Ooops, he did it, again! Yep, that’s POTUS, Pretendident of the good ol’ US of A, bowing nose down, ass up, to yet another foreign leader. What’s up with that, Obie?
Maybe somebody should pull his coat and let him know, in no uncertain terms, to cut that shit out. Predictably, the other side of the aisle is having a field day with this, while the Obapologists are…having a hard time coming up with a snappy comeback. The “sign of respect” shtick as an excuse is getting old. Besides, it’s bogus. Bowing is not a sign of respect, it’s a voluntary act of submission. It’s only done to those deemed “greater than” self; never among equals. Which is why the pious bow only before God, (and His Duly Appointed Messengers) and courtly men bow before women.
But if you’re an insecure world leader, worried that your grip is slipping among the Masses, never fear! For the price of a phone call and a photo-op, Baracus Hubris Maximus (Hail, Caesar!) will board the Peoples’ Plane between head-swiveling scripted speeches, at taxpayer’s expense, travel halfway ’round the globe to your little Bumfuckistan, then, at your cue, stand before cameras, grab your hand, and go from “kick me” to “spank me” pose as he gleefully kisses your ring from crotch-licking distance, all so that you may record it for posterity and properly impress your subjects with the spectacle of your power and magnificence, ad infinitum. I mean, let’s face it, pictorial proof of the guy who claims to have the most powerful job in the world with his ass in the air slobbering all over your God-given nose picker and ass-wiper has gotta be worth at least a few Brownie points in the nether reaches of the boonie dwellers and their progeny, right? Read the rest of this entry »
I’m beginning to believe there hasn’t been a single legitimate charge of racism by any black people or person since Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. At least, not according to what I read in the blogosphere. Of course, some will admit that, “well, sure, racism exists, but I’ve never said or done anything that a black or minority person could find offensive or objectionable,” right before they launch into an offensive, objectionable tirade.
Using the word “nigger” is not racist if you’re a well-liked politician who was only repeating a joke previously told to you verbatim. Politicians should be able to say “nigger” all they want to, after all, niggers call each other that all the time.
I am a black, gay, woman. According to popular conventional wisdom, being black and gay means I should hate myself, and be extremely grateful that, as a woman, I’m powerless to do anything about it. There are so many things wrong with politicizing fairness and equality that it makes the one thing that’s right about it, using it as a tool to effect change, sometimes seem hardly worth the cost. “Fair is fair” should be a no brainer any oppressed, or formerly oppressed, person should be able to wrap their heads all the way around. Yet, as an “African American” who, like most of my gleefully downtrodden brothers and sisters, has never seen the Mother Land, I am expected to be far more politically motivated by my victimization a a black person than by the exact same sort of victimization I might have experienced as a woman. I say “might have experienced” because the reality of gender oppression is not a recognized “given,” no matter how high the mountain of evidence proving it might be. I’m not even technically allowed to even call myself gay, either, since “gay” is an appellation appropriated by male homosexuals, me being relegated to the “L” in “LGBT” or, “GLBT.” Even if I don’t want to be referred to as an African American Lesbian woman, and prefer to be called a black gay chick, a politically correct, clued in observer will insist upon recognizing me as the former. Sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass to keep things straight.
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.
Associated Press is reporting that Al-Qaida insulted president-elect Barack Obama with Malcolm X’s famous characterization of those he considered to be “collaborators” with, and “appeasers” to white oppressors of black Americans as “house Negroes.”
Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites. The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.
Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.
In al-Qaida’s first response to Obama’s victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect — along with secretaries of stateColin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house Negroes.”
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house Negroes.”
The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters’ house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.
Most Americans are aware of Malcolm X statements, what they don’t seem to get is that he was clearly speaking of Martin Luther King’s non-violent, “hat-in-hand” approach to Civil Rights. In this 1963 interview with Louis Lomax, Malcolm makes his feelings clear:
LOMAX: Reverend Martin Luther King teaches a doctrine of nonviolence. What is your attitude toward this philosophy?
MALCOLM X: The white man supports Reverend Martin Luther King, subsidizes Reverend Martin Luther King, so that Reverend Martin Luther King can continue to teach the Negroes to be defenseless�that�s what you mean by nonviolent�be defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts that has ever taken people into captivity�that�s this American white man, and they have proved it throughout the country by the police dogs and the police clubs. A hundred years ago they used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against Negroes. Today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms and traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs, and they�re still doing the same thing. Just as Uncle Tom, back during slavery used to keep the Negroes from resisting the bloodhound or resisting the Ku Klux Klan by teaching them to love their enemies or pray for those who use them despitefully, today Martin Luther King is just a twentieth-century or modern Uncle Tom or religious Uncle Tom, who is doing the same thing today to keep Negroes defenseless in the face of attack that Uncle Tom did on the plantation to keep those Negroes defenseless in the face of the attack of the Klan in that day.
