Why All the Formality?
Another view on what to call the Commander-in-Chief
2009-05-06

Since the inauguration,  I’ve been getting e-mails on an almost daily basis from people hoping that Johnson Publishing’s respective publications take a strong stand against what some see as the very disrespectful informality with which the American media addresses President Barack Obama. None other than “Mr. President” will do for some people.
 
My general response to those e-mails is to cite the standard writing style. In journalism school, I was taught that you are to give anyone – be they president or homeless person – his or her formal respect in the first written (or spoken) reference to that person. After that, you had the freedom to improvise as necessary.
 
For example,  Mr. John Doe or John Doe in the first reference,  then alternately “Mr. Doe” and/or just “Doe” in later references. If a person is professionally titled (President, Judge, Doctor) you add that title the first time, otherwise they get the same treatment as others.  Royalty was slightly different. Because America has no royal family, it was suggested that one follow the rule of the nation where the monarch ruled.  In that instance, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in first reference, Her Majesty, or Queen Elizabeth or simply The Queen after that. Certainly not Liz or Beth, or Mrs. -  (what the hell is her last name anyway?)
 
The reason is a practical one. Repetition in writing is death. Repeating the same reference in the same article would read the same as starting every sentence with the word “the.”  It would be not only boring but a huge distraction for the reader. It’s the same reason some writers have taken to using Black and African-American interchangeably. Writing is like music, variation helps the rhythm of the writing.
 
Somehow this doesn’t bother me. Partly because I’ve been around politics all my life, and whatever fascination it is that people hold for the men and women who hold public office, I’ve long since lost that. I know too many of them too well and they are, disappointingly, just people. And at some point, nearly all of them do something incredibly dumb to remind us of that fact. But that’s the cynic in me.
 
More importantly, I’ve seen this lack of formalization used pretty even-handedly across the spectrum. President Richard Nixon has become Nixon. President Ronald Reagan was routinely called Reagan. President William Jefferson Clinton became Clinton, then Bill, then Billary. Foes of President George W. Bush called disrespectfully called him everything from just “Bush” to “Baby Bush” to “Bush Lite” to “Junior” and worse. 
 
Nevertheless I completely understand the cultural sensitivity that causes so much concern.
 
As detailed in Jennifer Lynn Rittenhouse’s book, "Growing Up Jim Crow," Southern whites historically were fine with calling professional Blacks “Doctor” or “Professor” but reserved “Mr. or Mrs.” exclusively for whites. To do otherwise would be to assume an equality and level of achievement that whites were not inclined to recognize. In some states Blacks were even reprimanded for affording that respect to other Blacks.  Rittenhouse cites a 1939 case in which Eloise Blake, a South Carolina house servant overheard on the phone calling another Black woman “Mrs. Pauline Clay’ was arrested and fined $15 for disorderly conduct.
 
With good reason, African-Americans -- particularly those who lived that history and who are prone to refer to lawyers as “Attorney Jones”– have a strong need for this particular unparalleled achievement to be acknowledged in proper and respectful fashion. As with all things cultural, it would helpful if the nation’s journalists would make themselves aware of that sensitivity as well.
 
But that collective, some might say outsized, need for formal respect in the African American community has worked against us as well.  White insurance peddlers selling those infamously bogus $1 a week insurance policies in Black neighborhoods during the 50s and 60s were famous for dropping a “Mr.” or “Mrs” to gain favor with would-be buyers. We won’t even get into the problems that the need for “respect” has caused in the nation’s streets.
 
Ironically, Mr. Obama - sorry, President Barack H. Obama – seems to demand none of that kind of formality. His desire to fashion The White House as “The People’s House” and make both the presidency and the government more accountable recognizes that he holds not an office but a job for which he is hired by the American citizenry. That is in keeping with the nature of the role as it was originally conceived.
 
I prefer to think of using just the singular name “ Obama” as a mark of high achievement. When is the last time you heard someone refer to lesser presidents like Millard Fillmore or Franklin Pierce as simply “Fillmore” or “Pierce”?  Their lack of achievement requires the use of the formal title to elevate them.  Not so with Obama.  Don’t think insult, think Kennedy, Roosevelt, Gandhi, King, Mandela…

Eric Easter is VP of Digital & Entertainment for Johnson Publishing, Co., Inc. He writes about politics, culture and technology for EbonyJet.com.