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The fist bump: Obamas hit on a new meaning
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama reveals what he thinks the gesture and that moment meant.
- By Joanna Weiss, The New York Times Service
- Published: 00:01 June 14, 2008
- To Barack Obama, this act of rapping knuckles was a gesture of romance.
- Image Credit: Gulf News archive
For all of the fuss made about Barack and Michelle Obama's primary-victory fist bump last week - the overstated admiration, the mocking of clueless white folks, the right-wing suggestions that this was some sort of terrorist handshake - what's most remarkable is how the candidate himself described the move. To Barack Obama, this act of rapping knuckles was a gesture of romance.
"It captures what I love about my wife," Obama told NBC's Brian Williams, when questioned about the most-talked-about gesture thus far of the 2008 campaign, in which an ordinary pol-and-wife election night kiss morphed into a bumping of fists, a thumbs-up, and a knowing smile.
In other words, the Obamas are proposing that the fist bump, also known as the fist pound or dap, is the public-display-of-affection of change, the pucker-up of the future. And this, as much as anything Obama has espoused, is something of a mini-revolution.
However you choose to trace the gesture's origins, after all - and some have variously pointed to Jamaica, West Africa, the 1980s-era NBA, and the '70s-era Wonder Twins - the platonic nature of the fist bump has always seemed clear. It's more an expression of triumph and brotherhood (loosely defined) than a sign of passion. Especially marital passion.
But the Obamas' bump came across as something sweet and almost sappy. To David Givens, director of the Spokane, Washington-based Centre for Nonverbal Studies, it was a feat of coordination, "tender and choreographed". "It reminded me of docking spacecraft," Givens said by phone, approvingly. "You really have to plan the dock, and they did it just as precisely in tandem."
The fact that it wasn't unpleasantly oogly must have helped. Political PDAs have always been treacherous ground: Much as we want love stories, we're also good at spotting insincerity. When Al Gore kissed Tipper, long and hard, at the 2000 Democratic convention, a nation looked away uncomfortably - or groaned in disbelief. The fist bump, with its veneer of urban hipness, seems even more in peril of looking pre-planned. It's hard to imagine John and Cindy McCain knocking fists. (Even harder to picture: George H.W. and Barbara Bush. Or George W. and Laura, for that matter.)
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| This article on the national political campaigns in the United States is from The New York Times. It was specially selected and prepared by the editors of The New York Times News Service. |
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