A Better Guide to the President's Demeanor?

I recently posted comments urging Barack Obama to show fervor and emotion in pursuing his goal for comprehensive health care reform. I, along with other writers far more eloquent than I, have repeatedly and consistently urged the president to go into campaign mode, using his eloquence, intellect and emotions to request, no, demand, the changes in which he so fervently believes. I have expressed frustration when President Obama appeared too cerebral, too detached. Where was the man who called upon us to strive and aim high?

Many people who felt similar frustration joined the chorus. A recent column by Leonard Pitts, in the Miami Herald, has given me perspective and much understanding. I am reminded of the fervor attendant upon the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, or the "end of the world" hysteria that was faced by John Kennedy, first Roman Catholic president. Years after the fact, it's difficult to imagine the pressure on the "first". Being the "first" is, always, a special burden.

In 1947, Branch Rickey decided that it was time to end the color barrier in major league baseball, to allow players in the Negro Leagues to join the majors. Rickey choose Jackie Robinson, a man with a reputation as a brawler, a fighter.

According to Mr. Pitts, when they met in Rickey's office, Rickey play-acted the kind of treatment Robinson could expect with a ferocity that left his shirt dark with sweat and Robinson's fists clenched. At one point, the ballplayer demanded, ``Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?''

And Branch Rickey replied, "I am looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back!''

My mother, and others of her generation, saw the world and events through a prism, "What does this mean for the Jews?" Was a monarch deposed in Europe or Asia? Was there a flood or earthquake somewhere? Was a nation or people suffering from famine or a natural catastrophe? Was there a killing by, God Forbid, a Jewish gangster? All events were personalized and seen in the light of her "Jewishness".

I suggest that Barack Obama's failure to respond to provocation to the extent that I had wanted is a consequence of his being, in Mr. Pitts' words. "the ultimate First Black". There has been much provocation, many overt crude racist shouts, not only from people showing up at political rallies with guns and signs promising death to the President of the United States, but from public officials.

No, what has been truly astonishing is the amount of crudely racist language and imagery flowing, not from isolated crazies, but from the offices of public officials. As in Rep. Lynn Westmoreland calling Obama "uppity" and Rep. Geoff Davis calling him "boy" and Dean Grose, then-mayor of Los Alamitos, Calif., sending out an e-mail depicting the White House with a watermelon patch out front and Sherri Goforth, an aide to Tennessee state Sen. Diane Black, distributing an e-mail that shows the president as a pair of cartoon spook eyes against a black backdrop.

The President's allies have been free to criticize.

Dee Dee Myers, press secretary to President Bill Clinton:

"Obama seems like he tries to talk everyone into what he believes - and that's part of why we elected him, because he's a calm, reasonable guy - but behind that, there has to be some fight. You have to be able to take a few punches and throw a few punches."

George Mason University professor Stephen Farnsworth:

"Obama's detached demeanor has won him little enthusiasm. Surely there is a middle ground between George W. Bush's instinct to under think and Obama's tendency to over think."

And, finally, from the New York Times:

"We don't want Obama to turn into a hot populist, but he can be too cool and often waits too long to react at big moments."

Leonard Pitts suggests that

It is, perhaps, not too far-fetched to suspect that at least some of Obama's coolness, his professorial detachment and above-the-fray disinclination to fight back, spring from his lonely history of being a First Black (first black president of the United States, of course, but also first black president of the Harvard Law Review). As a woman in politics is not allowed to cry, so a First Black is not allowed to lose his cool.

To be a First Black has historically meant to walk on eggshells, to constrain otherwise natural behaviors and responses for fear of how they will be construed. It is to know one's actions impact not only oneself, but all those who look like you. So you learn to be cautious, to try to anticipate all the possible repercussions of what you do.

I have learned much from the insight and observations of Mr. Pitts and understand far more clearly the particular burdens on Barack Obama. As my parents' generation acted in the light of the effects on Jews everywhere, so the acts of the First Black is to carry every other black always in consciousness. Barack Obama has come to the conclusion that he

"must govern himself closely here, else there will never be a Second Black to follow him. And as a racial barrier breaker, that is the ultimate measure of success."