Now the goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who has brutalized them for four hundred years. The goal of Martin Luther King is to get the Negroes to forgive the people the people who have brutalized them for four hundred years, by lulling them to sleep and making them forget what those whites have done to them, but the masses of black people today don�t go for what Martin Luther King is putting down.
So, while black and white liberal Americans get their knickers in a twist about al-Zawahri’s “insult,” perhaps they should put Malcolm’s words in his context and compare them to their own attempts to characterize Obama as a latter day MLK, as well as Obama’s own. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention, Obama embraced Dr. King’s legacy, without mentioning him by name:
“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.”
Interrupted dozens of times by applause as flash bulbs flared, the 47-year-old U.S. senator from Hyde Park resurrected King’s memory and quoted from his 1963 speech to draw a modern-day parallel.
” ‘We cannot walk alone,’ the preacher cried. ‘And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back,’ ” Obama said. “America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done.”
But if Hillary Rodham Clinton could emotionally and authentically mention Harriet Tubman, couldn’t the man who has implied that he is the inheritor of the dream bother to mention Dr. Martin Luther King more explicitly than as “a preacher from Georgia”.
Some folk say that Obama didn’t have to invoke King, and that he, indeed, should not have. Some said that in order to reassure majority America, any explicit mention of race, and of Dr. Martin Luther King, should be avoided. But Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an American hero, not an African-American hero. Dr. King is celebrated, not only in the African American community, but also in our nation. King’s dream was not a dream for African-American people; it was a dream for a more inclusive America. While Obama’s speech was not required to be a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it should have acknowledged him.
“Reassure majority America?” Is that like, “reassure white people?” By his continued refusal to actually promote Dr. King’s or Malcolm X’s philosophy while cashing in on Dr. King’s celebrity, it seems to me that Obama is behaving in a manner consistent with Malcolm X’s definition of a “house Negro.” Insulting black men repeatedly, as he did in his Father’s Day speech, as he has often done by using stereotypical “Cousin Pookie” and “Popeye’s fried chicken” references, Obama consistently proves himself to be neither Martin Luther King nor Malcolm X, to the relief of white Americans. However, he also does not prove himself to be above Malcolm X’s pejorative description.
The race baiting of camp Barack Obama has pissed me off since the primaries. His “post-racial” both sides of his mouth, in your face, hands off, passive/aggressive, taunting/pleading has been both painful and frightening to watch. As I head off to the voting booth tomorrow, I will do the one thing in my power to stop such “race-rallying by proxy,” I will vote against it.
“Selma got me born” was a bald-faced lie. Selma, the violence associated with the historic march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and it’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement had nothing to do with Hawaiian teen hot pants for Kenyans, and to even have the gall to suggest such a thing is worthy of rebuke and scorn.
Lyndon Baines Johnson passed the Civil Rights Bill. Martin Luther King’s leadership created an environment where doing the right thing by the president became imperative, regardless of the political implications. Saying that one will take a Johnsonian approach to today’s black issues is a promise to pursue a results-driven agenda. To demean this sort of commitment, as Camp B.O. did of Hillary Clinton’s Martin Luther King Day speech, is shamelessly inexcusable. That he got away with his lame, yet now predictable “unfortunate” characterization, is worse. Clinton’s “it took a president to get the job done,” is historically accurate grade school civics. It takes a president to sign legislation. Obama’s comment makes no sense for a “constitutional lawyer:”
“She made an unfortunate remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson,” he said. “I haven’t remarked on it. And she offended some folks who thought she diminished the role about King and the civil rights movement. The notion that this is our doing is ludicrous.”
“I’d have to see him dance.“ This one did it for me. The Jim Crow buck-and-wing stereotype is so ingrained in our culture that Barack Obama was not only not called to task for invoking it, he was applauded by blacks and whites alike. How dare they? Yet, when some marginal Hillary Clinton surrogate used the phrase “shucking and jiving,” it, along with other, more dubious examples of “race-baiting,” was decried as “proof positive” that the Clinton campaign was wholly comprised of vicious, unscrupulous, race-baiters willing to engage in the worst sort of low politics in their brazen attempts to smear a black man to their advantage.
