Blackonomics
By James Clingman
Coalescence or Obsolescence; what’s it gonna be?
July 2008
On June 6, 2008, I had the privilege of speaking at the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce’s (MDCC) Business Empowerment Networking Series, thanks to Terry Wilson, Director of Operations, and Bill Diggs, President. I remain quite impressed with their professionalism and expertise. Having worked with many Black Chambers of Commerce across the country, I can say with confidence that Bill Diggs and his staff are right up there at the top of my list. More important is the fact that Bill’s leadership is reflected not only in his passion for his job but also in those who work for the MDCC; Diggs is an intelligent and dedicated brother who understands the power and importance of partnerships and collaboration, which cannot be overemphasized among Black people.
During my stay In Miami, I also had the opportunity to spend some time with the local President of Collective Banking Group, Dr. Joaquin Willis, and another friend of mine from Haiti, Jean Gervais. Once again, our conversation centered on working together, forming coalitions and mutually beneficial relationships.
Coalition-building is the best way for Black people to make the kind of progress we need to make in this country, especially when it comes to economic empowerment thus, the title of this article. Someone said a long time ago that Black people were swiftly becoming obsolete. From the agricultural economy to the industrial and mass production economy Black folks, in some cases, had it going on. Many individual Blacks did quite well with jobs in those areas. As we moved to the technology/information economy and now into the knowledge-based economy, the rules for survival have changed.
Are Black people becoming obsolete? I believe it was Marcus Garvey who said, “All the shoes have been shined and all the cotton has been picked;” he went on to suggest that Black people were no longer needed by white folks, therefore, if we did not change our ways when it came to business development we would indeed become obsolete. Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Garvey spoke of a time when we would have to consider the question if we did not awaken from our deep sleep and our dependence on the largess of others to care for us.
In my previous article I wrote about the Nationalist Black Leadership Coalition (NBLC). Initially it was called the Nationalist Black Leadership Council. The members decided to change the “Council” to “Coalition” because we did not want potential members to think the NBLC was some kind of hierarchal organization where a few “leaders” sat in authority and offered advice to the masses. No, we made a deliberate effort to be inclusive of all Black people, and we wanted to connote the value of coalescence among Black organizations and Black causes.
The NBLC is, in fact, a coalition of Black organizations and individuals who not only understand the importance of coalescence but are also willing to make the requisite sacrifices and do the work necessary for victory. I ask you again to go to www.bringbackblack.org and join the NBLC because together we are stronger.
Coalition-building is paramount, especially in this day and age, just like it was when Black people were outwardly treated like animals at worst and like third-class citizens at best. Our predecessors knew that in order to survive and thrive they had to join forces; they had to subdue their egos; they had to work together in support of one another; and they had to maximize their individual resources by developing collective strength. The results of their actions were Black business enclaves second-to-none. Can you say Black Wall Street?
In today’s world of instant everything, especially the Internet, we have the unlimited opportunity to work collectively toward building our own economic and social infrastructure. We can have virtual cities, economic enclaves, channels of communication, business ventures, charitable efforts, educational venues, financial assistance, investment initiatives, and many other advantages. But we will only have those things if we work together, if we coalesce rather than allow ourselves to become obsolete.
It is so important to our future that we set aside the envy and jealousy, the strife and acrimony, the ego-tripping and back-stabbing, and the psychological and physical warfare against one another. We must be willing to meet one another at our point of commonality and realize that none of us are safe from attack, none of us are above the rest of us, and none of us are immune from the lure of individual gain at the expense of our collective enslavement. If we learned to lean on one another more, as a result of having the proper relationships with one another, our collective strength would multiply exponentially.
There is a CD that I have written about called, Bring Black Back, by the MAAT Youth Group in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I asked you to purchase a copy some weeks ago. On that CD there is a spoken word piece by Adrian Curry that educates us on the work of Marcus Garvey. (I reiterate, every Black household should a copy of this CD.) Adrian ends his tribute to Garvey with this: “Wake up, wake up! If you don’t do what other races have done; if you don’t do what other nations have done; you, sir, will die!” Of course, Brother Marcus was talking to his people, Black people. He was imploring them to coalesce and guard against becoming obsolete.
