Fairness

*NOTE: I wote this essay February 9, 2009, under the title ObaGlow Fades To Black.  Today, March 9, 2009, I was struck by the sentiments expressed by John-South of Melrose on his blog, Liberal Rapture, in his essay, About That Label.  Both he and I see the abandonment of the concept of fairness as a core principle of the Democratic party as the single strongest motivation for the birth of the PUMA movement.  I offer this piece as a companion to John’s; the point being far too important not to be reinforced as often as possible.  The main thing to be remembered is that he and I came to the same conclusions independently, yet we both believe our observations to be reflective of the collective PUMA sentiment.

I was a registered Democrat for my entire voting life, when I could be bothered to register or vote, because I was expected to be.  As a child growing up in Chicago, watching events unfold every day at dinner time on one of three available channels on our big console TV with the little screen, that led to Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act  when I was ten years old, my parents sang the praises of the Democratic Party because the Democrats “cared about the black man.”  That they didn’t mention black women didn’t bother me in the least, nobody important ever mentioned women of any color; even Martin Luther King spoke of “black men and white men…,” even though I would bet he probably saw women as equal as anybody else at the time did whenever he thought about it, which was probably not very often.  Long before I was ten, I was well aware that being a girl pretty much sucked.

However, being a Democrat was good, being black was getting better.  Therefore, being a black Democrat was a no-brainer.  And, like most people, I never gave it a conscious thought.  I guess if I had to examine my assumptions, they’d go something like this; Democrats are good, Republicans suck.  Democrats care about black men, so that means all black people, me included.  Republicans must not care about black people, or, they’d be Democrats, so, they’re evil.  Nobody cares about women, why worry about it?

But, to take it a step further, Democrats being the party of caring about black people meant even more than that.  It meant they were the fair party, since the only reason for white people to help black people could only be that they saw that it wasn’t fair not to.  So, if the Democrats were the fair party, and, they talked about the “little guy,” that meant they wanted to be fair to everybody, right?  And, when “women’s issues,” including vaginal freshness and brassiere wearing, finally got the attention of the “male chauvinist pigs” who ran the country, reason had it that those MCP’s had to be Republicans, since discrimination against women just isn’t fair.  Democrats were fair champions of the little guy, including blacks and women; Republicans – evil white people.  Worked for me.

As I got older, and in many ways, no wiser, in others, more responsible, and began to take my civic duties a little more seriously, I held fast to my long ago learned beliefs.  I was a Democrat because they are fair.  Jesse Jackson could even run for president as a Democrat.  Clarence Thomas being appointed to the Supreme Court was different, as a Republican, he was obviously confused about loyalty to racial solidarity, having taken sides with the evil white people, and, therefore, forfeited his blackness.  Geraldine Ferraro was on the ticket with Mondale because Democrats were fair to women now, too; Condoleeza Rice was a Clarence Thomas clone in drag.

Needless to say, for many years, I wasn’t really paying attention, but that was okay, I was a Democrat, and, if not on the side of the angels, at least on the side of the Trinity, Kennedy, King, Kennedy.  As a black American Democrat, that was all that was required, since black people were never really involved in the process, anyway.  We were expected to vote because people died for our right to vote, not because anybody expected anything to be significantly affected by our vote; everybody knew that who we voted for, or if we voted at all, made no difference whatsoever in the grand scheme of things.

I began to pay attention somewhat during the Clinton administration; I liked him, he was a Democrat, and he was cute.  I got mad when people picked on him, and I was happy when they didn’t prevail.  Other than the fact that I thought the evil white Republicans picking on Bill and Hillary Clinton wasn’t fair, that’s pretty much the extent of my awareness of the Clinton years.    It wasn’t until the 2000 election that I really began to take note of presidential politics, though, even then, I brought my prejudices right along with me.  Al Gore should have won, that was the only fair outcome, besides, he was Bill Clinton’s veep and, a beauty contest between him and George Bush was pretty much a toss-up.  Remember though, Gore got a couple extra Prince Charming points, being a Democrat and all, while Bush got docked a few for being an evil white Republican toad.

