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Straying
from official orthodoxy
A ChickenBones editorial
by Rudolph Lewis
My assumption is that
those who voted for Obama during the primaries,
especially black women, will vote for Obama regardless
of what he does or says between now and November. Most
will vote for him without reservations without criticism
of his platform or positions, domestic or foreign. Why
do we have such black obsequiousness? Maybe it is a
black gender need, one that should be respected as
worthwhile and important.
For there has been much black
female suffering, and as implied by Obama's Father's Day
Speech, much more than black male suffering. This need
can be characterized mostly as an emotional absence, a
great chasm that seemingly is being filled by the
personal excellence and achievement of a singular black
individual, Barack Obama.
This pattern of uncritical
political behavior is not new. For the last couple of
decades with elected black mayors, elected black city
councils, and elected black congresspersons, we have
seen the urban and rural conditions worsen. This
election of thousands upon thousands of black elected
officials, nevertheless, has been seen as the symbolical
overcoming of the black American tragedy of Jim Crow.
And indeed it is. The possible election of a black
president, it is hoped, will be the capstone to this two
decade black political process.
I have participated from
working for the election of local and national black
officials, like Parren Mitchell as congressman in the
1970s, to lately casting a vote for Obama in the
Virginia primary. These political acts were based on
hope rather than the certainty that such campaigns would
make a substantial economic and political difference.
The great disappointment in the election of these black
officials is not so much that we were not taken to the
Promise Land but that these black officials became
beyond criticism, and wealthy. So much so that the black
electorate in at least two black majority cities chose
white candidates in order to establish some critical
balance and accountability.
Now we have a "new breed"
black political candidate, the Honorable Barack Obama,
supported in the primaries broadly by black males and
females. As soon as he wins the primaries over Hillary
Clinton he rushes to the
Israeli lobby and gives away
Jerusalem to the Israeli government. Then he seeks out a
black middle-class church of 20,000 and charges that
black women are more heroic than black men. Ironically,
this novel young black candidate of a charming romantic
stripe has claimed that he's on the scene to end
divisiveness. Obviously, dividing the black community
along gender lines doesn't count.
Well, black women do have
their righteous grievances of black male
inadequacies and they have had them for several
centuries. And most black preachers have sustained them
in their complaints and indictments. Black men largely
have not fulfilled the black bourgeois model a la Bill
Cosby or a la Barack Obama. They have not struggled hard
enough, these gelded fellows claim. They have given into their appetites
and their attitudes, rather than struggled and loved
sufficiently to overcome poverty and criminality. They
have settled for B's and C's when they could have had
A's.
Does such conservative
castigations have the purported desired effect of
eliminating such grading deficits? These whip lashes of
criticism from the pundit-minded mouth pieces of the
wealthy and the sublime have occurred since Jesse Jackson
applied his in
the late 1970s, though Jackson directed his venomous
attack at
black parents all together. And white liberals tossed
millions of dollars his way, until he uttered the hymie
remark and some Black Judas tossed him to the wolves. A
couple of weekends ago I visited the black working
middle class communities of Baltimore. In most of them I
saw the blue flashing lights of police cameras. These
blue lights are symbolical of poverty and race
repression. What significance do Obama's castigations
have on the heroic black female prostitutes lining the
streets looking for
a ten-dollar john or the lack-of-heroic black young men
selling crack to feed babies they cannot afford?
Declaring one's self Joshua
and bible thumping Matthew 7: 24-25 and receiving
standing ovations from those wearing heavenly blue robes
in super-rich churches will not end the ravages of black
lives in urban centers. Victim-blaming speeches or
pathology centers will not be sufficient to stem the
present tide toward another black social disaster.
Dealing with inflation (of prices, food and energy),
unemployment, low wages, and high incarceration rates
will do much more than a ton of well-phrased speeches
and thunderous ovations. But Obama has only symbolical
power, however newly it glitters
Barack Obama’s Father’s Day
betrayal has got me down. During the primaries, I went
through great anguish wishing the best for Brother
Obama, staying up watching the returns on CNN. I gave him my all and now we have come to his
Willie Horton moment, his Sister Souljah denunciation,
his playing up to the white male racist vote. I am
amused by my own trials for Obama. In that Obama has
smutted the name of black men, what can any black man
now expect of him but more of the same? I free myself of
his opportunistic political clutches. I declare myself
independent of a pack of thieves. I rise above the
hypocrisy. Let each vote her conscious.
