Amiri Baraka and Barack Obama – Then and Now
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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Black poet-author-activist Amiri Baraka has turned his pen on Barack Obama, a man he defended like a pit bull as recently as…it seems like yesterday. “Baraka kept up the abusive barrage against anti-Obama ‘rascals’ of the left, right up to the president’s assault on Libya.” But, a change of heart is not sufficient. Baraka and a bunch of other ex-Obamites need to practice some serious and public self-criticism.
Amiri Baracka and Obama – Then and Now
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“All of a sudden, Obama was ‘a negro selling his own folk, delivering us to slavery.’”
It took a savage assault on Libya by America’s First Black President and his European colonial allies – but Amiri Baraka seems to have finally given up on Barack Obama. Sorry, but I’m not one of those who is ready to say: All is forgiven, Brother Baraka. Because, although he has given Obama a tongue-lashing, in his inimitable, slashing and gutting style in the poem “The New Invasion of Africa,” Amiri Baraka has neglected to criticize himself for serving as a Left attack dog for Obama for more than three years. During that time, Amiri Baraka excoriated and defamed Obama’s “Black and progressive critics” as “anarchists,” “criminal” and whatever other insults traveled from his mind to his mouth. He said that it “is criminal for these people claiming to be radical or intellectual to oppose or refuse to support Obama.” That was back in June, 2008. He called Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney a “pipsqueak” and disparaged as “rascals” all Blacks who did not swear fidelity to the Obama campaign. “We should be supportive of what Obama is trying to do,” said Baraka. “We should spend our energy opposing the far right and the Republicans.” Obama was not to be challenged. Instead, Baraka declared, “It is time for the left to really make some kind of Left Bloc to support Obama.”
Thus, Amiri Baraka was among those who proposed to create a left flank for Obama, in order to shut down left criticism of Obama. The theory was that Obama would help the left if the left helped him become president, with no questions asked. Which is really too stupid to be called a “strategy” – as history was very quick to demonstrate.
“Baraka excoriated and defamed Obama’s ‘Black and progressive critics’ as ‘anarchists,’ ‘criminal’ and whatever other insults traveled from his mind to his mouth.”
Amiri Baraka kept up the abusive barrage against anti-Obama “rascals” of the left, right up to the president’s assault on Libya. Then, all of a sudden, Obama was “the negro yapping” to make imperial aggression “seem right” – “a negro selling his own folk, delivering us to slavery.”
Some of us who have been wise to corporate, center-right Obama for going on eight years consider Baraka’s recent epiphany to have come far too late for redemption. Others say, better late than never. But surely, his new position is incomplete without an explanation and recantation of his politics of the last three years.
Bill Fletcher is an even worse case. Fletcher was a founder of Progressives for Obama, with the same idea as Amiri Baraka: to shut down Obama critics on the left. But, you wouldn't know that to hear him now. Fletcher claims the left's mistake was not making demands on Obama from the beginning – without acknowledging his own role in preventing any such thing from happening.
New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, who put up a spirited, although weak, defense of Obama at one of our Great Debates in Harlem, right after the election, now shouts that Obama “represents the White Man” and that his wife ought to leave him.
And there are plenty of others, too many others, who used whatever influence they had to ensure that Obama was not challenged from Blacks and progressives in 2008 and the two dismal years that followed. Failure to provide a genuine self-criticism reflects not only on their judgment – which is already discredited – but on their character. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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Am curious as to how it will play out in election for 2012 -
as talk has already begun about the re-election of Obama. (Note: I voted for Kucinich in the Dem.Primary in 2008, the ballot got mailed, Absentee Ballot for Homebound Disabled, a permanent list that is easy to get on, just contact your local Bd. of Elections),the day before he dropped out. Kucinich doesn't look so good now that he "caved" in that vote ((healthcare? I must support my president, he said.)). ) Does anyone want my collection of Obama 2008 campaign buttons? They were pretty. I admit that I voted for him in Nov. 2008. I had been online long enough, some months, to read BAR and Paul Street, but I did it for "history" anyway. Am interested in the Amiri Baraka piece because I once met him (when he was called by another name. Mutual friend, another poet took my first spouse and I was a "tag along" - I was "invisible", ignored. I later found out he was in midst of divorce.)
I voted for Obama too, even
I voted for Obama too, even though I knew that he was not what his most enthusiastic supporters claimed he was. Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to give those arguing for least-worsting one last vote from me. But then I watched those same people who pleaded for my vote, claiming that we would 'hold his feet to the fire' and 'pull him to the Left', swing to positions of ruthless partisan defense the moment he was elected. They'll never fool me again, with their bait and switch. I now recognize that electoral politics is perhaps the least important part of politics, that movement politics, for example, is far more important, and I recognize that the 'Two Main Parties' are a Corporatist Uniparty that cannot be redeemed.
