The Tanning of America (39 page)

Individuals like actress Kerry Washington, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, and Puffy played active roles in getting out the vote—at some points going to three cities a day to warm up the crowds at youth rallies and on college campuses. Kevin Liles, the music industry executive who had risen up through the ranks to become the head of Def Jam Records before going on to a senior position with Warner Music Group, was also extremely important as a bridge between younger voters and the campaign. Besides being someone who is passionate about political involvement, Kevin is someone who takes time to understand issues and their relevance to voters—keeping in mind the greater good.

Of course, the campaign's technological infrastructure and harnessing of it by and for volunteers was to evolve in creative ways from the start to the end of the campaign. No one had ever amassed a database of millions upon millions of e-mail addresses or cell phone numbers to be texted messages about when and where to go vote.

One of the most important elements of the planning, as David Plouffe pointed out, was not necessarily strategic—but it did project loud and clear as a welcoming invitation to all ages and backgrounds to come join in. And that was the intention: to make sure to have fun. The subtext had to do with the positive power of involvement for everyone. It also projected an important value for a future president who understood the tough times people were going through and would continue to face.

The tone of the campaign, as articulated by the candidate and by everyone on the team, especially chief strategist David Axelrod, was one of respect and calm. The “no-drama Obama” attitude had the subtext of what the country needed in a time of crisis. There was enough drama in real life such that political gamesmanship wasn't appealing. Toward the end of the primary season leading up to the convention there was unavoidable drama when the schism between Obama and Clinton voters began to take its toll on the party. The fact that the convention allowed the healing to take place in such a real, emotional, and public fashion—with Hillary Clinton's speech—was absolutely important for bridging the generational divide and to reassure those within the general electorate. The theme of unity was not strictly about the party but was the healing message for the nation. And then the roar of the crowd in its standing ovation before Bill Clinton's speech, which went on and on until he had to say, “I love this, but . . . ,” reminded everyone, without hitting it on the head, that he really had been the first black president and played a significant role in the tanning of America. The truth is, there is only one person that you can name as someone without whom there would be no President Obama. And that is President Bill Clinton.

I could go on, of course, and talk about how visionaries like
will.i.am
took an Obama speech and did a remix on video with artists from all walks of culture, expressing the belief in possibilities. I could talk about how visual artists tapped deep into our psyches with logos and bumper stickers and portraiture that was so cool the Obama gear it inspired became enduring fashion. I could talk about the value of the tanning that paved the way for Obama's legitimacy as a candidate from people like Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, and General Colin Powell. I could talk even more about how Bill Cosby and his all-American family on television that just happened to be black attuned the sensibilities of white, mainstream America to feel comfortable seeing an African-American family in the White House.

These kinds of tanning influences were important not only for helping Americans feel more accepting of a black presidential candidate but also for helping voters from different backgrounds to feel more accepting of each other. Certainly, they were meaningful in enabling African-Americans to believe that someone who looked like them could be president—and to see that voters who didn't look like them would agree.

Later on a study would look at how positive images had contributed to growth in overall feelings of happiness in the African-American community. Reported in
The New York Times,
it would show that in spite of terrible economic stagnation and an income gap—with blacks earning 35 percent less than whites (compared with three decades ago when they earned 40 percent less)—there was a marked improvement in happiness. Why this was the case wasn't clear, although the inference was that it reflected a significant reduction in the daily indignities of racism. At the same time, the happiness of people of color was associated with seeing images of themselves as aspirational and as being celebrated on television, rightfully so, for collective successes.

In 2008, the dynamic was there—that after years of seeing these images on television, or in movie scripts and commercial vignettes, that reflected what was going on in your own household, your imagination and visualization of possibilities were stimulated. This turned out to be the case for African-Americans, Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, and other groups, and more importantly for the growing numbers of individuals seeing themselves in multicultural polyethnic terms and of blended, mixed heritage. The timing was such that as the black community came into its own as a psychographically successful collective, a candidate stepped forward and also represented the reality and possibilities for other groups. Hispanic-Americans, the majority minority, are probably next in line.

Visible success for members of a minority group had been necessary to open up the conversation for a serious minority candidate running for the most powerful office in the land. At the least, I think hip-hop helped create the open-minded relationship between individuals of different backgrounds that had a lot to do with white young Americans saying,
You know what? I don't have a problem and I'll vote for a black president
. Granted, it was not as shocking to the youth as it was to older generations. And there was some shock value for a lot of people, let's be frank. How so? a) It was shocking that he was a black guy, but b) forget that it was a black guy; older generations were shocked that youth were voting, regardless of color. They were used to their assumption that younger people didn't care.

Not too long after the election I would speak with a teacher who had some interesting observations about teenagers, both white and black, and their reactions to the fact that America was in a position to finally elect a black president. She was taken aback at first by the way that her students didn't think this was so earth-shattering. But then it struck her that previous generations had laid the cultural groundwork so well that thinking had truly changed and teenagers had the right to feel matter-of-fact, like—
why shouldn't this happen?
When I heard this teacher's insights, it confirmed for me that we really have done a very good job driving the culture forward and making it possible for popular thought to be in this tan state.