The other, well documented instances of Obama and his minions crying foul at every reference to the color black, while at the same time claiming post-racial “above-it-all-ness,” while at the same time exploiting and demeaning black Americans for the sake of scoring Brownie points with “color-blind” white Americans, are too numerous to mention. Yet, guilt-ridden, smug-assed, supercilious white people of influence who have likey never been closer to an inner-city neighborhood than their morning commute will allow them to skirt, perpetuated the myth that there was something noble in supporting a “not-too-black” candidate, primarily for the symbolism involved.
Barack Obama and his merry band of assuagers have played the one-note racism song with virtuosity. They should not be allowed to exploit America’s troubled racial legacy this way. As we head into election day, the song sung black is getting louder and more discordant, yet, unfortunately there is no sign that it will be any less effective. The Christian Science Monitor is running one such piece online. In a story of an insular white man, coerced into canvassing for Obama by his wife, we are treated to his eye-opening epiphany that black people need something to believe in. Guess what Mister, they’re human. Buy a freaking clue. This sappy, drippy essay proves only that the author needs to get out more.
A New York Times article headlined, “McCain Finds Some Hope In Philadelphia,” assures us that the large number of bigots in the area gives McCain a shot. We have been told over and over again that being black is a disadvantage that could cost Obama up to six points due the “Bradley effect,” or the cowardliness of white voters determined not to vote for a black man, but too chicken to admit it. Or, maybe, a “reverse Bradley effect” will net him six points. What about the “novice effect,” or the “empty suit effect,” or do no other factors come into play when a candidate is black? What about the hoped-for increase in African American voter turnout? Where’s the cute, comfy, feelgood name for that effect?
As a black woman, I’m tired of watching my “positive image-starved” sisters and brothers be played by this overconfident “cock-of-the-walk” con man whose only accomplishment is running for office, and whose only known attribute is a willingness to win using any means neccessary. While la-di-da liberals and all other manner of starry-eyed white Americans vote for their own need to reinforce a mythical image of an America that never was, and is unlikely to be, as long as rubber-stamping Hollywood script-written “reality” is the extent of committment to real social change, I’ll cast my vote elsewhere. A lie of this magnitude should not be rewarded.
Randall Kennedy writes another race-baiting article in the Washington Post, entitled The Big What If, asking the hypothetical question, what happens if Barack Obama is defeated in the election? The answer is simple, he loses. Big deal. But Kennedy, of course, does not take that rational position. How could he when the subtitle of his article is: “The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome’s way up in the air”?
Come on, enough. This whole article is based on the proposition that Barack Obama is qualified to be president. He is not. If he were a white man, he’d be considered to be exactly what he is, a pretty unexceptional junior senator. He has been selected, propped up and greased through the nomination for the sole reason that he is black, by people convinced that that fact could be exploited to their benefit. So far, they’ve succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
There is no need to go through Obama’s record, the lack of it speaks for itself. He is being graded on a curve by people afraid to assess him on merit for fear of being labeled “racist.” Yet, the opposite is true, giving him the benefit of unreasonable and unearned doubt is the real height of racist behavior. He is not an Affirmative Action candidate as some have claimed, Affirmative Action supposes that all things being equal, qualified minority applicants must be granted extra consideration in an attempt to level the playing field. Obama’s being given a pass is racial exploitation on a par with extortion.
Kennedy claims that he was born in 1954, the year of Brown vs. The Board of Education. So was I. Raised in Chicago, the Civil Rights struggle was an integral part of my upbringing. Schools, in an effort to integrate, were regularly re-assigned to me because of redlining and “white flight,” dinner conversations were filled with discussions of the nightly news stories of demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, bombings, beatings, hosings, attack dogs and all the other tragedies, successes and failures of the brave men and women putting their lives, and the lives of their families, friends, and sometimes entire neighborhoods and communities on the line in their efforts to affect true equality for me and other children like me. I watched my parents work harder at upward mobility than most people work at their jobs in a lifetime, squeezing every drop out of a series of blue-collar positions, moving from changing neighborhood to changing neighborhood, scrimping and saving, all to afford me the promise of American success that the Movement allowed them to dream of. Their strength, determination and dedication shaped my life and gave me the confidence to think for myself, pursue my dreams and demand to be treated fairly in all my endeavors.
