Ifill "Breaks Through" with a New Book

>>The election of Barack Obama could be taken as the culmination of a decades-long struggle for racial equality of politics, but to veteran journalist Gwen Ifill it is just the beginning of a renaissance for the civil rights movement.

In her book, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," she introduces several young, ambitious black politicians, poised to walk through a door that is finally opening.

"The Breakthrough" is the debut offering from Ifill, who made a name for herself in the world of journalism as a writer for The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as acting as a moderator of "Washington Week" and a senior correspondent on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

During the 2008 presidential race, mere days before Ifill was set to moderate the vice presidential debate, critics labeled her book pro-Obama propaganda and challenged her ability to moderate impartially.

Ifill responds to the accusations in her introduction, stating rather acerbically, "The book and its true topic had been hiding in plain sight for more than a year."

True to her introduction, the book focuses very little on Obama, considering that his name is included in her title and his image pictured on the dust jacket. Instead, Ifill documents the rise of a new generation of civil rights leaders, what she calls "The Breakthrough Generation."

"The difference now is that the twenty-first century, the breakthrough generation of black politicians is aiming to capture much bigger territory. Obama's relentless and disciplined giant-slaying campaign is by no means the only story," she writes to conclude her introduction.

"The Breakthrough" is certainly not the Obama propaganda that McCain supporters claimed, but it is immediately obvious that Ifill is not a mere observer either; she has an agenda.

In "The Breakthrough," Ifill takes time to tell the story of four young, black politicians: Obama, Arthur Davis, Cory Booker and Deval Patrick.

The chapters about these politicians alternate with meditations on the interplay of race and gender, the clash between young and old civil rights leaders, the rise of African-American family legacies in politics, as well as the all too familiar "Is he black enough?" question.

She concludes with a broader examination of the renaissance of the civil rights movement, taking time to introduce other prominent, fresh political faces.

Her political portraits of the politicians poised to follow in Obama's footsteps struggle to maintain an air of impartiality. She is eager to minimize and defend any political missteps. Perhaps her eagerness to canonize these young politicians is undermined by the subjective nature of politics. After all, how does one objectively measure political promise?

However, despite this inequity, Ifill manages to open a fascinating discussion about the modern prevalence of racism and conflict between the rising stars of civil rights and the civil rights icons of the fifties and sixties. Ifill takes careful notice of the changing face of the civil rights movement, and even politics in general.

"Now [group protest] finds its home on the Internet, and most of today's marches are more a form of nostalgia or solidarity than a forum for demands. At practically every level, black politics has been transformed," she writes.

Unfortunately, poor editing occasionally obscures her message.

Unnecessary repetition, cumbersome sentence structure, and a tendency to reduce everything to lists of statistics compromises what could have been some of Ifill's most incisive points.

Yet to her credit, Ifill is able to cram "The Breakthrough" full of significant information

Despite the occasional generality, she contributes a good deal of shrewd commentary on her own. "When Colin Powell crossed party lines to endorse Obama, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh declared it solely an act of race loyalty... No such assumptions were made when Democratic senator Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain," she writes.

Ifill presents a very thorough exploration of how the civil rights marches and protests of the fifties and sixties are giving way to a new generation of political success for young African-American politicians.

However, she wavers when it comes time to address the future of racism.

She describes this time as the era of "post-racial politics," but certainly never makes the na've claim that racism is history.

She offers a quote from Princeton professor Cornel West that articulates a more specific hope for the future of racism: "You work through race, you don't deny race. It's the difference between being color-blind and love-struck. You see, if I love you, I don't need to eliminate your whiteness. If you love me, you don't need to eliminate my blackness. You embrace humanity."

But even with the powerful quote from West, Ifill seems unsure. At times she seems to be encouraging political color-blindness, and at other times, rebuking it.

She feels compelled to repeatedly use the term "black politician" to distinguish her subjects, though she rarely designates a politician as white, and the reader is left wondering whether this is a step forward or an obstruction on the path of civil rights.

Reprinted from The Sonoma State Star.