What’s gonna be, brothers and sisters, “Coalescence or Obsolescence”? The choice is ours.
SHOULD WE BE WORRIED ABOUT THE DECLINING BLACK MARITAL BIRTH RATE?
By Algernon Austin
July 2008
It is difficult to understand the current changes in the black family because many different things are happening at the same time. Many people know that the percent of black births that are out-of-wedlock is very high, but few people know that there are three different reasons why this is the case.
Most people know this one: there are a large number of black single parent families. But one rarely hears discussions about the other two: the low black marital birth rate and the high rate of black adults who are single and without children. If married black women had babies at the rate they did in the past and single black adults married and also had babies, the percent of black births that are out-of-wedlock would drop significantly because there would be many more in-wedlock births.
It is important to realize that the "percent of births" is not a birth rate. The birth rate is the number of births for every 1,000 women in a specific category. The last marital birth rates calculated by the National Center for Health Statistics were for 2002. In 2002, the black marital birth rate was 64.9 births for every 1,000 married black women. The white marital birth rate was 88.2 for every 1,000 married white women. The black marital birth rate was 23.3 births less that the white rate. In the past, the black marital birth rate was higher than the white rate. Because there is such a low number of births among married black women, the percent of births to unmarried black women is especially high.
The percent of women ages 18 to 44 who were not married and have no children is higher for blacks than for whites. By my calculations from the American Community Survey, in 2006, 32.8 percent of white women in this age range were single without children. There were 6 percent more black women in this category, 38.8 percent. As recently as 1990, only 29.3 percent of black women in this age group were unmarried and without children.
Last year, scholars at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported that these single adults living alone were making up a larger share of the black middle class. Black middle-class adults, who in the past were married and with children, are now single and living alone. This development too is decreasing the number of marital births and therefore increasing the percent of births that are out-of-wedlock.
The changes in black family structure are far more complicated than most people realize. Few people know that there are three separate factors producing the high percent of births that are out-of-wedlock among blacks. Is the low birth rate for married black women a good thing or a bad thing? Should we be concerned about the increase in single black adults without children? We haven't asked these questions because there has been more hasty assumptions than serious data analysis about black families.
Find links to sources and more facts about black America at www.thorainstitute.com
Algernon Austin is the author of Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals are Failing Black America and Director of the Thora Institute LLC: Social Science Serving Black America.
OBAMA GATHERINGS DEBUNK MYTHS ABOUT SUPPORTERS
By Gwen Richardson
July 2008
On a past Saturday, Obama supporters held more than 4,000 house parties and other "Unite for Change" events across the nation. These gatherings launched the Obama campaign's 50-state voter registration drive, whose goal is to register millions of new voters for the November election.
I attended one of these house parties in Houston on Saturday and was struck by the sheer diversity of the approximately 30 people who were present. The event attracted people -- strangers to me and each other -- who found the event and registered for it online. The Obama campaign is truly a grassroots effort and his supporters are willing to take what could be perceived as a risk by opening their homes to complete strangers.
In terms of ethnicity, about half the attendees were White, about 40 percent were Black and there was one Hispanic couple. The age range was college students to senior citizens.
A Black couple hosted the event in a middle-class subdivision in Northwest Houston. The wife was a lovely woman who works for a major oil and gas company. The husband was an American citizen who, in the early '80s, immigrated from Kenya, the native country of Obama's father. He is actually a member of the elder Obama's same tribe, the Luo tribe, and from the same region in Kenya. Both said they had never worked in a political campaign nor contributed financially to one before, a sentiment that was voiced by nearly everyone who attended.