The pathetic attempt to attach the hopes and dreams of black America to Barack Obama’s bandwagon pisses me off. Due to lessons learned at the knee of the Civil Rights Movement, I expect any black person anywhere to be able to represent himself and other black people with pride and dignity, not to run from their blackness in order to lessen any perceived potential offense to those who might be uncomfortable in it’s presence. I am black, deal with it. I bring it with me everywhere I go and wear it proudly. Barack Obama does not.
He deserves no loyalty from black America. He joined one of our churches because he wanted to ingratiate himself with the poor, pitiful people he had appointed himself to save from their wretched, miserable lives. When that religious affiliation became inconvenient to white people, he abandoned it as quickly as he abandoned those South Side residents he had earlier failed to help. He refuses to appear at political functions designed to present and address concerns of the voting bloc he depends on for his political life, doing so only when he can score points by belittling those voters in front of white people, playing out his Oedipal complex at the expense of those he characterizes as “boys.” In his “historic speech” commemorating his “milestone accomplishment” of securing the nomination for president, the man upon whose shoulders he claims to proudly stand wasn’t even mentioned by name. Can Mr. Kennedy imagine Dr. King or any other Civil Rights leader in his lifetime trying not to appear to be “too black” in order to appease white people, for any reason? Would that not be a price too high? What, in such an event, would be the point? What is the point now?
In an America truly free, a black man would not have to compromise his very blackness to succeed. In this current America, most people, black and white, instinctively know this and subliminally resent any man who does so. For their own purposes, many Americans, black and white, pretend that such things must be done because other Americans demand such capitulation. Bullshit. Anybody whose prejudice would preclude them from voting for a black man is not going to vote for him because he pretends not to be. Such a person would only resent him more for his wimpiness.
“The Big What If” is not related to an inevitable Obama loss and the possibility that mass disappointment of black Americans might lead to rash behavior or an across-the-board setback of race relations. The real fear is that a loss would cause the scam to unavoidably be exposed, leading to the disillusionment of all of so-called liberal America. In order to prevent the truth of this Democratic Blaxploitation-gate coming to light, the farce must succeed, or the blame for it’s failure must be placed at the feet of America’s racist past. Otherwise, if the blinders are removed, allowing people to see the reality of the grand-scale manipulation of racial guilt for political gain, people, black and white, just might riot.
Putting a black face, ashamed of it’s blackness, on the appearance of racial conciliation is unacceptable, shameful and wrong. What if Mr Kennedy wanted no part of it and used his voice in a national newspaper to proclaim so?
Or something like that. At least, that’s what the Obamaniacs want you to believe. That, and he can raise the tides and heal the world. But then, as far as I can tell, that’s what community organizers do.
Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.
I included this quote just so we could all be on the same page as far as Obamaman’s stated goals are concerned. I thought it would be helpful to keep in mind as we go forward on this journey of discovery toward enlightenment to reveal the truth about just what the hell does a community organizer do? After scouring the left, right, center and sideways views available on the internet, I must be honest and tell you that I still have no freaking idea.
I grew up on the South Side of Chicago during the Civil Rights Movement, attended public schools, joined my first union at 16, was Baptized in a Missionary Baptist church, and have relatives representing every Christian faith known to black America, some who are very actively involved in their respective churches. Yet, to my knowledge, I have never in my life met a community organizer. Even after learning that Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King and Ghandi were also community organizers, I still can’t think of one I’ve met personally.
Community organizing is a process by which disempowered people – most often low- and moderate-income people – are brought together to act in their common self-interest. Most often these organizations seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create popular movements by building a large base of concerned folks, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved.
“The nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities,” the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, says they too are involved in “empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities.”
ACORN has been building organizations and developing leadership among low- and moderate- income residents in neighborhoods throughout the United States for 38 years. During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues. As the nation’s largest grassroots community organization with more than 400,000 member families, ACORN employs 400 organizers that carry a huge responsibility of helping disenfranchised people in their communities.
# Largest radical group in America, with 175,000 dues-paying member families, and more than 850 chapters in 70 US cities
# Implicated in numerous reports of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams during the 2004 election
# Maintains close ties to organized labor
Many sites examine Obama’s ties with ACORN though given their various perspectives, it’s hard to know whether ACORN is a noble enterprise or the Devil’s Disciples. Judge for yourself. It can be said though that “agitating” is a core principle of Saul Alinsky’s community organizing model, upon which all community organizing appears to be based. As far as I can tell, when it comes to community organizing, Alinsky’s “da man.” After reading quite a few articles, I’ve come to the conclusion that Alinsky-style community organizing boils down to sticking your nose into other people’s business and trying to make them do what you think they should do to make their miserable lives better. I admit, I could be wrong.
