This
is the debate our community was waiting to have. It is a
�must have.� We will discover everybody�s motives as this
conversation shakes out. There
are those who claim they�re with Obama, and just want him
to �do something� to help black people. Others claim they�re
with Obama, and just want to �push him� to be �great.� There
are those who say they don�t hate Obama, they just want
�what�s best for the people.� And still others are true
Obama-haters, but can�t admit it, lest they lose legitimacy
with the very people they claim to represent.
Because
the people love Obama, and three years of a difficult power
transition has not caused their �Hope� to wane, some want
to push their impatience onto the masses of the people or
give the impression Obama is losing support. Black people
have tolerated 232 years of bullsh*t before seeing themselves
in the ultimate power seat in America.
We can wait a few more years until he straightens it out.
This national �impatience� that others have around Obama,
namely the Republicans and the Tea Party, can�t drive our
decisions about how we calculate our political future�s
best interests and we can�t let people in our community,
who never supported Obama in the first place, drive the
hysteria.
I�d
like to thank my friend, Tavis Smiley, for causing me to
engage on this issue, with his so-called poverty tour and
trust me, I�m in it to win it now. And we ain�t gonna go
the route of Steve Harvey (who has since apologized for
the name calling - but not the accusation of disingenuousness
tied to the poverty tour). Harvey should never have called them Uncle Toms. We can have differences
without being disrespectful. Tavis Smiley and Cornel West
are too invested in this community to be dissed like that.
Last week, I just called them misguided on this issue and
called for them to come clean on their anti-Obama sentiment.
A national debate about Obama�s �accountability� will give
everybody a chance to �come clean� or �piss test dirty.�
Defend your claim. I don�t see anybody on the Presidential
landscape that has our interests covered better than Barack
Obama.
Yet,
now we have to have a national conversation about whether
President Barack Obama has �done enough� for black people
to receive support for re-election, in the same way we had
to have a national conversation four years ago as to whether
then candidate Barack Obama was �black enough� for
black people to support him for the Democratic nomination.
And
some of the same people who didn�t think he was �black
enough� then want to drive the national debate on whether
he�s done enough now.
What
a freakin� �coincidence!� The �out group� wants to dictate
what the �in group� does when it comes to how we support
the President. Why didn�t they do that three weeks ago to
the Republicans (the House�s in-group) when the Republicans
had their foot on the Democrats� (the outgroup) necks? Why
didn�t the Congressional Black Caucus �fight harder� or
�unleash� then? There are just as many of them as there
are Tea Party members. The Congressional Black Caucus didn�t
throw down like the Tea Partiers did. They could have been
as loud as the Tea Party while the fight was taking place
in Washington. They waited until the recess to get
loud, and oh, that�s right. They didn�t want to face voter
backlash. They�re waiting for their constituents to �unleash�
them.
In
fact, they wanna� �unleashed� black people now and so dysfunctional
black leadership that didn�t have the vision to get us to
the presidency and had little, or NOTHING, to do with Obama
getting elected, can openly criticize him without fear of
voter backlash. Now that�s some funny sh*t, right there.
What do their constituents know that obviously their elected
and self-anointed leadership doesn�t? Well, they see that
the only black man in the nation�s history is in a candy
store (and America is a candy store, where money flows like
candy), where nobody wants him and they�re following him
all around the store. He has opposition on all fronts, hypercritical
media that never gives him credit for anything he does,
a panicked public blaming him for problems he didn�t cause,
and political opportunists trying to exploit his apparent
vulnerability in order to cause him to lose. Hmmm�you think
the people see that? I think they do. I think they know
he�s trying.
They
know that President Barack Obama put 1.5 billion to
prevent homelessness, put another one billion dollars
in anti-poverty programs � more, by the way, than any
President in American history (check that fact). He
has extended unemployment longer than any President
since the benefit was started. Who do you think the people
think it benefits? Well, who�s been out of work the longest?
And what do you think the people think when they see a poverty
tour, and those trying to bring �accountability� sleeping
with the homeless in Washington, D.C., when the
very city the convener is from is the homeless capital of
the nation? Did the tour bus go through downtown Los Angeles? You think they see some grandstanding going on? I think
they do.
