Cornel West’s policy critiques of this President should not be ignored. While his phrasing and word-smithing may need some work, the issues he discusses mirror my own…and I’m certainly happy he is lending his voice to it. Professor West is not lessening Obama’s blackness. But he is calling into question what a president who is supposed to be more attuned to Black issues is doing (or not doing) for that community. As Wilmer Leon, so eloquently says in this video clip, if AIPAC is a constituency that the President must address (peace with Palestine), and Latino’s are a constituency that must be addressed (immigration & Judge Sotomayor), and Gay issues must be addressed (DADT & DOMA), and if Labor issues can be addressed, and of course the corporations and the financial systems have to be spoken too (TARP under Bush & the bailouts of the banks)….why is it so taboo to critique the President for not dealing with a constituency that voted in the upper 90 percentile for this President?? Are our issues not important enough… This is POLITICS people…
An enlightened discussion on race. One that doesn’t get enough discussion in the dominant culture. Racism is more implicit than explicit nowadays…but it still has detrimental affects and it needs to be called out.
SN: I don’t believe that Cornel West’s recent critique of the President caled into effect the authenticity of Obama’s Blackness. That part of the critique has been greatly over blown…
To the extent that racism remains a problem in America, it isn’t because, as in the 1960s, there was a segment of the American polity that openly embraced the doctrine of white supremacy. Quite the opposite really, Americans are fully capable of both indulging in blanket generalizations in matters of race while forming relationships with members of the group they hold broad negative beliefs about. There’s nothing particularly new about this sort of cognitive dissonance–Thomas Jefferson may have loved Sally Hemmings but it didn’t stop him from owning slaves.
What this means though, is that it’s really not useful to talk about people being “racist,” in the sense of people being committed to white supremacy, but rather the the lingering cognitive dissonance that allows people to reject racism as an idea while still succumbing to prejudice, particularly in anger. No, the Tea Party is not, and never has been the KKK. But that’s really irrelevant to the question of how racism factors into if not opposition to Obama (since, as Somerby points out, any Dem president would be getting the business), but more importantly, how that opposition manifests.
The extent to which Cain and other black conservatives hold appeal to the GOP remains sadly linked to the degree to which they can exonerate Republicans from charges of racism, particularly when it comes to racially charged attacks on Democrats. Take for example, Cain’s declaration that he’s disliked because Democrats are “are doubly scared that a real black man might run against Barack Obama.” The implication here is that Obama is “not a real black man,” because, well, I have no idea, Cain’s dumb critique wasn’t as well fleshed out as that of Cornel West. But conservatives really like the idea of challenging Obama on matters of racial authenticity. As Matt Lewis wrote, “Cain — unlike President Obama (a point sure to come up if Cain gains traction) — knows what it’s like to drink from a “colored” water fountain.” Of course this really just means Cain is older than Obama but you get the point, you don’t have to be a celebrity professor at Princeton to question whether Obama is “really black.” Does Somerby believe this isn’t racist? – Adam Serwer
I found this interview between Sam Seder and Professor Eddie Glaude so fascinating. If you don’t do anything else please listen to this interview and note the points that Glaude makes about the difference in Cornel West’s personal feelings of deception and his very valid policy critiques of the Obama administration. I also found it worth noting that Sedar makes the case that West’s critiques mirror those of former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich but Reich doesnt get the label of “hater” and how on the right The Tea Party has the room, politically, to hold Republicans accountable to what I would consider harmful policies, but they are allowed to hold their politicians accountable and it seems that type of room is not permitted on the Left by progressives and the poor. Please hear this interview… Click the link below:
This is a very touchy area, one I’ve discussed recently as a guest of Mark Thompson on “Make It Plain,” a progressive radio show on Sirius XM. African-American callers responded by talking about their personal pain over Obama’s economic policies and wanting to push him, yet feeling compelled to defend him as America’s first black president — and not quite knowing how to do both. Every caller made clear that this is a real, visceral problem.
It’s also notable that, as always, class is still the dividing line. The most heated defense of Obama in the black online community seems to come from high-status professionals (or students studying for high-status jobs), people who see him as a peer. The people who called into Mark’s show? They’re living from paycheck to paycheck. That perspective makes a difference.
Sam Seder discussed this today with Eddie Glaude, chair of the the Center for African-American Studies and the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African-American Studies at Princeton University, and they address West’s statements. (Seder points out several times that West’s remarks sound identical to those made by Robert Reich.)
But see, white people don’t have the same type of emotional connection with a black president as black folks, and on this issue, I come from a place of privilege. I’m disgusted by the right wing racism and call it when I see it, but as a white progressive, I also feel perfectly entitled (key word “entitled”) to criticize Obama’s policies. Obviously, many black Americans don’t, and Professor Glaude pointed out that they should do the same thing we did under George Bush: Organize and push the policy to the left.
Scholar Cornel West’s scathing critique of President Obama’s liberal bona fides in a series of recent interviews has ignited a furious debate among African American bloggers and commentators.
The well-known Princeton professor and author, who has released rap albums and starred in Hollywood films, supported Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign but now calls the president a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”
“I was thinking maybe he has at least some progressive populist instincts that could become more manifest after the cautious policies of being a senator,” West told Chris Hedges in an interview for the liberal political blog Truthdig.