The highlight of the event was the one-hour session when each person talked about why he/she supported Obama. Generally, the Black people who were there said that Obama inspired them and represented a historic change for a better America. I expected this response based upon the 95 percent level of support Obama has in the Black community and the pride associated with his candidacy.
One Black woman had been a former Hillary supporter who believed it was time for a woman president. Her husband, who was an Obama supporter from the start, had been trying to persuade her for months. Her mind was changed after she listened to one of Obama's speeches in its entirety and she actually traveled to North Carolina to volunteer during that state's primary. One Black gentleman, originally from Costa Rica, had been an American citizen for many years. He said he had always voted, but Obama inspired him to get involved in the political process.
I was particularly intrigued by the responses from the White people who attended. One woman was a Canadian citizen, married to an American, who said that Obama was extremely popular among Canadians and represented a new direction in American domestic and foreign policy. Several of the attendees shared reflections on President John F. Kennedy and said they remembered the hope the nation felt when Kennedy was elected, as well as the devastation they felt following his assassination. All who mentioned Kennedy mentioned Obama in the same breath, saying he gave them the same kind of hope ? something that had been missing in American politics for the past 40 years.
One gentleman who was American born said he had lived overseas for much of the past 30 years, in both South America and the Middle East, that he had seen the devastating effects of American foreign policy on the poor, indigenous populations, and that Obama could bring a new approach to the international front. Another gentleman worked in corporate America, frequently traveled overseas, and said that America used to be admired by other nations and that Obama could restore that sense of admiration from others around the world.
One woman brought her 20-something daughter with her to the meeting. The mother mentioned that her son, who had moved from Houston to Chicago, had called her a few years ago when Obama ran for the Senate to tell her how much he admired the Illinois politician and believed he was going places politically. The son called last year to tell her he was going to Iowa to volunteer for the Obama campaign, once the Senator announced his presidential bid.
The daughter, who is a schoolteacher in one of Oakland, California's worst schools, said that her students were from underprivileged backgrounds, but that she liked Obama's policies regarding paying teachers what they are worth. She also said that his presidency could lift her students' ambitions and make them dream bigger dreams for themselves.
Everyone was universally against the war in Iraq and several mentioned the tragedy of the thousands who have died as a result of the lies that had been told to American citizens preceding the Iraqi occupation.
Despite the myths promoted by the media that Obama succeeded in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination largely as a result of his Black support, or that the only White people supporting him are college students and so-called "latte' drinking liberals," the folks at the house party on Saturday debunked those myths and represented a broad spectrum of America.
In fact, the media has promoted racial strife so much over the past 30 years that I, and millions of other Black people, didn't believe there were enough open-minded White people to make the election of Obama, or any Black presidential candidate, possible. I'm glad I was wrong about that.
Gwen Richardson is an entrepreneur and author based in Houston, Texas. Her new book is titled: Why African Americans Can't Get Ahead: And How We Can Solve It With Group Economics. Richardson is currently writing a book about the 2008 presidential election.
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From The Desk Of The Editor
I was trying to figure out the topic of July's "From the Desk of the Editor" column. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Something very outrageous happened, to me, which I found hard to believe and harder to accept; which has spurned my outrage and here's why.
WGBH-TV has a program called "Basic Black" which was known as "Say Brother" for many years. It is also an award winning Black-based television program. N.E. Informer decided to ask for their support, as we have done, with many other Black-based programs, around Boston.
N.E.Informer and I received their written response, "Thank you for your interest in Basic Black. We appreciate the many requests we receive for guest appearances but regretfully we cannot extend invitations for unsolicited appearances, which are unrelated to the content of the program. Thank you again for your interest in Basic Black and we wish you the very best in your journalistic endeavors."
Now, here is my first question, “what does unrelated to the content of program mean?" I researched on "Basic Black's" program content and what it represents? The pages of their website states: "About Basic Black- WGBH's Basic Black is Boston's longest-running weekly television program devoted exclusively to African American themes. Since 1968, Basic Black (formerly Say Brother) has reflected on the concerns and culture of African Americans through short-form documentaries, performances, and one-on-one conversations. Basic Black captures the stories and events that illuminate the African American experience in the Boston area and beyond."