But words like “agitator” keep popping up, a word which evokes childhood memories of school-yard “instigators” who would try their best to incite violence between reluctant combatants. When I was growing up, most often the violence was turned toward the person trying to egg on the fight. So, what is the real benefit to the community organizer or the communities organized?
In return, organizing teaches as nothing else does the beauty and strength of everyday people. Through the songs of the church and the talk on the stoops, through the hundreds of individual stories of coming up from the South and finding any job that would pay, of raising families on threadbare budgets, of losing some children to drugs and watching others earn degrees and land jobs their parents could never aspire to – it is through these stories and songs of dashed hopes and powers of endurance, of ugliness and strife, subtlety and laughter, that organizers can shape a sense of community not only for others, but for themselves.
Great, really, great. But, what the hell do they do? I still don’t know for sure. I do know that Obamaman’s most famous efforts involving asbestos removal from the Altgeld Gardens Housing Project was pretty much a failure. And I’m pretty sure that most of the conditions he described back in 1990 still exist in the communities he organized, pretty much the way they were when he started. To be fair, organizing successful voting drives, which by all accounts he did and was good at, is a very good thing. But who has benefited more, the register (Obamaman) or the registrees (the people still living in the conditions Obama found so compelling)?
“ ‘We are not making large-scale change, and I want to be involved in doing that,’ ” Mr. Kellman said Mr. Obama had told him.
I still don’t have a really good grasp on what a community organizer does, but I’m not sure it’s the noble, heroic profession-on-a-par-with-the-accomplishments-of Jesus that Obamamaniacs suggest. In fact, I’m not even sure Obama is good at it. It seems to me, every job he left, he left seeking that “just one more” element that would allow him to actually make a difference. So, far from swooping into troubled situations and making them right with a single Superman-like act, he seems more like the Superman Big Bank Hank of the Sugar Hill Gang famously described:
“He may be very sexy or even cute
But he looks like a sucka in a blue and red suit”
And I’m not even sure the Naked Emperor’s wearing that much.
Those who love New Orleans say Hurricane Gustav is proof that the billions of dollars spent to protect the city and bring it back to life after the devastating 2005 storm season was worth it.
Why on earth would it not be “worth it?” Can you measure a person’s home strictly in a “dollars and cents” sense? Why depict a suffering black family in conjunction with such a question, as this article does? Where does this fit into the current American narrative of Barack Obama being the realization of “The Dream?”
The Nation says white folks are using Hurricane Katrina to push black people out of their neighborhoods.
“It’s been like a wildfire,” said Lucia Blacksher, general counsel for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, an advocacy group that has been leading the fight against post-Katrina housing discrimination. “Local governments have been creating legal barriers–legal, in the sense they created laws–to prevent people who are African-American from returning. And I’m saying that because we all know what we’re talking about here. Affordable housing or multifamily housing is where African-Americans lived. And if you don’t let that kind of housing back, you’re not going to give people who are African-American or Latino an opportunity to live [here].”
I’ve said publicly that I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially-based. The ineptitude was colorblind.
Senator Obama tends to run away from questions of a positive agenda regarding race. On February 9, 2007 he said:
“If I’m talking about the issues that matter to people, if we do a good job in letting people know who I am and what I stand for … they’ll make their judgment not based on my race but based on how well they think I can lead this country,” Obama told USA TODAY.
Yet when one enjoys almost unilateral support from any group of people, shouldn’t those people be able to expect something in return? Can the fear of an imagined backlash from white voters justify a black heir to a dream of racial equality avoiding putting black issues of any sort on the table? An aspect of this question was discussed by Dr. Julianne Malveaux and Dr. Cornell West on the Tavis Smiley Show, regarding Obama’s acceptance of his historic nomination as Democratic Party candidate for president on the forty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. When asked if she thought Obama’s speech lived up to the hype, Dr. Malveaux replied:
Not at all. My heart’s broken, actually. I hoped to hear more about Dr. King. As we’ve talked about before we came on, I hoped to hear more about the poverty numbers, about the third anniversary of Katrina, but also hoped to have this brother hit one out of the park…
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…But beyond stumbling, that he could not mention the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that Dr. King was reduced to some preacher from Georgia, is just a disappointment.
Senator Obama wants to have his cake and eat it too, and black voters, by giving unconditional support, are allowing him to get away with it. But to whose ultimate benefit? The Huffington Post is putting out the “Ward Connerly wants to end Affirmative Action” stuff again.