Focusing on Obama and race, West said: “I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men . . . It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation.”
White House officials declined to respond to West’s remarks, which have sparked a hot conversation this week. And Obama aides have have been content to allow others to take up the president’s defense.
Several commentaries from African American scholars and bloggers have particularly disputed West’s take on Obama and race.
Melissa Harris-Perry, a Princeton professor of African American studies and politics, wrote a column for the Nation calling West’s comment “utter hilarity coming from Cornel West who has spent the bulk of his adulthood living in those deeply rooted, culturally rich, historically important black communities of Cambridge, MA and Princeton, NJ. . . . Harvard and Princeton are not places that are particularly noted for their liberating history for black men.”
Imani Perry (no relation), also a professor at the Princeton Center for African American Studies and a former professor of law at Rutgers, defended West on Twitter this week:
Cornel West opened the space. Period. And in my tradition we respect elders, period. Disagreement can be consistent w/that. And I can’t stand “piling on” attacks. Debate, dialogue, don’t mob!
As a student, Cornel West modeled 4 me, commitments 2 the poor and marginal AND scholarly excellence. Amazing footsteps. Required courage.
West has an impressive body of rigorous brilliant scholarly work that even many academics aren’t aware of. But he always has kept connections with regular folks outside of camera view. That’s really rare.
So…It saddens me that many ppl who attack him (or silently cosign) are the explicit beneficiaries of his advocacy and kindness. He has done so much for so many that folks don’t know about. And never asks anything in return. so, agree, disagree, whatever, but respect. – Susie Madrak
I’m sorry but I have to say it. Again, from my perspective, the elephant in the room is race. O’Reilly has no outrage with Dylan, Bono, Springsteen, or Cash getting invites to the White House when they have made similar stances, in song, as Common. Which begs the question: Why the (feigned) outrage on Fox? What is it about Common or the current White House that causes this angst when none has existed before? Is the difference based on rap music (a predominately Black art form)? Is it the notion that Blacks with guns are considered menacing in this culture? Is it that police are considered beyond reproach when it comes to the Black community (despite copious evidence of generational police brutality in our community)? Is it that Blacks are not allowed to question the authority of white or American institutions? Is it that Blacks cannot portend to anything that is not relatable to white culture? Is it simply the Black man in the White House occupying that space that is not relatable to some in the white culture? Do we as Blacks have to assimilate into white culture and strip away our culture before we can be accepted fully? I’ll even go as far as to say had Michael Eric Dyson or Jeff Johnson or you or I been allowed on O’Reilly’s show and made the same argument as Stewart, would the argument be taken seriously or would it have been dismissed out of hand? Is our commentary not worthy of consideration? Are we not Americans too? Is our story of continued oppression not American enough?
As Joe Madison (Sirius/XM 128) says atleast 3 times a day, “In America, we are culturally conditioned to believe that (anything) Black is inferior and white is superior. And the manifestation of that cultural conditioning is that blacks are underestimated, undervalued and marginalized.” In every aspect of life. At it’s core, I think this is the essence of racism today. As evidenced by the Common firestorm. And I never even heard the N-word once…
The portion of this piece that really struck me was the notion that the injustice alone is not enough for change. Only in the presence of “white interests” is there room for policy changes. This quote said it all:
“Given this political reality (the political reality being White middle class tax hikes that would be necessary to continue state funded mass incarceration), it is hardly a surprise to read a headline that says, “N.A.A.C.P. Joins With Gingrich in Urging Prison Reform,” rather than the other way around. If there were ever an illustration of Professor Bell’s theory that whites will support racial justice only to the extent that it is in their interests, this would seem to be it.”
Even with my political leanings and racial consciousness, this article focused and expanded the extent of white supremacy, for me ,in this country and, I hate to admit, left me a bit nonplussed, frankly. I always say, “race and racism is everywhere” but this really proves the point. Martin Luther King Jr’s quotes below continue to make the point…
In 1963, in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” he chastised white ministers for their indifference to black suffering: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.’ ”
He continued: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Such language would not have tested well in a focus group. Yet it helped to change the course of history.
Those who believe that righteous indignation and protest politics were appropriate in the struggle to end Jim Crow, but that something less will do as we seek to dismantle mass incarceration, fail to appreciate the magnitude of the challenge. If our nation were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s, we would have to release 4 out of 5 people behind bars. A million people employed by the criminal justice system could lose their jobs. Private prison companies would see their profits vanish. This system is now so deeply rooted in our social, political and economic structures that it is not going to fade away without a major shift in public consciousness. – Michelle Alexander
It’s not enough to be against racism. Without actively pursuing it’s end and offering shared power and responsibility, you are only propagating the negativity that is racism…
At the signing of the historic Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965 striking down the discriminatory practices many states had put in place to prohibit Blacks from exercising their right to vote, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.” Many Americans think of the fight for voting rights as a struggle that was settled once and for all during the Civil Rights Movement in that celebrated “triumph for freedom,” and is now a piece of history. But that’s a dangerous assumption. While the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, language, ethnicity, religion and age, there is still no law that affirmatively guarantees citizens the right to vote. Just as we are experiencing a quiet but systematic rise in school segregation across the country, many people don’t realize that there is once again a quiet but systematic movement that would deny many African Americans and other American citizens the ability to vote with 21st century versions of old exclusionary practices. – Marian Wright Edelman
From my perspective, these are some of the truest words I’ve ever heard. I, for one, will not apologize for conscious, truthful, hard-hitting, soulful Black art…and those that produce it. This manufactured controversy surrounding Common is just another iteration of right-wing racism where the mirror is positioned in front of the collective face of the majority culture and they refuse to see themselves. They refuse to hear any critique of this country from people of color. The same people that built this country and have been and continue to be oppressed by systems, institutions and people that continue to undervalue, underestimate and marginalize us. They continue to talk about “personal responsibility”, all the while dismissing their own as it relates to race and its continued effects. And they have the power to do so. Racism at its finest.
