The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama [Hardcover]

Gwen Ifill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 2009

In The Breakthrough, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential victory and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power.

Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama (all interviewed for this book), and also covers numerous up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on exclusive interviews with power brokers such as President Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, his son Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict, the race/ gender clash, and the "black enough" conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history.

The Breakthrough is a remarkable look at contemporary politics and an essential foundation for understanding the future of American democracy in the age of Obama.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist and broadcaster Ifill offers a stellar analysis of the black political structure and its future in American politics. President Obama is featured but does not dominate the text; Ifill focuses more intently on such figures as Rev. Jesse Jackson and Newark, N.J., mayor Cory Booker, as well as Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. As a reader, Ifill is professional, authoritative but never stuffy, impassioned but never biased. Listeners will be rewarded by a well-researched, well-narrated take on the implications of President Obama's election on the strongholds of African-American political power. A Doubleday hardcover (PW Daily, Jan. 16). (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From School Library Journal

Former New York Times reporter Ifill explores the role of race, racism, and identity politics as played out in the 2008 election, offering striking criticism and intriguing insight as to how one can examine these ideas in light of Barack Obama's presidential victory. As narrator, however, Ifill is arguably less successful. She has the intense, assertive, projecting voice of a news reporter, which can get tiresome, and a significant number of page turns can be heard throughout. Though the subject matter will impress and provoke political junkies and lay readers alike, some may find Ifill's performance overwhelming. [Audio clip available through www.highbridgeaudio.com; includes a bonus interview with the author.—Ed.]—Lance Eaton, Peabody, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (January 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038552501X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385525015
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #287,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If we blithely ignore the questions, there still could be troubled days ahead., February 25, 2009

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Hardcover)

The Obama presidency --- less than a month old as this is written --- is already generating a tsunami of commentary, appraisal, praise, criticism, advice, warning and general can-we-really-believe-this wonderment.

The voices producing all this punditry come overwhelmingly from white observers. In this wide-ranging book, TV journalist Gwen Ifill (remember her as moderator of the 2008 vice presidential debate?) gives us a much-needed perspective from the black community itself.

Some of her conclusions may surprise you. There are, for example, sharp generational divisions within the black community over what the election meant and what it may mean for our political future. Race still looms as a major issue in American politics. A huge step forward has indeed been taken, but where the path leads and who will blaze it are unanswered questions.

The major theme of Ifill's book is the deep psychological and tactical division between the older generation of black civil rights activists --- those who endured the fire hoses, the attack dogs, the beatings --- and the newer crop of young black political hopefuls who want to build in their own way on what their elders accomplished. The younger group reveres and respects what the pioneers did, but their own objectives are quite different. The situation is nicely summed up by a quote from Michael Steele, the Maryland politician just elected chairman of the Republican National Committee: "This generation is less interested in having a seat at the lunch counter and more interested in owning the diner."

This amounts, in Ifill's phrase, to a "redefinition" of black politics and politicians. In his campaign Barack Obama tried to straddle the divide by soft-pedaling the idea of past black militancy and struggle, speaking instead of the need for blacks and whites to seek common ground for the general good. It was a kind of unconscious echo of Thomas Jefferson's "We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists."

Obama's election certainly marked a milestone in the long road toward racial tolerance in America, but most of the politicians Ifill consulted have no rosy illusions that we have entered a "post-racial" political era, and Ifill seems to agree with them. She repeatedly invokes the image of sandpaper to characterize the uneasy state of friction that still exists below the political surface.

The younger generation of rising black politicians is still irritated by the idea that they should "wait their turn" instead of pushing aggressively toward their political goals. In this regard, Ifill focuses on three highly visible black activists: Newark Mayor Corey Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Alabama Congressman Artur Davis. While admiring the political skills of Booker and Patrick, she is somewhat critical of both men for ignoring sound advice and trying to accomplish all their goals in too short a time. She sees Davis as obviously planning a run for governor of Alabama, a risky move to put it mildly.

