2:00 a.m., Harlem
Still noises of celebration in the streets...
Good Night, and God Bless America.
Tonight, she deserves those blessings.
posted by Dan Charnas at 2:02 AM
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Still noises of celebration in the streets...
Good Night, and God Bless America.
Tonight, she deserves those blessings.
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9 Comments:
The students of Morehouse and Howard Universities have a lot to cheer about. The people of Harlem have nothing to cheer about. No Obama checks will come in the mail. Their lives will remain unchanged. While the oligarchy is becoming color blind, the proletariat still suffers.
One day soon, I expect that Obama may come to Harlem, shake hands, smile a lot, eat some ribs with the locals. But he will eat dinner with white people who work on Wall Street. And before he sits down to eat, he will wash his hands thoroughly, obsessively.
Hey anonymous. You're a fool. Oligarchy? Proletariat? What century are you living in?
And if some people in Harlem can't take control of their own lives -- especially in using Barack as an inspirational model of someone who didn't have shit to begin with and worked to become the President -- than nothing will work for them. But unlike you, I believe in the people of Harlem. And South Central. And South Chicago. And North Philly. This is something transformative that rivals ANY transformation that has ever happened to Black America.
The revolution you want will never come. So wipe the religious conviction out of your mind -- and that's what it is since it's no different than those who believe He's coming again -- and get in the real world with the rest of us and work to make the change happen.
It's about culture and opportunity. Work on changing both and you will see miracles happen.
PS - Many of those students at Morehouse & Howard that you mock are made up the same "proletariat" that you reference. So check yourself.
It's about culture and opportunity. Work on changing both and you will see miracles happen.
When those on the so-called Left begin using the same arguments as white conservatives (it's not racism, it's culture!), replacing "biology" with "culture" to explain black folks inferiority, then I have no hope for this "movement" that Obama created.
How the hell can someone even post such bullshit on a blog by a writer who just finished debunking this colorblind utopia bullshit in his previous entry? Did you even read Brother Dan's prior post Anonymous #2 before you started regurgitating right wing talking points? I think no one has made a bigger fool out of themselves than you Anonymous #2.
Fair enough. Considering many folks dislike of the word culture maybe I should have just blamed racism for every ill in the community. Because culture or values or attitudes or consciousness couldn't have anything to do with it too. Makes it so easy to only talk about or blame racism, doesn't it?
What I'm talking about is a culture that has to deal with racism AND a pop culture portion of this culture that has placed a premium on swag and bullshit in lieu of upliftment. You can talk about an oligarchy and racism all day long, but the fact of the matter is that if people can not take the incredible fact of a President Obama then I'm not sure what will lift people up.
Do I think an Obama Presidency will solve all the problems? No. For your information, I did read Dan's article and chose to focus on the following line: "Obama’s ascendance to the nation’s highest office will open horizons and create higher aspirations for Black Americans."
Of course, no one or no one event will change all the ills of the community, but if folks can find nothing to do but drag down the positive energy created by America electing a Black man as President, then we are in much more trouble than we think.
Fair enough. Considering many folks dislike of the word culture maybe I should have just blamed racism for every ill in the community. Because culture or values or attitudes or consciousness couldn't have anything to do with it too. Makes it so easy to only talk about or blame racism, doesn't it?
I don't think I said anything about "blaming racism for every ill in the community". Again, you're using more right wing framing to justify your argument. That's no different then the crap that one hears from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The fact of the matter is RACISM -- and I'm not speaking about personal bigotry that one can encounter among anyone of any different race or ethnicity -- is the core cause for many of the economic disparities in poor black communities, that cannot be disputed. It's not "culture" that has doomed black people as poor second-class citizens for decades in this country, it all stems from policies and institutional barriers. Too many sociologists and economists in tons of studies prove this point. So you can talk about "culture" all you want, but swagger ain't got shit to do with the core problem which is institutionalized racism. Blaming Hip Hop and attacking poor blacks in a Cosbyized, Victorian fashion does not address the issue. As I said before "culture" is now the mainstream way of explaining black folks' inferiority rather than using the now-discredited "biology". Same argument, different tactic.
What I'm talking about is a culture that has to deal with racism AND a pop culture portion of this culture that has placed a premium on swag and bullshit in lieu of upliftment. You can talk about an oligarchy and racism all day long, but the fact of the matter is that if people can not take the incredible fact of a President Obama then I'm not sure what will lift people up.
What the fuck are you talking about? There's always been "swagger" in America culture, not just black culture, but American culture PERIOD! There's a name for this swagger: American Exceptionalism. So I don't know where you get off pretending as if black people are doomed to second-class citizenship because of some "swagger" or it's only a black phenomenon. Swagger is as Americana as apple pie.
And, sorry, but symbolism and tokenism is NOT justice! Symbolism may make one pump out their chest and feel pride in themselves seeing a black face at high places, but symbolism and tokenism does not put the food on the table by providing the poor with better jobs; symbolism does not give the poor better schools; symbolism does not give the poor universal health care; symbolism does not give the poor affordable housing; symbolism does not address the Prison Industrial Complex or racial profiling. If all one needs is a source of pride when admiring the black bourgeoisie, then all one has to do is look at some episodes of The Cosby Show.
Do I think an Obama Presidency will solve all the problems? No. For your information, I did read Dan's article and chose to focus on the following line: "Obama’s ascendance to the nation’s highest office will open horizons and create higher aspirations for Black Americans."