Conservative/Republican/Tea Party members will try to find ANYTHING to be outraged over. This is another in a long line of made up controversies that right wing media has manufactured. Let’s be clear, I don’t care for a lot of the music porported by the right wing media. Some of it I find highly offensive and racist but that never seems to be an issue with them being invited to a Republican Whitehouse or Hannity’s show. Likewise, the President’s choice of vistors doesn’t have to be ok’d by a constantly nagging and perpetually inane right wing media. And its time the media stop being led around by the nose as the right-wing media manufactures another nothing story. After Van Jones, Sherrod, NPR, Planned Parenthood, ACORN, Black Panthers, birthers, deathers, Donald Trump and the like, you would think they would learn.
Common has been an advocate of Obama’s since his presidential campaign. Get a life. And listen to some good music while you’re at it… Check the lyrics.
This is the follow-up to Part 1…. (make sure you read the previous post as well…)
It should also be noted that White people (good grief! I hate repeating myself over and over, but some things bear repeating) set up the social institutions in this country in the first place and have continued to run them ever since. So every single problem we have in this country is directly or indirectly attributable to that simple fact. Face it or not, folks. White-controlled social institutions — including the family, education, religion, politics and the economy — are the base foundation from which everything else (bad or good) emanates. Holding Black folks responsible for practices, attitudes, and systems they had NO part of setting up and have not ever even had the least part in running is (1) blaming the victim and (2) sweeping White power under the rug.
Interestingly enough, this is EXACTLY the world view the White Supremacist system (it’s a system, folks, not a person or group of persons) wants folks like Ma (and everybody else) to espouse. It works to keep White Supremacy in place to convince as many as possible (including as many people of color as possible) that Black folks are the problem. That Black inferiority is endemic to their nature. That they can’t help it. That White people and their institutions and their “values” (such as money being more important than life, for example, or the idea that torture is reasonable to accomplish one’s agenda?) are just superior to all others — especially any that might be conceived by anyone else.
Again, the N-word is not necessary for racism to exist…
Obama: Affirmative Action Figure
“Obama had horrendous grades! He only got into Harvard via affirmative action! Good white students have tried to get into Harvard, and they were bounced, but the Negro who wasn’t even trying got in!”
Now, a lot of you with common sense probably thought, “Um … if Obama got in with affirmative action and became the president, isn’t that the best advertisement for affirmative action ever?” Sure. That is, if you cared about the historical context for affirmative action in the first place. Other people don’t agree. They look at affirmative action as yet another way to cater to minorities — you know, like white women, who are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action.
Birther Mania
It’s not really necessary for me to explain how this particular talking point works. It’s been explained ad nauseam by many. Even the way Trump explains why he was so interested in seeing the president’s birth certificate is a classic game of “Look at the other! He might not be from here! His real certificate might say he’s a Muslim!”
And God forbid that it says that, because of course, when you’re born into the world, you’re forced to keep the religion (even super-evil religions like Islam) of your parents. What? That’s not how it works? Oh. Let’s move on.
Relations With “the Blacks”
We all shook our heads and did a collective “Really?” when Trump bragged about his great relationship with “the blacks.” This statement was immediately followed by Trump’s commentary about how it’s “frightening” that so many blacks support Obama.
“The blacks” went full swing on him for this, but one group wasn’t upset at all — the white Americans who have thought or perhaps even talked out loud about the blacks: “That doesn’t make him racist. I mean, come on! You’re going to attack Trump for a simple slip of the tongue? This is what’s wrong with the liberals and their political correctness. White people can’t say anything!”
And voilà. Support for Trump stays amazingly high within conservative circles, while the media, which are largely responsible for his rise in the GOP ranks, act flabbergasted by his popularity. We aren’t postracial, no matter how much everyone says we’ve gotten past our race issues or denies the racist language of so many in the GOP — including Trump. Perhaps there should be some rephrasing: The folks who have gotten past race are largely the same folks who didn’t have to deal with it in the first place. Privilege has its, well, privileges.
Jesse Jackson recently came out and said that the Birther nonsense is racial code. Is it really code when anyone who’s paying attention can plainly see it? The media are so afraid of playing the “race card” that when something is actually about race, they stand impotent.
It’s this failure to call Trump and others like him on what they’re doing that keeps Trump looking like a contender within the GOP presidential-nominee race. And if Trump isn’t aware of the code he’s dropping, he’s more ignorant than we could ever imagine.
