[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pod1Kr-q6us[/youtube]
Thanks to Errin Haines for this.
Black progressives and leftists are in trouble. Because Obama appears to be the first modern politician with the ability to stifle dissent in a way that actually soothes the dissenters.
The game is changing, and we have to step up or sit down.
this is right. but the more i think about it the more i am unsure whether there are alternatives here….
We have choices not organizing,not voting,and not making an attempt to come together is stupid and should not be an option
Hey Lester.
I'm glad you posted that video. I had heard about the exchange but hadn't actually seen it. As you know I'm a strong Barack supporter, so I was glad to see that he actually engaged the brother directly and answered his questions with specifics rather than blow him off. After all, if the brother was going to step to Obama like that, he should have known to have every syllable of his game tight. Because love Barack or hate him, nobody has ever made the mistake of thinking he's stupid. Also, as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, where I lived for four years, it's not like the man hasn't had experience dealing with this group before.
rhetorical patronage.
He marginalized their concerns. Whether he has spoken to their issues isn't the matter. The problem is that they don't know that he has spoken to their issues, it's partially their fault, but it's partially that Obama is so vague. He does not name enemies, except for Bush, McCain, or sometimes Republicans and black fathers. And those are popular enemies to have. I'll say it: I'm voting for Nader until Obama goes after white people, walks right into a bankers meeting, points, and says, “You,” baring down with the eyes of Moses, “Have cultivated this housing crisis.” I need him to go into the suburbs and say, “You, and your hour long SUV commutes, are screwing up our environment AND our public schools.” Instead of this, we careful platitudes and vague promises which never seem to cost that much. He talked about his death penalty reform here, but then two weeks ago he talked about expanding the death penalty to include child molesters. I don't want the first black president to be snake. I'd rather have McCain. The most controversial position Obama is willing to take is that everyone in the world should get behind him and vote.
It's interesting the way Obama's blackness is operating for him. If (as many scholars and journalists are already discovering, a la Tavis Smiley) the black community is not only totally unreceptive to critiques of him, but will actively punish those who do critique him. You have to wonder how the community can possibly hold him accountable if no one can ever speak against him.
Smiley's problem wasn't his critique of Obama. It was that he was–like Paul Krugman–not straightforward about his own support for Hilary Clinton.
But in general Alex, the comments of you and Irami are on point. We've got some hard work ahead of us….
I think this was/is a really important moment in the campaign if we look at it right. It demonstrates the diversity in Black political thought. It displays Barack's ability to address critiques (though he addressed the questions, he definitely sidestepped his true response to the Sean Bell verdict). I think the “hecklers” have a legit point, so I gotta find a new name besides hecklers because it seems belittling to me.
Oh come on. All these issues are bit more nuanced than “blame whitey (or darkie)” and the solutions are more nuanced than “government fix it” or “fix it yourself.” Anyone not willing to meet somewhere in the middle on these issues doesn't want to see anything change. There's a difference between taking an ideological stand, and getting in the way of progress.
“Obama appears to be the first modern politician with the ability to stifle dissent in a way that actually soothes the dissenters.“
Classic line Doc!
On the real, I think that many of us know that Sen. Obama focusing on “black” issues (whatever those are) can only hurt him during the General Election. It's a little hard to launch a racially transcendent campaign when race becomes…uh…the focal point. Sheesh. Concentrating too much on racially charged issues would've played perfectly into McCain's hands.
Why is it folks like the man in the video clip are used to portray the Black Left as an uncoordinated network of conspiranoid, hypersensitive urban militants? From what I can tell, this guy didn't even have his facts in order. He got duly checked. Just as Smiley got checked for mistaking the SOBU as something more than a media event.
I maintain the alarm over Obama marginalizing the Black Left is premature and irrational, given the senator's background and America's political dynamics. Even a neoliberal would face a difficult time getting elected in a right-of-center country without (at minimum) triangulating on several issues. Rather than spread panic and doubt, progressives and other leftists should take the cue to organize themselves into a recognizable bloc for collaborating with the Democratic Party — presuming Obama wins the Presidency.
I don't understand how you are defining “neoliberal” here. But I do get what you're saying MIB. And at the end you're right. At the end progressives and leftists have to organize and strategize…or they have to get off of the pot. We can panic, and be alarmed, and still organize.
Obama deals with hecklers http://t.co/FNh0WT4l