Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: President Obama can’t show too much anger or passion in public because it could make him look like an angry black man and scare away skittish white folks. After last night’s vice presidential debate, some people said that Obama could never behave the way Joe Biden did — the snarky laughter, dismissive rebuttals, and showy disdain for Paul Ryan‘s responses — because he would read as “arrogant” and “rude.”
But, you know, that’s kind of the way Biden’s been characterized by Republicans the day after, anyway. Sure, Obama’s skin color would “irradiate” that reading of him, to use Ta-Nehisi’s phrasing. And while there’s probably no way to quantify just how much of a difference that irradiation would make in terms of poll numbers or some other tangible metric, this counterfactual also has a bunch of caveats. Their relative offices matter here; Obama is the president and can’t really kirk out on folks. But their long-formed public personas matter here, too; Biden has been kirking out on people for decades. (Remember how he got props in 2008 because he didn’t go ham on Sarah Palin in their debate?) Just how do we control for Obama’s race in this hypothetical?
But this line of reasoning also assumes that President Obama even has the capacity to act the way Joe Biden did. Obama has always been the ruminative, measured professor during his time in public life. Maybe barking on people with whom he disagrees just isn’t how he’s built. Just because he’s a black man doesn’t mean that he has angry black man in his toolkit.
“Just because he’s a black man doesn’t mean that he has angry black man in his toolkit.” — very true and i agree. i don’t think POTUS is repressing his natural angry self or anything nor do think Joe Biden did what POTUS cannot. As you say they’re just two different men. But stepping away from that and discussing racial politics alone i personally believe that there is a different dance a black man or woman has to follow when expressing him or herself in public/professional spaces.
Have we forgotten when Obama had that Q & A with the House Republicans? I think that was as salty as we have ever and will ever see President Obama because he just isn’t the “angry black man” people want to see. He lectures, he corrects, he’s sarcastic and pointed (remember “you’re nice enough”) but he is not going to act like Biden because he is not that kind of person.
I was just thinking of that, actually. He was really, really good in that space, in command, etc. But that setting played to his strengths, his wonkiness, his calm. He picked apart their arguments, parried and thrusted, like, well, like a law professor.
When one of the House Republicans asked him if he was comfortable, he responded, obviously feeling himself: “oh, I’m having a good> time.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/obama-goes-to-the-gop-lio_n_442331.html
The format definitely played to his strengths in a way that debates never have. I’ve never been as impressed as others by Obama’s speaking ability, but it is undeniable that the debate format of short, sound bite friendly responses is not his strength. He prefers a lecture or a dialogue. He is never going to laugh in someone’s face when they tell a flat out lie. That’s not him.
I don’t think his lack of anger was his problem in the first debate. His problem was that he wasn’t ready. Period. Biden’s performance was effective not just because of his demeanor but because he was ready for everything Ryan had to say.