Now, I must break down a few English words to make sure we are speaking the same language. *Note: All words are taken from Webster's Dictionary. Content: (1) The various issues, topics , or questions dealt with in speech, discussion, or a piece of writing. (2) The meaning or message contained in a creative work as distinct from its appearance, form, or style. (3)Material or ideas that are considered to be interesting, challenging, or worthwhile. Illuminate: (1) to provide somebody with knowledge or with intellectual or spiritual enlightenment. (2) To make something especially somebody's face look happy and animated. (3) To make something clear and easy to a understand and appreciate.
Now I'll compare Webster's meanings with Basic Black's response given about N.E. Informer and its Publisher and CEO, Ms. Doreen Wade, in a backhanded way. Basic Black says: "I and my business do not reflect to the content of Basic Black". Their content deals with speech, discussions or writings about the African American/Black theme, than doesn’t N.E. Informer's message speak on the African American/Black experience, provide African American's with knowledge and spiritual enlightenment and information difficult to obtain or unavailable, making access easier, comprehendible and useful to implement into everyday life?
What is the African American/Black theme? Can one person be THE spokesperson to make this decision for the whole African American/Black Community? At most their theme is African American/Black; it's the distinctive, recurring and unifying idea of Basic Black.
I ask you, is Basic Black saying in their response, I, Doreen Wade, is not African American/Black. Are they claiming that I, Doreen Wade and N.E. Informer are not a representation of the African American/Black Community, not providing knowledge to African American/Black people, does not contain a distinct African American/Black appearance and do not reflect the concerns and culture of the African American/Black Community?
After all is said and done, who is Doreen Wade, Publisher and CEO and what is N.E. Informer? Doreen Wade is definitely African American/Black and N.E. Informer was developed to disseminate information to the African American/Black community. I know Doreen Wade has the African American/Black experience just by being Black and living it each day. N.E. Informer does provide the African American/Black Community with culture and where to find it, information for their every day life experience and it uplifts, educates and informs the Black/African American Community.
How does Basic Black tell Doreen Wade and N.E. Informer they do not reflect the theme of a black-based program and is not black enough? Who sets the standards on blackness, being black enough or being too black and decides any African American/Black person does not reflect the black theme or image of what the African American/Black experience is, positive or negative?
In this case, is Basic Black's response based on the host, the producer, WGBH-TV hierarchy or, is it based on N.E. Informer's content matter? Could it really be based on one word we have not yet looked at, "Unsolicited". Unsolicited: "Given, sent or received without being requested." According to the definition, Doreen Wade and N.E. Informer must wait until they meet the standards of acceptance; wait until they are called upon. Know one's place, do not get out of it and don't your education in marketing and business promotions, to uplift one's own business.
Basic Black, and those within their own inner circles, are saying, they are the ones who set the standards of who is Black, suitable and of quality to appear on the show. And I thought WGBH-TV was public television!
So when I perform my responsibility, uplifting myself and my people, listening to all the talk of Black unity, Black economic development and other issues, it is for certain, within Boston anyway, it is only for particular African Americans/Blacks; not for all.
We need to stop complaining and blaming everything on the "white man" since we are our own biggest Economic Road-Blocks to success.
Wrong Answer
by Joseph C. Phillips
July 2008
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has promised Americans a new kind of politics – “change we can believe in.” Who could’ve suspected that the change he was referring to was a reversion to the failed policies of 30 years ago?
In response to the rising price of gasoline, the senator responded, "I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills."
For my middle class money, the senator gave the wrong answer to the first economic question. Go to the back of the line; no gold star for you.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed into law a windfall tax on big oil profits also hoping to use the money to subsidize the cost of rising energy prices.
