Presidential Candidates Take the 'Social' Out of 'Change'

Editor’s Note: Presidential candidates now clamor for change, and many invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. for their own political benefit, but lost in the debate is the social movement of change, notes NAM contributing editor Roberto Lovato.

The spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. still seems to stir serious controversy among politicians. But, as we’re witnessing with the latest racial politics pushing the primary process, the King icon is also being used to build the fortunes and legacies of these politicians, especially those who would be president.

Despite a racial controversy involving a newsletter bearing Ron Paul’s name that called King a “world-class adulterer” and “pro-communist philanderer,” the Republican candidate plans to launch a new and likely record-breaking multimillion dollar “super Tuesday” fundraising campaign on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King, Jr., day; Mitt Romney mentioned seeing King only to later “clarify” that he never actually saw him; Rudy Giuliani regularly makes references to King in speeches, books and security consulting engagements that earned the former New York mayor the millions of dollars that were, until recently, paying for his campaign. And Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in the midst of a fierce battle over the MLK legacy to see who deserves to win the black vote.

Lost in the bickering over and celebrations of King as an individual is any notion of the social movement that defined King and an entire generation. Similarly, the mind-numbing mantra of “change” mouthed ad infinitum by all of today’s presidential candidates would have us believe that they, not we, are the arbiters of change. The King anniversary appears to provide candidates an opportunity to remind us that they have a monopoly on “change.”

The most recent electoral banter around King takes place within the collective amnesia about his views, especially his later views focusing on issues dogging us to this day: racism and poverty, prisoners and war. To the detriment of our political process, we forget that King’s views came about at least in part as a response to a black political milieu defined not just by white racism, but by the wealth of spirited action and the intellectual perspective provided by millions of people, thousands of organizations and other, less-requited political stars - Angela Davis, the Black Panthers and their combination of service and calls to militancy; Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and their own brand of self-determination; Stokely Carmichael and the more militant students of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. These and many others influenced and pressured King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960s.

As the harried run toward this year’s King celebrations and the South Carolina primary continues, the practically propagandistic repetitions and variations of words and phrases like “change,” “hope,” “content of character”, “I have a dream” and other King-isms are coded and distributed for mass consumption like Coca-Cola. Coke is, in fact, the main corporate sponsor of a gigantic new civil rights museum located just a shout from Ebenezer Baptist Church and King’s birthplace in Atlanta.

Nowhere is this denial of the “social” in “change” better exemplified than in statements made by Hillary Clinton, who said last week, “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” Few among the pundits noted how Clinton’s framing of the issue deleted the social component of change. Instead, the media, pundits and even community leaders are engaged in a heated discussion about what the candidates believe: whether it was King, the individual, or Johnson, the individual, who “realized” the dream.

This climate has benefited Barack Obama, who speaks more skillfully than any other candidate to a still mostly white electorate that is largely unwilling to deal collectively with issues of race and racism beyond the platitudes one hears during official celebrations of King. Obama’s King-like cadences and charisma give us that semi-religious feeling that goes with being part of a social change movement -only without a social change movement.

In critical ways, the lack of the “social” in our discussions of “change” allows us to gloss over crucial differences between Obama the candidate and King, the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. When asked how he would like to be remembered after his death, King said, “I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.”

Like his competitors, Obama spends most of his time making speeches packed with calls for tax cuts and other proposals targeting the crumbling bastion of individualism: the “middle class.” He spends little to no time at rallies dealing with those most devastated by the lack of change: working class people, especially young people like those fueling the Jena Six movement. As he and the other candidates vie to be the inheritors of the King legacy, those who would be King say not a word about forcing “change” in a prison industry that predicts the value of its stock based on the future school performance of black and Latino third graders.

As we decide, during these times of continued crisis, on whom to vote for and what to do beyond the ballot box once they get elected, we might do well to recall the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., social change agent: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Not one dedicated individual, but many.

