Blacks and self-sabotage

In an amazing turn of events, in this week's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Americans got over Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Given Senator Obama's triumph this week - you might guess the larger community of voting Americans, at least those in Indiana and North Carolina, had seen through the Wright faux pas. And that indeed appears to be the case for many. But that doesn't change the fact that blacks struggle with self-sabotage, and that sad thing we do to each other was revealed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

And, while it may be more poetic than true to write this, it's as if the "the black vote" turned out resoundingly for Senator Obama, to make-up for the troubles, "we," in a sense, inflicted on him.

So who cares at this point? Well, as an exercise in self-reflection, I think blacks need to think about the drama created by Wright. We need to reflect on the damage Wright did, and the possibility that it could outweigh anything Republican candidate John McCain, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton or "the American Media" could have done to Senator Obama: As the mayor of Hammond, Indiana, Tom McDermott, said the night of the Indiana vote, in response to the question, Do you think Reverend Wright had a big impact on voters in Hammond? - "I think it had an impact and it's going to continue to have an impact, and that's what makes me nervous about Senator Barack Obama possibly getting the nomination. This seems to be an issue that hit home with a lot of voters and the city that I'm the mayor of. And I don't know if the story is over yet."

Rev. Jeremiah Wright fed the notion that American blacks can't see the forest for the trees: His actions said, I don't see the big picture, I can't see beyond myself. His actions, many might interpret to be - dare I say it - insane. Senator Obama, presidential hopeful, thusly stood alone with this funny sideshow, a prominent member of his minority group actively working against him. (Is that fair, that Obama should be judged by his pastor? No of course not, but that's the way it is, we know the rules.)

The black pundits have been uneasy about admitting this thing about themselves; Bob Herbert of The New York Times was one of the few to say it plainly:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him. Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media . . .

Blacks are less than 20% of the American population and the mainstream press reacted in utter awe at this ability to self-sabotage: Washington DC insider, David Gergen, now with CNN, remarked on the damage Wright did, "His publicity blitz has been the dumbest, most selfish, most narcissistic act I have seen in politics in some 40 years. Here, we have, for the first time in American history, an African-American who might make it to the presidency, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is choosing it to single-handedly do more than anything else in the country to try to stop that candidacy and to hurt and ruin that candidacy." Joy Behar, a comic who also appeared on CNN joked, "I was reading this 18th century playwright, a great egotist - this is Jeremiah Wright, in my opinion - a great egotist is someone who will burn the house down to cook himself a couple of eggs. That's what I think this guy is doing." And Andrew Sullivan had the common sense to reprint a blog titled, "Crabs in a Barrel"; a phrase regular black folks use to describe this kind of bad behavior.

Because of my job, I spent much of the week prior to the North Carolina and Indiana primaries filing interviews with media and religious leaders explaining how Wright was misunderstood by the media - "taken out of context", "overexposed" - by a salacious, silly, ratings-driven press.

But more truthfully, none of this would have happened - in this way - if Wright had not acted so brazenly, at that moment in time. He alone was the black person who chose to act and hurt another black person's chance at gaining the highest office in the country.

It seems to me blacks are so overburdened with their pain (past and present) that they, on some core level, have can become deeply selfish, individualistic people. This is the danger for us. We have to work on this. We have to deal with the things both immediate and gone that have made us angry - and we have to understand that we cannot get ahead by hurting each other. It seems so simple. Clearly, it is not.

Comments

[kfblanko]

I lived in the US for a couple of decades and thought that African Americans had a lot to teach us Africans about group solidarity. I don't want to read too much into Rev. Wright's actions, except to say that they certainly proved to be a handy excuse to cast doubt on the Obama campaign in a way that was a tad too convenient. Frank Rich wrote a telling op-ed recently that contrasted reactions to Rev. Wright with reactions to other religious figures supporting white candidates who had said equally inflammatory things on 9/11, etc. It was eye-opening, to say the least.

But back to the crabs in a barrel analogy...I feel that an alternate reading is called for: I think oppressed people - be they on a slave plantation or in a ghetto - have known that the cost of inciting the wrath of the master has more often than not fallen on the group. In this scenario, taking action to avert the wrath of the oppressor is not irrational in my view. Maureen Dowd recently wrote that someone suggested that the darky be strung up (a paraphrase). If some African Americans believe that Obama's audacity will have a negative impact on them, that's certainly regrettable but it is not out of the realm of reason.

[Jezreel]

Thank you Logan Nakyanzi Pollard for such a gutsy and honest post. Most AA's understand the "crab in the barrel syndrome" clearly. Most AA's of my generation, (I'm in my 5th decade of life) have been impacted negatively by this syndrome at some point in our personal lives and careers. I agree wholeheartedly with your assertions.

Perhaps Rev. Wright 's conduct at National Press Club and Barack's response represents the break from the past that our nation and our local communities must undergo so that we can experience real change.

[markgordon]

Said MPeter: "but the voting Black community joined in with the rest of America which is tired of race-baiting, polarization and indeed all the distractions, stood firmly and voted for Senator Obama."

