The Black History of the White House (47 page)

His other problem was that many within the Republican Party, particularly as it migrated further and further to the right, viewed Powell as too moderate. His support for affirmative action, a woman's right to choose, and diplomacy along with force in international relations made him suspect in the increasingly neoconservative climate. There were those who blamed him for President George H. W. Bush's decision to not go after Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf war. All of these criticisms surfaced when Powell was put forward as George W. Bush's Secretary of State. His conflicts with Vice President Dick Cheney, long running from when they were both in the Reagan administration, arose almost immediately and he barely made it through Bush's first term before being asked to tender his resignation. Although Powell represented the only voice of moderation in the administration and mitigated the global animosity toward Bush, he had few friends in the president's inner circle or party and he had to go. Unsurprisingly, although he remains a Republican, he endorsed Obama for president over Republican candidate John McCain. And while Republicans on and off Capitol Hill are steadfast in their effort to destroy Obama, Powell serves as one of his most trusted shadow advisors.

Black Presidents in Popular Imagination

While Obama may actually be the first real black American to win the White House, popular culture has produced black presidents for many years. In novels, films, and television, a black president has presided over and usually overcome all manners
of crises dealing with racial and non-racial affairs. There are similar themes in nearly all of the fictional accounts of a black presidency. First, the gender politics are pretty consistent. All of the presidents have been male. Second, the presidents are politically liberal to moderate in their domestic policies, including even those relative to race. Early expressions of black presidents' foreign policy, except for references to Africa, were generally missing. This coincided with long-held views by many whites and some blacks that African Americans should stay out of foreign affairs except for Africa and maybe the Caribbean. In other words, it appears that issues such as national security, the Cold War, relations with the United Nations or the European Union, or Asia were beyond the intellectual scope of these writers. Third, black opposition to the president was generally portrayed as muted or, if expressed at all, extremist or black nationalist, a position the president could not take. Fourth, all of the presidents (eventually) demonstrated the highest moral and ethical code to which one could aspire. These are no prevaricating Richard Nixons, George Bushes, Bill Clintons, or Lyndon Johnsons. Fifth, in most of the twentieth-century versions of the black president, race was central to the narrative, but not so much for twenty-first century iterations.

One of the first novels about a U.S. black president was actually published in Brazil in 1926. Writer Monteiro Lobato's
O Presidente Negro
tells the science fiction story of how James Roy “Jim” Wilde, an African American, became president in the year 2228. Wilde's elevation, as envisioned by Lobato, is a consequence of the apartheid-like state of U.S. society. Extreme racial and gender segregation have resulted in a triadic political split between Wilde's Black Association, the all-white female Sabinas and the all-white male Homo Party. The Sabinas' candidate, Evelyn Astor, is running against the Homo Party's Kerlog,
who is the current president. Astor and Kerlog command about 51 million votes each as whites split close to evenly down the gender line. At the same time, Wilde controls about 54 million votes since black men and black women decide to vote along racial lines. Kerlog cuts a deal with Wilde whereby he will ease the enforcement of the
Codigo Raca
(Race Code) in exchange for black votes. However, black voters support Wilde regardless and he is elected president. Kerlog then forms a white alliance with Astor and they threaten to never let Wilde assume office. On the morning that he is to officially take over, he is discovered dead in his office. Kerlog is then re-elected and, along with Astor, begin their final solution of ridding the country of blacks.

While the story concerns Lobato's view of race relations in a distant American future, in many ways it is about his view of race in contemporary Brazil and his embrace of eugenics. In Brazil in the 1920s, eugenics was offered as a solution to the “problem” of race mixing. Brazil, like many Latin American countries, attempted unsuccessfully to whiten their populations in the post-slavery period through strategic racial mixing as a way of avoiding apartheid policies. Those efforts only achieved a browning of the populace. Similar to the Nazis in the 1930s, there were those who desired a more effective eugenic solution such as sterilization, or a ban on mixed marriages and relationships—strategies that are employed in
O Presidente Negro
. Lobato's real politics are spoken by the book's Miss Jane. She is the daughter of the Brazilian scientist who invents the “
porviroscopio
” (“Future Scope), a kind of crystal ball, which allows her to see the hyper-segregated American future. She says regretfully, “Our solution [in Brazil] was mediocre. It spoiled the two races, by fusing them. The Negro lost his admirable physical qualities of the jungle and the white man suffered an inevitable depression of character.”

