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Cops' Acquittal in Sean Bell Verdict Complicates Things for Obama
Today's acquittal of the 3 police officers accused of killing Sean Bell in November of 2006 will complicate Barack Obama's efforts to win the presidency in November 2008. His candidacy already mired in the racial machinations of his opponents, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Obama will find himself having to maneuver between the need to speak out on the most egregious, high-profile example of institutional racism and police brutality since the Rodney King incident and the need to deflect Clinton and McCain's racialized attacks aimed at fomenting white fear of blacks and other non-whites.
While it has helped him win white votes, Obama's approach to dealing with such racism by pointing to the black and white pictures of the civil rights past will not help him with his base in the black community and other communities. With the 16th anniversary of the Rodney King incident looming on the horizon this August 29th, none of us will be in any mood to hear calls to "hope" or "change" without similar calls to "justice."
Unfortunately for Obama's presidential bid, calls to justice from African-Americans and other groups often trigger fear among some (not all) white voters. The plate tectonic political shifts brought on by the Republican party's Southern Strategy were premised on precisely these racial and political calculations. With the help of political strategist Kevin Phillips, Richard Nixon pointed to black anger as a way to persuade to white southern voters that the Republican Party could best represent their interests.
At a time when blatant racial codes have given way to the subtler racism of a post-Southern Strategy era, Obama finds his historic presidential bid bogged down by the new racial codes being engineered by the Clinton and McCain campaigns -- and the mainstream media. Responses to the Sean Bell verdict will surely provide new codes, more political and racial fodder to those who won't let the Jeremiah Wright scandal rest; those who seem to make racialized remarks involving Obama right before big primary votes; those who appeal to white fear among voters by linking Obama to fabricated images of black anger.
Obama's attempts to speak about real black anger during his Philadelphia speech appear to have been not well received if the media's ongoing obsession with Jeremiah Wright is any indicator. Failure to use his rhetorical gifts to speak forcefully to and about real black and non-black anger about the Sean Bell verdict may re-animate doubts about commitment to that part of his base that is not white middle- and working-class.
Beyond Obama, all of us need to raise our voices and point at the abyss of our country's institutional racism as was painfully and transparently reflected in today's verdict. We might want to start by pushing Obama, Clinton, and McCain -- and the mainstream media -- to speak honestly and continually about what the 50 bullets in Sean Bell say about justice in the 50 states of our tattered and bloodied union.
Follow Roberto Lovato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robvato
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Leadership ......need I say more ?
If he hadn't been shot 50 times on his wedding day it wouldn't have made the news at all...okay, if it hadn't been on his wedding day.
I wholeheartedly disagree on every level with this post. I'm an Obama supporter and I don't believe he should get involved in this case. Period. This is NOT a political campaign issue.
I'm an Obama supporter who has campaigning for him for the past year. I am also black and from New York. You would not even be able to understand the anger, hurt and frustration that many feel including myself.
If Obama only cares about what will get him elected and not about truth, justice and integrity then I am not sure anymore.
Londongal, its people like you I guess he's pandering too.
African Americans and other non-whites can not overcome these injustices by themselves. AAs for instance only make a little over 10% of the population. The majority of this country is still white and more whites have to step up and have louder voices when these injustices arise, or nothing will change.
As a native New Yorker I couldn't disagree with you more. While the Sean Bell case is a tragedy, none of the candidates need to address it. There are murders all over America every day. The respective city/state governments need to deal with it, not the President of the U.S.
Hillary is the SENATOR OF NEW YORK!!!!! She should address it as our current senator.
Obama is receiving overwhelming support from the AA community and this is a big issue but I guess we dont matter.
Everyone has to address injustice!!
Where is Senator Clinton on this ? Has she made a comment?
No Obama doesn't have to speak out on this no more than he would've had to speak out before we knew Barack Obama. I'm tired of people constantly making every black issue an Obama issue. Newsflash he's running for President of the United States! No one is pressing John Mccain or Hillary for a comment. Heck why hasn't Prez Bush addressed the issue. Pleassssssse give me a break!
Actually, I do think that Hillary needs to comment, because this happened in her state under her leadership.
I think they all DO need to speak about the Sean Bell case. It is exactly what Barack Obama was talking about in his speech on race & America. Entries such as this one are exactly the problem: let it all go away. Now, there was so-called legal "due process" completed. It is certainly a very tricky event to address. And it is just that "trickiness" that is a big problem.
Want to be proud of your country? Let's see many citizens challange this type of underlying, pervasive, not-so-subtle racism.
I would like my senator to comment on this since it happened in her own state. In her own backyard!!!
Obama is getting overwhelming support from AA's. A big issue for them is justice and civil rights. This is a prime example of how much that lacks.
i see it as an opportunity for obama supporters to point to this miscarriage of "just-us" as a way of understanding rev. wright. how can anyone look at this case and not see that black men's lives are not valued in this country?
MexAmerican....THANK YOU!!!
I can't tell you how many AA's where sayin God Damn America today in the streets of NY.
If someone wants our support (continuing getting our support) they need to address such issues which is yes a prime example of institutionalized racism, un-civil rights, social injustice and the cheapness of black life in America.
NABNYC
The race of the cops who killed Bell is irrelevant. It is the stereotypical image of young black men, embraced in part by the black community, is that a young black man equals angry, violent, and bitter. The acquittal of the officers points to a bigger picture of how America devalues the life of a black person. I pass by the local supermarket and see picture after picture of young black children who are abducted, yet the news focused on Natalee Holloway for years now. People who kill little white children (Jon Benet Ramsey) are deemed monsters, while those who kill little black and brown kids never face the same scrutiny. Everything associated with black has a connotation of less than, not as good as, and not worth shedding as many tears.
This is why it is so hard for many, both black and white, to believe that a black man (biracial, actually, but in America, he's just black) can actually be a good person. This is why Bill Clinton could have oral sex in the Oval office and people defended him, yet Obama gets slammed for having a pastor that speaks things people don't like. I remember Hillary saying, "you can't choose your family, but you can't choose your pastor" forgetting that you can also choose your husband, but yet no one calls her on it, because Bill is white. Kwame Kilpatrick should be so lucky (even though I just don't like him at all).
I don't agree that this is Obama's problem. I believe two of the three officers who were charged were black, so it's not a case of white cops accused of murdering a black victim. It's a bit more complicated. I also don't assume the case was decided improperly, or that the judge was corrupt in his decision-making. Maybe he was, but I wasn't there.
We have the unfortunate scenario of Democrats now embracing the idea of bitter drunken unemployed Americans all packing heat, automatic weapons if possible, to prove they are "real" Americans, and Hillary Clinton advocating saturating neighborhoods with even more weapons.
One of the effects of the politicians' corrupt endorsement of the NRA is that there many guns on the street, and cops lives are in danger every time they go on patrol. The proliferation of deadly weapons among children and teenagers creates neighborhoods under siege and leads to killing of unarmed people who made a "suspicious" move. Or maybe the cops were just scared.
Ask Hillary how she can bitterly embrace guns given the number of gun deaths in this country every year. This isn't Obama's problem: it's America's problem.
Can anyone on the blog tell me when was the last time a cop went on trial for accidently shooting and killing a white person? Why does this crap ALWAYS happen to minorities?
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