I've been meaning to get to this video for a while now, because it's been passing the rounds as a way to get two ideas across to the wider public:
1. Black political heterogeneity. Blacks don't all think the same politically. The fact that black people tend to vote democratic when they vote is more of a testimony of how limited our political system is than it is a testimony about black people.
2. Black thinkers are torn over Obama. Even as black thinkers in general believe racism to be a fundamental component of American life, they don't necessarily agree on a wide range of other things. Furthermore even as black thinkers in general believe the current manifestation of the Republican Party to be deeply racist, they haven't quite come to consensus on Obama.
I am agnostic about the first project. It isn't that I have problems with the idea of black political heterogeneity. It's that I don't find it necessary to "prove" black political heterogeneity. I grew up taking this for granted. I do believe it important to trace the contours of various disagreements as well as to assess their causes/consequences, I'm not the one for showing a non-black public "we don't all think alike."
I think the second project is important to examine though, because it gets us from the general "we don't all think alike" thing to a much more specific question. How should we assess the first black president's presidency? Such a debate, particularly when handled correctly, can expand democratic possibilities in black communities by at least exposing blacks to ideas about governance and democracy they might not have been exposed to before, ideas that can potentially make them amenable to participate in movement building at local, state, or federal levels.
With this said, below is a video between two black left-leaning intellectuals–Michael Eric Dyson, and Glen Ford.
If it goes too long for you, check out the transcript here.
I find two components about this debate deeply problematic:
1. Dyson compares the presidential election to a basketball game (to the NBA Finals no less). Perhaps this is better than the horse-race approach most pundits use, if for no other reason than the fact people don't really go to horse races anymore (the triple crown races notwithstanding). But it obscures what real stakes there may be, not just in this election, but in general. President Obama is NOT Lebron James. Drafting an executive order that makes drone warfare possible is not the same as putting the Heat on your back to defeat the Boston Celtics. Treating them as equivalents represents a sign of poor preparation, of disrespect for the audience, or both.
2. Ford makes the claim that Obama represents the more effective evil. Ok. I consider myself to be an Obama critic. And believe that a public option would be far better than Obamacare. But as the parent of a first year college student, who very well may need to stay on my health insurance after she graduates, I think Obamacare to better than the alternative. There are other examples of concrete ways that policies Obama supports have helped me–even as I have been victimized by the neoliberal turn in a number of ways. I don't see Ford wrestling with this at all. African Americans live in the world. Our lives are directly shaped by the policy decisions the President makes, and we often find ourselves having to make incredibly tough choices in order to navigate the world we live in, rather than the world we WANT to live in. Ford doesn't appear to get this distinction.
Boiling these components down debaters ignore the substance of politics and of political decisions. I wish Amy Goodman could've found other interlocutors.
I’m not sure what you mean by the substance
of politics, but I give credit to Democracy Now for broadcasting the program.
The views of people like Glen Ford are not usually considered even within the
mainstream of the alternative media.
I thought Ford did a better job of presenting
and defending his position (Obama is not the lesser of evils, but the more
effective evil) than Dyson (Obama is the most progressive president since FDR).
I base that on the number of times Dyson agreed with Ford’s position, but
attacked it as idealistic. Ford never agreed with any of Dyson’s positions.
However, Dyson overarching objective is clearly to get Obama reelected. Ford’s
objective is justice.
Dyson apparently believes that electoral
politics is the only game-changer in town. Of course Afrikan Americans could
not vote to get the right to vote. They applied pressure from outside the
system. The Kennedy’s hoped that voting rights and holding office would
eliminate the need for mas-based protest movements. They were correct. Once the
Freedom Democrats accepted a few positions within the Democratic Party, the
process of neo-colonial politics was set in motion. Obama represents the
pinnacle of that process. He carries out the agenda of the oligarchic
psychopathocracy without a whimper of protest.
Every president can point to some good deeds
and valuable programs. This funding by the Obama Administration appears to be a
great idea.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obamas-housing-agency-spending-millions-transform-inner-cities-sustainable-communities
Nevertheless, war is still an enemy of the
poor.
If I viewed things from a purely personal
perspective, I did better economically under Reagan and HW Bush. I got hit by
outsourcing under Clinton, then again under GW Bush. But I view things from a
holistic perspective versus fragmentation.
OBTW, big props to you for the Baltimore
Mixtape Project.That’s precisely the type of grassroots work we need.
I agree with your assessment of the debate as such. Just like I can point to Tuesday’s debate and say Obama won. But I’m thinking about a critique of the debate itself. What critical opportunities were missed. In the Ford-Dyson debate we missed an opportunity to really dig into real politics. Obama didn’t create the model of austerity. He hasn’t even perfected it. He’s bought into the free-market kool-aid yes, but he wasn’t browbeat in signing the stimulus package. Similarly Ford isn’t simply deciding to sit out a basketball game when he suggests that perhaps we need to step out of politics as usual in evaluating Obama and our state. The debate was long enough that both could’ve put far more care and effort into making their arguments. But it’s on Ford–because Dyson’s a shill, as I’ll show later–to really do so.
Thanks on the Baltimore Mixtape Project shoutout. It’s a good model, easily scalable, easily replicable. I’ll start work on round 2 soon. Hopefully I can get the kinks worked out…and there are more than a few.