The policy was a failure. The Congressional Research Service found that “the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%.” And what of all that revenue that was to pour into government coffers in order to give relief to American consumers, (who oddly enough were now burdened by higher gas prices and shortages)? It turns out that the tax was expensive to impose and equally as expensive to collect. Tax revenue dripped in rather than raining down. When the tax was finally and mercifully repealed, the New York Times summed up the policy thusly: “…when Americans waited two hours in gasoline lines and Saudi princes summered in Monaco, it seems almost quaint now."
It is remarkable how new liberals have convinced themselves that because their hearts are in the right place, the laws of economics (to say nothing of history) simply do not apply to them.
The senator’s answer does, however, reveal something about the basic tenets of new liberalism to whit: wealth is bad and always ill gotten – that is all wealth that is not their wealth. Further, they are committed to the redistribution of wealth over and above the stated goals of providing relief for the common man.
Obama, for instance, sniffs that lifting the ban on off shore drilling “is not something that's going to give consumers short-term relief, and it is not a long-term solution to our problems." If we can’t drill for oil and we can’t build nuclear energy plants, how can we achieve the independence from foreign oil that every president since Jimmy Carter has promised and failed to deliver? Of course, none of those other men promised to calm the seas and heal the world so perhaps Obama is up to a job the others were not.
In what can only be described as a truly cynical gesture the junior senator from Illinois recently voted for a farm bill that rewards corn based ethanol, which as it happens also drives up the price of everything from beef to beer.
Corn growers are reaping record profits. They have experienced a windfall if you will. The rising price of corn has also led to correspondingly high prices for wheat and barley and has sent the price of groceries soaring. Yet, there is no call for a windfall profits tax on corn growers who despite the increasing demand for corn are planting fewer acres this year than last. In fact, the senator wants to replace tax subsidies for the oil industry with tax subsidies for the ethanol producers. Most of these subsidies do not go to small family farms, but “big agriculture.”
Where is the relief for the common man? Most of us could stand to walk more and drive less, but none of us can stop eating. Of course, none of that matters so long as we punish big oil companies for making profits.
What remains unclear is what is new about demonizing “big oil” in order to earn populist points while at the same time supporting policies that hurt consumers? The answer is nothing. The new politics of Barack Obama smell an awful lot like the politics of old. And if it smells like bull, well…
Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like A White Boy” available wherever books are sold.
By H. Lewis Smith
July 2008
Juneteenth has come and gone, but while the scent of this day of celebration still lingers fresh in our noses and sits atop our foremost thoughts, now is the most opportune time to pause and reflect on the meaning and significance of this great occasion. Most certainly, Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration marking the “official” end of slavery—when, on June 19, 1865, the enslaved individuals of Galveston, Texas, were the last to be informed of the Emancipation Proclamation signed in 1863.
Enough can’t be said for the tremendous efforts put forth in acknowledging and giving much-deserved recognition to the tremendous travails, struggles and sacrifices experienced by our subjugated ancestors.
However, there does seem to have been one lacking factor: We are allowing a golden opportunity to slip by in not using this date to remind proponents of the n-word as to why the term needs to be banned, abolished from the vocabulary of all black African Americans, never again to flow from the lips of blacks towards other blacks—to be buried forever.
Before we were humanized, we were categorized as “n**gers”: a sub-human, three-fifths of a human being. Thus, this categorizing justified the dehumanizing, butchering and slaughtering of our ancestors. They were looked upon as innately inferior—a thing to be despised and disrespected; branded as bestial and savage, fit by nature for involuntary servitude; and considered ordained by God Himself for perpetual enslavement.
Proponents of the n-word are unknowingly spitting on the graves of their ancestors, slapping them in the face by defiling their sacred memories through embracing a word that embedded terror, fear, and total and complete chaos into their hearts and minds.
On Juneteenth, I heard one young man holler to another, “Happy n*gger day” in a jovial tone. When I heard the young man make this comment, a fire bolt of disgust boomeranged from point to point throughout my body. I was not completely removed by the fact that he used the term, although that was a fast-following second point of contempt, my primary issue was the fact that he could refer to such a day that earmarks almost four hundred years of struggle and scorn as if it’s okay and acceptable.
