2007: The Year of Black ‘Media Leaders' - Especially Obama
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"African Americans' most urgent duty is to methodically
rebuild a Movement that is independent of corporate media."
In the late Sixties, Black America seemed on its way to
reaching critical velocity in its arc to self-determination and some degree of
security. But in the intervening 40 years, the trajectory of true Black
progress has become erratic and uneven, for lack of the force that fueled the
initial takeoff: a People's Movement. Energies dissipated as self-concerned
grouplets among African Americans sought their own orbits - usually circling
hungrily in the gravitational pull of corporate America. These greedy little
satellites, imagining themselves much bigger and more powerful than they really
are, bask vicariously in the glow of real power, which is ever more
concentrated in a dwindling fraction of the overwhelmingly white super-rich
population.
Believing they have broken "free" of the Historical Black Political
Consensus on social justice, societal transformation, and peace, opportunistic
Black sub-classes - never representing mass Black opinion, but only their own
petty aspirations - have in the past decade been "empowered" by corporate
America to exert profoundly destructive centrifugal forces on the larger Black
polity. What is left of collective African American political cohesion is
rapidly shattering under the combined pressures of Black corporate satellites
and the bottomless Black Hole that the Corporate Order has become.
"What is left of collective African American political
cohesion is rapidly shattering under the centrifugal pressures of Black
corporate satellites."
The great historical irony for Black America is that this
deluded descent into the depths of dependency on corporate mechanisms - marked
most dramatically and horrifically by acquiescence to the racists' claim that
race is little or no factor in American life - occurs at precisely the epoch
when U.S.-led corporate structures are in terminal crisis at home and around
the globe. This is the "burning house" that both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin
Luther King foretold.
The year 2007, like those before it, yielded ever increasing
evidence that Black America must reverse the course that has been charted by
its own misleadership classes, and instead struggle mightily to defend itself,
and any allies that can be found, against the implosions that are wracking the
global and domestic Corporate Order - a wave of terminal crises that cannot be
overcome and will, domestically, impact most painfully on African Americans,
the Permanent Other in U.S. society.
Obamamania
Barack Obama's corporate-made and -financed presidential
campaign is the product of three distinct factors, all mitigating against Black
self-determination and political cohesion: 1) corporate decisions, made a
decade ago, to provide media and financial support to pliant Black Democrats
that can be trusted to carry Wall Street's water; 2) a widespread desire among
whites to prove through the safe and simple act of voting that they are not
personally racist, and/or to dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in
society, once and for all; 3) a huge reservoir of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black
thinking that refuses to evaluate Black candidates' actual political stances,
but instead revels in the prospect of Black faces in high places. A President
Obama would, of course, be the zenith of such narrow, non-substantive,
objectively self-defeating visions.
"Many, if not most, Black folks yearn to see a Supreme
HNIC before they die."
In 2007, the Obama "package" amply satisfied all three
"constituencies." Corporations found him a loyal ally on Capitol Hill and on
the speaking circuit, rewarding him handsomely for his fealty; millions of
whites came to believe Obama could solve the "race problem" by his mere
presence, at no cost to their own notions of skin privilege; and infinitely
manipulable Black dreams of the ultimate Head-Negro-in-Charge. Many, if not
most, Black folks yearn to see a Supreme HNIC before they die, and will not
question how he got there or whom he really serves.
Paul Street has written often in
these pages and elsewhere of Obama's political charade: his impudent posing
as the "Joshua" to succeed Dr. King's "Moses Generation," while supporting none
of the fundamental social transformations sought by King; his fawning praise of
the same U.S. "free enterprise" system that King thought was incompatible with
racial justice and peace; Obama's ridiculous and statistically baseless
declaration that Blacks have already come "90 percent of the way to equality,"
inferring that his election would provide the final ten percent; the senator's
initial insistence, later modified, that the Katrina catastrophe and the Jena
outrage had nothing to do with race; his remarkable pledge to the Foreign
Relations Council to increase U.S. troops strength by 100,000
soldiers and Marines, all the while maintaining the farce of being a
"peace" candidate. The list goes on, and will doubtless lengthen as the
campaign continues.
However, we at Black Agenda Report are most concerned with
the paralyzing stupor that Obamamania has induced in the Black polity. Even
committed Black progressive activists have jumped on the candidate's
bandwagon-to-nowhere. My saddest, and yet most telling, experience with Obama-coma
came late last year, when I was bracketed with New York City Councilman Charles Barron on Ron
Daniels' weekly WBAI Radio political discussion show. Barron is one of my
favorite politicians, a former Black Panther who is also a grassroots community
activist and implacable foe of racism and entrenched power. Barron announced
that he and the local activist group with which he is affiliated were endorsing
Barack Obama for president.
"Even committed Black progressive activists have jumped on
the candidate's bandwagon-to-nowhere."
In what turned into a debate between us, I confronted the
councilman with all the facts outlined above, and more. He, like every other
Black Obama supporter, could offer no coherent response, except to pillory
Hillary Clinton, Obama's political twin. Indeed, the interview/debate
experience was audibly painful for Barron, who knows full well that Obama
stands on the opposite side of the political line - when he decides to stand
anywhere, at all. Finally, Barron could only offer that he "wants to give the
brother a shot." That was it. The phrase, which he later repeated, was like an
exhalation of used up air, an abdication of the imperative to Speak Truth to
Power if the representative of Power is Black and seems to be an unstoppable
phenomenon.
Barron's resigned response proved the truth of Louisville
University Prof. Rick L. Jones's
evaluation, that we are witnessing the "failure of the Black political
imagination." Obamamania is accelerating that debilitating process - even among
the best, brightest and most committed of African American politicians.
Obama is, of course, a media and money phenomenon - both
corporate derivatives. In that sense, his rise is only different in degree from
the proliferation of "media leaders" that have taken the place of real
organizers in Black America - and of former organizers who have held on to name
recognition by becoming media leaders, running from camera to camera in between
their radio shows. Nothing lasting, organizationally, can possibly emerge from
their performances.