Kudos to you
At least you have the COURAGE to publicly admit you were wrong. I find such admissions rare, if not muted. This must be the "season" because an aquaintance of mind recently admitted to me that I was right about Obama, although he continued to believe that Obama's "intelligence" was something to admire/emulate/strive for. I responded that "intelligence" means little without morals, and as a recent convert to the Nation of Islam you should know that better than most, I said to kill that flicker of "hope" that remained with him. There are tons of intelligent people who are equally wicked. Does anyone question Dr. Susan Rice's intelligence? Or Condi's?
It's gonna take a "coming out" party for the masses to awake to the ill winds that blow with Obama. Not being afraid to say it like you did is important. It empowers others to not be afraid to say the same. Two years ago how many people would have stepped in a crowed barber or beauty shop and called out Obama?? The risk of bodily harm was too great then.
And trust me, there's little solace in saying "I told you so." Times are too grim for grandstanding.
As if right on time, Wm. Blum weighs in at counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/blum03302011.html
Is there anyone left who still thinks that Barack Obama is some kind of improvement over George W. Bush?
Probably two types still think so. 1) Those to whom color matters a lot; 2) Those who are very impressed by the ability to put together grammatically correct sentences.
It certainly can't have much otherwise to do with intellect or intelligence. Obama has said numerous things, which if uttered by Bush would have inspired lots of rolled eyeballs, snickers, and chuckling reports in the columns and broadcasts of mainstream media. Like the one the president has repeated on a number of occasions when pressed to investigate Bush and Cheney for war crimes, along the lines of "I prefer to look forward rather than backwards". Picture a defendant before a judge asking to be found innocent on such grounds. It simply makes laws, law enforcement, crime, justice, and facts irrelevant
The problem, I'm increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn't really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners' heads filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, having reached the presidency of the United States, to induce him to change his style?
Remember that in his own book, "The Audacity of Hope", Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."
Obama is a product of marketing. He is the prime example of the product "As seen on TV".
Writer Sam Smith recently wrote that Obama is the most conservative Democratic president we've ever had. "In an earlier time, there would have been a name for him: Republican."
Indeed, if John McCain had won the 2008 election, and then done everything that Obama has done in exactly the same way, liberals would be raging about such awful policies.
I believe that Barack Obama is one of the worst things that has ever happened to the American left. The millions of young people who jubilantly supported him in 2008, and numerous older supporters, will need a long recovery period before they're ready to once again offer their idealism and their passion on the altar of political activism.
If you don't like how things have turned out, next time find out exactly what your candidate means when he talks of "change".
EC:I was born a Blum.
Not my name now. My dad's name and his maternal great-grandfather was a manifest destiny man, Col. William Travis of the Alamo. My grandmother (1/2 WASP and half Jew) tried to get me to write in to one of the tv shows where the panel had to guess your famous relative. I lived in Bklyn (she did not) and it was not something I ever mentioned in my workingclass neighborhood. No, I was not interested in going on tv as a kid.
Ah come on
what a shame, no child t.v. star? Think about how even more neurotic you'd be. Not enough t.v. probably made you an artist, no doubt you have a cartoon mind. LOL
Blum tells it like it is, obviously that still runs in the family.
Tsk,tsk:stereotyping artists, EC. My sign was on p.1,DailyNews,
E.C.:You go to watch out for those stereotypes. I had a sign on page 1, NY "DailyNews", April 11, 1962 when I was a Blum (and am no relation to that William Blum that I know of; my grandpa was French, grandma said he said he was cousin of Leon Blum, the Socialist). I was holding the sign. I was 22, a "baby" teacher in my 2nd strike. I taught at Joan of Arc J.H.S. JHS118M. My sign said, "Joan of Arc, Don't Burn Us Again" with orange/red flames around it. The sign was at a big union vote in an arena. I was a union delegate from my school and we had a strike vote. It was my second strike, in my second year of teaching (I started at 20.). I quit in 1965 to start my art career,while going with first spouse to NOLA for his community organizing job in the AntiPoverty Program. I am a sculptor and I do poitical art,too: xerographics (as I've name them): multiples of collages using my own photos, drawings, then xeroxed. I've done many in last decade and a half. Protest art. Someone convinced me to send my one on drones to the White House (done right after Obama started his term with drone strikes). I got a card "thank you" for my mail.