* * * *
*
Responses
Barack Obama's Father's Day Speech (video): Note the
prepared speech is not the same as the
spoken speech—Rudy
Rudy, I tried to avoid commenting
on this, but couldn't . . .
Folks better get use to hearing
realities that they don't wanna have to look square in
the face . . . and such was the case w/Obama's Father's
Day speech, which surely re- surfaced a bunch of raw
emotions in our African American males especially.
Regarding our Black
males, facts are facts . . . placing the blame for those
facts gets a bit more complicated . . . but of course
most all of us know the sources, and know how they
render our Black males often with low self-esteems not
to speak of many non-existent opportunities. and we can
go round and round collecting the evidence of those
realities . . . of how the media/political realms have
hammered and have affected especially this generation of
Black males. But excusing the behaviors of our Black
males due to politics and the media is another issue . .
. it's called "enabling," which I believe only serves
to exasperate their realities, and I believe we've done
this way too much.
As much as many of
us become upset with our histories, our Black men of
yesteryears usually always made sure/arranged to have
their children taken care of by somebody, if not by
themselves . . . by grandparents, aunts, neighbors . .
.but somebody whom they felt would keep them in line and
teach them character & morals. And usually their
reasons for making these arrangements were not
considered lofty but were often due to their needs to
provide for their families by working in other
States/cities. It was a driven passion that all
our Black children were provided for and preferably
where there was a strong father figure . . .even if that
had to be within the church.
Our choice
today is in whether we will move forward as a race . . .
stay stuck in the mud, cover our eyes/ears and possibly
face an increasing possibility of societal genocide.
We must deal with realities and not blames. or we won't
be able to move beyond. I do believe, after having
raised three struggling . . . but very successful AA
males with my spouse (often with much difficulty due to
outside influences) and having worked with a multitude
of at-risk males for years that they will
appreciate Obama as a strong Black father/male figure
standing up and giving advice, with clarity and
direction (roadmaps if you may) to assist them in
maneuvering through this maze of life without giving
them excuses for screwing up. And, I do hope that some
folks out there especially Black males who have bruised
egos, will put those bruised egos up on a shelf, AND
be men enough to step aside and not mess this up for the
next generation of African American males who may be
privileged to have something that they were not
fortunate enough to have and most importantly . . .
discontinue their enabling excuses.—Bev
* *
* * *
Obama, the black
family, and racial uplift
The belief that the patriarchal, nuclear family is the
only proper living arrangement and the only healthy
means of raising children was not invented by Africans
or American slaves. Scholars have shown that before
contact with white missionaries, very few if any black
people on either side of the Atlantic believed the
patriarchal, nuclear family to be natural or godly. To
be sure, some lived in patriarchal, nuclear families,
but that is different than the belief in the natural
virtue of the institution.
The family ethic that Obama promotes was invented by
Europeans and most vigorously promoted by white
Americans in the 19th century. Since Frederick Douglass,
who condemned "that lazy, mean and cowardly spirit, that
robs us of all manly self-reliance" and the "degraded
and repulsive" sexual behavior of slaves,
African-American political leaders have preached the
family ethic as the foundation of "racial uplift."
Booker T.
Washington is most often associated with racial uplift,
but "progressive" civil rights leaders such as Du Bois
and King and black nationalists such as Malcolm X
preached it just as militantly. King told black
audiences "we must walk the street[s] every day, and let
people know that as we walk the street[s], we aren't
thinking about sex every time we turn around." In his
last book he called the black family "fragile, deprived
and often psychopathic" and urged the creation of
welfare programs "to help the frustrated Negro male find
his true masculinity by placing him on his own two
economic feet."
Malcolm X said
Negroes must "reform ourselves of the vices and evils of
this society, drunkenness, dope addiction, how to work
and provide a living for our family, take care of our
children and our wives" and "get together among our own
kind and eliminate the evils that are destroying the
moral fiber of our society, like drug addiction,
drunkenness, adultery that leads to an abundance of
bastard children, welfare problems." My article in the
current issue of American Quarterly, "The Color
of Discipline: Civil Rights and Black Sexuality," deals
with this topic.
So on the black family Obama is perfectly consistent
with virtually all of African-American *political*
history, though he and his predecessors, by their own
admission, are at odds with much of African-American
*social* history.
So here is a question that is rarely raised:
Since the ethic of the patriarchal,
nuclear family is a white invention, is the promotion of
it evidence of the internalization of white supremacy?
