The Price Of The Ticket Analysis

Frederick Harris delivers a compelling critique of Barack Obama’s presidency and the effects it has had on black politics in his book, The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics. Harris a professor of Political Science at Columbia University and currently heads the Institute of Research in African-American Studies at the university as well. His unique perspective and powerful claim that Obama’s presidency has essentially hurt black Americans in politics, introduces a fresh narrative that proposes the question of whether or not African-Americans have indeed come as far in the political sphere as the public perceives. In the first chapter, Harris provides the reader with a strong idea of what is to come. He references Charles Hamilton’s Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, quoting their concerns that “merely putting black faces into office” was not a reflection of a rise in black political standing and that “black visibility is not black power”. This
Harris asserts that as African-American’s begin to achieve success, they begin to lose connection with those that once shared the same dilemma. In general this was reflected through the church, but could also be expressed as blacks moved “up the hill”. Obama moving into Hyde Park, a community viewed as uppity by many South Siders, caused a stir within the black community and led questions of his black legitimacy to arise. Harris notes that the prosperity gospel “teach[es] members that poverty is the curse of the devil and the power to transform their oppression” depends on the faith that they put into God, “instead of advocating protest marches, voting drives, and other forms of activism” (95). It was probably most important however, that this prosperity gospel not only appealed to a rising middle class black population, but to marginalized groups all over the