I’m a Trin-American or Trino American or Trinidadian American. I was born in the US of parents of Trinidadian descent. Why that should be of any interest to Kossacks is built into the nature of Trinidadian society. Trinidad and Tobago (two islands, one republic) is one of the most profoundly multicultural societies in the world. I don’t mean we have many cultures in one society, I mean the cultures we do have intermingle and coexist with a level of harmony that I have never seen anywhere else and I have travelled extensively. Black, East Indian, Chinese, European-descended and Middle Eastern people live and work together, enjoy each other’s cultural traditions and even create cultural hybrids.
However, Trinidad is far from perfect and the one place those racial divisions stand out strongest is in politics. Our politics, peaceful though they maybe, are an awful morass of corrupt politicians and a tribal-thinking electorate. Again, why should this be important to Kossacks dealing with the problems of US politics? I’m saying this because I have seen tribal affiliation, specifically race used as the ultimate tool of political manipulation. And I am seeing the same thing right here on Daily Kos.
Racial politics are just a sub-group of identity politics, which the US is quite familiar with of course. The advantage of these politics to those in or seeking political power is that it acts on a visceral, almost instinctive level. It shuts down reason and rationality and makes politics about something that cannot be changed or conceded – identity. Because it does these things it serves to mask what politics should really be about – ideas, strategies and policies. The GOP’s primary tactic, the Southern Strategy, is the best example of that.
Since the health care debate I saw stirrings of this tactic being used by supporters of the administration. Opposition to the legislation was coming from white, well-off progressives who had no empathy for poor people of colour. Now it has ballooned into outright charges of racism and primers on white privilege. And it is not just limited to Daily Kos. Colbert I King wrote a piece in the Washington Post entitled "Memo to the Left: Hands off Obama", which captures the essential thesis. He was speaking specifically to the idea of a primary challenger to the President:
Make no mistake, however: If the left costs Obama his presidency in 2012, the Democratic Party as a whole will lose out.
Sabotage the nation's first black president and the Democratic Party might as well bid farewell to its most loyal base of supporters: African Americans....
And why should they stay with a Democratic Party that turns tail on a president who's trying to lead a fractious country through one of the roughest patches in its history?
Pretty deep irony there, warning the Left to stay loyal or else African Americans will leave the party. Opposition to president’s policy positions – suck it up. Politician same race as you "we are out of here!"
Before I go on, let me establish my bonafides to speak on this topic. I shouldn’t of course have to do so but it has been said quite often that the majority of Kossacks are white and well-off, which means I suppose that they are incapable of empathy or conceptualizing the circumstances of others.
I am of African descent, male and with a bit of a Caribbean accent. My life in the US (I lived primarily in New York) was one of dealing with constant racism. Driving while black, shopping while black, looking for a job while black, looking for a place to live while black, shit even trying to buy a Guinness at an Irish Pub in Penn Station while black. I sure as hell am not a racism denier. Racism is frigging real. And Leftist racism is real to. I attended a well-known Liberal college and more often than not I was expected to be dumber and more hostile than everyone else.
Now because I managed to attend university don’t think I was well-off. On the contrary, I worked low wage service jobs and lived in ghettoes, the last of which, the South Bronx, was (is) the poorest congressional district in the US. Next door to me was a drug den. I’ve seen beatings and robberies galore. If "white privilege" is on this side, I’m way over on the other side.
These life experiences, in fact, were what radicalized me and turned me into what would be called a "Far leftist" in the US (though in many societies it’s what’s called being a human being). And it is precisely because of this that I oppose so many of Obama’s policies. I know what it is to have the IRS freeze my measly salary because I owed them $50. So how the hell can you be giving people tax cuts in the hundreds of thousands? I know what it is to see kids swooped up and taken away in chains for stealing a $2 lipstick from a cosmetic store. How can you not only let the people who crashed the economy because of naked greed walk away scot-free but allow them to go on and make mega bonuses year after year? My criticism isn’t informed by whiteness or privilege. It is informed by blackness and a lack of opportunity.
In fact, it’s the same criticism that blacks in this country have been making for years. As a group we have been one of the most solidly pro-economic justice and antiwar factions of the Democratic Party. Who can forget Mohammed Ali famously refusing to go to Vietnam saying "no Vietcong ever called me nigger"? Who can forget Public Enemy’s "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" where Chuck D and Flavor Flav cause a prison riot after he has been imprisoned for not joining the military? THAT’S the tradition of the black left in America.
Well there is a new black left. They quote Reinhold Niebuhr as a justification for expanding the war in Afghanistan. And that’s their right. No one should be pigeonholed into a political position because of their race. I frankly think being black and being a member of the GOP is like being a chicken and pro Colonel Sanders, but that’s their right. It’s one thing, however, to modify your positions on many of the bedrock liberal ideas and quite another to accuse people who have held onto those ideas of being racists.
I’ve been a regular reader at Daily Kos since around 2003. I’m a voracious reader, especially of history and I have delved deep into the history of liberalism, in the US, Europe and the Third World (in fact what you call liberal history here is just "history" in a lot of developing nations). The criticisms being made of Obama now by the Left have been made all the way back to Jimmy Carter (I use him as the first example of the modern DLC-type Democrat). Who in 2004 didn’t think Kerry was an absolute wimp? I remember watching him come out at the convention with the salute trying to appear more "hawkish" and thought to myself "what a prostitute". The lack of fire in the Democratic Party is one of the reasons that Daily Kos exists today. A lot of the criticism Obama is getting is nothing new.
What IS new I think, is the level of disappointment, because Obama did one hell of a sales job. And of course now we have the full-on Internet, which allows a level of scrutiny and democracy of commentary that no Democratic president has ever had to deal with (notice I said full-on Internet). People are taking Obama very personally – both detractors and supporters. I don’t think either is particularly good politics but I certainly have seen little to make me believe that racism is a prime motivator among more than an extremely small section of those who oppose him.
Yet some supporters are choosing to make the fight about racism. That suggests to me that it’s either because that’s the fight they want to have or it’s the only fight they know.
Well I’m speaking up just to give an alternate opinion from someone of colour. I have no statistics to show how much of the black community is or is not in support of Obama’s policies and maybe there is a strong possibility that there could be a mass exodus from the Party. I don’t have a problem with that. The Democratic Party has taken the black vote for granted for a long time and I don’t believe anyone OWES the party a vote. I just wish it would have been for something more substantive than the President is black.