Many people, myself included, are full of rage after the president’s birth certificate press conference and the crowing from Trump that immediately followed. I’ve had friends shed tears over the overt racism seen in Trump’s messaging and its delivery through the mainstream media. Some people have asked, “What do we do now?”
I think the answer is simple: We hold the media responsible. Rage without action equals complacency. We can’t allow this type of backward messaging to go unchallenged. We can’t be afraid of the race card because, for millions and millions, it’s not a card. It’s their life.
To allow the silencing of real issues out of discomfort or fear is unacceptable. Not calling out racism doesn’t make the act less racist. It makes an entire race of people less American. – Elon James White
Agreed. Personally, I wouldn’t have characterised Mendenhall’s tweets on 9/11 or the killing of bin Laden as a “poor decision” because I assume he was smart enough to weigh the consequences of his tweets and it must have been worth it to tweet HIS truth as opposed to staying silent…but I generally agree with everything written here. I was especially stricken by the quote, “…the new definition of insanity (as opposed to the other one that deals with repetition of an old act expecting new results) should be expecting a group of people to be loyal to a country that hasn’t treated them well. It’s like an abusive or neglectful lover getting angry when their partner doesn’t throw them a birthday party; shouldn’t you just be glad she didn’t set your house on fire and leave?” because I don’t think some people of the majority culture get the emotion behind this type of writing. Generally, there is a lack of the ability to see the world with the same eyes as those that have been oppressed in this country. Oppression is not a “one-off” event. There are deep scars and emotional sequelae as the result of oppression. And we don’t spend enough time discussing it.
Speaking of, the treatment of President Obama is a prime example of the way Black people are treated as ‘less-than’ Americans. We are expected to pledge allegiance and commit our loyalties to this country, yet not made privy to the rights and privileges that are guaranteed to its citizens. A White athlete may have been slapped on the wrist and chided for his poorly timed thoughts, but it is unlikely that he would have been attacked in the way that Mendenhall has. If the persons who are so quick to denounce the running back had the same historically abusive relationship to this country, perhaps they would understand how easy it is to question it’s actions.While there is no universal Black American consciousness, there is a long history of Black reticence to accept what has been presented to us by the US government as indisputable truths. Why? Because we have been manipulated, lied to and abused by this country so long as we’ve been here. When we stand up and denounce our mistreatment, we hear “America’s the greatest country in the world! If you don’t like it, leave!” Spoken like a true patriot: someone so blindly loyal to this country- White supremacist patriarchy and all- that they can’t or don’t want to see the misdeeds it has committed against the Colored, the poor, the gay, the female, the immigrant…While I wish that this young man knew better than to use social media to express these particular thoughts, I’d be lying if I said I could blame him for feeling like he doesn’ know the entire story. Sadly, Mendenhall’s race made him a ‘less-than’ American before he opened his virtual mouth and his thoughts confirmed what a lot of folks felt in the first place: that he doesn’t love this country like a ‘real’ American ought to.But why should he?While Mendenhall’s words didn’t seem particularly patriotic, was he not exercising his right to freedom of speech? One of the many rights that the enemies of America seem to resent? One of the freedoms that those like Osama Bin Laden cite as evidence of this country’s evils and reason that we should be taken down? Rashard Mendenhall made the mistake of acting like an American and got a good old fashioned ‘Black wake-up call’. – Jamilah Lemieux (Sista Toldja)
For those that wanted the bin Laden photos released for purely ideological reasons and just because they HAVE to be on the opposite side of the President on every issue…
Since you want the bin Laden photos, should we release the Bush torture photos at Abu Ghraib too?? Be consistent.
The President has decided NOT to release the photos of Osama Bin Laden. Good for him. We killed him; did the DNA test on him, he’s dead, that’s the end of it.
So, why are so many GOPers ‘insisting ‘ that the President release the photos of Bin Laden?
I could go into a long treatise about why, but I think I’ll leave the explanation to our poster coop10, who dropped this knowledge yesterday, and all I could say when I read it was AMEN.
So, why are some GOPers saying that the President should release the photos?:
ANSWER:
coop10
Let’s not get it twisted. It’s not about the photo of Bin Laden. It’s about exerting power over President Obama. “Boy, since you got Bin Laden on your own without our (Obama-haters of all stripes) input, you bedda damn well put them pictures out.”
What President Obama did, ladies and gentlemen was to emasculate the white man, and they are furious about his doing so. If they can force his hands on those photos, then they can maintain their control over him and the narrative. But he trumped them this time with the mother of all trumps –the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
But what do white men do? They minimize, denigrate, doubt, deride, scorn,and equivocate.
“Obama hesitated.”
“He didn’t give Bush credit.”
“He just signed off on the mission.”
“He didn’t release the photos. ”
“We don’t know if he’s really dead.”
That a black man with the name of Barack Hussein Obama achieved the ultimate white male fantasy –killing America’s number one enemy–is unforgivable to white men. Obama’s achievement rendered the white man impotent, and so they try to reclaim their power –by demanding the pictures….“Give me those pictures, boy.”But the President of the United States, Barack Obama, won’t give them the chance to assume their white machismo. Instead, he says that we don’t do trophies. We don’t do heads on spikes. We don’t do drunken frat boy stunts.
