In the decade since the Iraq invasion, the general American populace has grown more wary of Washington's wars in the Mideast. Why, then, would the least militaristic ethnic group suddenly become relatively more warlike than whites? Have Black Americans undergone some accelerated ideological mutation in the intervening years?
Of course not, but Blacks have for almost six years been in the grip of a fundamentally unsettling experience for which African American history provides no defenses: the presence of a Black man at the helm of the Empire. The progressive, peace-seeking African American worldview is out of sync with the deep imperative to support the First Black President. Black skepticism of U.S. government motives is short-circuited by the fervent desire for Obama to succeed -- since his success or failure is seen as Black America's collective legacy. Black politics crumbles under the weight of this massive contradiction -- which is why Black America is in its deepest political crisis since Emancipation, unable to defend Black domestic interests or to be a force for peace in the world.
"Why would the least militaristic ethnic group suddenly become relatively more warlike than whites?"
Black elected officials, overwhelmingly Democrats, act as role models of impotence, eunuchs in Obama's harem and, when required, cheerleaders in his wars. Had Obama not "postponed" his attack on Syria, there is every reason to believe that he would have gotten the support of about half the Congressional Black Caucus -- just as when his war against Libya was challenged, in June of 2011. Even after Obama is gone, the great task of Black progressives will be to sever the chains that bind Blacks to the Wall Street-run Democratic Party, the incubator of future Obamas and, therefore, unending Black political crises.
It is true that Black folks have lost their political bearings, if not their minds, in the Age of Obama, but that doesn't mean they can't recover their sanity and humanity, once the maddening presence in the White House is gone. Mental breakdowns are not irreversible; otherwise, all the world's peoples would be permanently brain-damaged.
Perhaps the most curious and, in a sense, encouraging aspect of Obama-whipped Black political behavior is that most of those afflicted pay little attention to the First Black President's actual policies. The topic of Black conversation is usually not "What is Obama doing," but, rather, "How is Obama doing?" His fans aren't concerned about his legislative agenda, and are often shocked when informed that their icon engineered preventive detention laws and wants to cut Social Security. You are liable to be called a lying bastard, or even attacked, simply for citing his political record in Black settings where, typically, it is never debated or scrutinized. Instead, the subject of constant discussion is: Who is making trouble for Obama? What are they doing now to smear the man? In short, Black people aren't expressing their political convictions when giving tacit or active support to Obama, on the foreign or domestic fronts. They are, in fact, ignoring their own convictions in favor of upholding the icon.
As a result, what Cornel West calls the "Black prophetic tradition" slips into a coma. We know it will awake, but not without damage.
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