s blackness could be ascribed to his partial whiteness. Obama’s individuality is an consolidation of Black and white, which elicits opinions that (however erroneously) construe him as an inauthentic black.