No race of people on the face of this earth fit the n-word description—nor has there ever been, and for any black person who finds this term acceptable to themselves and their progenitors is nothing short of certifying that the brainwashing job the white world perpetuated on the minds of many members of the black race was a resounding success.
Embracing the n-word is comparable to supporting and sanctioning all the brutal beatings, raping, slaughtering, butchering and heinous killings carried out on our subjugated forefathers. For every lash of flagrant punishment—physical and mental—struck upon our progenitors’ backs, for every rope of hate looped around their necks, for every woman and child unrightfully violated and molested, for each man mercilessly sodomized with hot pokers, and to each and every man and woman burned and boiled to the core while still breathing, proponents who have embraced the n-word have unknowingly and by proxy placed their stamp of approval on all of these malevolent and heinous acts.
Clearly, there are many who may support and participate in Juneteenth celebrations, yet think nothing of using the n-word. In such an instance, that act is nothing more than an effrontery to the hallowed and revered memories of our forefathers. And, the greatest travesty of all: We acknowledge and celebrate Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, as the date that the last of the slaves were finally set FREE. But yet, 143 years later, we are still mentally enslaved to a word that was a symbol of oppression, defilement, inferiority, degradation, and immorality—
N**GER.
Juneteenth, with all that it signifies, is an excellent time to demonstrate and rejoice in our true FREEDOM—or, on the contrary, exhibit our continued acceptance of mental ENSLAVEMENT. We have a full year to reflect on this enigma and determine how to best proceed toward its resolve. Juneteenth is a day to reflect on the memories of our ancestors, embody the spirit of perseverance and victory, and do all that we can to walk in the path of dignity, respect, and honor our forefathers dreamed of, relentlessly fought and gave their lives for. How will you celebrate your next Juneteenth?
H. Lewis Smith is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc., and author of Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word. Visit UVCC online at http://www.theunitedvoices.com
Will Clinton Really Back Huckabee’s Nader Talks Black
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
July 2008
One presidential candidate has brashly played the race card. It wasn’t presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain or his rival Barack Obama. Both have tipped lightly around race in the campaign. But Ralph Nader didn’t have any qualms about bring race into the campaign. The perennial political gadfly accused Obama of saying and doing nothing to threaten the white power structure. If Nader had stopped there he might have opened up a reasoned debate on whether Obama panders to corporate interests in his stance on high gas prices, home foreclosures, the lack of affordable heath care, the Iraq war wind down, corporate and environmental regulations, and labor protections. This might have prompted some to ask does Obama rise to the standard of a politician who has actually sold his political soul to corporations and the Beltway establishment?
But Nader didn’t stop at criticizing Obama for being a Beltway insider. He asked rhetorically “Is it because he wants to talk white” as to why Obama supposedly doesn’t take hard stances on these issues? He then tossed in a reference to Jesse Jackson as an example of someone who Obama allegedly doesn’t want to sound like because he obviously sounds black. He didn’t tell exactly how he thinks an African-American is supposed to talk too avoid sounding white.
The one thing Nader got right is that Obama doesn’t sound like Jackson. But this has absolutely nothing to do with him talking white. It has everything to do with him wanting to win. The instant that Obama declared his candidacy the buzz question in the press and among much of the public was whether an African-American could be a viable candidate for the presidency. This was quickly followed with the question of whether whites would vote for an African-American candidate for the highest office. From the first start of Obama’s campaign the overwhelming majority of whites said they do not vote for candidates based on their color but based on their competence, ability and qualifications. The polls show that whites continue to say that Obama’s color is of no concern.
For his part, Obama early understood the potential minefield that race poses to his chances, and that even the slightest perception that there is a racial tilt in his campaign would render his campaign DOA. He has said and done everything possible to sell himself and his campaign as race neutral and all inclusive. He’s stuck tight to the script in which he talks almost exclusively about the broad based issues of the Iraq war and the economy.