If the reaction of youth came as a surprise, so too did the level of engagement that young voters invested in bringing about political change. Did the general public expect those voters to think about the images they saw during Katrina and find them unacceptable? I don't think so. Thirty-five years earlier, it wouldn't have been noticed that a mostly black and poor city was allowed to drown. George W. Bush's mishandling of the crisis pulled the trigger for an uprising and set the wheels into motion for a transformative, healing leader to emerge. And with the youth vote, it was never that younger voters didn't have preferences in terms of candidates or their politics; the resistance to voting came from feeling your vote wasn't going to have an impact or that it couldn't change your circumstances. And now suddenly through a campaign of hope and empowerment that involved cultural heroes and popular artists there was a chance to effect change and control your destiny by getting involved. Ironically, the expansive thinking here in America that made Obama's candidacy real and possible was, in some countries, considered late. If they were shocked, it was in how long it had taken us. As much as we export culture and open up other minds and change habits elsewhere, as much as we are the
United
States, the youth generation was and is still needed to break down walls here. Obama was history's answer to where we needed to go next, a symbol of the tanning of America as much as the evidence of it.

No, we were not all arriving at this place of open- and like-mindedness together. And I think many boomers, white, black, and other, worried about that, maybe for justifiable reasons. Then, in the midst of the campaign, history was made when Barack Obama courageously looked at a nation and opened the floor for us to begin a conversation about race—because as painful and prolonged as it might be, not having the conversation was hurting us even more.

On the night of the election, it wasn't as if that conversation had been concluded. In fact, a year and a half into Obama's presidency—at this writing—there are times when it seems the intolerance has become more vocal and the conversation less civil. Not long ago, a right-wing talk radio host went on a crazy tirade using the “n” word repeatedly, later blaming it on rappers. Instead of apologizing and seeking help, the radio host ended a lengthy broadcast career, bitterly complaining about not having freedom of speech, totally insensitive to people of color in the audience that supported that career for years.

It's ironic to me that culture can be so threatening to certain political and media forces here in this country that they would seek to limit or demean anyone different from themselves. After all, America's number one export, the one thing we make right here in this country that nobody in the world can do better or take away from us, is our popular culture. We are powerful and enriched because of our diversity, because of what it produces: our music, our television, our movies, our design, our style, our technology, our sports, our games, our celebrities, our brands, and our unparalleled abundance of ingenuity, creativity, and resilience.

The other irony about racial and cultural differences and how we ultimately get beyond the divisions is that there is a generation that has already moved on, that stopped seeing color, ethnicity, religious persuasion, or sexual orientation as a determination in identity a while ago—if they ever did.

When polls closed on the West Coast and Wolf Blitzer could finally exhale and announce that Barack Obama had been elected the forty-fourth president of the United States, and then we watched the diverse gathering of a hundred thousand people in Chicago's Grant Park, it was the most beautiful sight to behold—people who were old, young, middle-aged, happy, serious, tearful, tired, exuberant, proud, and humble all at the same time.

The youth vote had given Obama a two-to-one victory over McCain, 66 percent to 34 percent. Analysts Michael Hais and Morley Winograd described the contribution of millennials as demonstrating the “political emergence of a new, large, and dynamic generation and the realignment of American politics for the next forty years.” Unprecedented. Also noted about the youth vote was the diversity. Among young African-American voters, 95 percent supported Obama, as did 76 percent of young Latino voters and 54 percent of the white youth vote. Hais and Winograd stated, “Millennials cast ballots in larger numbers than young voters had in any recent presidential election.” Out of the nearly five and a half million more voters that had been added since 2004, almost two-thirds were under thirty. “Young voters accounted for about seven million of Obama's almost nine million national popular vote margin over John McCain,” they noted.

The final point made by the analysts was that while many were considering the vote of millennials for Obama as a onetime phenomenon, they had shown themselves to be as solidly behind progressive platforms, policies, and other progressive candidates as they were Barack Obama. No matter what any marketer's politics might be, or what subsequent elections have and will show, these '08 numbers should be heeded. This is the generation whose time has come. Without a doubt, economic changes mean they are being sorely tested for the first time in their lives. But they are also taking their destinies into their own hands, being resourceful, throwing their own parties, pushing past boundaries, summoning their own leaders—never betting the odds.

I
n June 2010,
Rolling Stone
magazine featured Jay-Z on its cover with the headline right over his name reading KING OF AMERICA. The article included photos of him with his early mentor Jaz-O in 1989, one with LeBron James on the court, and another shot with Beyoncé at Coachella. Earlier in the year, when Jay had headlined Coachella—the international concert in Indio, California, a premier music festival for leading and indie rock bands—Beyoncé had graced the stage to do a duet with him on “Young Forever.” If you've ever listened to the melody and paid attention to the words, maybe you would agree that it perfectly captures the spirit of wanting to hold on to the fleeting moment that is now—in a way that is both timeless and timely. There is a sadness within the celebration that acknowledges how hard life is and how suddenly it can all end—but of wanting to become embedded forever in a time when, to paraphrase, nobody grows old, the champagne is always cold, the music is good, and pretty girls stop by the 'hood. How does that not translate everywhere, anywhere?

Besides raves calling that number the highlight of the festival, the two connected just as meaningfully to the audience and the other acts by sticking around and offering raves in return. The crowd was mixed, nobody wearing their demographic badges or their musical preference badges. Some of the bands were older, some new and edgy as hell. The next time I talked to Jay-Z after that, his language was fresh and full of nuance that came from the indie rock world. More code-sharing and boundary-pushing, more ground on which to find common values.

Three years earlier the news of hip-hop colliding with indie rock in this way would have been groundbreaking. But that was then and this is now. Jay had paved the road already, doing hugely successful mash-ups like his duet with Linkin Park and his gripping live performance the previous year on the Grammys with Coldplay. Now, as Mike Bentley from GM had said, the labels are so ill fitting that it is time to start calling the rich output that is happening everywhere around the world with millennials and adjacent generations simply “culture.”