An open letter to our Beloved President Obama:
Dear Mr. President:
I was going to write today about the latest brilliant idea that Wall Street has come up with to bottom-feed profits now that predatory mortgage lending has dried up, and talk about how this relates to the stonewalling that health care reform is facing. I was also going to reflect on the ideas of reasonable money, fair and balanced capital markets, and the possibility of "humane profit". I was going to ponder whether such things ideas are necessarily oxymorons, as some would perhaps argue, or whether in an ideal world, guided by a wise hand at the helm (hint, hint), America could enter into its Next Phase with a new American Dream, having clearly failed at the last Dream if the overall condition of the Average American (neither your nor I fit that bill, let's be clear about that -- as Black Americans privileged by education, profession and the resultant access to at least some power, although far more in your case than mine) is any indication.
Alas, that diary is going to have to await another day.
Because today, I need to talk to you, constituent to President, contributor to former candidate, Black woman to Black man from the same age group (hell, the same month of birth, literally), the same educational background, even as I was born and raised by Black people in a Black neighborhood and you were not (some argue that is a core reason why what I need to school you about today keeps happening, but hey, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, largely because of Michelle I admit.)
Sir, if you cannot stand behind your talented, loyal and faithful to you Black brothers and sisters at some point (and that includes all the "unwashed masses" who turned out 95% of their votes for you), no matter what the right wing and the racist and the just plain old Leftist fearful to be On the Outs throw at you, then you are no good to Black people where you sit. You'd have been better off staying in Chicago or, at best, the United States Senate.
In other words, I am sick and tired of waking up and reading in the newspaper about yet another Black politician or preacher or just plain old philosopher that you don't fight for and defend, but happily throw under the bus. Just because some white folks get upset.
Today, that Black person who has your treadmarks on his back is Van Jones.
Obviously you know all about Bro. Jones, since of course you set him on high in charge of your Green Initiatives. He deserved it. Anyone from the San Francisco Bay Area that spends 45 seconds bothering to learn something about Oakland knows all about him. About how he championed the cause of the poor and Black. About environmental justice. About the Ella Baker Center, a national model for local community action.
Yet you let them run him out of town. Your boy. Just because like many folk he is not convinced that George Bush and his administration wasn't in some way complicit in what happened on 9-11. No, the brother did NOT say that Bush and Company imploded any buildings. Any more than Sister Souljah said "We should kill white people", or Lani Guinier said "We have to have quotas for elected officials." Or your wife said "The Revolution Will Not be Televised - So bring it ON 'cause damn I'm MAD!"
(We progressive Black folk are truly grateful that Michelle is married to you and has brought the blessing of 2 beautiful young sisters to your life; Lord knows what you'd have done when folks started false carping about her thesis otherwise.)
Unfortunately, it didn't matter that Van Jones didn't say anything that truly could be considered crazy when it came to 9-11, any more that it mattered that Sister Souljah didn't say it, Lani Guinier didn't say it. Michelle didn't either. When it was time for the obligatory "resignation" after the noise machine reached its fever pitch, all that mattered is that yet again a politician threw a Black person publicly under the bus (in your case, accepting a resignation that did not need to happen but to please folks you ain't never going to please anyway) rather than push back against the unfairness.
When Clinton did it, though, we had something we could point to as a reason he Didn't Get It.
What is your excuse, Brother?
That's IMO been my biggest beef with you, during the campaign, and since you won. When it comes to defending your own people, individually or reputationally, you are nowhere to be found. You always manage to push back, to fight, for everyone and everything but your own. The only time we hear anything about us it's about the same racist lecturing that we get from every other pundit, except they had the excuse of not actually having known better because they had never really been around any of us except on the Day Tour. If anything, when we come up it's just to get another reminder about "Turning off the Nintendo" (as if our children's problems with education have anything to do with an unwillingness to work hard) or "Black fathers step up and take care of your children" (as if the studies aren't clear that Black single fathers are MORE likely to be involved with their children than any other demographic.)
But you know what, Mr. President?
It's getting Old.
So, today, you've lost one of the brightest stars of your green agenda and managed to cede power to the greedy right all at the same time:
As I explained previously on Fox Forum, the push for "green jobs" has everything to do with funding the far-left political activities that Van Jones so adamantly believed in. Green jobs are not economic jobs but political jobs, designed to funnel vast sums of taxpayer money to left-wing labor unions, environmental groups, and social justice community organizers.
Congratulations. Too much worrying on your part about those Fair and Balanced has again led you to put another piece of your progressive cred out to pasture.
