I hasten to add that this essay is in no way written to support Hillary Rodham Clinton whose vitriolic statements about "obliterating Iran" and her ignoring of the Black community make her the wrong candidate for Black people. But just as she is the wrong candidate for Blacks does not make Obama the perfect candidate for them either. Yes, he is the far better choice for a number of reasons. But those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with his embrace of Black people or his commitment to lifting out of poverty, disease and want a race that has been beaten down so badly that it avoids asking the hard, tough questions that are necessary in this time.
So Blacks, long locked out of the rooms of power, desperately want Obama to be president and are prepared to close their eyes to anything that is going to disrupt that possibility, hoping that when he gets to the Oval Office he's not going to "forget us." Therefore, any dissenter is labeled "a race traitor" and evokes an angry, oftentimes irrational response from both the educated and uneducated alike. Those Blacks who have long ago left "the hood" and hitherto Obama's candidacy wanted nothing to do with those "ignorant Black people" have now found common ground and are once again "Black brothers." This pseudo-unity and one of convenience at that will last only until the elections in November 2008.
A sober analysis of the situation is however necessary since I owe it to my fellow Black people who feel empowered through the Obama campaign and his message of change. First off, Blacks have nothing to deal in the political pack of cards but their votes. In the Black community the one major constant is poverty and the limitations that this places on the advancement of Black people. The hope that Obama thus brings is an intoxicating brew that has helped to "numb out" the fact that Obama is still, well, establishment.
Obama supporter Russell Simmons said that there is a bottom-line assessment that Black people need to recognize: The approximately $240 million that Obama raised makes him "a controlled politician" (his words). Listen to how Simmons put it: "About one-fourth of his contributions came from small Internet donations, even though he collected more than any other democratic candidate from Wall Street people. At the end of the day, he is controlled too."
Barack Obama's Kenyan father left three wives, six sons and a daughter. And if one is to judge by Obama's comments then he has no real commitment to his African kin. In 2006 on a well publicized campaign visit to Kenya Obama speaking to adoring slum dwellers in Nairobi said that his elevation to the very top of United States politics did not mean that he would change their lives. "My time in not my own. Don't expect me to come back here very often," he said. And just as he made no commitment to Africa's poor – even symbolically – he's offered only "change" to Blacks in New York, Texas and Florida.
And sadly it is this powerful word that has created a positive powerful movement while at the same time brought out the worst forms of Black intolerance – not towards whites who have historically oppressed them – but to their own Blacks who dare to float a different point of view from that which prevails in the herd.
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