Excuse me? Black America is showing its racist self. They're voting for him BECAUSE HE'S BLACK. They are throwing their weight behind him BECAUSE HE'S BLACK.

That's the HEIGHT of racism that I've seen so far, never mind the snippets of "US of KKK" and his obvious racist reverend. And it's actually fine with me, as long as people don't try to sugarcoat into something it's not. The black community is voting for Mr. Obama because he is black, not for any other reason. If you're voting for him because of his color, then that is truly self-sabotage.

Good luck with that.

[Jezreel]

Markgordon in your post your have articulated the loftiest heights of cognitive myopia and arrogant condescension. How is that you claim to have more insight into the psyche of AA's than Logan Nakyanzi Pollard and the 22% of Americans who are AA? AA's are not monolithic. You seem to think that if Condi Rice, Alan Keyes or Clarence Thomas were running for POTUS they would automatically garner 80-90% of the black vote. Not so.

Stop trying to fit all AA's into your narrow-minded viewpoint. We don't all think alike, vote alike, or worship alike.

What's more, prior to Barack Obama's candidacy, Americans never had the option of voting for a viable AA candidate for POTUS. AA's, and for that matter all people of color, are proud of the stunning success Obama has had thus far in the presidential race. Just as Catholics were proud of John F. Kennedy and Jews were proud of Lieberman's VP run with Gore, AA's are proud of Barack Obama. However, all AA's are not supporting Obama just as all Jews did not support Lieberman and all Catholics did not support Kennedy.

Where was the outcry when Bill Clinton won nearly 88% of the AA vote in 1992 and 1996? AA's have historically voted for white, Democratic presidential candidates since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964. Why are you calling us racist now? Get a grip and get in tune with the spirit of times we are living in.

[altohone]

It could be that Wright thought, because of the efforts of those like you and I, that most weren't willing to only look at the snippets out of context in the corporate media.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it is possible he found himself in a bubble of supporters that gave him a false sense of reality. We see it every day from the WH.

I'm not ready to assume he meant to hurt Obama.

[BEHM777]

"Rev. Jeremiah Wright fed the notion that American blacks can't see the forest for the trees: His actions said, I don't see the big picture, I can't see beyond myself. His actions, many might interpret to be - dare I say it - insane. Senator Obama, presidential hopeful, thusly stood alone with this funny sideshow, a prominent member of his minority group actively working against him. (Is that fair, that Obama should be judged by his pastor? No of course not, but that's the way it is, we know the rules.)"

I disagree with the idea the idea that Reverend Wright "fed the notion that American blacks can't see the forest for the trees". Whether or not folks think the man is crazy--he isn't--intelligent people can separate Reverend Wright from Senator Obama.

I saw Reverend Wright get a little too comfortable at the National Press Club during the question and answer period. Had he been as composed as he was during the Bill Moyer's interview, there would have been nothing for the media to crow about.

This isn't a crabs-in the-barrel kind of thing the way I see it.

[myskylark]

I wish that women were as solidly behind Hillary Clinton as African Americans are behind Obama.

Too many younger women have no memory of what women went through to get this far. But as far as we've come, we still have a long way to go in terms of equal pay, equal opportunity and representation in government.

I am old enough to know that now I will probably not live to see a woman in the White House. It's very disappointing to me, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to black people to watch a black man be so callous as to hurt the chances of the first African American trying for the White House.

[jrockbg]

Wah, wah, wah! Get over your womanly self. The job of the presidency isn't merely some symbolic post. We must choose the best candidate that we can at the time.

The whole reason you want a woman to be president is so that it will provide proof that a woman can be president. That it no longer matters if someone is male or female, in regards to earning the presidency. But if you vote for a woman because she is a woman, all you say is that GENDER DOES MATTER! You cheapen the very thing you've held in such high regard.

My fellow black folks I say the same to you. Do not lose sight of our agenda in America: We desire a culture in this country where race does not matter. To vote for a black man because he is a black man only shows that RACE DOES MATTER!

Women and black folks have shared the banner of adversity in varying degrees in America. True healing and fairness mean not seeing only skin color or a pantsuit.

[jvarga]

So people should support a candidate based on his or her gender and his or her race, as opposed to the candidates political views and policies?

Three cheers for democracy.

[MPeter]

MS Nakyanzi, you may be generally right about self-sabotage in the Black Community as I can see it everywhere where we have Blacks in the majority. But in this case, AA have been as well informed, intelligent and admirably deliberate and cautious in their actions that they need to be complimented. Jeremiah Wright was arrogant and self-centred, destructive and a magnet for the divisive and polarizxing media but the voting Black community joined in with the rest of America which is tired of race-baiting, polarization and indeed all the distractions, stood firmly and voted for Senator Obama. May young AA have been volunteering and nine out of ten AA have been voting for him despite the rubbish coming from mainstream media. So, much as I understand your point, I would like to give the AA community and millions of other Americans who have defied the dicing and slicing, to vote for the Senator. Please, keep the faith, Obama will steer this ship to the peer.