President-Elect Obama is a man of many talents. He is brilliant, with critical thinking skills, an amazing orator, able to inspire and bring hope to millions in the United States and abroad. And he plays ball. He was vastly superior to his opposition, and I voted for him. However, I am not convinced that his election is good for Black people. My contention is based on three major issues.
First, his personnel appointments. Second, the danger of a post-racial philosophy. And third, cultural incompatibility.
Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, has been a strong opponent of African liberation. He is closely allied to Zionist movements. Right wing Israelis with the help of the U.S. government were major suppliers of the munitions which the Afrikaner government used to murder and oppress Black south Africans.
Emanuel also played a major role in unseating congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Now, you have to keep that in mind. The presidential chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel is the eyes and ears of the president, and he can influence policy decisions.
The next critical appointment is Lawrence Summers, a person with great disdain for African people. Summers, the disgraced president of Harvard, is the new director of the economic advisory committee which, by the way, does not require confirmation by the Senate. At Harvard, Summers announced that women were not as capable as men to be scientists; that African studies is not a legitimate academic discipline; and that the work of Cornel West was not sufficiently scholarly.
Yet his most egregious act took place when he was the chief economist for the World Bank. Summers signed off on a memo that urged the United States to send dirty industries, that is, toxic industries, to countries where, according to Summers, people don't value clean air, where salaries are low, and life is not as valuable. And which countries do you suppose these are? - Black and brown countries.
There are other appointments that are questionable, even objectionable, such as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who sat as First Lady as Rwanda was being ravaged. Who as Senator from New York has introduced no measures to cease the slaughter in Darfur and in the Congo We are not likely to see the new secretary of state reverse the establishment of AFRICOM bases in Africa.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been referred to as a kinder and gentler "shock and awe." It will be imperialism and capitalistic interests as usual as people in the First World suffer and die.
The appointments that a leader makes, communicate profoundly, where his head, if not his heart, is.
The second major issue is that of the post-racial philosophy as espoused by President-Elect Obama and so-called liberal Democrats and independents. Our African culture is the cement that has been responsible for and has held our political and economic interests together. These were the words and wisdom of Malcolm X and of Harold Cruse in his book, The Crisis of the Black Intellectual.
Any socio-political philosophy that weakens the cultural cement that has held us together threatens our very existence as a people.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it possible for Black people to elect local and national politicians of African ancestry.
It is Black solidarity that turned many states from red to blue and that enabled Senator Obama to become President-Elect Obama.
For Mr. Obama to continue to attempt to convince black people not to think about race is a deadly mistake. It is black solidarity and the black vote that has given us the strength to affect our lives positively. As Mahalia Jackson sang, it is How We Got Over.
Cultural incompatibility. Mr. Obama, the prophet of the Joshua generation, has read our history, and learned what the white institutions have taught him. But he does not know our history. He does not feel our pain. It is not in his genes.
Worse, in order to assure oppressors in America and throughout the world that he can be trusted to protect their preferential, unearned privileges, the president-elect generally ignores or deprecates the great liberators of African people.