With Barack Obama officially nominated as the Democrats’ Presidential nominee, is it time to re-think affirmative action? Ward Connerly, a long-time affirmative action opponent , thinks so.
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“I think that in some quarters, many parts of the country, a white male is really disadvantaged,” Connerly, who considers himself multi-racial, tells NOW. “Because we have developed this notion of women and minorities being so disadvantaged and we have to help them, that we have, in many cases, twisted the thing so that it’s no longer a case of equal opportunity. It’s a case of putting a fist on the scale.”
Who, in their right mind wants to be on another mailing list? Obama thinks you should be. In an attempt to beef up voter registration, Camp O is using the Magical Mystical Marketing and Malarkey Masquerade, or his acceptance speech, to reach out and touch the great unwashed. I am not kidding. Yahoo News is reporting that supporters were being asked to participate in a novel Get Out The Vote experiment.
In the hours before he made his entrance, these supporters were being asked to text message the Obama campaign and their friends and to make phone calls from specially tailored call sheets as part of an unprecedented effort to mobilize voters and get nonvoters to register.
WTF?
Obama’s campaign has identified 55 million voting age Americans across the country who are not registered to vote. It has done this by comparing registration lists with lists of potential voters gleaned from consumer databases the same way credit card companies track people’s spending.
Campaign officials estimates more than two-thirds would vote for Obama.
Optimism, or delusion? You decide.
About three hours before Obama was scheduled to speak, his camp sent a text message of its own to anyone who had asked to be notified of his running mate selection last week. “Final night of the conventions tonight — don’t miss Barack’s speech!” the message said. “To get involved locally, REPLY: VOL plus your FIRST NAME and TOWN”
Clever, right?
While the outreach to voters and nonvoters is by itself a useful tactic, the calls will generate useful lists of phone numbers, many of them identified by the specific issue of interest to the person on that end of the call.
I don’t know about you, but I get enough damned unsolicited junk calls, one more might just push me right off the edge. Besides, given Obie’s FISA vote, the last thing I want him to have is easy access. But what a great way to pimp a legacy, huh? MLK would be proud.
Imagine that Martin Luther King had stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial forty-five years ago today, demanding justice for African Americans from their non-representative government, without having accomplished a single Civil Rights victory.
Now, imagine Barack Obama today.
“But, but, but, Obama’s blaaaaaack! ( stomping feet ) You gotta vote for the black guy! Ya don’t want the whole world to think were, like, racist, or something, do ya? Huh? Huh?”
This has been the subtext of the Obama campaign since the earliest days. First, he had to convince black America he was really black; white America always thought he was more than black enough, thank you very much.
Perhaps what the nation has liked most is not what Obama has said or done but what he is. In short, Obama is a black man who does not scare white people. This is mostly not Obama’s fault. He is who he is. He has a life to live, a job to do and a book to promote. He cannot be held responsible for a white paranoia that–outside the music, sports and entertainment industries–demands: If you have to be black, then please don’t be too black.
No, it was black people who needed convincing, thus the “I am too, black!” phase of the contest. Obama himself shared the heartwarming fairy tale of his conception, “Selma Got Me Born” with an audience in South Carolina, and by extension, the world. Michelle Obama told black people to stop with the Jemimah mentality and, “wake up and get it,” Later, Oprah, safely black enough for all America, actually made an appearance for somebody other than herself, breaking a long-standing tradition, to stump for him.
Of course, this script was not written by an anxious Obama, motivated to legitimize himself in the eyes of his brethren, the architect of much of this racial bridge was CNN’s Roland Martin, who insinuated himself into the Obama orbit in much the same way Johnny Cochran took over the Dream Team in the O. J. Simpson case; he volunteered his advice based upon his observation of perceived impending disaster if the racial dynamic wasn’t altered.
Obama had no built-in advantages with the black community, he was foreign to it. Even in Chicago, though he had been involved in voter registration campaigns, community organizing and efforts to mobilize and coordinate black chuch out reach efforts, Bobby Rush had no trouble painting him as an out-of-touch, uppity snob, and ultimately crushed him when Obama had the temerity to challenge the incumbent for his seat in the House.
Mr. Rush told The Chicago Reader, “He went to Harvard and became an educated fool. We’re not impressed with these folks with these Eastern elite degrees.”