On your Comment re t.v.: I went to a working class neighborhood Bklyn elementary school. One of my pals had an older sister who worked at Ch.11, I think, WPIX and I went with my pal (in 6th grade, age 11) to the studio in Manhattan. So that was 1951. I enjoyed looking at the folks in the studio and meeting them. TV did not impress me then nor now, but I did a lot of tv watching from age 10 when my mother bought one. I wanted to be an artist from age 10 when my father died (WWII vet). I made the break at age 25. Great choice for a life.
MY, HAVE FOLKS CHANGED!
Yes I remember when New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz at the Harlem Debate praised the election of Obama as if it was the greatest thing that ever happened to Black folks. I just got through viewing him on Youtube. It's almost comical to see how he has now completely gone the other way. Even telling Obama's wife to leave him...lol. Too funny!
Shabazz says Obama represents
Shabazz says Obama represents the white man. Well, he IS half white. Like most black folks, Shabazz is so quick to embrace ANY famous black face that he forgets his idol is biracial.
It's good that more people are awaking from the Obama kool aid hangover but I don't give much credit to people such as Shabazz, Baracka, and Fletcher for their rediscovery of common sense. These guys were more aware of the real goings ons of the political scene than the average Joe on the street. Instead of educating the masses and mobilizing them to scrutinize, question, and demand something of Obama or any other candidate, they blissfully jumped on the Brand Obama bandwagon. Fletcher says the mistake was failure to make demands on Obama. Geez, if he is just realizing this, he is one dumb fuck who needs to retire from the media spotlight.
All this "I now see the light" means nothing if these former Bots don't use their newfound common sense to denounce the evildoings of Obama and Congress and mobilize the masses to make all those demands that should have been issued long ago.
yeah, its about time
Did Obama reject baraka's requests to make him the nations Poet Laureate? To many black people thought they were gonna get paid when Obama became president. Who can forget Juan Williams of Fox who savaged Obama for all the wrong reasons week after week, bettingthat Hilary would win the primaries and reward him for throwing the black man under the bus. the when Obama won! When Obama won, he quickly started to talk about what an "historical momnet" it was, and crying on screen.he shold have been slapped. Some black people still hold out hope that brother O is gonna throw some money at em, some actually beleive he already has.
HA! You summed it up!
Every little greed prick thought they were gonna get paid. "Living in America, ah Living in America."
From the converted radicals to the post-racial whites, never mind folks was questioning his birth certificate before he got elected, you know. dem folks. LOL
Boy, what folks won't do for the almight dollar. Fire up some O Jays: "money, money, money mon neh! money!"
Change of Heart??
Neither Amiri Baraka nor Bill Fletcher ever impressed me as being worthy of the label progressive, radical or anti-imperialist, which for me means one who is unimpeachable in their opposition to the political forces and formations of finance capital and the military industrial complex. These formations operate on a grand scale and with dogged determination to dominate and exploit the world peoples and resources for their own benefit, in order to satisfy their insatiable desire for wealth and power. You either have a real commitment to overturning these forces or you do not. As much as I regret saying so, it is clear to me that Amiri Baraka and Bill Fletcher do not, despite their proclamations to the contrary.
It does not matter what color, ethnicity, nationality, or the political identification of those Heads of State or emissaries around the world who are responsible for carrying out the policies and designs of imperialism, the leopard never changes its stripes. When people like Amiri Baraka and Bill Fletcher attempt to convince us that some kind of modification or reconstitution of imperialism is possible, at certain points in time, to serve an interest other than its own, it makes it very difficult to determine the depth of their understanding of imperialism and the true nature of their alliances. For me, this is a very serious problem, as it speaks directly to the issue of trust and loyalties, when it comes to making a revolution. Consequently, I for one am not prepared to accept them back into the fold, so to speak, regardless of what appears to be their present consciousness and disposition, which seems more in line with left politics, regarding Obama’s presidency,
It is my contention that the election of Barack Obama has been a blessing in disguise. It has revealed the lack of political sophistication and astuteness of those on the left, who despite appearances and rhetoric still lack an analysis which informs them of the ability and capacity of imperialism to mask it real intentions and neutralize the opposition in order to achieve its goals and objectives. The choice of a black president is an excellent example of this strategy, which appears to have eluded both Fletcher and Baraka.
If imperialism is to be defeated, its strategies and tactics in all its forms must be fully understood and exposed, and a counter offensive undertaken. If those of us who identify ourselves as progressives or left wing are so easily distracted from this task or somehow enlisted to do otherwise, then we are not worthy of the labels with which we so proudly identify. Rather, we are nothing more than neo-liberal apologists and patriots.