Like many white Americans, Lobato could not see a future United States that was not segregated. Although Lobato had not visited the United States before he wrote the book, segregation in the U.S. South was well known and served as a model for the Hitler regime, the Apartheid government of South Africa, and other racists around the world. Interest in the long forgotten and somewhat embarrassing book, of course, was sparked by the surge of Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. As it became clear that he could possibly win, the book was rushed into re-publication. The book has now been translated and published in Italy with plans underway for Spanish and English versions.

In the United States, Irving Wallace's 1964 novel
The Man
was one of the first works of literature to address the possibility of a black commander-in-chief. In the novel, which was also made into a film staring James Earl Jones in 1972, the president and the speaker of the house are accidently killed when a ceiling in a 600-year-old Frankfurt palace collapses on them during a visit. At the same time, the vice president is unable to assume the office because he is ill. That sends the president pro-tempore of the U.S. Senate to the White House—Douglass Dilman, a black man.

The accidental president is a moderate who must deal with his black militant daughter, racist southern politicians, and backstabbing Cabinet officials. He overcomes all of these issues and, and brimming with newfound confidence, plans to run for the office in the next election cycle. The novel and the film only superficially address the complications of race and politics. While it attempts to be comprehensive, it comes across more as scattered.

Other presidents in film have ranged from the comedic (Chris Rock in
Head of State
) to the deadly serious (Morgan
Freeman in
Deep Impact
). Rock plays dedicated Washington, D.C. alderman Mays Gilliam. Similar to
The Man
, the Democratic president and the vice president are killed in a freak airplane accident in which their two planes collide in midair. Gilliam becomes a candidate when the party, figuring it had nothing to lose and seeking black votes, deceptively asks him to run. Not sure if he is qualified, advice from his brother Mitch (Bernie Mac) to speak the truth leads him to rise in the polls and best the Republican candidate, sitting Vice President Brian Lewis (Nick Searcy). In the general election, implausibly, Mays is elected president. The film is a throwaway in most aspects.

But underneath the silliness, stereotypes, and predictability is a rather sharp critique of the manipulative nature of American politics. Both parties are only interested in winning and are willing to sacrifice principles for potential votes. Once Mays discovers why he was chosen and then believes that he has no chance of winning, he is unrestrained in terms of telling the truth. Rock, who wrote and directed the film, is also raising the issue of African American politicians buying into this corruption. As one of the contemporary young black comics who has a vast crossover audience, Rock consistently addresses topical issues in his stand-up in order to expose hypocrisy, dishonesty, and social inequality. As with his comedy, Rock's solution to the sorry state of U.S. politics is populism, which can lead to a variety of outcomes, from the banalities of Sarah Palin to the inspiring rhetoric of Jesse Jackson.

In the disaster film
Deep Impact
, Freeman brings his legendary gravitas to the role of President Beck. Upon realizing the inevitability of a destructive comet hitting the United States and potentially destroying all life on earth, what the film calls an “Extinction-Level Event,” Beck develops a dual response to the crisis. One plan is to send a crew into space to destroy or split
the comet in two to minimize the destruction. The other plan is to save one million Americans in caves, 800,000 of whom will be chosen by a lottery.

Beck's race is a non-issue for the entire movie. There is no discussion about how Beck became president. Neither are his politics or ideological bent clear. It can be assumed, however, from his impressive and creative response to the crisis and his soothing but strong demeanor in sharing it with the public that he is eminently qualified for the office.