Within the black community, Ifill finds an undercurrent of unease with politicians perceived as not "black enough." When the young Deval Patrick came home to Illinois on a break from Milton Academy in Massachusetts, his sister taunted him with "you talk like a white boy!" And there were those who wondered why Barack Obama did not say more about specifically black concerns during his campaign. (Of course, on the other side stood those whites who rejected any black candidate simply because his skin was black and dismissed Obama as a secret Muslim or even the Antichrist. Ifill pays them little heed other than to implicitly acknowledge that they are indeed still with us.)

The last section of Ifill's book is a survey of promising second-level black politicians from around the country --- state legislators, mayors, government officials. These are the people, she says, who may make up the next wave of nationally prominent black political figures. This final chapter reads a little like a baseball scouting report from the minor leagues, listing the hottest young prospects for future seasons.

THE BREAKTHROUGH is well written, but it is perhaps most valuable for the questions it raises than for any answers Ifill provides. These answers we must all figure out for ourselves. If we blithely ignore the questions, there still could be troubled days ahead.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insightful look at the role of race in politics, CaseyR, June 1, 2009

By 

CaseyR "Hil" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Hardcover)

Ifill's take on politics in the current age of Obama examines the past, the present, and hints at the future. The breakthrough, she argues, did not happen overnight but rather was the outcome of many long struggles fought by individuals in politics, from the civil rights movement up to recent years. Ifill examines both young and old members of politics who have made breakthroughs in their own right, and leaves one thinking about how race will continue to play out as a factor in politics. Without pressing a singular opinion throughout the book, Ifill presents interviews and quotes from others that establish ground from which one can form their own opinions and ideas. The book is insightful and interesting, capturing a topic that would surely intrigue anyone living in the age of Obama.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars race matters, June 1, 2009

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Hardcover)

Few public figures are better positioned to write a book on race and politics than Gwen Ifill (b. 1955). As the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, for thirty years the affable and articulate journalist has reported on the sweeping changes in American politics that culminated in what she calls the "Obama effect." As an African-American woman she has also lived this story. The professional and the personal collided with this book, which was released on Inauguration Day (January 20, 2009), when critics charged her with promoting and in turn benefiting from Obama's election.

Obama is only the "leading edge" of radical changes that have redefined the role of blacks in American politics. Today, for example, there are over forty black city mayors. In 2008, 43% of white Americans voted for Obama, an incredible figure when you consider that John Kerry received only 41% in 2004. But there are barriers and boundaries everywhere you turn in this house of mirrors. Obama did his best to run something like a "post-racial" campaign, but Ifill shows that American society remains far from color blind.

Ifill's book is almost entirely anecdotal. She devotes one chapter each to four "case studies" of the new generation of black politicians-- Obama, Artur Davis, a congressman from Birmingham, Alabama; Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey; and then Deval Patrick, mayor of Massachusetts. She then explores four themes-- the complex relationship of generation change, in which younger black politicians must relate to their older forbears who carried the torch during the days of the civil rights movement when many of them weren't even born; race and gender-- which group is more disadvantaged, and which identity helps or hurts more; legacy politics, in which a younger generation enjoys the advantages and negotiates the disadvantages of a parent politician (eg, Jesse Jackson, Jr.); and then the "politics of identity" that examines how the new generation walks the tightrope of being "too black" for whites and/or "too white" for blacks.

The many stories in Ifill's book show that there's no such thing as a monolithic "black politics." Rather, there are multiple layers, nuances, challenges and opportunities. For the up and coming generation of political super stars, some times race helped them, often it hurt them, but for all of them it always mattered. Not a single person that Ifill interviewed said that race did not matter. My only complaint about this book is that we learn almost nothing about Ifill's own personal experiences as a highly public black woman. Rather, the book reads like a version of her television pieces, scrubbed clean of any private reflections of a deeply personal nature. But since this is only Ifill's first book, I'm hoping for more good things from her.