The latest non-flap over President Obama, is the October Surprise that Black people sometimes talk to Black people. This, of course, has long been a source of white mistrust and apprehension. The commentators who have flooded television, blogs and Twitter with their horror over then-Senator Obama's 2007 speech at Hampton University are manifesting that age-old anxiety that if African Americans somehow address each other - especially on political topics - then it must be about division, separatism and conspiracy. Suddenly, the Fear of the Black Planet takes hold, and no matter what words are actually said, some folks with a deeply ingrained (and probably guilt-induced) phobia of Black people are going to produce their own pre-emptive narratives of imagined, future victimization.
It's worth acknowledging again that this kind of paranoia has deep roots in American culture. In American history there have been numerous attempts to legislatively prevent Black people from speaking to each other. Slave codes often banned gatherings of African Americans on the presumption that the only thing that Black people really wanted to talk about was rebelling against their oppression. Words of freedom coming from Black mouths must be a threat to the Republic and a threat to white life and property. Let's remember, however, that there are other moments that are lauded in US History that we also consider the height of patriotism. The mythos of the Founding Fathers is built on precisely such gatherings. Yet when such legalistic attempts to silence this devious talk of liberty failed, then there was always the option of terrorizing Black communities that might be invoked; the 19th and 20th centuries are replete with such examples, from the rise of the Klan to the counter Civil Rights Movement. But such suspicions linger in the post Civil Rights Era because history is not simply something we "get over." Some people take as an affront (or worse) any reminder that past injustices still underlie present inequalities. It's as if we should all dismiss the past as simply a past that had no bearing on the present; well, at least when it comes to some vision of the past that does not posit a present of perfect meritocracy. However, when the only African American president seems to be in need of excoriation for talking to other Black people, then the past is relevant. What's at stake in the revival of these videos is the care and maintenance of a double standard that has continually cast African American patriots, freedom fighters, politicians and intellectuals as being the un-American antithesis of the Founding Fathers.
Yet there is more than just a lesson is history and politics here. There is also in the (re)dissemination and promotion of this anti-Obama "evidence," a window into the on-going evolution of American social relations that are based on race. Let me put this another way, when a Black presidential candidate or president addresses a Black audience, it raises another version of that old cliché: "Why do the Black kids always sit together in the lunch room?". Of course, that tired, old query begs the question of segregation. Why do white kids do it, too? Yet there is great power even in logical fallacies, and the rhetoric of race-baiting is anything but logical (in the sense of making coherent, uncontradictory sense; racism, of course, has its own twisted logic). What's really significant about the question are some of the unspoken assumptions it carries with it:
Let's forget the fact that Black people might talk to other Black people because, well, they just happen to like Black people. They speak to them because they don't have to be "tolerated," "humored," or inexplicably categorized by their audience. The one thing that gives me hope in all this is how, for so many people, the revival of these tapes failed to be a topic of serious discussion. Perhaps we are, indeed, slowly changing America's past.
Follow Marty Favor on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@martyfavor
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Ever heard of the term 'White Flight'?? Your damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Nonetheless, I believe that among the most serious things that Black people R-E-A-L-L-Y should talk to Black people about involves "organized religion," or simply religion. Of course people should talk regardless of color or race, when they wish to acquire substantive information and viewpoints for purposes of good decisions and choices, regarding matters of faith and belief. As for me, NOT talking and sharing information concerning religious imprudence (and other things!) is just something I seem unable to do. http://www.lawgrace.org/2012/09/22/organized-religion-farewell-religion-divine-hello/
Fear really is the mind killer.
Your article is so on point, I wish I could have articulated this issues as well as you have. It's sad that some members of my own community can't understand the profound and truthful message of your article.
Post-racial is a word used by those who didn't vote for the President but wanted to use his election to pretend that racism is over in America....but here's the thing...the people who elected the President weren't racist in the first place and those who were horrified that he was elected couldn't even allow themselves to believe he was American.
Post-racial.... I don't know anyone who watched NOLA drown who wasn't shocked and horrified at the lack of response. A friend in Florida actually hitched his boat up and drove through the night to help and he was turned back by the national guard...he went home to continue to watch as people sat atop roofs or were shot at as they tried to cross a bridge.
Repub obstructionism meant it didn't matter how much the President tried to work together, it couldn't happen. Filibustering was not only at an all-time high but tenfold....how very post-racial
As for the lack of response after Katrina, as I said before, it was a failure at all levels of government, including and most especially at the local level. The response of Mayor Nagin’s administration was a total and abject failure--as was Governor Blanco’s. But back to the topic of my original post: the hypocrisy and cynicism of Obama. In 2007, then Senator Obama, speaking to a largely Black audience, told them that the federal government refused to waive the Stafford Act--legislation that requires communities hit be disasters to match 10% of federal aid--implying that the reason was based on race (since it was waived for Hurricane Andrew relief and 9/11) . What he failed to mention was that Congress had indeed waived the Stafford act requirement for Katrina, but that Obama himself had voted against the waiver. Cynicism and hypocrisy at its finest.
One day, while the students were passing from one class to the other, a black student said or did something that a white counselor saw or overheard, and found offensive. In fact, this particular white counselor seemed to have a penchant for being offended by black students.
The counselor followed the student to the classroom, and asked the teacher to call for security to escort the offender to the main office. However, the security guard who came to the classroom to escort the student also happened to be black.
The counselor immediately interceded, and refused to release the student to the security guard because ... and she actually said this ... they were both black and she could not therefore trust the security guard to execute his duties responsibly.
So she called for the white security guard to escort the student instead.
We have seen this same dynamic played out over and over again since the President's election. When there are black guests at the White House, when he's with his black friends, or addressing a black audience, or speaking in black dialect, etc., suspicions arise, specifically among white right-wingers. When black people are interacting with black people, the distrust is palpable, and suddenly it becomes "breaking news!"
if not US then who? if not now then when? jfk