[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2988926453902779335&hl=en[/googlevideo]
Crossposted at Blackprof.
by admin | Nov 19, 2008 | Black Leadership, Campaigns and Elections, Obama, Racial Politics, The Mass Media, Urban Politics | 9 comments
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2988926453902779335&hl=en[/googlevideo]
Crossposted at Blackprof.
Lester – I enjoy listening to you….but I am a very visual learner. Thus, I read. I'd really appreciate it if you would post the text of your video so I can read along. My mature adult attention span is no more than 7 minutes, as is the case for most adult learners. However, after 2 minutes, I'm finding myself paying more attention to your bookshelf (easily distracted) than your words. Help me focus and let me read…please. And thanks, Raven
Thanks for the comments Raven. So my challenge is that it takes me less time to tape than it does to write. What I should have done was actually use something like MacSpeech to record what I was saying as I was saying it.
Here's a quick and dirty rundown.
One way to read Obama's election is that in the course of becoming the first black president, Obama utilized resources that had never been used for politics before, and had organized voters and individuals who had never been organized before. After his election, large swaths of black voters felt connected to America in a way they never had before. Whoopi Goldberg on The View: “I finally felt I could put my bags down.” That is to say, she finally felt she was at home rather than an unwelcomed guest.
But we've seen this before.
More than forty years ago big cities began to elect black mayors. Cleveland and Gary in the sixties, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and other cities in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. A quick look at the contexts of their election shows that in each case you've got a charismatic individual who takes advantage of pre-existing networks, organizes these networks in ways they hadn't been organized before. After winning blacks feel a type of ownership and promise in these cities like they never had before. Black Detroiters felt like DETROITERS for the first time. Part of the reason those of us from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs feel such a fierce love–and I'm talking about black people now–for it was because it had become a Chocolate City.
For people my parents generation and older, the future was NOW, and it was bright as hell.
But black mayors are elected at a time when the city itself is changing. No longer the center of American political and economic strength, the city–particularly cities in the Rustbelt–become drags. Whites leave in droves. Businesses disinvest. Leaving them politically poorer–no longer can they trust the feds to give them resources because all the votes are outside of the city. And economically poorer.
Under these circumstances, black mayors decide to go for downtown business development, getting corporations to invest by promising them tax cuts. Which leaves them unable to deal with the needs of their citizens.
Of course we don't know what is going to happen in this case. And Obama isn't mayor, he's PRESIDENT. But what we do know is that America faces almost the exact same crisis that Detroit did in the early seventies when Coleman Young took office. And we also know that the current political “common sense” is moving politicians towards a zero-sum game where Obama is going to have to choose between “fiscal sanity” and progressive interests.
Doc if we use the rise of Black mayoral candidates as a reflection of the future we must incorporate the stick,as you noted prior to the election where is the motivation for Obama to listen now ?Will love bring him home.I like this format keep it up,change take time
I'd like to post this (the text) in a couple of others spots where I am having some dialogue. What is the appropriate way to give you credit (other than obviously just listing your name). I presume I can post the link to this as well?
Link to it, and give my name. Thank you.
You've raised several very interesting points. I made special note of your recognizing Black politicians and Black voters as connected more symbolically than politically. I've made the exact same point several times in discussing what's known as Black politics in the Blogosphere.
I have two reactions. One is that I do not believe there's a Black body politic of any substance beyond the symbolism of racial identification. Part of what I think happened with the first generation of Black politicians is they fused their affiliations with the civil rights movement to traditional Black social networks for a distinct machine. The production of the machine largely reflected the sensibilities of the Black upper- and middle-classes, along with those of liberal Whites. I'm not positive there were a lot of Progressives among their ranks, for there would have been more activity toward entrepreneurship, industry, and capital formation than conventional job placement. But I'm thinking the Coleman Youngs of that first wave of Black politicians acted in the interests of expediency.
My other reaction is perhaps 'we' remain politically unsophisticated in not recognizing politics is more about economics than culture. We're witnessing a 2nd generation of Black politicians, many of whom do not share the traditional pedigree of their predecessors. AAMOF, to characterize them as politicians is a stretch, for those who aren't legacies (Harold Ford, Kwame Kilpatrick, Jesse Jackson, Kendall Meek, etc.) are technocrats-once-removed from law- or b-school. But while they're conscious of their connection to their Black constituents, their solutions to date appear reflective of their indoctrination into late-20th century economic populism, AKA supply-side theory.
I remember your list of new entitlements for Obama. And I'm hearing you here discuss accountability and transparency, which are two things he (and every public official) owes us. One thing I believe the President-elect and many the new jacks are about is accessibility; they appear open to new ideas on how to make things work. I'll take that bit of humility as a positive sign for Black Progressives. The rest is on 'us'.
thanks for these comments. while there is a way in which we are sophisticated–some individuals and groups are horrible at understanding the differences between individuals and political parties on issues, where we tend to be pretty good at it–there are ways in which we are definitely “pre-modern.” politics IS about “getting stuff” as opposed to (solely) being “respected” or “honored”. I also agree with you when you refer to Obama's openness.
Has read with the pleasure, very interesting post, write still, good luck to you!
Obama and Black Empowerment (Deja Vu?) http://t.co/mBHUN6Yp