He complained that for Rush to continually invoke his Harvard background as though it were a slur sent the wrong message to his young constituents. In a striking Martin Luther King Day op-ed in the Chicago Defender, he drew attention to tension among African Americans of Rush’s own generation, arguing that black disunity was part of what made King’s courage important: “A sizable percentage of the black elite in the pre-Civil Rights south,” Obama noted, “had vested interests in maintaining the racial status quo, and vilified protesters within the community.” (This year, Obama’s longstanding willingness to “call out” the black community has impressed many whites, and made some blacks ambivalent.)
Obama’s subsequent Senate races seem not to have relied on overwhelming black support, it is said he re-drew the map of his district to include more whites, negating the necessity of depending primarily upon blacks.
The idea was to create enough Democratic-leaning districts so that the Party could take control of the state legislature. That goal was fine with Obama; his new district offered promising, untapped constituencies for him as he considered his next political move. “The exposure he would get to some of the folks that were on boards of the museums and C.E.O.s of some of the companies that he would represent would certainly help him in the long run,” Corrigan said.
In the end, Obama’s North Side fund-raising base and his South Side political base were united in one district. He now represented Hyde Park operators like Lois Friedberg-Dobry as well as Gold Coast doyennes like Bettylu Saltzman, and his old South Side street operative Al Kindle as well as his future consultant David Axelrod. In an article in the Hyde Park Herald about how “partisan” and “undemocratic” Illinois redistricting had become, Obama was asked for his views. As usual, he was candid. “There is a conflict of interest built into the process,” he said. “Incumbents drawing their own maps will inevitably try to advantage themselves.”
For many black activists in Obama’s adopted home state, who might be expected to form the core of his political base, a central question still looms about the man who has risen speedily over 11 years from state lawmaker to U.S. senator to a sensation in the 2008 presidential campaign: As he works to appeal to voters across the nation, will Obama stand firm for black people and black causes?
We still don’t know the answer to that question. Obama has, throughout his career, been critical of African Americans. The New York Times relates a story from Obama’s early days as a community organizer, when a planned meeting between the tenants of the Altgeld Gardens Housing Project and the housing authority got a little out of hand.
The crowd of about 700 residents grew irritable in the stifling heat and booed the director when he arrived an hour and 15 minutes late, according to people who were there, as well as newspaper accounts.
The meeting became even more raucous after the director indicated that the agency still did not have a plan to remove the asbestos. The director abruptly left 15 minutes into the meeting after a resident wrestled with him for the microphone. Angry tenants followed him out the door, chanting, “No more rent!”
Later, relating the incident to a friend, Obama criticized the residents.
“Barack basically talked about how tough it was to generate real results through organizing and that it was embarrassing to him to have the residents out of control,” he recounted.
Who was in charge of the meeting? Why was he embarrassed? Because he failed, or the residents didn’t behave the way he wanted them to?
Obama’s views on issues important to black Americans are hard to pin down. In the Chicago Reader article from 1995, he said:
Let’s talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more.”
In 2008, he wants to legislate the problem:
Obama said he would co-sponsor a bill, with Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, that his campaign said would address the “national epidemic of absentee fathers.” If passed, the legislation would increase enforcement of child support payments and strengthen services for domestic violence prevention.
“They were spirited, good-humored women [the women he worked
with at Developing Communities], those three, women who—without husbands to help—somehow
managed to raise sons and daughters, juggle an assortment of part-time jobs and small business schemes,
and organize Girl Scout troops, fashion shows, and summer camps for the parade of children that wandered
through the church every day.” [Dreams of My Father, p.167]
It seems clear that Obama’s relationship with the black community is complicated at best; often divisive, in his campaign against Alice Palmer, who recommended that Obama run for her vacant Senate seat when she mounted an ultimately unsuccessful run for Congress, Obama refused to step aside when she lost:
Obama not only refused to step aside, he filed challenges that nullified Palmer’s hastily gathered nominating petitions, forcing her to withdraw.
“I liked Alice Palmer a lot. I thought she was a good public servant,” Obama said. “It was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently.”
His choice divided veteran Chicago political activists.
Right or wrong, the question is open as to whether the greater good was served. Rarely is any large accomplishment touted in Obama’s favor as a result of any of his actions. This is not limited to Obama’s relationship with black Americans, his record is equally thin in the national arena. Other than his criticisms of past politicians and activists and his willingness to shift the onus of responsibility from the government and place it on the overburdened shoulders of the victims, what does he offer? Is the tokenism represented by putting a black face on government indifference enough? Can the ideal of grassroots mobilization co-exist with the reality of corporate sponsorship? To whose benefit?