The black president is rewriting the rules on manhood and American-ness, and the white boys can’t stand it. But after the slap down of Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, the release of his birth certificate and the killing of Bin Laden, President Obama stands as a man among boys– white boys — so they better grow up, in a hurry.
Is this picture a manifestation of racism in America?
The picture and the stats don’t lie…
I took a look at an ABC News picture of President Barack Obama sitting in a Situation Room with lead advisers watching the assassination of Obama bin Laden. Everyone had a tense look on their face, as 10 years of hard work suddenly came down to the wire. I couldn’t help but notice, as I scanned all the faces across the room, that there were only two women present (Hillary Clinton and another woman in the back), and one bi-racial black man (President Obama). Every other person in the room was a white male.
What startles me the most is that millions of other Americans can look at this picture and see absolutely nothing wrong with it. The “white guy’s club” has always been the status quo in leadership positions.
It appears that this problem doesn’t just exist in government, it exists in academia, corporate America and nearly every other institution in our nation. Most interesting is that no one seems to care or take the matter seriously. Quite a few universities and corporations love to use the word “diversity” as if it were some kind of intellectual toilet paper, but most of them don’t actually practice anything close to what they preach.
A study by the Alliance for Board Diversity has found that not much has changed over the last 100 years as it pertains to the presence of women and minorities on corporate boards. Sure, people of color have made some advances, but we are still stuck with an apartheid system as it pertains to the non-white male presence in key decision-making positions.
“While research points decisively to the benefits of a diverse boardroom— including enhanced financial performance—white men continue to dominate corporate boards
and have, in fact, increased their presence since 2004. Women and minorities are still vastly underrepresented,” said the report.
According to the group’s most recent survey, white males hold 72.9% of the total number of seats on Fortune 100 corporate boards, and white women hold another 14.5%. Therefore, only 12.6% of the seats are held by members of underrepresented minority groups. African-Americans hold a total of 6.3% of the seats, although they represent 13% of the population. Hispanics and Native American citizens are also shut out almost completely. – Dr Boyce Watkins
First, let me say that I aspire to write my thoughts down on paper with the effectiveness and illustration that Ta-Nehisi Coates does.
That being said, this column is exactly my feelings on the birther issue. The issue itself is profoundly disconcerting and disheartening for me because it shows that we do live in two different worlds…and race is the dividing line. Conversations that I have with my boys are the same conversations that my mother had with me and my siblings and her mother had with her and her siblings. As the saying goes, “You will have to work twice as hard to get half as much as your white counterpart.” This is part of the war that Black parents wage everyday…TODAY…in this country that blames the poor for their condition. This is the battle we have been fighting since this country’s inception. The birther issue is the modern day reincarnation. And if the first Black president is not immune, with his credentials…then what about me or my sons…???
One of things that always amazed me about the reaction to the Poundcake Speech was the assumption among pundits that Cosby was somehow bravely stating truths which the black community didn’t want to address. This is the sort of thing that happens when you have a pundit-class more interested in abstract thought experiments, than actually going into black neighborhoods, or really, any neighborhood that might be unfamiliar.In point of fact, every black parent I know is at war with their children in a way that white parents are not. I grew up in house where the history of race and racism was the air. But concurrent to that history was the deeply-held belief that American racism was never an excuse for cynicism, anti-intellectualism, thuggism or nihilism. My parents were conscious. But when I was failing my way through school, I don’t recall them ever raising their clenched fists and exclaiming “Damn the white man.”
To the contrary, there was a deep-seated belief that educating yourself was essential, and that hard work ultimately prevails. Whatever their broader critiques, it was that essential faith that united them with the rest of the country. Preaching that faith is a lot easier when you have actual examples to point to. In terms of external examples (outside of the family) there are no better models, right now, than Barack and Michelle Obama.
What many white people fail to realize is that though Barack Obama and his family are unique to them, they are deeply familiar to black people. Put differently, they are from our particular neighborhood. I think back to Michelle Obama’s own words:
“People have never met a Michelle Obama,” the soon-to-be first lady said toward the end of our interview. “But what they’ll come to learn is that there are thousands and thousands of Michelle and Barack Obamas across America. You just don’t live next door to them, or there isn’t a TV show about them.”
But we do live next door to them, and the TV show is our lives. We went to church and played in summer leagues with people like them. I went to college with people like them. This is not to slight Barack Obama’s truly remarkable story, nor the indispensable labor of the people who raised him. But there were biracial black people with wild stories all across my college campus. The first girl I ever really loved was raised by her Jewish mother, in all-white small town in Pennsylvania. She was unique, but not because of her background. The strictures of segregation gifted black people with the particular beauty of being a deeply interwoven diaspora on to ourselves, rendering “Black” into a broad country.
To see that country manifested in the White House is the sort of boon that you can’t really attach to statistics. But for those of us who are waging the fight against a crippling cynicism, who are urging our children on, who visit schools and begin our addresses with, “I remember when I just like you,” the First Family is perhaps the greatest weapon in our arsenal.