Obama's
hook-up with Oprah Winfrey was perfectly logical. Both are famous,
unthreatening media celebrities with huge white followings. They compliment
each other, and achieve the same effect of mesmerizing fame-struck Blacks and
soothing the fears of whites - placebos for both sorely afflicted groups.
Media have displaced previous Black leadership-creation
mechanisms: that is, leadership forged in struggle. Now, "leaders" are presented with
theme music in radio studios and TV sound stages, chosen by executives on the
basis of corporate notions of marketability. It is a "virtual" - not genuine -
Black leadership, that only plays the role through broadcasting.
From an historical perspective, it is as if James Brown and
Aretha Franklin were the preeminent Black political leaders of the Sixties.
Both made great cultural contributions, and Mr. Brown dabbled in politics, to
various effect, but no conscious person of that era would have considered
either of these entertainers to be leaders - because real leaders,
heading real, often feuding sections of a mass movement, existed. Brown and
Franklin were background music for an actual People's Movement, like a score to
a movie. But today, there is no movie - no Movement - just a score that makes
no sense.
"Obama's rise is only different in degree from the
proliferation of ‘media leaders' that have taken the place of real organizers
in Black America."
In 2008 and beyond, African Americans' most urgent duty is
to methodically rebuild a Movement that is independent of corporate media - one
that forces media, especially Black-oriented radio, to respond to IT,
rather than taking its cues from on-air performers. There is no substitute for
people in motion, the only force that can compel the reinstatement of local
news on "Black" radio - which will in
turn nourish the Movement, as in years past, by empowering grassroots forces
through coverage of their activities. (See BAR, January 10, 2007, "Bring
Back Black Radio News - The People's Network.")
The same forces that shut down the Black Freedom Movement to
pursue their own private interests, 40 years ago, have metastasized into
corporate servants of the rich. With the gradual extinction of Black
journalism, African Americans have grown to believe that Celebrity = Power - a
fatal equation that strips Black America of independent agency, of political
autonomy, and makes them putty in the hands of media corporations and their
Wall Street masters.
This is the underlying, broader meaning and threat of
Obamamania (or Obama-ism). In the final analysis, it's not about how HE got
there, it's about why there are so few mechanisms to make Obama, the
Congressional Black Caucus, and any corporate-bought Black personality, an
instant "leader" - never to be held accountable to Black people at-large.
Colliding Crises
We are not being African American-centric in emphasizing steadily-eroding domestic Black political realities. Blacks remain, in the mass,
the most consistently
progressive and geographically concentrated group in the United States. Any
semblance of a progressive "movement" is inconceivable if Black political
coherence is shattered - or smothered - by corporate forces in blackface. This
would result in a permanently ineffectual domestic response to the deepening
and general crisis of the Capitalist Order, globally and at home.
The year 2007 showed that George Bush's attempt to alter the
global relationship of forces and resources by military means, centered in the
Middle East, has failed beyond redemption.
U.S. spies
and generals found it necessary to mutiny to prevent an insane attack on
Iran - a crime that would certainly plunge the planet into instant economic and
political anarchy. But the imperialists in both parties persist in finding
softer spots for corporate-military domination. The Ethiopian invasion of
Somalia was a joint
exercise with Washington, and threatens to destabilize all of the Horn of
Africa. The U.S. cynically deploys the humanitarian crisis in Darfur as a tool
for Euro-American
military intervention, and demands basing rights in the Gulf of Guinea to
control West
Africa's oil spigots. The crisis in Latin America largely revolves around
color lines - many colors, but always "white" on top, and the region's
subterranean "Black Gold" and other minerals the prize, below.
"Any semblance of a progressive ‘movement' is
inconceivable if Black political coherence is shattered - or smothered - by
corporate forces in blackface."
Given the prevailing racism in white American society - a
racism that craves revenge for U.S. defeats at the hands of darker peoples even
as it expresses opposition to particular, lost wars - and the ever southward
thrust of U.S. aggression, Black America is the historically logical center for
opposition to U.S. marauding, especially in Africa. Dr. King declared in 1967,
in the heat of the Vietnam War, that Black America's destiny was to "save the
soul of America" from the "triple evils" of "racism, materialism and militarism"
- a huge historical fact that Barack "Joshua" Obama conveniently fails to
process.
In today's world, that historical legacy is to move to the
forefront of saving the planet - and Black America - from the death throes of a
Corporate Order in a state of desperation. The U.S. sub-prime lending crisis,
which uncovered the shallow roots
of the Black middle class, also pulled back the veil from global capitalism's
ulcerated face. Five-hundred TRILLION
dollars in "derivatives" - derived from what, no one really knows -
were counted as "assets" of global financial institutions. Now, few of these
institutions want to trade in each other's "paper" instruments, whose bogus
face value is more than ten times that of the entire planet's yearly output of
goods and services. Implosion is inevitable, with consequences too vast to
imagine.
African Americans are already disproportionately reeling
from the precursor trembles of the global "liquidity" crisis to come, and
best-suited to comprehend the predatory nature of corporate institutions and
their inevitable resort to war to recoup "their" losses. But re-consolidation
of that deep historical understanding requires real leadership and means of
mass communication. The Black misleadership class must be purged, but first,
folks must recognize who needs purging. The paralytic effect of Obamamania
threatens to finally strangle Black activism - and organizable Black
consciousness, itself - on the eve of domestic and global catastrophe.
To paraphrase the idiotic Black "media leaders" P-Ditty and
50 Cent: "Organize to take back the means of communications, or die."
Happy 2008.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Comments
Incredible article, Mr. Ford!
This is my favorite part of the article and it cannot be stressed enough:
"Barack Obama's corporate-made and -financed presidential campaign is the product of three distinct factors, all mitigating against Black self-determination and political cohesion: 1) corporate decisions, made a decade ago, to provide media and financial support to pliant Black Democrats that can be trusted to carry Wall Street's water; 2) a widespread desire among whites to prove through the safe and simple act of voting that they are not personally racist, and/or to dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in society, once and for all; 3) a huge reservoir of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black thinking that refuses to evaluate Black candidates' actual political stances, but instead revels in the prospect of Black faces in high places. A President Obama would, of course, be the zenith of such narrow, non-substantive, objectively self-defeating visions."