Now, admittedly you were not likely raised around language that I am about to use. But I'm sure Michelle, beloved as she is, was. She can break it down for you. And admittedly, what I am about to say will no doubt cost me my dream of being an Article III judge someday, since of course I would have to disclose this piece, and my blog and other things in response to the question "Have you ever done or said anything that might cause the President embarassment?"
It's depressing, but I figured I wasn't political enough to get picked anyway, even if you excused away my being married thrice and once having unpaid tax liens (yes, they are now all paid.) Even though I think I'd be good at the job, what I am about to say would probably tear it.
/Deep Breath
You, Barack Hussein Obama aka Mr. President, aka Sir, are the motherfucking President of the motherfucking United States. (Much love to Samuel L. Jackson, another supporter of yours who I know must be shaking his head over this Van Jones BS.) The majority of white folks did not vote to put you in the White House. Even though millions fought and campaigned and worked their asses off for you, and I'm grateful for them just as you should be, if only they'd gone to the polls on November 4, your Black ass would still be sitting in your office at 455 Dirksen (aka the United States Senate Building.)
We did.
(With the help of 2 million Latino and 600,000 Asian brothers and sisters who came to the polls having not done so in 2004 either - this is where we say Much Love and Thank You to them, too.)
We came, some hobbled, some having to sit in chairs at polling places for hours to do it, to the tune that Black voters represented 13 percent of ALL votes cast on Election Day 2008.
I'm assuming you know that this is almost at parity with our percentage in the population as a whole, a previously unimagined turnout for us Black folk.
I reiterate that 95% of all Black people voting on November 4, a record turnout and a record percentage given to one candidate by our loyal Democratic demographic (since previously about 11% of us voted Republican), put you in charge of what used to be (before Dubbya, anyhow) the most powerful nation on Earth.
You, therefore, are the HNIC.
The Head Nigger in Charge.
You have, as FDR would say, the Bully Pulpit.
But I do prefer HNIC. It's more Us.
It's time to start acting a bit more like it.
If anyone in these United States of America can get this country to finally respect Black people collectively and stop demanding that we behave in accordance with white folks' wishes all the time as a condition of legitimacy, it is you.
So when in the name of the Father are you going to use it to actually HELP your own people's collective cause? Or at least not make our cred worse every time you don't stand up and say "this is some racist BULLSHIT so just STOP IT?"
(I don't expect you to actually say the word "bullshit" - but as eloquent as you are, fine too, I know you can say it without actually cussing.)
I am not talking about reparations advocacy, you painting the White House Black, wearing a tam or African garb insted of a suit, or even declaring that Malcolm X (whose teaching you admitted you respected) had it right when it comes to what we as Black folks -- second class citizens in the land of our birth -- should rationally expect from the majority.
Hell, you can even keep that ridiculous flag pin.
I am talking about simply having the back of the folks who had yours. Whether we are talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who brought you to Christ, married you, baptized your children, and until you first pushed him away by pretending you weren't actually listening during service for the last 20 years, loyal to you. Like Henry Louis Gates, who has been steadfastly your friend and did not deserve to have you apologizing and actually sitting down to socialize with the loose cannon racist cop (and therefore symbolically with loose cannon racist police all over America, thus indvertently legitimizing in your wake the newest crime of HWB, aka Home While Black) who arrested him in his own home for doing what you and I both know we'd have done if we were sick, and tired, not to mention sick and tired. Like Van Jones, who through Color of Change has thrown down hard and is successfully taking out the traitor who literally is propangandizing white folks into wanting to KILL you, Brother (you may not take it seriously, but I sure as hell do.) Or even, yes, like our Beloved First Lady, who couldn't disappear so was forced to be "remade" just because she pointed out something that you, she, me and probably every other Black person who goes to an elite college knows deep in their truly honest heart: that attendance at these institutions tend to be connected with a disturbing willingness to distance from our own people.
Black folks in the 'Hood (the majority, as opposed to those off at Martha's Vineyard) were none too happy when The First Black President threw Sister Souljah under the bus because of something she didn't even say about the Rodney King Riots (i.e. we should kill whitey. And definitely weren't happy when Lani Guinier under the wheels for the same craptastic reason; giving credence to outright lies whose sole purpose was to frighten the white majority as payback for Robert Bork. So far, you've had a major pass from most of Us on this issue of not Having Our Back. Originally, it was all about Eyes on the Prize, with the unstated collected assumption that once the Prize was won, you'd be the first President in American history to actually make sure that everyone knew that Black people and our progressive ideas were not just good for us, but good for the nation, so no reason to keep pretending we aren't important except as votes to be counted by the Democratic Party on election day. Sort of a nonviolent Spook who Sat by the Door, I guess. (I know that's what kept me going sometimes.)