From the perspective of race, we don’t object to people trying to defeat Obama. We don’t object to Hillary claiming he’s soft. We don’t object to McCain claiming he’s a celebrity. We don’t object to the GOP calling him a tax and spend liberal. We don’t even object to Mitt Romney aspiring to hang him. (We know what you meant, Mitt.)
But when broad sections of this country foolishly follow a carnival barker in the ugly tradition of attacking black citizenship rights, when pundits shriek that Obama’s successes are simply the result of the misguided largess of white people, they undermine our most intimate war. They undermine the notion that someone familiar to that kid on the corner could legitimately reach the highest levels of the country, that someone like that kid’s Aunt could be the First Lady. They undermine this country’s social contract, and the “hard work pays” message of my parents. And to that we object.
For if they will not take as legitimate a magna cum laude from their highest institutions, if they will not accept a man who tells black kids to cut off the video games and study, who accedes to their absurd requests one week, and slays their demons the next, who will they accept? Who among us would they ever believe? -Ta-Nehisi Coates
A factually non-issue was permitted become a national issue, not because of Donald Trump and the media. No, this was the ultimate result, of the silence and tacit acquiescence of white political, religious, and community leaders, especially leaders of faith-based organizations, who sat, said and did nothing to counter this insidious new form of 21st-century racism. The silence and abnegation of moral leadership, by persons whom we should have otherwise expected to publicly to challenge this growing “birther” issue, is a stain on the conscience of our nation. – Clarence B. Jones
Racism = Prejudice + power. The power to legislatively and politically supress and oppress based on skin color. When those disproportionally affected negatively by your policy are of a particular color (or class) you are practicing racism (or classism). It’s also necessary to mention that no epithet was used in the process and their are political & legislative winners in these policies…and they are, for the most part, members of the white majority culture.
Proponents of these restrictive laws allege that they’re necessary to curb vote fraud but can proffer no real empirical data to support their claims. The evidence makes plain that vote fraud is a myth and few states can put forth examples of individuals impersonating the dead or undocumented persons casting ballots at the polls. The baseless claims of vote fraud serve only to stir up anxieties and spark unnecessary hysteria.
And, the racially charged and xenophobic atmosphere in which many of these efforts are unfolding is undeniable. In a recent legislative hearing, Kansas State Rep. Connie O’Brien claimed that she could tell that a person was illegally in the country because of their “olive complexion.”
In Georgia, during a hearing leading up to the adoption of a restrictive proof of citizenship requirement, State Senator George Hooks, remarked that “we’ve been invaded by people who were born and raised elsewhere. They don’t share our language. They don’t share our culture…. They eat foreign food…. They don’t share the same manners we share.” Both states now have burdensome photo id and proof of citizenship requirements in place. – Kristen Clarke
Racism, as seen in 2011. No N-word necessary. Racism was never soley about a slur. Racism = Prejudice + Power…
A MUST READ article.
Jonathan Blanks reflects on the history of black disenfranchisement, coining his “new nigger rule” inspired by comedian Paul Mooney:
A NNR is a legal or administrative procedure which is enforced with benign pretense, yet has the demonstrable effect of abetting racism, prejudice, or otherwise just screwing the black guy. Historical examples include, but are not limited to, the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes, and literacy/constitutional knowledge tests to vote. -Adam Serwer
In 2011, we still have this type of elected official with the power to legislate over people (minorities) with whom they have much disdain. She should not be close to any of the reigns of political power. Period. The fact that she is proves that racism today is alive and well. And no N-word is necessary.
Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern is known for ruffling a few feathers with her politically incorrect statements, and her latest remarks are no different.
Kern, a Republican, was reported as having said that blacks don’t work as hard as whites, and helped the Oklahoma House of Representatives pass a constitutional amendment yesterday that would eliminate affirmative action in state government.
Rep. T.W. Shannon, the sponsor of the bill, explained the reasoning behind the bill: “While discrimination exists, I don’t think affirmative action has been as successful as we like to believe.”
Kern said that minorities earn less than whites do because they don’t put worth the same amount of initiative and aren’t as motivated as whites to succeed.
“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”
She also said women earn less because “they tend to spend more time at home with their families.”
Kern is known for her extremist opinions — from saying homosexuality is more dangerous than terrorism=fBmCA4z8Yzc to introducing legislation to force teachers to question evolution. – Dexter Mullins
Forget what you heard!!! Racism is a “white” phenomenon…it is not purported or perpetrated by Blacks, it is not given life by Blacks calling it out, it is not something Blacks can stop. We as Blacks do not control racism. Racism is controlled by those that benefit politically or economically or socially or wade in it’s privilege with their silent complicity.
Years ago at a party, a fete filled with the gorgeous mosaic that is New York City, an African American friend told me a joke. “What do they call a black doctor in the South?” she asked. Before I could respond, she said, “Nigger!” And she said it in that slavemaster-from-“Roots” kinda way for dramatic and comedic effect. We both howled.
The joke was as ugly as the word that is its punchline. But it voiced a truth all black professionals feel deep in their core. No matter how hard we work. No matter how hard we play by the rules. No matter how much we prove through grades, degrees or just plain success, we are less-than. And to be clear: less than white people. No matter what we do, we will never measure up. We will never truly have it made.