That script is too bland and saccharine to have much meaning to Nader. He’s spent decades and three presidential campaigns blasting political cronyism, two party dominance, corporate greed and malfeasance, war mongering and profiteering. He plainly regards Obama as a corporate candidate who has no antidote to those ills. Nader could have easily made that point without racially knocking Obama. But he did knock him, and the only real explanation is that Nader holds Obama to a totally different standard than he holds McCain or any other white mainstream politician; a standard that’s based solely on his color. Put bluntly, because he’s black he must be by definition in Nader’s eyes an inherent rebel or at the very least actively challenge the white corporate and political establishment. But that assumes that blacks are instinctive rebels because of their color. Earth to Nader on this one; the likes of blacks from Clarence Thomas to Colin Powell should have long since dispelled that myth. Yet, to even think that blacks should be open racial crusaders is crass, cynical, and even borderline racist.
The only standard that Obama can and should be held to is the one that governs mainstream politicians. Obama’s a centrist Democrat, a consummate party loyalist and Capital Hill insider. Any change he could effect could come only from working within the tight and narrowly prescribed confines of Washington politics. Race has little to do with that. And even if that wasn’t the case, Obama likely still wouldn’t be on the frontline of the racial battleground.
He belongs to the younger, post-civil rights generation. That generation did not experience the terror of snarling police dogs, fire hoses, racist sheriff’s batons, and Jim Crow segregation. They did not fight prolonged battles for equality and economic justice in the streets as those of Jackson’s generation did. The racial battleground for Obama’s generation has been in the courtroom, corporate suites, and university boardrooms. He fought those battles as a student at Harvard University, as a poverty organizer and civil rights attorney.
Obama blew off Nader’s racial dig at him as a ploy to get attention by an aging political crusader whose political star has since long dimmed. Nader certainly wouldn’t have gotten that attention if he had just rapped Obama for his alleged corporate and insider political sins. But then again that wouldn’t have been Ralph.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008). Ethnicpresidency.com
I Saw The Look in His Eyes......
Written by: Moses Miller
Author of Nan: The Trifling Times of Nathan Jones and Once Upon a Time in Harlem
The other day I was sitting on the Long Island Railroad, dozing in and out of consciousness during the early morning hours. The stops all blended together as a never ending dream occupied the real estate in my mind. I awoke somewhere after the Jamaica, Queens stop, only to find a middle-aged white lady sitting next to me that I hadn’t noticed before. She smiled awkwardly when our eyes met, and I smiled back. In her hand she was holding the morning’s issue of the Post. I glanced at the cover, for the second time catching her gaze.
It seemed as if she was waiting for me to awaken because she didn’t waste any time asking me, “So, what do you think about Barack?” He was on the cover of her paper, so the question wasn’t really thrown at me from leftfield. However, over the many years I’d been on this earth, a white person had never ventured to talk politics with me. So in a way, I was pleasantly surprised.
I politely replied, “I think he’s an intelligent individual.” “Yeah, it must feel good to have someone like you running for office, huh?”
I laughed taking her comment in stride and said, “I don’t know if Barack is like me, but it feels good to know that we may have someone qualified in office soon. I mean after Bush and all.”
I could tell that my answer wasn’t quite what she wanted to hear. Her face was slightly contorted, and her skin had started to redden ever so slightly. Still she seemed to be fully focused on our discussion, shifting in her seat so she was facing me now. I’m a blunt individual, however even I was surprised by her next statement.
She boldly said, “I meant it must feel good to vote for a black man.” Yes, she took it there. It was respectful though. I was tempted to lie, but I didn’t feel a need to. This was a day after the North Carolina primary where greater than 90% of the African American vote went to Obama. So, her assumption was reasonable.