Many of the same points you make in this article Adolph Reed, Jr. discussed in his book "Class Notes," particularly about identity politics gone bad. Keep up the good work, Mr. Ford. Do not allow Obama's hardcore supporters to cow you into submission. Besides the writers here at BAR, only a handful of mainstream pundits/writers are honest in exposing Obama as a faux-progressive(e.g., Krugman and Sirota are two off the top of my head). Not only that, but this site is starting to get mainstream attention due to your provocative analysis of Obama -- Bill Moyers gave your last article a plug a few weeks ago on his program, so obviously your commentary is striking a nerve with those who want to see beyond the symbolism of Obama. In fact, Sirota had Obama figured out two years ago when he wrote an insightful article about him in The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060626&s=sirota
Again, keep up the good work!
GrassRoots Unite
Islam Moors,
All the news that's fit to print.
As always, I get more real news and info from BAR and Counterpunch.org than anything I see or read from the mass media posers, including the ever disappointing NPR.
I'm glad to learn BAR is getting mention on media such as Bill Moyers show. Let's all spread the word to as many people as possible about BAR, Counterpunch, and Link TV. The public has been bamboozled and hypnotized by the mainstream media for too long.
Democracy only functions properly with a fully informed public.
TheTruth Shall Set Us Free
Thank you for your courage in speaking the truth.
What good are media-selected Black "leaders" who only exist to feed their own egos, dumb-down the process, and keep rank-and-file African-Americans in line by assuring us "there is no Black America or White America?"
It is a dangerous rationale to support Obama just to "give a brother a shot," when any conscious Black with a lick of history should remember how Massa used acceptable House-Negroes to keep the "field hands" in line.
This same house Negro would sell out an abolitionist just as fast as Judas sold out Jesus, and tell us to 'just get along 'til the by-and-by.'
When the enemies of real Black progress learn we are so gullible and superficial, they know they can buy themselves any number of candy-coated negroes to put us asleep and do their bidding.
I'm totally disillusioned with the ambitious, duplicitous, Democratic-bashing Obama and his comatose cult of personality, and will be choosing from the other candidates in 2008.
And for those who flinch at the scrutiny finally being applied to their publicity-drunk Messiah Obama, I say,"if you can't stand the heat...get out of the kitchen."
Edwarrds is running on a racist platform
He claims a black man cannot win. The candidate and not the color is the issue. Most of the choices are garbage. I'm not voting for either John Bilderberg Fortress Edwards or for Obama. I'm voting for a peace candidate.
I liked the article.
So are the other candidates better?
I really appreciate this website and the focus it puts on black issues, our issues. I agree that we should not vote for any candidate, Obama or other in the future "just to give the brother [or sister]a shot", whether it's presidential or local elections (I think we have an abundance of this in local elections, at least in Chicago we do.) But given that we do have to choose one person to vote for in 2008...what do the other candidates have to offer that disqualifies us from voting for Obama? Are they any less materialistic, corporate funded, military power hungry than he is? Are they any better equipped to address the issues that concern us as a black community in the US and worldwide? Is their evil coated in white skins more bearable for us because we expect them to be that way? Are we giving them a free pass by dismissing Obama because he is not the "authentic" black candidate we are seeking? Obama may not be perfect but why should we cast a vote for Edwards or clinton? How are they addressing the black agenda? Do they have one?
The People's Movement has nothing to do with Obama alone as an individual. We should not look at any one leader to save us. Leaders should reflect the soul of the community and we have to build leaders ourselves. King himself was brought to the forefront not by setting an agenda and having the community follow it. The community set an agenda and King was asked to lead. The movement in the 60's was not about King or Malcolm X, they were a product of their communities. Leaders were all over the place, in the kitchens, in the homes, on railway lines, in the churches etc. King was merely a face for that.
You don't have to vote for Obama but we should spend as much time diagnosing these white candidates and put them through as tough a test as we are putting Obama. We have black people talking about "Clinton was the black president", what did he do for us? What have these white candidates done for us lately?
Good Article!
Excellent article, Mr. Ford.
I would also like to add I believe many Republicans are cross-voting for Obama for the simple belief that Obama is the least likely to defeat the Republican nominee.
The Republican slime machine had no mercy for Gore or Kerry in 2000 and 2004. If Gore and Kerry can go through a gauntlet of smear and dirty tricks, what makes anyone think Obama is immune from such attacks?
Very Biased Article - Stop the hate
Something is deeply disturbing about this article and its intentions. It seems to be judging Obama more harshly because he's black. I doubt Dr. King would approve of judging someone based on the color of their skin. Most of what Obama is being accused of, other candidates would be just as guilty.
Et tu, Brutus Obama?
A was invited to a Camp Obama, having run a successful fundraiser which equates to numbers--people and money. But funny thing happened at the Camp--I was marginalized. Thrust in the spotlight were young white people, upper class, and traditionally Republican. Leaders were chosen--again, mostly white, mostly Republican. Speakers were brought in--yes, you guessed it.
I returned home to form a gateway group--an entre into the black community that Obama had not yet cultivated. Black students, black professionals, local black politicians, black community activists--a diverse group that would energize the black voters and reawaken the fight of old, that just might change the local political landscape in the process.
We were told to look for an office, sign up people to work South Carolina...then, suddenly, we were shut down. An organizer called me for names of students and pointedly asked which ones were white, which ones black.
A couple months later, we understand why. A predominantly white group with white staff--mostly young, white Republicans who didn't even know how primaries worked--would be the official Obama office, located out in the white boonies. The message would be Iraq, not jobs, health care, discrimination, etc.
But at least we were sent invitations to "join" and to "attend" the opening and meet the staff.