What made me — and countless others, blacks and whites, I’ve heard from — so sad yesterday was that even as president of the United States, a job he worked hard to attain and will have to work even harder to keep, Barack Obama was not immune to the reality of my friend’s crude joke. His legitimacy as president was challenged by folks who doubt his American citizenship. But even after the racist birther conspiracy was once again proven false yesterday with the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate, Donald Trump dug deeper into the racist rabbit hole by questioning Obama’s academic achievement.
Lawrence O’Donnell last night went right at the loathsome dog-whistle politics employed by Trump.
“Trump turned from attacking one man’s birth certificate to trying to undermine the acceptance of the academic credentials of not just Barack Obama,” O’Donnell said, “but of African Americans generally.”
And with that sentence, O’Donnell spoke to why I and countless other African Americans felt wounded by what Trump did. As I explained on O’Donnell’s show in response, we felt wounded because in 2011 you can work hard, play by the rules, achieve great things academically and professionally and still have people look at you as less-than, look at you as not deserving of the things you worked hard to achieve, look at you as unqualified despite plenty of evidence to the contrary because you are black — even if you are the leader of the free world.
After the early victories in Obama’s quest for the 2008 Democratic nomination, young whites drawn to this transformational figure took to chanting “race doesn’t matter.” There have been debates and countless column inches devoted to whether we now live in a post-racial society as many insisted. What happened yesterday — from the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate to Trump’s taunts about the president’s academic achievement — should show everyone that we do not live in a post-racial America. Not when even the White House can’t be a refuge from racism. And not when someone who proclaims to have “a great relationship with the blacks” gleefully proves every day that that’s a lie. -Jonathan Capehart
Race is EVERYWHERE…because it is the original sin of this country. And those with the power and control to stop it have ignored it while continuing to reap its benefits. I will not ignore it. I cannot.
And it seems even the President cannot escape it either…
Worse than all of this, was that just like the late baseball legend Jackie Robinson before him, President Obama has to put up with the insults, lunacy, and outright bigotry with a smile. He can’t lose his cool because he is the first. He must handle himself with grace and class or the next black candidate for president won’t stand a chance.
For many of us who are educated African-Americans of a new generation, we get it. We live it. We know what it feels like to be the first in our firms, corporations, universities, or industries. We know coded race talk when we see it. We know what it feels like to be delegitimized, and questioned, stared down in a funny way regardless of the accolades and laurels of our degrees or achievements.
And we hurt for the president yesterday.
We tweeted and Facebooked, texted and emailed in total shock and awe. I think it took a good five minutes for my younger brother, a minister, and my mom to calm me down on the phone as I was yelling at the top of my lungs about how appalled I was that the president of the United States was being treated in such a shameful manner. I truly felt off center — like I had personally been kicked. Once we stopped and prayed, I was able to put pen to paper and begin to write down my thoughts.
In a March 2008 interview with The Washington Times, former U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice said that America was still suffering from “its great birth defect”. By that she meant that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because it was founded on the backs of black slaves, who were legally denied the very opportunities of freedom and equality that our nation was founded upon. The very rights afforded to whites, and stripped from blacks for hundreds of years. You do the math. Her point: racism has vestiges, consequences, legacies.
As I have now reflected on all of the coverage and conversation I saw on television and social networking on this issue yesterday, once again race was everywhere. It is a defect — one we have yet to acknowledge truly or be brave enough to confront. I am not talking about marches or protest. I am talking about candid dialogue and sharing that opens our hearts and connects us as humans in a way that moves us forward as equals.
African-Americans could feel and see it playing out. It was so familiar. But many Americans denied it was even an issue at all. Some feel Trump and the birthers have a right to see more proof that the president is indeed a U.S. citizen. They find it okay to question “how” and “why” he got into an Ivy League school, even though he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was president of the Harvard Law Review.
I have come to conclude, sadly that we are cowards when it comes to race as Attorney General Eric Holder said because some of my fellow Americans refuse to connect that dots, even when all of the proof is right in their face. I struggle now; with how do we ever bridge the seemingly growing divide on race.
So what’s the real issue here? Barack Obama was admittedly a kid who had some challenges growing up. A biracial male who never really knew his father. He tried drugs, he rebelled a bit, and then he woke up, discovered himself and found his way. Yes, he transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University. No doubt affirmative action played a role. In the 1980s college deans were starved for promising if even somewhat wayward black males like the president. They wanted to open doors for these young men, give them the same access that generations of reckless, restless, feckless and sometimes law breaking young white men had enjoyed for centuries. Their bet–their social experiment– whatever you want to call it paid off, handsomely.
In the final analysis, at some point as the president said we will have to turn our attention to the serious issues facing America. The circus-like media atmosphere and nonsense have polluted our thinking and distorted our sense of what matters. We cannot grow stronger, richer and faster as a nation if we continue on this course of hate and prejudice. It is rooted in fear, misunderstanding and a stubborn unwillingness to confront what really ails us — race, and how it lives just beneath the surface always waiting to exact a price and press a burden on those who want to be rid of that burden most of all. – Sophia Nelson
A powerful op-ed from Goldie Taylor of thegrio.com. The story of one of the untold millions of Blacks who have been oppressed and how those issues are alive and well today. For you and me. And even for the President of the United States…
“Show me your papers!”
