Princeton University professor Cornell West's silly, shoot-from the lip slur of President Obama as a black puppet predictably got the headline that he knew it would for two reasons. The first is that the slur came not from the professional Obama baiters, Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, and Michelle Bachman, Tea Party leaders and activists, the shrill pack of rightwing talk show jocks, bloggers and websites. It came from West, a mediagenic, leftist black academic. Even that might not have drawn mention since West has repeatedly hectored, harangued, and tweaked Obama as a sell-out to corporate interests and for allegedly saying and doing nothing to alleviate black suffering. The strong language West used calling Obama a "black puppet" guaranteed the momentary tantalizing headline.
But West's slur got traction for another reason. It came close on the heels of a recent Gallup poll that showed that Obama's approval rating had taken a dip among blacks. It's still high, but a dip nonetheless. The question then is did the president's approval ratings drop among blacks because of the disaffection, unease, and impatience that an increasing number of blacks feel toward Obama? Probably, and the chill toward Obama is based on a grossly inflated, wildly unrealistic expectation of what Obama could and can do in the White House, and has done.
The Congressional Black Caucus was the first to signal impatience with Obama last year after when they publicly demanded that he spend more money and initiate special programs to reduce the near Great Depression levels of joblessness in poor black communities. There was even some talk that Caucus members would vote against his financial reform bill if he didn't kick in more funds for job programs for blacks. It was just talk. But the empty threat got some attention, and was the first sign that the near solid black support Obama had enjoyed during and after his election win was fraying at the edges.
But Obama has never deviated from the line that he virtually set in stone the first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois, in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. He had little choice. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.
However, this was not to cold shoulder talk of race, the plight of the poor, the crisis of unemployment, education and the criminal justice reform, and the staggering health care crisis that slams poor blacks. It's just a matter of style, timing and nuance. The string of Obama initiatives on health care reform, increased funding for education, a tough consumer protection agency, a nod toward drug law reform, the appointments of legions of African-Americans to agency and sub cabinet posts have been Obama's way to deal with the special needs and chronic problems that confront blacks. At the same time he walks a fine line. He knows that he's being watched hawk like by his powerful political foes for even the faintest sign that he's tilting toward blacks. This would be ammunition to turn the low intensity war they wage against his initiatives into a full blown racial counter attack against him.
This would fatally type him and his administration as anything but a race neutral president and ensure that his legislation and initiatives would be twisted, tied-up, and straight-jacketed. It would also stir a push back among some within his party. His administration would be hopelessly hamstrung. His 2012 re-election bid would instantly be transformed from a tough but eminently winnable race, into a hard, time consuming uphill war.
Then there's the nature of what the presidency is and entails.
Obama, as all presidents, is tugged hard by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, conservative GOP senators and house members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all vie hard to get White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests. The presidency by definition is a series of deft political compromises, conciliation, give and take, trade-offs, quid-pro-quos, and straight out horse trading. Presidents must navigate through the treacherous shoals of the myriad special interests that routinely dominate beltway politics. This is the price that all presidents must pay to achieve pragmatic, effective White House governance. He's done that as well as the better presidents. To call Obama a black puppet tells more about the name caller than the president. But it still got the predictable headline.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Jeffrey Stout: The Character of Cornel West
The People's budget would satisfy Cornell West as well as the vast majority of people.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/
Can't these folks find nothing better to do with their talents (????) than whine, whine, whine and blovate in an attempt to help what passes for media to undermine the President? I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what these people have done that benefits the black community.
I want Cornel West and the other black so-called scholars and pseudo-intellectuals to name any job training programs they support? What classes have they taught in standard English to people who, while born in this country, still cannot speak it? How many high-school drop-outs do they mentored or tutor? What have they done to the black community of drugs?
Oh wait, I know.
Nothing.
Nope. Politice in the media is a media event. And the $$$ say preserve the event, not do the job.
And if things are good, its only half as good for blacks. that's the way it is and has always been. The president and every black person who criticizes him, including Mr. West knows this. But the president also understands that a good education system, a strong manufacturing base and just legal system will be the foundation for making up the difference. I respect Mr. West, but I disagree with him on this. President Obama has to be everyone's president if he is to do anything for Blacks.
Why do you think that is?
As a black guy one thing i noticed is, since i left college in 2008, i have moved to numerous employers to get better advancement, and as a IT guy, each company i have worked for, i have either been the only black guy in the department or i had just one black co worker.
We can always blame someone else for the lack of progress in the black community, but black Americans need to stop acting like they need the government to hold their hands. We are where we are because because too many of us are okay with living a mediocre life. So keep waiting for Super Man, if you aren't willing to be uper yourself.
They know each other well.
As we are encouraged to accept the President at his "word", because he is an accomplished man in his field of study, I think we can also trust Prof. West, for the same reason.
Thank the Professor, for shining a different light on the enigmatic "leader" of the Free World.
When a law professor elitist says he's a gonna gitcha' , ya best not scoff.
Still, I hope we do "get 'em".
Further research on your part would have revealed a more expansive statement by West, explaining his rationale;
"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable."
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2011/05/cornel-west-v-obama.html
Can you to fault the logic in that statement? The excoriation of West that you are foisting on this forum with a very disappointing piece is a hastily written hack job.
Hater. Plain and simple.
I think West and others are thinking of our President as an ACTIVIST and not a PRESIDENT. Change starts LOCALLY and expands outward. Outkast said it best in a song:
"If you wanna reach your nation...start from your corner". Sitting back and expecting the President to be everything to the black community SIMPLY because he's black is silly.
Further, while our President may be "rootless" in terms of roots in the black community as a child, how exactly is that HIS fault? You don't pick your parents, nor do children get to decide where they grow up.
Nobody is apportioning 'blame' for the President's upbringing or the circumstances thereof, but the scenario painted by West has a basis in reality.
The Black community is not the monolith that some would have people believe and if you remember back as far as Obama's Senatorial campaign, then you'd be aware of the brouhaha caused by Keyes when he maintained that since Obama's ancestors didn't suffer the Middle Passage as the vast majority of African Americans did, Obama isn't authentically Black. A claim he STILL maintains, to this day. Being of British birth, albeit with an American father and a Jamaican mother, I can testify to the inverted bigotry directed by some of our own, toward our own when it comes to 'American-ness' and how it is exploited by the simple-minded bigots among us. I can relate to the acceptance thing as, even to this day, when I open my mouth among fellow African Americans the 'differentness' becomes apparent. I see it as perfectly feasible the brother Barack would (and, maybe still does) encounter some apprehension when among the more strident members of our community...It makes perfect sense to me, and (I'm sure) many other African Americans in this land, whose ancestry doesn't conform to the template expected...
President Obama has appointed some people who I believe to be very smart people but who are tied to many of the financial issues our country has faced. They shouldn't have been considered for some of these posts due to conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest. Considering that these people advise the president on fiscal matters there is a concern that the policies that the administration ushers forth are tilted to the financial sector/corporate power structure.
Second, who cares if Obama appoints blacks if, like Obama, they are all puppets?
Get a grip man, stop trying different blog names. Jealousy by any other name is still .......
"Second, who cares if Obama appoints blacks if, like Obama, they are all puppets?"
Now, I understand that the "if's" in your comment make it hard to pin your own opinion on the matter down, as it's a vague comment. But it does seem to me that you're suggesting that all, or at least some of those appointed by Obama are "puppets"...which is weird, since, well, how would you know that?
i am not questioning his (West's) CV but he is not governing anything.