Blacksmythe

Today’s Washington Post had what appears to be a no-brainer on the front page: “Blacks forming Rock-Solid Bloc Behind Obama”. Of course we are. We tend to vote democratic anyway, and the current GOP ticket leaves much to be desired for a liberal democratic leaning demographic that believes in merit. If it was Edwards, or Clinton instead of Obama the numbers would look the same. In an election like this there are no black independents. There are blacks who are predisposed to vote for McCain/Palin either for ideological reasons or because the GOP line is much shorter–blacks in the DNC are a dime a dozen, while blacks in the GOP are as rare as….well did you watch the Republican National Convention?

So how blacks vote isn’t really the story. The story is really about the nature of democratic discourse within black communities now that Obama has a legitimate shot. 

Now it certainly seems as if blacks are talking about politics much more often:

“All we talk about is Obama,” said Julie Griffith, the chief executive of a Houston public relations firm who attended a recent convention of black MBAs in Washington. “We talk about the campaign. We talk about Palin. We talk about a possible assassination attempt. We can talk about Obama all day.”

When several black protesters heckled Obama during an appearance in St. Petersburg, Fla., asking what has he had done for the black community, many African Americans expressed outrage — toward the hecklers.

“We can be black all day” after the election, said Griffith, the Houston executive. “We’ve got to get there first. Obama’s not about black issues. He’s the people’s president. We are going to do what we’re going to do. If some black people aren’t with that, I say to hell with them.”

The ideal circumstance here would be vigorous debate about what types of political benefits will blacks gain from an Obama victory. Granted, we know what we’d get from McCain/Palin. Worse than nothing. Fair enough. But that’s really only part of the picture. Particularly because as we consider bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion, it appears as if in the course of making a deal that both sides could agree on, Obama tossed progressives overboard again.

“Michael Baisden and Tom [Joyner] and Tavis [Smiley] could talk about Jena all they want,” Jackson said, referring to radio and TV personalities who had pushed for large protest marches for the embattled men. “But Jena didn’t have anything to do with winning . . . what?”

“Iowa!” the audience roared back, without any dissent.

I wonder how the Jena 6 felt about that? One of the biggest criticisms of the Bush presidency is that, well, he doesn’t brook criticism. And his people impose discipline on the rank and file. 

What do we lose practically, when we do the same thing?

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One of the questions I’ve had to respond to over and over again in regards to Obama is “why can’t we both have a discussion about resopnsibility and talk about the government too?”

Surely we can walk and chew gum at the same time?

Read this article when you get the chance. Once public officials and institutions begin to adopt the language of personal responsibility–not so much a trope of conservatism these days as neoliberalism given its use by people with a wide variety of ideological predispositions–the natural consequence is that institutions and the individuals within them become literally “irresponsible.”

Adolph Reed wrote a very long critique of Obamaism that is worth reading as well. His main argument is that Obama is better than McCain in the short term, but worse in the long term.

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I’ve been thinking about King because I’m writing an academic paper about media representations of him…and have been thinking about Malcolm X because his birthday coincides with that of my middle son. Next week I will be as old as Martin Luther King jr. was when he was brutally assassinated, leaving behind two sons and two daughters. In one year I’ll be as old as Malcolm X was when he was murdered, leaving behind six daughters.

I am where I am because of the dual legacies they represent.

Although Malcolm X never engaged in the organizing work that Martin Luther King did, for a number of reasons, it is very difficult to talk not only about black nationalism but about the development of Black Studies without talking about Malcolm X. And of course Martin Luther King Jr. led the desegregation movement.

But both families were financially and mentally broken after their assassinations, signaling that neither King nor X thought much about what would happen to their families afterwards. The reason why the King family held on to King’s legacy and fought to be compensated for it was not because they were selfish, but rather because they needed the income. Neither Coretta nor Betty was ever able to really get over the deaths of their spouses because of who their spouses were and neither remarried.

I do not believe that the gains made because of their activities outweigh the damage caused to their individual families. Every action that movement folks participated in carried immense risk. But while King and X chose to bore the risks they took, their children did NOT. Further those risks could have been minimized, with either a different strategic approach that emphasized life rather than martyrdom, or at least with some type of planning.

I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts, particularly if you have children.

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Well, that’s not exactly true. But when the NAACP decided to appoint (why do I want to say “hire”?) 35-year old Benjamin Todd Jealous as its President (story here) they made the narrative here pretty predictable. Whereas when Bruce Gordon (Jealous’ predecessor) was appointed the narrative was that the NAACP was going corporate, the narrative now will be that the NAACP is attempting to rejuvenate itself by attracting youth (or at least “younger members”).

People have been making the argument that the old guard of black leaders have been less than interested in handing the reigns over to a younger generation for some time. We saw this when Newark Mayor Corey Booker took two tries to unseat Sharpe James. And the claims calling for a new “hip-hop politics” are often not so much about hip-hop as much as they are about youth. In fact I’d argue that much of what passes for substantive discussion of black politics lately has revolved around the discussion about the need for “new leaders” and “new approaches” and “new blood.” These arguments are at their base nothing more than beefs about folks getting their turn.

When Kweisi Mfume resigned I wrote this in response, noting three central flaws: the NAACP focuses on political rights rather than expanding economic rights, it is highly centralized with a bloated executive board, and it is largely an organization of middle and upper-income African Americans. How do any of these things change with the appointment of a leader like Jealous, as opposed to anyone else?

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I’m snatching the following quote from Adolph Reed’s important work Stirrings in the Jug:

 Encouraging popular participation is the only effective possibility for reinvigorating a progressive movement in black political life because people respond by organizing themselves when offered concrete visions that connect with their lives as they experience them, not to ideological abstractions or generic agendas that perfume narrow class programs. (pp. 50, 51)

Adolph’s academic work can be remarkably obtuse, and I’ve been meaning to ask him why the hell he makes his work so difficult to understand, but this volume is ESSENTIAL for anyone seeking to understand the current political context as well as the historical trajectory of black american political development. With that said, check out this story. One of the things that Reed calls