Major Blackard, then just 19 years old, dug into his trousers in search of his wallet. He padded his jacket, but could not find his billfold.
“Sir, I done left my wallet…” Blackard said. Before he could finish his sentence, the young man was posted against the brick wall, cuffed and taken to the St. Louis city jail. Unable to prove his identity, he would spend the next 21 days in a cramped, musty cell. That’s where his older brother Matt found him, beaten and bloodied. Matt returned with Major’s employer later that day, wallet and identification card in hand, to post bond.
The year was 1899. Major Blackard was my great, great grandfather.
The real crime, as Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Blackmon points on in his seminal work Slavery by Any Other Name, was that my grandfather was a colored man in America.
This morning, as White House staffers released copies of the president’s long form birth certificate, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something very ugly was going on. For the first time in recorded history, a sitting president of the United States found it necessary to produce his original birth certificate for public inspection. Not once, in 235 years, have we ever demanded proof that our president was born on American soil.
In a stunning display of unchecked ego, Donald Trump quickly hosted a news conference, during which he took credit for forcing President Obama’s hand. The sometime real estate developer, socialite, author and television personality went on to caution onlookers to let “experts” examine the document. Lest the president continue perpetrating was Trump has called potentially the “biggest fraud in American history.”
For weeks, the thrice married, comb-over construction magnate has enthralled news reporters with his apocalyptic ranting. Trump openly questioned whether President Obama belonged in the White House, a boardroom, or even an Ivy League lecture hall.
We used all manner of excuses to justify giving Trump as much oxygen as he could suck up. Rarely, if ever, did we press him to produce a shard of evidence to substantiate his wild claims. We smiled gingerly as he all but called us stupid sycophants who were in cahoots with an illegitimate president. We allowed him to hold court on issues on which he clearly has no knowledge and no credibility, beyond the limo ride briefings he apparently receives from his merry band of “yes men.”
Trump didn’t just want the birth record. He wants the president to release his college transcripts. “How did such a bad student get into Harvard?,” Trump keeps asking. The implication is the Barack Obama was the beneficiary of affirmative action and took the place of a more qualified white student. Apparently, graduating magna cum laude from the nation’s most prestigious law school and being named editor of the Harvard Law Review — the institution’s highest student honor — is not enough for him.
It never is for people like Trump.
“If he gets off the phone, or gets off his basketball court or whatever he’s doing at the time,” Trump said. “I mean he should be focused on OPEC and getting those prices down.”
When they tell you this isn’t racial, don’t believe them. This controversy was constructed solely as a way to de-legitimize the presidency of a black man. Those who question the location of Barack Obama’s birth are the very same people who would pack up and move out of the neighborhood if someone like me moved in next door.
When they say they want to take their country back, they mean from us.
According to a recent Public Policy Polling survey, a stunning 51 percent of Republicans believe the president wasn’t born in the United States. In Mississippi, nearly half of all Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. If they had their way, not only would Obama not be president, he never would have been born.That’s how far we have not come.
Some 112 years after my grandfather was snatched from a street corner in the central west end section of St. Louis, it seems we still need to prove our right to be here.
I thought we were better than this. – Goldie Taylor
…or maybe we should call it what it really is… Racism. By not calling it what it actually is, the perpetrators are allowed to hide under a term more politically correct but less accurate and they are allowed to skip the scrutiny that they deserve…and the process continues for the next racist.
Let’s Just Call It Race Baiting
“The one radical thing about Barack Obama is his race, his name. Of course, there is nothing innately radical about being black or having Hussein as middle name; what is radical is that he has those attributes and is sitting in the Oval Office. And even now, more than two years after the fact, this is deeply disturbing to many people, and, at the same time, the easiest way to arouse visceral opposition to him. Let’s be even plainer: to do what Trump has done (and he is only the latest and loudest and most spectacularly hirsute) is a conscious form of race-baiting, of fear-mongering. And if that makes Donald Trump proud, then what does that say for him? Perhaps now he will go away, satisfied that this passage has sufficiently restored his fame quotient and television ratings. The shame is that there are still many more around who, in the name of truth-telling, are prepared to pump the atmosphere full of poison.” – David Remnick
At what point does the trend become a pattern? At what point do we accept the reallity that Republicans really want to suppress the vote of the opposition party. And when do we understand that these policies negatively impact Blacks and other minorities and the poor and hence is a move to control and oppress based on skin color and class through the legislative process… What do you call this. What is the correct term? Racism & Classism. And the Republicans are pushing these policies…
“Less than a year before the 2012 presidential voting begins, Republican legislatures and governors across the country are rewriting voting laws to make it much harder for the young, the poor and African-Americans — groups that typically vote Democratic — to cast a ballot.
Spreading fear of a nonexistent flood of voter fraud, they are demanding that citizens be required to show a government-issued identification before they are allowed to vote. Republicans have been pushing these changes for years, but now more than two-thirds of the states have adopted or are considering such laws. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights lawyers, correctly describes the push as “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”
A powerful op-ed from Goldie Taylor of thegrio.com. The story of one of the untold millions of Blacks who have been oppressed and how those issues are alive and well today. For you and me. And even for the President of the United States…
The Enclave 