Thaddeus Russell
thaddeusrussell@gmail.com
* *
* * *
Why would we
suppose that a bi-racial man who has become the darling
of centrist (not truly left progressive) whites can do
otherwise and get elected? We have the responsibility to
do as Reverend Wright has promised he will do. Call him
out when he is president. I am neither surprised nor
hurt by any of this. It was interesting to see Michelle
Obama reduced to prattering about brushing her girls'
hair, who takes out the garbage, recitals and where she
brought her dress in silly conversation with white women
and sisters on "The View" whom I would bet have much
less education and accomplishments than she. All to make
white people "feel better" about her.
These are racism's
daily, incessant micro-cuts. They are constant. Nothing
like the whip lashes our ancestor bore for us to get
here and act like we have some sense. So they sang the
blues. Since I'm not a brother, I can't speak for how
his remarks affect the menfolk. But we are still all in
this together.
If he sells
Jerusalem but can keep the tanks out of B-more, maybe
it's the price of the ticket. The Movement, however, is
on us, not him. Read Tom Dent's
Southern Journey
for a reminder of how much the "little folk" mattered to
whatever Dr. King and the other leaders were able to
accomplish. Perspective can also be gained from the
story of the Deacons for
Defense and Justice and
Ella J. Baker's story.
Our relationship with preachers is another story
altogether. Cadillacs and alligator shoes is what I
remember from my youth--only one preacher that I recall
ever called us out to recover our blackness and our
collective pride and power.
One would need to look carefully at the left-left (Reed
et al.) for their record on giving primacy to Blackness
and black folks. I'm not persuaded. It's usually
"class-first". Some of everybody will be jumping on this
bandwagon--as is the nature of politics. . .—Joyce
* *
* * *
People never cease
to amaze me. I have never been and never shall be an
enthusiastic supporter of any political candidate. Once
upon a time, I was an enthusiastic opponent of
Goldwater. And in 2004, I voted solely against the
Swift Boat tactics of the Republicans. On both
occasions I was a one-issue voter, i.e. on both
occasions (1964 and 2004) I voted against the war in
Vietnam.
Surprise!
Surprise! This time around, the main foreign policy
issues relate primarily to Israel and the Muslim world,
and on these issues Hillary, Barack, and McCain are as
one. Surprise! Surprise!
Adolph Reed, a
Socialist, is okay, but somewhat contentious. He wrote
a book putatively on
Du Bois, but mainly an attack on the Ivy League
Axis. I did not realize Reed had moved to the Ivy
League.—Wilson
* *
* * *
Yes, Barack, got
me! I went for the okey-doke. The bait and switch.
Whatever you want to call it.. I'm always throwing my
heart after some pretty thing. Maybe that occurs once a
month. I was rooting for the Lakers too. A sister out in
Sedona, as well. They too disappointed me. And the
Lakers lost by 39 points. I'm a sucker for pain, it
seems. For Obama and the Lakers, it was not as if I were
totally without the facts. Well, one never knows a
woman. I was just hoping we could overcome our
weaknesses, transcend the flesh, so to speak. But my
enthusiasm was unable to overcome the rough, aggressive
side of our nature. . . . I never read Reed. I knew of
Stirrings in the Jug. But not the
Du Bois book. I must place one of his books on my
reading list —Rudy
* *
* * *
The Two Obamas—God,
Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running
against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag
pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and
who went to some liberationist church where the pastor
damned his own country. They think they’re running
against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second
coming of Adlai Stevenson. But as recent weeks have made
clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality
politician in the country today. On the one hand, there
is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting
speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the
Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of
now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie
Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol
who’d throw you under the truck for votes. This guy is
the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront
liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s
the only politician of our lifetime who is
underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks
so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to
appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.
NYTimes
* *
* * *
Barack, Here's
How to Get the White People—Talk tough to your
supporters, including blacks and liberals. Your Father's
Day speech on absentee black dads was a masterstroke. It
not only won applause from blacks but showed skeptical
whites that you understand their feelings about race
even if you don't necessarily agree with them. Follow up
by re-iterating your skepticism about paying reparations
for slavery and your doubts about race-based affirmative
action policies. This will help to demonstrate that you
intend to be a president for everybody, not just blacks.
By the same reasoning, stand up to your supporters from
Moveon.com, by sticking to your support for the
compromise Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which
protects telephone companies that cooperated with
government intelligence agencies from lawsuits. The law
sucks, but you can change it if you're elected.
Meanwhile, there's no reason to give Republicans an
excuse for charging you with being soft on terrorists.
The Root
* *
* * *
posted 19 June 2008 |
