Returning to our roots

Last Thursday the New York Times ran a page-one article that traced First Lady Michelle Obama to her enslaved ancestors.

The article chronicled a 6-year-old slave girl, Melvinia, and her descendents’ journey from the plantation to the White House. 

Overall, the piece was well-written and well-researched, a sweeping Alex-Haley-esque chronicle of one woman’s humble roots. The story ended with a quote from a relative of Michelle. After finding out that her ancestor was related to the first lady she said, “Praise God, we’ve come a long way.”

But there is something just a little too self-congratulatory about all this “look how far we’ve come” business.

Articles like this are good for newspapers because they play on our emotions. They make us feel bad by reminding readers of how awful an institution slavery was, and then they alleviate those bad feelings by pointing out that in the end we did the right thing by electing a black man president – wrapping it all up with a nice moral and a narrative bow.

Reminding everyone that our first lady descended from slaves is about congratulating ourselves for waking up and putting an end to a horrible institution.

By focusing on Michelle Obama’s family we – white, anxious-about-race America – are not glorifying her, we are exonerating us. We aren’t just saying good for you for overcoming social barriers, we are saying good for us for ending slavery.

Narratives like this New York Times piece are too simple. They trick us into believing that we live in a post-racial society when race is still a twisted subject in America, and injustices of all kinds are far from being abolished.

The fact of the matter is that we still have a long way to go. Even as Barack Obama occupies the White House, one in every three black men in America can expect to be incarcerated at some point during their lifetime – compared with only one in twenty white men. 

While 76 percent of white students graduate from high school, only 51 percent of black students will receive their diplomas. 

Yes, voting a black family into the White House was an important step for historically racist America. But we need to stop collectively patting ourselves on the back and start the difficult work of closing the racial divide.

There are too many lingering injustices in our society for us to be obsessing over Michelle Obama’s heritage. On Sunday, thousands of gay and lesbian activists had to march on Washington to get the nation’s attention for their bid for equality, and women are still making less money than their male co-workers. 

It’s time to stop implicitly congratulating ourselves for correcting past injustices. Someday the New York Times of tomorrow will be profiling a president who overcame some other great injustice – one that we were so oblivious about, but to them will seem so obvious.