Needless to say, my prejudices were validated by the outcome of the 2000 election, and again in 2004.  There seemed to be way too many evil white Republicans taking over my country, and  that just wasn’t fair.  So, in 2008, I was determined to sit up and take notice, get involved, keep track.  In the ‘04 election I had signed up on John Kerry’s mailing list, and got regular emails alerting me to things he thought I should know about, most of them involving money moving the wrong way, i.e., from me to him, not from him, or the government, sending something my way.  I ignored those.  Then, he sent me a gushing email about Barack Obama, the kid he had invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention, to such glowing reviews you needed RayBans to read them.  I didn’t get what the fuss was all about, either at Kerry’s convention, or at any other time.  What I knew about Obama was, white people were impressed because he could read a DNC form-letter of a speech, and he was the guy who got elected into the Senate because everybody else in Illinois was a sex-crazed crook.  Once I saw that the evil white Republicans had to scramble  to find another Clarence Thomas wannabe in Alan Keyes to import at the last minute to try to give the done deal at least the vaguest appearance of a contest, I knew enough about con games to be suspicious.   So, when Obama threw his hat in the presidential ring, I was more than a bit underwhelmed.  Besides, I liked Hillary Clinton.

After all, she was married to Bill, wasn’t she?  Wasn’t she always the brains behind the throne?  The fact that she stayed with him after the big nobody’s business scandal around her marriage didn’t matter one way or the other to me, that she loved him enough to make him get the heart surgery he needed did.  Beyond that, she had run for the Senate, won, and seemed to be making a pretty decent name for herself.  And, she was committed to Universal Health Care.  I liked that.

So, I emailed John Kerry back and demanded he remove my name from his mailing list, and started to really pay attention to the primaries.  As I watched the candidates duke it out in debate after debate, Hillary seemed to grow in my opinion, while everybody else, especially Barack, seemed to shrink like a guy’s Speedo package on a cold day at the beach. (I can do sexist, too.)  No matter what kind of “gotcha” question she was asked, Clinton always had an answer that she seemed to think about before delivering, while the Keystone Kops running against her seemed to just repeat stump speech lines from memory, whether they were really applicable or not.  Except Obama, who usually said, “me, too, what Hillary said,” before he launched into his standard, “hope to change the old ways” schtick.

Then, the games began.  The guys ganged up on her in Iowa, pledging to throw their “second tier” support to Obama for some strange reason.  But it was the emerging “she’s a racist, she can’t help herself, it’s ingrained in white people and her husband is from the South, you know,” not-so-subtle race-baiting campaign Obama was running that really made me hate him.  “I’m black, they’re not, so vote for me because that’s what being a Democrat is all about,” might as well have been printed up as a campaign sticker as obvious as the ploy was.  But, knowing what I knew about being a black Democrat, there was no doubt in my mind such a ploy would be successful, though, I did hold out hope that the underlying bedrock principle of Democratic fairness would ultimately prevail.

No such luck.  As I watched  the party manipulate and maneuver, I realized for the first time just how shallow the principles I thought I believed in were and how hollowly they were held by my party.  They cheated, they pandered to the illusion of fairness for the sake of their own ambition.  They sold us out for the potential of corporate largesse, they rigged the game.  But, the most heartbreaking thing of all will always be, they cheated.

Democrats are supposed to be fair.

So, as I read column after column of disillusioned Obama supporters bitching and moaning about how he isn’t the person they thought they were believing in him becoming when he stopped being who he was and became what they wanted him to be, I can’t help but note that the only people not questioning their decision and lying to themselves about it are black people.  For them, like for Obots of all races, if they told the truth, Obama is still all they ever needed him to be, black.  It’s just that black people have no reason to pretend otherwise.

Because, unlike the folks who needed to imbue the Obamessiah with superpowers in order to justify their support of the black man who would allow them to believe in the inherent goodness of America and the intrinsic fairness of the Democratic Party, black people have always known that all Barack Obama ever had to be was black.  Otherwise, their votes still don’t matter.

The disappointment comes to those now waking up to the reality that that’s all he is.