To suffer this kind of discrimination from the brother from another planet was a stunning blow. But, in Obama's mind, those crossover Republicans are filling the chairs that black people were always counted on to fill. Ultimately, Brother Obama will prove that black people no longer make the difference in elections and that presidents can be elected with or without our hanging chad.
It's clear that Obama is distancing himself from the black community--excluding us from his campaign and volunteer staffs. When have you seen him on television surrounded by blacks in the same numbers as whites. Is he afraid to show himself among a black only crowd? To show himself at his church standing next to his pastor? Of all the fine, intellectual, talented, exceptional black dignitaries and politicos among us, he chooses Oprah Winfrey, a woman who has also dissed her community, who accused black people in the U.S. has being so shallow for her charitable projects that she built a school for Africans instead.
Et tu, Brutus Obama?
Unelectable Obama
I really appreciated your article. I want to add further that Obama just isn't electable.
Those of us who pay attention to and know the significance of incidents like those that took place in Gena (not to mention the other more everday happenings) know that racism is alive and well in the United States.
Unfortunately, Obama doesn't seem to know this fact.
But anyway...
Can Obama really expect to win the South or the Midwest? I think not.
For me, John Edward's platform is way more impressive and progressive than either Obama's or Hillary's.
My big fear is that the Democratic Party will either nominate Obama - he will lose and then Huckabee (who frightens me to the core) will become president or they will nominate Edwards and Obama's supporters will abstain from voting and Huckabee will win.
Then where will black America be?
Stop Hating
Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it...
Americans DON'T care about issue.
Americans just want to feel good.
I love the eyes opened analysis; especially on the Obama phenomanon.
This is what we need more of instead of simplistic analysis and lame cheerleading of things that don't really much benefit us.
I'm working on a piece, that I've been meaning to do for the longest, about why an Obama presidency may be more bad for black people than good. It'll be at www.BlackPerspective.net next week. It'll echo many of the sentiments that you wrote of.
Sad Day for Naysayer
It would hope that you could see a positive step forward in Iowa. But then you have been locked in on a loser. Why then would you make us all losers? We cannot help that every mainstream candidate has corporate support. That doesn't necessarily mean they will have the dominant voice in the end. Remember, everything is only a means to a greater end. Sorry you chose a loser in Iowa.
So sad to see such pointless negativity
Do you feel marginalized? You should!
While you are here crabbing away, Barack Obama is out changing the world! :)
Great article!
I'm very impressed someone is speaking the truth about Senator Obama.
Positivity is great but realism is better
The reality is that we live in a racist and racialized America.
I really wish that we didn't and will work towards making things different, but will not pretend that we are where we are not.
I'll go out on a limb and say that I will bet that those people who wrote in about "haters" and Senator Obama doing it are not black.
Obamalieberman
At least Edwards nor Clinton slavishly sucked up to Republicans and indpendents who have no intention of supporting a progressive agenda.
A means to an end? To whom will he sell his soul to be King? To whom will he owe his allegiance if he wins?
CHANGE? Who is the REAL hypocrite?
Lets keep it real Glen,
I see you had pictures of Al Sharpton and
Jesse Jackson, but why didnt you call them out by name too? any article on "Black Media Leaders" should start and end with Al Sharpotn.
I'm not even gonna vote. Whats the point?
We all know that the political system is corrupt, tell me something I don't know. Why should I even vote?
I should just sit on my Black ass and keep on blogging and complaining about the corruption and shit.
Where is the hope for Black folk living in the ghetto.
Anytime a Blackman try to do something positive, you can always count on His own people to pull him down.
THIS IS COMMING FROM PERSON WHO DOESN'T EVEN VOTE!!
Vote Green
Cynthia McKinney! Green Party!
The Path to Oblivion continues...
This 50 something black woman just cannot say yes to Obama...On the surface I may look like one of the Oprah Pod Women, but my mamma and daddy taught me to look for substance not slick. Alas in their eighties they are caught in the Obama time limbo-- pablum of hope dished out in stirring speeches move them more than a plan for real change.
Watching this election is like watching the ultimate traveling medicine show. The snake oil is flowing fast and true believers are snatching it up like hot cakes.
Still think Obama will rise and fall well before the democratic convention... waiting for his "Dean" moment. However I cannot abide by 4 more years of Republican foolishness.
Hillary too shrill and conservative, Edwards talks a good game and is too slick for his britches. I am NOT foolish enough to go Green. That delusional strategy sealed the Bush "win" (along with a lot of messing 'round at black precincts in Florida and Ohio).
What is a sistah to do?
Please do not charge John Edwards with racism
as nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, HE has said very little about his electability although polls (RealClearPolitics.com, along with state-to-state polling) have consistently shown that he outperforms both Obama and Clinton in head-to-head match-ups with Republicans. To my mind, he isn't talking about this issue precisely because he doesn't want people to think electability is all about race.
I am an Edwards supporter who does believe he is the most electable, but my belief is based on empirical data--polling and historical examples--and not race. Full disclosure: I'm a white woman who did my PhD work in Native American and African American literature and yes, dear God, I would love to see a black and/or female president in my lifetime! This election cycle, however, John Edwards is simply the best candidate. He is by far the most progressive (I really wanted to like Obama until I saw how Republican-lite his polices are). Edwards is a feel-it-in-the-gut populist who will do more to level the playing field in this country than any president we have seen in 40 years. When I say he is electable, it's because he is a southern democrat--the only kind who wins the White House--and because 1) Hillary carries the Clinton baggage, which is far heavier than the gender baggage, and 2) Obama is an Ivy League educated northern democrat, an impossible sell in the south and midwest. This will only be complicated by his race.
Most Americans vote on the basis of perception rather than reality; just look at the entrance poll from the Iowa caucuses, which show most self-described liberals voting for Obama (who looks like "change") and most conservative dems going for Edwards. Policy wise, Edwards is far to the left of Obama, of course, which is why true progressives should get behind John Edwards.
Accusations of negativity, being "haters", etc
are revealing indications of the shrinkage of much of Black political imagination.
Barack is "viable", the accusers say, so we should ride with him.