Barack Obama is both black and white, but when one researches his record, a case can be made that he can just as easily be considered neither. His lack of discernible core beliefs reflect questionable integrity and form a sharp contrast with the man whose legacy he now co-opts for his benefit. Martin Luther King was willing to risk his life, his freedom and his reputation, if proven necessary to advance the goals attendant to his firmly held beliefs. What will Obama risk? For what? The illusion of inclusion is relatively easy to attain, real equality is much more difficult to achieve. Yes, forty-five years ago today, Martin Luther King demanded that America make good the bad check it had issued to its’ black citizens. On this anniversary, Barack Obama will accept the nomination for president from the Democratic Party. Yet, he did not win it outright, his claim to the nomination is tainted and tenuous at best. He has been coddled, protected and assisted over the line like William “Refrigerator” Perry tried to carry Walter Payton across the goal line en route the Super Bowl. Only in the case of Obama, it will count as a victory.
The Democrats have nominated The First Official Affirmative Action African American Token Presidential Candidate.
The Democrats are going out of their way to give Barack Obama the nomination for president. Literally. Let’s quickly review. Neither Barack Obama, nor Hillary Clinton accumulated enough pledged delegates to win the nomination. Super delegates only cast official votes at the convention. They have no obligation to stick with previous endorsements. So, the whole thing is up for grabs, right?
Uh, no.
The first black man to receive a major party nomination will do so by agreement that it is simply time to do such a historic thing. It is the forty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, isn’t it? From the AP:
Democratic delegates began marking their presidential nominating ballots Wednesday, making the unprecedented choice between a black man and a white woman. But only a limited number of the ballots were expected to be counted in an afternoon roll call before Barack Obama was declared the party’s presidential nominee by acclamation.
Democrats were poised to formally deliver the party’s presidential nomination to Barack Obama on Wednesday, making him the first black nominee of a major party. While the historic outcome was certain, suspense remained over how a vote of delegates would proceed, and for how long.
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Representatives of the Clinton and Obama teams struck a deal setting ground rules for Wednesday’s roll call vote that will hand the nomination to Obama, but will also allow Clinton supporters to express their support for her.
Both stories go on to explain exactly how the show will be choreographed; but make no mistake, a show is all it is. What a shame that these people can make a claim to historical significance based on nothing but stagecraft. But, hey, you go with what you’re good at, right?
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
What could be more perfect? Well, maybe scantily clad showgirls from Caeser’s Palace twirling flaming batons while the Grambling State Marching Band, playing a funked-up version of “Hail To The Chief, spells out O-B-A-M-A in the end zone followed by a lone, naked marathon runner bringing forth a proclamation that the Republican Party and John McCain have ceded victory to He Who Shall Rule Eight To Ten Years By Decree. After the symbolic chariot race, of course.
I have spoken of the Democrats’ desire to tie Barack Obama’s candidacy to the legacy of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy before. That desire is no secret, though it is not given the notice in the media that it deserves. That this is the Democrats year to win is a given, yet the fact that there is a largely unspoken wish to make this election bigger than a mere power grab is, for the most part, being portrayed as an undercurrent to the more widely acknowledged wave of perceived inevitability. However, the symbolism of racial progress that nominating an African American candidate provides is the fuel that powers the engine of the Obama campaign.
I’m beginning to believe there hasn’t been a single legitimate charge of racism by any black people or person since Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. At least, not according to what I read in the blogosphere. Of course, some will admit that, “well, sure, racism exists, but I’ve never said or done anything that a black or minority person could find offensive or objectionable,” right before they launch into an offensive, objectionable tirade.
I am a black, gay, woman. According to popular conventional wisdom, being black and gay means I should hate myself, and be extremely grateful that, as a woman, I’m powerless to do anything about it. There are so many things wrong with politicizing fairness and equality that it makes the one thing that’s right about it, using it as a tool to effect change, sometimes seem hardly worth the cost. “Fair is fair” should be a no brainer any oppressed, or formerly oppressed, person should be able to wrap their heads all the way around. Yet, as an “African American” who, like most of my gleefully downtrodden brothers and sisters, has never seen the Mother Land, I am expected to be far more politically motivated by my victimization a a black person than by the exact same sort of victimization I might have experienced as a woman. I say “might have experienced” because the reality of gender oppression is not a recognized “given,” no matter how high the mountain of evidence proving it might be. I’m not even technically allowed to even call myself gay, either, since “gay” is an appellation appropriated by male homosexuals, me being relegated to the “L” in “
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.