But how long do you think that pass will last when it seems so easy to spook you when it comes to the White Wing (no that isn't a typo) noise machine whinging about anything a "controversial Negro" you value enough to bring into your inner circle says or does, however (almost always) inaccurately reported?
Not as long as you'd like. So, please think about it. Again, nobody is asking you to Go Militant. Just to please show some Pride, for God's sake.
Please? For the love of God.
Your constituent from the 'Hood out here in Cali (where you are always welcome, you know),
Shanikka
P.S. For those who would say that he is just "doing what he gotta do", please ask yourself some questions before you do:
a) If the reason he can't is because he wouldn't get re-elected, what is the reason you are worried about him being re-elected when he has not shown that he can get something done to help us, aka what has he done so far to deserve re-election at this point? (Hint: it isn't 1) end the war; (2) fight for a decent health care bill; (3) combat the nightmarish unemployment rate faced by our community; (4) throw the book at the financial industry for having used us as the guinea pigs starting 15 years ago for predatory lending practices that now have taken down not only our historic neighborhoods, but danged near the whole country -- despite having claimed to care about this issue while a Senator; or (5) even say a kind word of condolence personally instead of sending a lackey to publicly damn with faint praise one of our own, Michael Jackson -- whose music you know you listened to and grew up on just like the rest of us Black folks did -- passed.
b) For those that worry that if he followed my advice and behaved just a bit more like he was proud of his own people he might be at physical risk, do you see any evidence that his current path has made him less at risk? I mean for the love of Mike, he has had more risk than any President in the history of the country, and the subtle drum beat to take him out is getting louder and louder every day if you go by what is being said by the Birthers, the Beckers, and Teabaggers just short of saying "This nigra has go to GO or America is finished!"
c) Where is our pride that we continue, even with a Black president, to put ignoring Black people as a political strategy in the realm of "do what he gotta do?" We had our heart's prayer, our symbolic moment, on November 4 and January 20, and yes I cried like a baby, too. But now, it's time to get back to work and actually transform the symbol into something with some real benefits. (For those who don't realize that this, especially our young folks who seem to think that they don't have to keep fighting today and that any "racial" concerns are destructive when I refer you to the following words from Malcolm X, who tried to teach us 46 years ago -- and for all that is Holy please don't get hung up on the words "Black nationalist" when you read this. They don't mean "Kill Whitey." They don't even mean "Hate Whitey."
The political philosophy of Black nationalism only means that the Black man should control the politics and the politicians in our community. The time when white people can come into our community so we can vote for them and they can tell us what to do and what NOT to do is long gone. By the same token, the time when that same white man knowing your eyes are too wide open, can send another Negro into the community and get you and me to support him so that he can lead us astray, those days are long gone too...
The political philosophy of Black nationalism only means that if you and I are going to live in a Black community -- and that's where we're going to live because as soon as you move out of the Black community into their community, it's mixed for a period of time but then they're gone and you are right back by yourself all over again. We must understand the politics of our community. And we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature we will always be misled or led astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn't have the good of our community at heart. So the political philosophy of Black nationalism only means we wll have to carry on a political program of re-education. To open our people's eyes. To help our people become more politically conscious and politically mature. And then when we can get ready to cast our ballot, the ballot will be cast for a man of the ocmmunity who has the good of the community at heart.
These words were spoken 45 years ago - and just in case they don't persuade you, then ask yourself this. Every other ethnic constituency of seriousness in America -- Jews and Latinos in particular -- are permitted to articulate political goals that are tied to their ethnic status without pushback. They are allowed to be prideful, to put themselves first. Yet when we try, we get pushback. Including the worst cut of pushback - that of dissing and lecturing about why we are collectively fucked up and have no serious problems that America caused and is responsible for helping to fix, with no pride to balance it whatsoever. The same Blame the Victim racist mentality, except now from the man that 95% of us put in his position. Now, I have my suspicions about he talks that way, but he won't own the "Black nationalist" label that telling us to stop looking to the Man and do for self has historically had on it. Because Lord knows he can't actually be proud of us, publicly. Or embrace us too closely, publicly. That would be almost as if he himself was calling for the Revolution, right?