And
what do you think �the people� think when they�ve been taught
that it�s the �squeaky wheel� that gets the grease, but
no grease ever comes their way. Their lives are just as
rough as it was 20 twenty ago when they elected the squeakiest
wheel in Congress, who has been representing them for over
20 years now, but can�t give her constituents the time of
day with her community�s most popular figure - who they
love and supported over squeaky�s endorsement of somebody
else, and since she can�t call him - now just wants to �call
him out.� But wants her constituents approve first. Hmmm�I
think they see through that too. But what do the people
think of that? Exactly what can we call that?
Let�s
call it �the Audacity of Dope.� That�s it. Because you�ve
got to be dopey as hell to think anybody�s falling for that
okee-doke. But we are willing to entertain the conversation,
if it means we can move past this, and get Barack Obama
re-elected President of the United States. This conversation is taking place
at a critical, when people have been asking rhetorical questions,
like, �Are we any better off after integration?� at the
same time Presidential candidates are telling people that
�slavery wasn�t so bad.� Can you see where they�re going
with this, and some of us would gladly back them.
We
can play these rhetoric games if we want to, but we know
blacks are better off after integration - like we know most
white folks segregated again after Reagan (they just forgot
to tell y�all) to obstruct and disrupt the politics of anti-poverty,
and like we know one President is not going to cure poverty.
We know that we have people that have gone from organizing
in Watts to living in Hancock Park in twenty years, so if �the people�
haven�t made progress - somebody�s making some progress.
We also know people who went from organizing on the Southside
of Chicago to living in the White House in less than ten
years. I think that�s progress that wouldn�t have happened
in the segregation era (for those dumb enough to go backwards).
So let�s stop playin� stupid like we don�t know what�s up
here. The CBC knows the obstruction game is bein� played
here.
Moreover,
it�s not like the CBC doesn�t understand the obstructionism
that has taken place the past three years. But instead of
helping the President fight against it, some of the CBC
have chosen to become a part of it, and like the other obstructionist
group, namely the Tea Party, use extreme statements in the
media to gain press where there otherwise would be none
- knowing the media is all too willing to play �divide and
conquer� with black people, given how well it has worked
in the past. So now �our� so-called leaders are calling
out the President, instead of calling out Congress or business
leaders who are busy writing Republican Presidential candidates
million dollar checks to defeat him. This is not about taking
our community for granted. This is about the folks in the
field (the CBC) refusing to fight the other folks in the
field (the Tea Party) who are obstructing the President
from doing what he can for the poor and despaired. I
guess since they figured they couldn�t beat �em, they joined
�em, but that doesn�t help us. Politics is a war fought
on many level. The President is winning at his level. From
what I�m seeing we�re losing this war in the battlefield.
The Tea Party�s Congress people are getting the best of
all the rest, but the CBC claims the President needs to
fight harder.
Hell,
our members in Congress need to fight harder. And activists
in the community need to fight big business to pay their
share. Why make this about Obama?
Poverty
is a function of a society unwilling to contribute to the
good of the whole. That�s the President conversation about
�shared sacrifice� and the rich not being willing to pay
their way. The last two American generations are the only
not to have invested in the nation aging infrastructure,
now pushing 90 years old. This President has and it has
created more jobs than in all of George W. Bush�s
eight years in office. It may not be enough to pull the
country out of a recession, but it�s a damn good start.
And the only thing we can say is he hasn�t done enough on
poverty or jobs? PA-LEEEASE!!!
Let�s
have the conversation and not one just side of the conversation.
So, we�ll play along with this �rope-a-dope� and let y�all
pound on the President for a minute. Just know after y�all
are all punched out, the people�s knockout is coming because
we�re not leaving his side. And because there�s no real
reason for us to have this conversation in the first place,
beyond some people�s personal agenda, one of which, I am
convinced, is to see Barack Obama lose. So now, consider
me, UNLEASHED. I�m willing to have the accountability conversation,
as long as it swings both ways and we have accountability
conversations about those who are �calling for� accountability
conversations. What are all our roles in the play? The �people�
want to know. Let�s do this.
I�ve
never been one on a leash, nor have I been one to allow
anyone to try to put a leash on me but I�m signing out until
week, when we will pick up this conversation again. And
again and again, if we have to. This is Samad�UNLEASHED!!!
Dueces.
BlackCommentator.com
Columnist,
Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing
director of the
Urban Issues Forum
and author of
Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Click
here
to contact Dr. Samad. |