Comments

[Purple Girl]

THEY'VE TAKEN THE 'CHANGE' OUT OF EVERY AREA!!!
Social, political, corporate...
The top the Dems are Bush in '00- rhetoric but the same corruption that has been going on for at least the last 40 yrs.
JUST ANNOUCE CLINTON & OBAMA RUNING MATES- CROWN HER QUEEN AND STOP BLOWING OUR MONEY ON THIS CHARADE.

[joebaggadonuts]

I was hopeful about the article from the headline. Social is indeed the thing that's needed here. Society is what is ailing in this country and what has led to the disaffection of citizens toward their government. Hillary is right, it does take a president to get things done, but you too are right (in what I think is your underlying assumption) that the president does not matter if the people are not behind the movement or as we are putting it here, the change.

While presidents CAN bring people together to rally around a cause, they have in the past mostly managed to play divisive politics to achieve personal ambition. That the public is starting to recognize this is a healthy sign, but it is only a first step in holding all politicians accountable to produce the good government we so desperately need.

What all corrupt or self serving politicians fear is active citizenry. What the society needs to heal is this thing that politicians fear - active citizenry. We need large percentages of people to get up from their couches and listen to the voices that come from their own souls, not spirits of the dead or guesses as to what their god thinks based on what spiritual MISleaders want them to think - their own souls nourished by their senses and their families and their creator. The voice deep within that comes to us in silent meditation or moments of clarity and understanding. The voice of ourselves that understands that we are but individuals in a society which desperately needs our attention and help to grow and succeed. We are born to be a part of it, not apart from it. We succeed or fail because of our participation and the roles we take in SOCIETY, not only because of our selfish pursuits, but together with them as our society nurtures us.

Our presidents reflect us. Let us lead them to the promised land.

[jsarets]

I disagree. To the extent that it's possible to run a presidential campaign like a social movement, Barack Obama is doing a pretty good job.

He consistently reminds us that change doesn't come from politicians, but from the people. He goes out of his way to portray his candidacy as being about a tide that's turning in America, a popular movement that will forge a new majority. It's not his movement, it's our movement, and he's going to lead it to the White House.

That's Obama's message, and it's everything that Mr. Lovato suggests it should be. It may not work. We haven't had a large-scale grassroots social movement in America in decades, but Obama is trying to inspire one. If we believe it's possible for a popular movement grounded in optimism to succeed in today's America, then Obama will be our next president. If we give into our cynicism, then he won't.

If a widespread social movement doesn't coalesce around Barack Obama, then I don't see how any presidential candidate could make it happen, and the conventional wisdom would likely concur. It's up to us to be the movement, and if we fail this time around, we may not get such a good opportunity anytime soon.

[realitytrumpsbull]

D.C. needs an audit, not more bullshit speeches about dead people. Count the dead presidents and make the books balance or start shutting some of it down until they finally DO balance. Responsibility of public figures in public office, not crocodile tears and speeches that are basically irrelevant to the problems of the day. Welfare/entitlement spending run amok, defense spending run amok, policy that sounds like it came off the back of a paper napkin peeled off a barroom floor, vote for reform!

Ron Paul 08

[Wulfstan]

The only change we are likely to get is nickels and dimes from this bunch.

[Ides]

Spare me. Obama is the "original" change candidate, Obama has spent his entire life fighting for not simply civil rights but the poor, and against a racist police system. He fought for Universal Health Care. He fought FOR the welfare state. He fought, he sponsored the bills, he passed the bills.

Nothing is lost when Obama speaks, what is lost is when people like the author listen and don't see race tacked on the end of every comment. Why pander when the truth speaks for itself? I think you need to take another look at the ORIGINAL change candidate (and it annoys me that I have to put "original" in there so people know who I'm talking about).

Here's a start. Get to know what he can do.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html

[greenports]

Cogent and moving comments about the role of social movements in generating societal change. Here's an example in which both Clinton and Obama have stepped up to support a broad based coalition working toward meaningful change. Neither candidate has shied away (http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_7949769) from controversy over the most critical component of a plan (http://www.cleanandsafeports.org/)to cut diesel exhaust at the LA and Long Beach Ports. Obama and Clinton argued in letters to three port city mayors that halting deadly pollution requires that port truck drivers be classified as employees, not independent contractors.