Back in 1910, a black heavyweight boxer named Jack Johnson stepped into the ring with a white fighter named Jim Jeffries. At the time there wasn’t a black person alive that wasn’t praying that Johnson would knock his block off—and he did. When Jackie Robinson stepped up to bat for the first time, blacks were holding their breath hoping that he wouldn’t strike out. To be honest, after hundreds of years of injustices being committed against black people, O.J. could have walked into court for his first trial with a jagged knife in his pocket, a mask on his face and bloodied Bruno Magli shoes on his feet. Right or wrong, a lot of people I know would have still been saying, “He’s not guilty. He didn’t do it.”
I must have zoned out for a minute because I heard her say, “Do you know anything about his policies? All I ever hear him talk about is change. Are you going to vote for him just because he’s promising change?” By now we had attracted the attention of other passengers on the train, most of which were Caucasian. They all seemed to be looking at me indirectly, or their ears seemed to be aimed in my direction yearning to hear my response.
The following words flowed out of my mouth without much thought.
“The other day I was doing a speaking engagement with a young group of African American teens from a low income neighborhood. At the end of my discussion, I asked them each what they wanted to be when they grew up. I got the typical answers from football to basketball players and a couple that wanted to be rappers. But, when I got to one teenager he told me that when he got older he was going to be the president of the United States.”
She smiled and said, “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” I said with a slight tinge of attitude. “He didn’t say he wanted to be the president, he said he was going to be the president of the United States with confidence in his voice. And when I saw the look in his eyes, I could tell that he actually believed that his dream would come true. It was at that moment that I truly realized how much hope and inspiration Barack brings to my people—especially the next generation coming up. So, honestly, I don’t know everything about his policies. I don’t know everything about any of the politicians that are running for office. They all say what they think the people want to hear any way. But, I do know what I saw that day in the eyes of that child. And I know I want to see that look of hope more often.”
The lights flickered off and on as we went beneath the tunnel that led to Penn Station. Over the loud speaker the conductor made a few announcements. People began to stand grabbing briefcases from the overhead racks, and jockeying to get in position in anticipation of the doors opening.
Silently, I wished that we had more time to speak because I knew that she could never understand what it meant to have someone intelligent, articulate and deserving representing my people in a race for the most powerful position in the world. No disrespect to Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but neither one of them had a prayer. Barack transcends race, due to the fact that he can’t be challenged on anything outside of the obvious, which is the color of his skin.
The doors to the train opened, and I headed down the aisle towards the exit. When I reached the platform I felt a tug on my arm. I turned around and saw the same middle-aged white women standing there in her business suit, with a smile on her face.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“You just reaffirmed my belief. I go back and forth with my husband every night, but he is adamant that Barack doesn’t have a chance to be president. And he says even if he did, somebody would assassinate him anyway. So, he’s voting for McCain in the general election. For me, Barack represents everything you just said, but not only for black people. I believe he represents hope for everyone,” she replied with conviction.
A man hurriedly rushed off the train, and bumped into the lady without even saying excuse me, knocking her bag to the ground as he stormed off. Engrossed in the discussion, we both hadn’t even realized that we were blocking the doorway the whole time. Some of her belongings fell out of her bag, and we both bent down to retrieve them as other people on the platform stepped around us.
I picked up her keys, and handed them to her along with an ID badge that was attached to a lanyard. Her purse had also fallen out the bag, and she was collecting some loose change that had been ejected. As she put her change away a picture in her wallet caught my attention. She saw me staring when she glanced upwards and I looked away embarrassingly.
“That’s my husband and our daughter when she was first born. She’s going to be three next month,” she advised as she put the last of her belongings away. “I’ll just have to keep working on my husband. Hopefully he’ll let go of the past and embrace change as well.”
We bid each other farewell, and went our separate ways, both happy that we had taken the time to talk to one another. Throughout the day, my thoughts kept drifting back to our conversation and that picture she showed me. Her daughter had hazel eyes and a fair skinned complexion. Her husband was African American with skin darker than mine. I saw the look in his eyes too...
Email your comments directly to me at:
Moses@MindCandyMedia.com
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