Interview

GI: No. And I bet you that Barack Obama doesn’t think it will either. I talked to scores of people for this book, many of whom are very much like Barack Obama in their worldviews, in that they think race should not be the primary driver in our decision-making and our discussions. But if we talk about health care, for example, then it will affect the black community. That’s the attitude of people like Cory Booker and Artur Davis [congressman from Alabama] and a whole generation of folks. None of them, however, believes that that means racism is over, or that other people are going to stop judging you because of race. The questions are: How do we get past it? And how do you still achieve what you got into public service to achieve without making it completely race-driven?

HM: But a lot of Americans seem to have bought into the notion that the color of one’s skin shouldn’t matter in politics—or in any area of life.

GI: Well, it’s not that it shouldn’t matter, it’s that it shouldn’t be the primary driver. I think that a whole lot of people who voted for Barack Obama will tell you that it matters. But the question is whether race is a disqualifying feature. My favorite post-election line came from The Onion. The headline read: “Black Man Given Worst Job in The World,” which kind of plays into this notion that once things are truly screwed up, then what the hell? We might as well give it to the black guy. [laughs]

HM: In your book, you talk a lot about the way Obama ran his campaign and the person he is, which you contrast quite well with the previous generation of black leaders who were involved in the civil rights movement. 

GI: I’m not sure it’s solely a generational line. I could find you half a dozen young black activists who still think that race is the primary driving issue, who are not in lockstep with Obama’s approach. There’s the leftist academic community that is actually wary of Obama’s approach. I don’t think that any one thing, one election, one breakthrough changes everything. I don’t think that Obama thinks that either. It just means that we’re open by degrees to a different way.

HM: I can’t speak for black people, but—

GI: That goes for both of us—I can’t speak for black people either. [laughs]

HM: Well, I mean, I can’t speak as a black person, but Obama’s election has to be more momentous than anything else in the history of blacks in America.

GI: Of course, it’s momentous. He’s president of the United States. It’s a big deal, there’s no question. But I don’t want to overstate that because we don’t yet know what kind of president he’ll be. And so the breakthrough in and of itself isn’t the victory.

HM: You’re very cautious.

GI: Well, I’m a journalist first and foremost, so I don’t get too caught up. But I do think that nobody saw this coming. I might not have admitted this at the time, but early on I didn’t think Barack Obama could be elected—although I didn’t think Bill Clinton could be elected in ’92 either. But with Obama, part of it was that I kind of told myself not to think that far ahead and not to be predictive, and then part of it was also that it did seem inconceivable at points that he could win. When it started to look like he actually could win, most of my black friends were still very pessimistic about it—even after every poll showed him to be ahead. I think my father would have felt the same way too. The history of African-Americans in this country is such that you don’t get your hopes up. But in my case, it really had to do with training myself to not look too far ahead, because then it becomes impossible for me to see what I’m looking at in the moment.

HM: But you were also writing a book during this period, which you obviously hadn’t finished.

GI: I never thought of my book as being about Obama, even though how he fared in the election would affect it. But I did have the idea that Obama was not alone knocking around in my head and that I had been covering people like him for so long. Whether Obama won or lost, my understanding was that this book would tell the story of this generation. One of the most interesting things for me about Barack Obama is that he found a different way for a black candidate to get elected. He was not, for example, going to pay walking-around money to poll takers in South Carolina to get people to the polls. He wasn’t going to go into black churches and say, “I will do anything you want.” He was not going to play by the rules—in fact, he was not going to go out of his way to even identify himself as black. He leaned so far against being identified by race on the understanding that everybody would know his race. He didn’t need to identify himself that way because people could look at him and see that about him. And it worked, because the assumption there—which some people think is cynical—was that the black vote would show up because he more or less represented their interests and had a measure of race pride that could drive up the turnout without him having to be overtly black. And the key to getting elected in this country is still getting the skeptical, independent, white voters. Keep in mind that both David Axelrod and David Plouffe, who ran Obama’s campaign, also ran Deval Patrick’s [gubernatorial] campaign in Massachusetts the same way. They looked at things and thought, We could talk about your race, but all that does is point out your differences. So what they tried to do—and succeeded by doing with Obama—is say, “You’ve got a funny name, you’ve got big ears, your father was born in another country . . . We’ve got enough working against you that’s different. Let’s see what we can do to create a persona that’s more similar to the average American voter.” And without that, he couldn’t have gotten elected.

HM: What do you think of the reactions by some of the civil rights leaders of yesteryear, like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, who are now very supportive of Obama but who initially seemed to harbor a certain amount of jealousy?

GI: In the book, I call it “sandpaper politics.” It’s what happens when change happens. It’s what happened when the Irish took over from the Brahmin in Boston. Whenever a new group says, “Okay, now it’s our turn,” there’s always resistance from the people who have to give up power. There is generational friction. And there’s power friction. But that kind of thing happens in every community, in every political movement. I don’t think it’s personal. There’s always some point where people have to step aside and hand over the baton. The question is: Do they have to have it torn from their hands? I mean, Artur Davis is a congressman who is considering a run for governor of Alabama, and he’s facing that same challenge with the old black leaders in Alabama who all endorsed Hillary Clinton. He was one of the first ones out of the box for Obama. He was challenging their primacy. You know, Al Sharpton spent plenty of time on the phone with Barack Obama, but he was smart enough not to get out in public for him. He knew that would hurt. Jesse Jackson said some things that were unuseful to the Obama campaign, but he was trying to make a larger point, which often gets lost on cable television of, how do you speak to the black community? Are you going to still be a spokesperson for our issues? And that got lost because he said it the wrong way. But that’s exactly what the issue is for a lot of people.

HM: Much has been made of the international impact of Obama’s presidency. Your book isn’t meant to specifically address that point, but as a reporter yourself who deals a lot in covering foreign affairs, what does this all mean to the world? 

GI: Nothing happens in a void, and what Obama is walking into now is a presidency—and a nation—that has largely become unpopular. And in some ways he’s being embraced by all kinds of cultures around the world, mostly because he’s not George W. Bush. But every good plan meets its first test when reality hits. I mean, everyone is going to have demands and expectations, and there’s no way that he can live up to all of them—or that he’ll even want to. That’s why they call these kinds of periods honeymoons. You’ve got to enjoy this moment where the world believes you’re God. And then the work begins.