We are being chastised for not limiting Black, and for that matter American political imagination to the narrow confines of what Democratic party hacks deem politically feasible. This is such a huge retreat from the mindset of those who gave us the movement of the fifties, sixties and early seventies that it is hard to get one's mind around it. Just imagine if the folks who began sitting in at lunch counters, or who were early advocates of Black voting rights in the south, or early opponents of the war in Vietnam --- if these had narrowed their visions, limited their horizons and scaled back their demands to match what the wise political professionals of their day believed was viable or polite or possible?
Come into the 21st century
What a crock. This article is dishonest on so many levels. I've seen no proof that Obama is corporate owned, or media produced. If anything he initially frightened the mainstream corporate owned media, who still haven't quite figured him out. The neocons hope to God he is the Democratic nominee so they can put another idiotic puppet in the White House they can control and continue their racist elistist agenda.
As for this movement and caputuring and controlling Black radio and producing Black owned vehicles of communication, radio is controlled by corporate conglomerates and very few local stations are on the air. Come into the 21st century. The Black community is and has been scattered since America's psuedo integration era. What's left are poverty stricken drug infested ghettos with no financial services and the ideal that thuggism and gangsta rap are symbols of manhood. Those who seek to obtain the tools that can uplift our community: education and financial success are treated with hostility by our own people, unless they have done so as entertainers or athletes. This is a manifestation of our slave mentality, as entertainers and athletes do nothing to uplift us, they spend their money on bling that depreciates instead of investing in our communities like James Brown did. (You're wrong about Mr. Brown who showed no small measure of leadership by example, inspiration, investing in our communities, pushing education, and never compromising his Blackness). Come into the 21st century. The 60's are long gone and the enemy has become much more sophisticated, the tactics and techniques of that bygone era are no longer effective. We are no longer dealing with Jim Crow, but his much slicker offspring James Crow,esquire.
The ideal that a President Obama would give white racist America the opportunity to declare it has become the mythical color blind society is crap brother. Where have you been, that myth has been pushed since the Dr. King holiday was signed into law by the most vicious racist to sit in the White House since Woodrow Wilson, the republican deity Ronald Reagan.
Don't get it mixed, I am no fan of media produce leaders foisted on our community, however all your article does is complain. Unless you're pointing out problems and offering viable achievable solutions you're just blowing in the wind.
So what ARE the options?
If Barack Obama has too many compromising aspects to consider as a candidate-- what are the options.Hillary Clinton-- not for me--too many shadows of big business, lobbyists and the Democratic Leadership Council. Despite his populist platform, John Edwards has that marvelous history as a multimillionaire trial lawyer. He may remember where he came from but I don't he completely forgets the allies he made along the way who would not be considered progressive. Anyone Republican-- too oxymoronic for me to become a "black republican". Green or other parties-- no need for protest voting that could help a really goofy Republican candidate win.So I chose not to sit on the sidelines and pontificate and not vote. So what does one do to make the future Democratic presidential candidate more accountable to working people, poor people and people of color in the US? What concrete things should we be doing to make sure there are enough voting locations set up in those communities so there isn't a repeat of 2004? How do we make sure those voting machines accurately report the vote? And finally what are we going to do concretely to get the vote out this time?
The analytical rhetoric is wearing thin, the lamentations of a lack of leadership is sounding more and more like whining.
So what are Y'all gonna do?
LISTEN TO BLACK WOMEN CANDIDATES!
*2*, count 'em, TWO, African-American women are bidding to be the Green Party Presidential candidate and will debate in San Francisco on Jan. 13th. They are Cynthia McKinney and Elaine Brown. Mr. Ford, and Black Agenda Report, does an incredible service in providing an alternative media outlet. I hope that he will cover this debate, and let his faithful readers know if he would characterize their efforts as part of the "failure of the Black political imagination." (Although you can be sure I'll come to my own conclusions; I'd just like Mr. Ford's response.) I am writing to you from the vortex of Obamamania, metro Chicago, and I have no hope that a Green Party Candidate will win the Pres. election in 2008. However, I am so eager to hear an alternative voice in the form of a presidential candidate and think critically how what they propose should shape my own actions and the nation-at-large. I will do my best to find a record/report of this debate, and I hope that Black Agenda Report will be a vehicle I can use to make an assessment of the candidates.
Get out of the box
The majority of people in this country are so brainwash and dumb out up with the status quo parties (Republic & democract)that make me shake my head how stupid people have become. Until the mass of the people can see that there not a dime worth of difference between them you will keep getting the same crap! I keep asking myself why do people continue to vote for the same two parties? Folks, take the blinder off your eyes and step outside the box. Quit voting for hope and vote for political parties that will represent the average Joe Blow.
So Tired of the Obama Acid Groupies
I'm glad I decided to poke around this site a little bit more before heading to bed. Excellent article! I have friends who are getting more and more angry with me as each day goes by because I don't plan to vote for Obama. I'm more informed than any of them and yet they are so blindly just siding with him in much the same way that radio host said he wanted to "give the brother a shot" in the article. How ridiculous.
Re: Come into the 21st century
"I've seen no proof that Obama is corporate owned, or media produced."
Politicians who bank over $100 million for political campaigns do so only through corporate bribes. Please come into the 21st century.
Thank you.
Nigga pleeze
Leave da bruther alone. He be BLACK, dat all dat matter. Obama be the best black candidate this year. He be changing Washington an shit.
And as for John...
Edwards has proven himself to be nothing more than Obama's waterboy.
Another elitist in populist clothing trying to climb his way to the top.
I think Edwards KNOWS the truth about Obama, but won't tell it lest he lose his place at the children's table in the White House.
I agree with Dr. Mimi
The analytical rhetoric is wearing thin. Every presidential election season, the discourse surrounding the candidates gets worse. There is always a progressive candidate, but we are discouraged from voting for him (or her) because it's "unrealistic." And whichever black candidate runs, he (or she) is either too black or not black enough, and he, and he alone, must be compared to Dr. King and will invariably be found lacking. There is a sense of futility built in to all of this, and it is really quite dispiriting.
