Those Who Demand Nothing, Get Nothing
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"African Americans are the only constituency that has presented no demands to the two corporate candidates."
The current election cycle is, indeed, one for the history books. For the first time since the rebellions of the Sixties, we hardly hear the call for a Marshall-type plan to rebuild the cities - once the near-unanimous, unifying demand of virtually the entire spectrum of Black "leadership." Not that the demand has been made moot or passé by great achievements in rendering urban America more habitable to Blacks or more recent influxes of browns. The opposite is true: urban centers have become far more hostile environments to the non-affluent of all ethnicities. The historic Black demand for massive urban transformation, for a grand makeover of the cities that would redress the huge wrongs inflicted on the yearning Black masses who were methodically excluded from the great suburban post-World War Two national project, has been answered - by our enemies, with a second Black exclusion in the form of gentrification.
In place of a massive public sector-led Marshall Plan to rehabilitate the cities for the benefit of the largely African American populations that inherited them by default through government-subsidized white flight, public policy now facilitates the Corporate Plan for the cities: Black removal.
If any handwriting-on-the-wall were needed to graphically illustrate the grand corporate scheme for the cities, it is written on the walls of the 70,000-plus unrehabilitated, empty homes of the scattered, mostly Black and poor classes of metropolitan New Orleans; in the rubble of countless demolished public housing projects across the nation, not one of which has ever been replaced unit-for-unit; and in the millions of affordable private dwellings that have been supplanted by habitats for well-to-do urban newcomers - a small fraction of whom are Black or brown.
"Urban centers have become far more hostile environments to the non-affluent of all ethnicities."
It is true that elements of the Black misleadership class have often conspired with "developers" (actually, "destroyers") to displace many of their own constituents. Yet even these cynical players pay lip service to the general Black demand for a Marshall-type plan that would transform the cities for the benefit of existing populations. Along with the age-old demand for elemental justice from the state, a comprehensive plan to bring working class jobs, affordable housing, quality education and civilized amenities to the central cities remains the most broad-based and deeply centered aspiration of the modern Black Political Consensus. For decades, it was the demand that must be heard.
Until now. With the ascension of Barack Obama, all Black agitation has been subordinated to his election, leaving African Americans as the only constituency that has presented no demands to the two corporate candidates. Black misleadership simply accepts what Obama feels comfortable in offering. His Denver acceptance speech shows Obama is prepared to give Blacks precisely what they have asked for: nothing.
Even as Hurricane Gustav bore down on New Orleans, Obama made only the most oblique reference to the 2005 catastrophe, with a swipe at "a government...that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes." What of the 132,000 to 214,000 residents still scattered to the winds (depending on whose estimates you believe) by deliberate government policies to keep them from returning? Obama had nothing to say on that score to the Democratic National Convention - and no wonder, since he blames the ongoing Katrina nightmare on "colorblind" incompetence.
"Obama will never lift a finger to derail the slow-motion displacement of gentrification."
If Obama cannot commit to making the displaced residents of New Orleans whole - despite, in his opinion, their having been victimized by government "incompetence" - then he will never lift a finger to derail the slow-motion displacement of gentrification elsewhere in urban America.
But then, the usual suspects among so-called Black leadership haven't asked him to do a damn thing for the cities, or any other item on the Black agenda. 2008 will go down in history for its uniqueness: the year Black folks, through their leaders, demanded nothing at all from U.S. political structures.
Obama has on occasion spoken of the need to rebuild America's "infrastructure," but that is not the same as rebuilding the cities, much less transforming them to suit the needs of the current urban population. A bridge across what? A road, a train - to where? To serve whom? To bring what kinds of jobs to which communities? Infrastructure can mean anything, and nothing. Since African Americans have asked Obama for nothing, such will be the result.
It is not our job to give unwanted political advice to Barack Obama. That's the fantasy-function of people like Bill Fletcher, co-founder of Progressives for Obama, who contributed to the marginalization of Blacks and progressives by effectively disengaging political demands from political support. By now, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. knows the Obamites want to hear nothing he has to say - which serves him right for endorsing without question a candidate that was clearly packaged as the anti-Jesse!
"Since African Americans have asked Obama for nothing, such will be the result."
The Black Political Consensus still exists, the need for a Marshall-type plan for the cities is more dire than ever, but capitulation to Obama has neutered most of what was left of the Black Freedom Movement. Possibly at some future time we will view what now seems a debacle, as having served to separate the real fighters from the camp followers. But for now, organized Black politics is in disarray, to such an extent that our enemies confidently speculate on the "death of Black politics." They will best be proved wrong, by our practice.
A renewed Movement must pick up the pieces, starting with the twin demands for a Marshall-type plan for the Cities and a peaceful foreign policy - since no urban renewal can occur in the absence of peace. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente are running for president and vice-president on the Green Party ticket, but their larger goal is to reignite a mass movement based on principles that are anathema to the financiers that call the shots in the Obama campaign. They are among the voices that have not been silenced in this deformed election cycle.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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