Perhaps the most skillfully handled and most long-term depiction of a black president has been on the television series
24
. For the first five seasons, Dennis Haysbert played President David Palmer, who was a target of assassination as a candidate, pursued for impeachment by his cabinet, and faced with multiple crises while fighting terrorist attacks. His personal life was dominated by a psychotically ambitious wife who would stop at nothing to obliterate her enemies, including Palmer after he divorces her. At the beginning of the fifth season of the show, the retired Palmer was successfully assassinated. And then in the sixth season, his brother Wayne, played by D. B. Woodside, and who had been David's chief of staff, becomes president. He is eventually stricken with a debilitating illness after a failed assassination attack and mysteriously disappears from the story.

David Palmer is a liberal Democrat who must confront the fundamental thesis of the show that extreme and illegal measures, most notably torture and racial profiling, are undesirable but necessary methods in the fight against imminent acts of terrorism. The show preceded September 11—it first aired two months after that on November 6, 2001, but was filmed much earlier in the year—and benefited from the fear-mongering tactics of the Bush administration. The show's co-creator and producer, Joel Surnow, embraces some of the conservative wing of
the Republican Party's most cherished beliefs. Referring to
24
as a “patriotic show” and arguing that conservatives “are the new oppressed class,” Surnow not only admires George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan but wants to resurrect anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy as an “American hero.” Surnow really does pal around with the nation's right-wing elite, including friends such as radio host Rush Limbaugh, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and pro-McCarthy writer Ann Coulter.
¹⁰⁴

The show has been harshly criticized by human rights, civil libertarian groups, the FBI, and even the U.S. military for its distortions about the benefits of torture. On
24
torture always reaps life-saving information. According to most experts in the field of interrogation, legal issues notwithstanding, it rarely, if ever, does. They universally agree that physically and psychologically coercive methods—what the Bush administration termed (and promoted) “enhanced interrogation”—are unreliable and unnecessary. Nevertheless,
24
relentlessly applies these tactics and they are a signature of the popular show. According to Human Rights First, prior to September 11 and
24
, there was an average of four torture scenes a year on prime-time television; by 2007, there were over 100 a year. In its first five years,
24
alone displayed 67 scenes of torture according to research by the Parents' Television Council.
¹⁰⁵

President David Palmer, noted for his integrity and honesty, must decide repeatedly whether to accept this ethos in order to stop terrorist attacks, or uphold the law. Sometimes he succumbs to the argument that only torture will work such as when he orders such methods to be used on his National Security Advisor who he suspects, correctly, is involved with terrorists. Of course, this illegal action comes back to haunt him. Mostly, David Palmer is reluctant to order torture and sees it as a last resort.

Throughout all of this drama, except for the first season, the White House is the space in which nearly all of the activities of the president occur. This is due in part to the narrative structure where an entire season takes place during a 24-hour period. Thus, both Palmers are seen in the Oval Office, the East Wing, giving national addresses, and generally being presidential with race a very muted element in this public life as the drama of preventing a national calamity dominates all activity.

But race never completely escapes as background to the high drama and tensions. Racial justice, rioting, bigotry, crime and profiling are woven in an out of the narrative and its subplots. Haysbert, who voted for Obama, believed that his and Woodside's portrayals helped to ease the path for an Obama victory. He felt that the image of a strong, intelligent, articulate, and moral black commander-in-chief in charge of a White House facing a national crisis coming into the homes of millions weekly negated the idea that a black person could not be president.
¹⁰⁶

It is impossible to say with certainty whether the portrayals of a black president by Haysbert, Woodside, Rock, and Freeman, or its depiction in literature, or the previous efforts by candidates of color contributed cultural prerequisites for Barack Obama's stunning victory and America's first black White House. But it is clear that the idea of a black commander-in-chief running the White House has a long and varied history, and it speaks of a willingness to challenge the notion that the highest political office in the country is for whites only. From Oney Judge's escape from the White House in 1796 to the entry of the Obamas as the First Family in 2009 was by any measure a historic, seemingly impossible, but finally exultant sojourn.