TRUTH HURTS
http://bvar22.iwarp.com/images/moneychart1.jpg
Mr. Unite Us
Barack Obama is Black enough
Passed up six figure job offers to help folks on the southside of Chicago. Married a Black women.
Is a loving husband and father.
Supports Black owned bookstores.
Registered 150,000 voters in Chicago. Brought more justice to the justice system in Illinois.
Introduced legislation to help the Congo, Black American farmers, veterans and more...
Visit www.barackobamba.com
Barack Obama is Black enough for me.
May we all have the audacity to hope for and achieve our own goals.
Obama should be an inspiration to all Americans. I'd rather our young people look to him instead, Snoop Dogg, 50 cent, or Michael Vick.
A Bad Analysis
Not only do you deny Obama his rightful win in Iowa. You were inaccurate to predict otherwise. Or, did you have another predication? Or, were you just downing the man (Obama) just to be criticizing? Speaking of the revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, one thing we did learn: How to size up the forces, and correctly access our opposition. All I see here is badmouthing without a positive alternative.
Such astute analysts as Mr. Ford or Mr. Dixon would certainly not need a weather man to tell them which way the wind was blowing. So why are both of you spending so much time and energy on Barack Obama? I find it odd that a veteran political activists and avowed “progressives†would be the least bit surprised by Obama’s behavior—given that Obama is a member of the Democratic Party. Save two members in the entire Congress, Democrats would not know a principle if they tripped over it. More focus needs to be on grassroots politics and organizing, rather than the perfunctory election cycles that are little more than political American Idol.
Also, Mr. Ford, your comparison on Doug Henwood’s “Behind the News†between Obama and Durbin’s votes in the U.S. Senate is analytically weak. A more accurate comparison would be between Durbin’s votes during his first Senate term and Obama’s votes during his first term. If you research this, you will see that Durbin was fairly conservative.
Father Obama = Complete White Absolution
Desire for Absolution, that is the deep and powerful symbolistic attraction displayed in Father Obama's media attraction that draws white people. The White folk really do want their racist and generational sins remitted, and Father Obama's utilizing his gift for discernment is playing that to the max.
Talking about historical revisionism, the Obamas are using it well to appease the white crowd and to sucker punch the blacks. Listening to Ms. Obama tell the story to a nearly 99.9% white audience where she alluded to her black family background and commonality with white families, and telling the audience that once upon the time it only took one bread winner to raise a family of four.
Was this really the case in Chicago for black people when she was growing up, that there were no economic difference in black and white?
I remember in Houston, my hometown, where not even 2 bread winners was comfortably enough.
Maybe it was so for the white families that both my father and mother slaved for, to make sure that we had food on the table.
So, the Obama's are giving white people and, of course, black people, what they want to hear.
Meanwhile, the horrific and systemic affects of centuries of racism will never be solved, not based on the a black symbol that offers false absolution and denies the status real status of blacks.
I remember when we were so hungry to catch a black face on the tv sets. After much protests and sacrifices, today we have more than enough black faces. The problem is that most are either: (1) making jokes or degrading their own race; (2) promoting a sexual revolution, or (3) they are not real actors, but in it for greed and fame. We got the black faces, but little else.
Don't get be wrong, Obama deserves to be President just like anyone else. But his becoming will not heal the wounds afflicted on black people through the ages. In his mind, there is no history of such affliction and if there were, the effect has worn off. Also, his being elected will not grant white people the false and blind absolution that they so dearly crave.
When society finds a way to stop incarcerating black men; when they find a cure for a disease that affects mostly people of color; when the jobless rate for blacks are reconcile to that of whites; when the predatory housing market relieves the pain of blacks who refuse to stop dreaming; when discrimination ceases in all walks of human activity, and not until then, can we say that our Black Emperor (and Empress) has arived. And yes, when that black leader can earnestly touch the souls of many in their fight against "racism, materialism and militarism".
Maybe you should consider running for president Mr. Ford.
C'mon Eddie
We expect better of you. If all you see is "badmouthing without a positive alternative" then the problem is your imagination has been limited to the boundaries of what Democratic party hacks think is politically feasible.
You also forgot another key lesson of the sixties and seventies, and that is assessing ourselves. Ask yourself this question. If activists of the fifties and sixties and such had limited themselves to the measures the political professionals of that day thought feasible, where would we be?
Isn't that what you are doing, what you are advocating? Investing all hope in a stacked electoral process in which the players and issues are determined by big money and big media, and attacking those who do not blindly line up behind Obama as nihilists and naysayers?
If Black and progressive people are supposed to abandon any and all critical analysis of what candidates say and do, what their policies actually mean, who their money and advice comes from, and just believe what they say cause one of them is Black or a woman, if we are supposed to stop organizing anything except get-out-the-vote actions one year out of every two or four, then we truly have learned nothing from the sixties, seventies and all the time since.
Some readers have indicated that they may be tired of parsing, interrogating and analyzing the actions and rhetoric of candidates and media. Is it really better to just salute and line up behind them, to believe the nice-sounding stuff they say, while ignoring anything that disrupts this hopeful scenario? Maybe. It certainly is easier, especially when everybody else is lining up and saluting.
But is that really how "change" works? Is that how we get an end to imperial wars, how we close the 800 military bases and secret prisons we have scattered round the planet, how we secure health care, education, social security, housing and jobs for everybody, and the like? Or do we get it by doing the hard work and organizing ourselves independent of election cycles, independent of what corporate media and party hacks tell us is important?
The activists of 40 years ago knew the answer to those questions. But we have forgotten, and will probably have to re-learn some of those lessons.
It's election year. One of the candidates is Black, another is female, the Repubs are vicious lunatics, this is the most important election in human history,etc., etc., and this is no time for analysis, no time for building or even discussing any alternatives outside what the system offers us. Cause if the system ain't offering it, it ain't "viable", right?
And Why Are We Here?
