Just before the midterm election, I posted a piece called "A Message To Black Candidates." The article sought to impel the six black men running for senate and gubernatorial posts to stop compromising their own heritage in an effort to look electable.
Today, only one of the men who were each touted as the new wave of black elected individuals - Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick - remains standing. The strategy employed by the other candidates, that of moving to the center and right and neglecting the issues that affect the black community, simply didn't work.
I'm not happy to be right. Just like most of the members of my community, I would have loved to have another black voice join Barack Obama in the senate, and to have greater diversity in state executive positions.
But the truth is, considering their apparent lack of interest in discussing civil rights issues or the current crisis of black men on the campaign trail, I'm not really sure that this voice would have represented my concerns. Many African-American voters felt the same way. These candidates erred by dismissing political rule #1: First and foremost mobilize your base.
Folks have told me, "They don't have to say anything while campaigning, just as long as they do something when they get in." I disagree. I don't want to elect someone with hidden agendas - I want an authentic candidate. Authenticity is something that resonates with all voters of all colors and ethnicities. And it one of the hardest things for African-Americans to convey.
Why? Because in 2006, we find ourselves exactly where W.E.B. Du Bois was more than a century ago - striving to unify our "double consciousness." Mr. Du Bois posited that American blacks have two identities, two souls, two manners of thought; one American, one Negro. Neither is more genuine than the other. Both exist, are ever-warring, and thus put us in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance.
Which is why today, black political aspirants have real trouble reconciling which identity they should portray. Am I black? Am I American?
Well, they're both. We're both. And the task is - and it is obviously a mammoth one - to learn to merge the two without allowing either self to be lost. As Mr. Du Bois puts it in "The Souls of Black Folk" from 1903, "He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world."
Mr. Patrick made a solid effort to unify the two, to appreciate his skin and not hide it as a hindrance - throughout his run. His victory speech to his supporters addressed this with, "You are every black man, woman and child in Massachusetts and America, and every other striver of every other race and kind, who is reminded tonight that the American dream is for you, too." He was authentic - and the voters got it.
And now, there's one man who really needs to be paying attention to this and that's Barack Obama. Before he contemplates a presidential run, he has to figure out who he is.
In the words of Mr. Du Bois, he has the unique opportunity to "make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit on by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face."
I hope he does it.