If folks here don't believe in the importance of having an informed electorate, and believe in the importance of honestly evaluating the positions of those who want us to elect them, then why would you even THINK about visiting a Progressive website focusing on issues affecting Black people?
If we can't look at the hard facts about a Black man who seems to feel entitled to our vote, then you might do better going to Entertainment News, American Idol, or any number of insipid, kool-aid drinking, hypnotic cult sites.
My Post As Promised
The post that I referenced in my above comment, examing the effect of an Obama presidency on Black folk is now up.
Why a Barack Obama Presidency May Be More Bad Than Good For Black People: http://www.blackperspective.net/index.php/why-a-barack-obama-presidency-...
Obama vs Edwards
I am an Edwards person. Why? Because he has clearly articulated his positions on the important issues of the day. He is not just a cheerleader, he is a thinker.
Unfortunately the mass media has not given Edwards the time of day. Their focus seems fixated on the Obama Surge and on dumping Hillary into the nearest garbage heap. What a shame. Who gave the most miserable press in history the right to pick our candidates? Well, this thing ain't over until it's over and the fat lady sings.
Let us pray!
So good to hear Glen Ford's always memorable words -- the antithesis of the mass media ramblings and rants. Carry on, Brother Ford!
A viable alternative
I for one will be voting for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in the general election. She may not win, but she is the only candidate whose agenda is truly progressive.
Barack Obama Black Enough?
And Let's Stop all the "is Barack Obama Black enough" talk.
Barack Obama is Black, period! That’s not the issue, that's not an issue?
I am here cause I do want more perspective..
One of the lessons I don't think we as a people have learned is that critique and analysis is a starting point. The gift is coming up with concrete solutions. I think at times we analyze ourselves into immobilizing rage and apathy. How do we create the situations to make our candidates, politicians and legislators more accountable to us? How do we become proactive and create the platform where a progressive platform can be heard in the mainstream. I feel often the habit is to react rather than foster and develop new leadership. Instead of bemoaning what we don't have, time to bring those new folks to the forefront. I admire Cynthia McKinney's rhetoric and spunk but she has been marginalized more than once. What does it take to turn the drumbeat positively in her direction and the direction of other progressives in our community?
Otherwise this all seems like a barbershop or beauty-shop discussion-- entertaining. But I want to see more "schools for political and social advancement." Show me the successes and how to build on them. Otherwise we will remain only spectators.
The Barack Obama Phenomenon: What Happened in The Iowa Caucus vs
First of all, MAJOR PROPS & KUDOS to Glen Ford & Co. and the cutting-edge Black Agenda Report! Someplace that's not going to let white *or* Black, DemoPublican *or* RepubliCrat, politicians *or* the corporate mainstream media -- whether it's the commercial/cable networks, PBS, or NPR (including the mainstream media-led and trite analysis of "News & Notes" or that great Black 'liberation leader' Tavis "Walmart" Smiley) -- shuck-'n-jive us.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE 2008 IOWA CAUCUS:
I could hear all my white progressive friends already: "I thought you said there *weren't gonna be* no Black president elected in 2008, Joseph? Hahaha..."
As I understand it, only about 12% of Iowa population even voted in the Iowa caucus system. Iowa's population is only about 2,982,000 -- less than 3 million people. 12% of that is 357,840 people (2.5% Black): this is *well under half* the population of San Francisco -- one of the geographically smallest large cities in the country.
This means that a group of glassy-eyed, highly-dedicated, highly idealized, and thus probably personally rather enthusiastically infectious, acolyte volunteer campaign workers can individually and personally button-hole and engage in schmoozing the really active caucus participants (who are usually even much less than 12%) -- the diehard political *knerds* (the political equivalent of Star Trek conventioneers), as it were, the caucus attenders who will trudge out into the cold and snow and go to daily/many/weekly *hours-long* pre-caucus meetings on the weekends or even after work in the early dark (or during the day if they are retirees or stay-at-home moms).
The caucus system in a state like Iowa is a rather small system with a relatively narrow range of rather self-selecting participants in the Democrat or Republican camp. This is called *retail* politics/campaigning. You can logistically do this in Iowa without too much trouble; you can even do this in New Hampshire; small states and/or states with small or relatively few, relatively small cities. I can't even imagine a caucus system working in a large state like New York (almost 20 million people), California (*38 million* people or Texas (over 20 million people) -- and all over the place on Super Tuesday.
As you increasingly move beyond the caucus system and the smaller states (populationwise and/or geographically), you start to have an increasingly broader as well as increasingly larger range of voters -- people (all they have to do is to spend 10 or 15 minutes to vote) who are not nearly so dedicatedly self-selecting as in a caucus system. You can still do a fair amount of retail politics/campaigning in a small state like New Hampshire, but even the mainstream media admits that it's not nearly as easily or relatively possible in much more populous states -- because your same group of volunteer campaign acolytes just can't get around to everyone the way they could in a small caucus system. And they certainly can't depend on finding and button-holing so many voters attending political caucus meetings in relatively fixed places. Then, you're on to what's called *wholesale* campaigning.
So, in a small caucus system where so relatively few people vote, if you can enthusiastically convince even a small number of additional people to go vote for the first time, you have a chance of influencing the outcome, just because there are relatively so few people who are willing to participate in the caucuses in the first place. And it's easier to influence the outcome of a caucus than to influence the outcome of a regular primary election, because a smaller number of people are participating in a caucus, and therefore every new supporter you get to participate in a caucus has a proportionally larger effect than they would if they were voting in a primary election, where many more people are willing to participate. Major candidates and popular presidents have won Iowa before and lost the nomination and/or presidency; major candidates and popular presidents have lost Iowa before and won the nomination and/or presidency.
So, when Barack went on from the caucus system in Iowa, to a broader voting system in New Hampshire -- and a state that's right next to Hillary's political home base, where she's got all her established political connections, of course he wasn't going to do nearly as well, if even win -- which he didn't.
Now, when Barack gets into the larger states with more minorities in more, larger cities -- and therefore more racial friction/vying/competition, or in a word _*prejudices*_ -- especially in THE SOUTH and elsewhere -- he's going to get a much smaller % of the white vote where, even if he "doesn't see color", most whites there *do*: THEN BARACK WILL DISCOVER THAT HE'S BLACK, AFTER ALL. And yet he's actually shunning *Black* issues, interests and, to a great extent, even people.
The Barack Obama Phenomenon: The Iowa Caucus and The Ole Okey-Do
As for comment poster Pat Gibbs, January 5: "If anything he [Barack] initially frightened the mainstream corporate owned media." Pat, you must be a negro from anotha planet too, the same one that Barack "there's no such thing as color" Obama fell from! Are you talking about the same white corporate media that swelled the media whirlwind of BarakObamamania at every press of the TV remote control channel changer? (Cynthia McKinney's running for president: think they'll have *her* on?)
Blacks may or may not take the Barack okey-doke and vote for the proven historical fallacy of just an unaccountable "Black face in a high place" regardless of his true politics -- if his "big mo[mentum]" keeps up, which it's *NOT*. Davey D, one of the country's foremost hiphop era (and Black national affairs) journalists reported that Hillary was caught slippin' in Iowa, that apparently she thought she could half-coast in Iowa, and that Barack's acolytes were everywhere there doing a full-court press, while Hillary's people were actually somewhat hard to get ahold of. I guess she thought that primarily being on the Sunday morning interview shows would do it. But, stunned and rattled, she brought in Bill and McAuliffe and all the other heavy impressers and batters into New Hampshire and pulled victory out of the bag -- after all the establishment polls predicted that she would take a mighty fall.
Blacks, forlornly hoping, *again*, to get some political crumbs of the nation's resources from Washington (where from? -- like with Vietnam, where hundreds of *BILLIONS* of dollars, *BILLIONS* every *week*, are going to gratuitous imperialist wars), may switch from voting for the Democrat they think can actually *win*, like Hillary, to Barack -- since he's not *overtly* anti-Black, like a Clarence Thomas (who was, nonetheless, once championed by many then self-deluded Blacks, like Earl Ofari Hutchison). These are Blacks who will delude themselves again into thinking, like some comment posters here, "Give 'a brotha' a chance!: once he gets in, don't worry, *he'll* look out for us" -- someone who wouldn't even go to *Jena*!
But, I'll bet that Barack will end up being just a little bit more than an overly-hyped flash in the Iowa pan. Then it'll be back to THE REAL AMERIKKKA for just-*us*, instead of all of this hype and delusion.
But, finally let me say this: POLITICAL *MASS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS* ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PRESIDENTS!! Because of MASS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS we had things like AFFIRMATIVE ACTION UNDER *NIXON*; we had the divestment movement and the fall of South African apartheid under *REAGAN* (apartheid South Africa's strongest ally, next to Israel)! We had a *Republican* president send the *THE 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION* into *THE SOUTH* to escort and protect *9* Black kids at Little Rock High School in 1956! The state of California took up the Black Panther breakfast programs for poor kids. Various progressive *MASS MOVEMENTS* had such victories even under *Republican* presidents and governers.
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[Thanks for your very enlightening post Geraldine, "Et tu, Brutus Obama?", January 4.]
This is a masterful analysis
Mr. Ford I have hardly read better in my life and I've read probably over 2,000 books.
This part is just incredible:
"Media have displaced previous Black leadership-creation mechanisms: that is, leadership forged in struggle. Now, "leaders" are presented with theme music in radio studios and TV sound stages, chosen by executives on the basis of corporate notions of marketability. It is a "virtual" - not genuine - Black leadership, that only plays the role through broadcasting.
From an historical perspective, it is as if James Brown and Aretha Franklin were the preeminent Black political leaders of the Sixties. Both made great cultural contributions, and Mr. Brown dabbled in politics, to various effect, but no conscious person of that era would have considered either of these entertainers to be leaders - because real leaders, heading real, often feuding sections of a mass movement, existed. Brown and Franklin were background music for an actual People's Movement, like a score to a movie. But today, there is no movie - no Movement - just a score that makes no sense."
_CORRECTION_ from my above comment post on the Iowa caucus votin
The Barack Obama Phenomenon: What Happened in The Iowa Caucus vs. The New Hampshire Primary, 2008:
Previously stated: "As I understand it, only about 12% of Iowa population even voted in the Iowa caucus system."
_CORRECTION!_: I think that that figure should have been 12% of the eligible voting public: that makes more sense. Actually, somewhat over 227,000 voters participated in the Democratic caucus. Iowa's entire population is only about 2,982,000 -- so, the entire state has less than 3 million people. 227,000 caucus voters is *well under one-third* the population of San Francisco -- one of the geographically smallest large cities in the country. Or, it's like having an entire state caucus with only about *half* the population of just Fresno, CA.
On Substance
Pat Gibbs, upthread, completely misreads Obama's effect on whites. He should take a look at the posts before him where Obama's campaign discriminated, blissfully, against blacks in order to achieve a whitewashed media image. Obama compromised on health care -- just Google Obama and Krugman -- and doesn't offer a damn thing in the way of REAL positive policies. He deserves this treatment and worse. Edwards, if nothing else, has a) a solid health care plan that could actually change, if not save, the lives of people I know -- and perhaps some you know -- and b) is hostile to NAFTA which has both crushed our economy by funnelling money to the investor class AND created the immigration crisis by destroying the Mexican middle class. Obama and Clinton both stand by NAFTA.
So sell me another. You can talk all you want about how Obama doesn't deserve this and that. But Obama only offers talk, no solutions, no policies. Think about it this way: who would Obama hurt once in office? If you have a political policy that hurts nobody, you have nothing, it's garbage. Universal Health Care would hurt insurance companies, opposing NAFTA would hurt the rich. But insurance companies and corporate sponsors are cool with Obama. So what does that tell you?
Dixon, who posted above, has the right of it: we need to analyze the actions of the candidate. If being black is a free pass, then everyone on this board is fine with the career of Clarance Thomas, right?