Of course you do because that's your own little fairytale version of America that by electing a black man as president the era of racial grievances are over. Call me a cynic, but I need more than just Obama being president to prove to me that his presence being in the White House will benefit black folks. Certainly Condi Rice and Colin Powell's presence in high office did nothing for the well-being of African-Americans. For now I still peg Obama as the modern day version of Booker T. Washington. I see little signs that there's a progressive warrior inside in the mold of FDR or Lyndon Johnson (and I'm referring to he latter's record on civil rights not Vietnam).
Of course, no one or no one event will change all the ills of the community, but if folks can find nothing to do but drag down the positive energy created by America electing a Black man as President, then we are in much more trouble than we think.
It has nothing to do with dragging down the positive energy, it's being realistic about Obama and what so far we know about his politics (which are pretty neoliberal domestically and slightly imperialistic abroad -- he's the black JFK more ways than one) and calling that out rather than basking in the euphoria of his win will do nothing for those who are expecting a lot from his administration, specifically in addressing many of the concerns that cripple black communities across this country.
Bourgeoisie? Right wing framing? Neo-liberalism? Imperialistic?
How many more out-dated terms from the '60s are you going to throw at me?
I cry uncle...
There's no use tangoing politically with someone who can only offer up canned party lines that have brought little justice or advancement for the community. I wholeheartedly agree with your point about institutional racism BUT I do think that just like you feel it's important to have a reality check about what an Obama presidency can or can not bring I believe it's also illustrative to bring in other factors that go beyond institutional poverty and racism and try to see that the contemporary Black experience is not so easily summed up by retread '60s political worldview and analysis.
Peace.
Why, yes, neoliberalism was such a popular term in the 60s! Despite the fact the birth of neoliberalism is traced back to Reaganism, I forget how many radicals such as The Black Panthers were preaching the evils of neoliberalism along with evil Whitey back then! My bad. Oh, and sure the Iraq War has NOTHING to do with imperialism abroad -- silly of me! Seriously, it's this type of blind patriotism and myopic view of America, refusing to ever examine or admit to its faults, that makes us complete jokes around the world. (For the record, I'm not from the 60s, I'm actually in my mid 20s, a college student. You know, the demographic that are supposedly at the forefront of this so-called "movement" Obama has created. So you can try dismissing someone else as a black retread of 60s politics when I wasn't even born in the 60s.)
And the improvements that was delivered to our communities had EVERYTHING to do with radical solutions, not the tepid solutions that sycophantical liberals such as yourself suggested; the type of liberals that Dr. King warned many about in his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail". The type of liberal who dismiss any aggressive measures to address inequality as "religious conviction". Success for MY people came because they marched and fought in a bloody protest movement, and if you think challenging white supremacy (oops, there goes another one of those buzzwords from the 1960s again; better chastise Brother Dan for such usage too) at that time wasn't radical, then you have no idea what you're talking about, and I suggest that you learn more about Black Politics. The W.E.B. Dubois Wing of Black Politics proved to be far more successful than Booker T. Washington's let's-not-demand-for-too-much-lets-settle-for-what-we-have Black Conservatism.
The whole argument about "culture" has been part of the national discussion regarding poor blacks ever since Daniel Patrick Moynihan released his sexist/racist study on the black family, so why are you acting as if discussing black culture is something new? It must make you feel somewhat morally superior to have Obama legitimatizes all the negative aspects of black people whenever this post-racial president-elect discusses race (funny that the only time he discusses race is to deliver scorn and stereotypes for that particular group just to please black and white elites alike). It must make you feel SO GOOD when you hear him slime black people for feeding their children cold Popeyes Chicken for breakfast, or his favorite trope on how blacks reject intellectualism, afraid that being smart is "talking white". Discussing "culture" has been a sort of code in Democratic Party politics -- a lingua franca, a nasty attempt to scapegoat black people for all the ills in America just to win over white votes -- ever since Bill Clinton won office. You can get rid of all the negative aspects of Hip Hop music you want, but if economic disparities aren't addressed, again, that ain't gonna solve a damn thing, no matter how Victorian one's culture becomes.
As University of Pennsylvania professor Adolph Reed, Jr. noted earlier this year:
Underclass ideology -- where left and right come together to embed a common sense around victim-blaming and punitive moralism, racialized of course but at a respectable remove from the familiar phenotypically based racial taxonomy -- will most likely be the vehicle for effecting the purge. Obama's success will embody how far we have come in realizing racial democracy, and the inequality that remains is most immediately a function of cultural -- i.e., attitudinal, and behavioral -- and moral deficits that undercut acquisition of "human (and/or "social," these interchangeable mystifications shift according to rhetorical need) capital," a message his incessant castigation of black behavior legitimizes. In this context, the "activism" appropriate for attacking inequality: 1) rationalizes privatization and demonization of the public sector through accepting the premise that government is inefficient and stifles "creativity;" 2) values individual voluntarism and "entrepreneurship" over collective action (e.g., four of the five winners of the Nation's "Brave Young Activist" award started their own designer NGOs and/or websites; the fifth carries a bullhorn around and organizes solidarity demos); 3) provides enrichment experiences, useful extracurrics, and/or career paths for precocious Swarthmore and Brown students and grads (the Wendy Kopp/Samantha Power model trajectory), and 4) reduces the scope of direct action politics to the "all tactics, no strategy," fundamentally Alinskyite, ACORN-style politics that Doug Henwood and Liza Featherstone have described as "activistism" and whose potential for reactionary opportunism Andy Stern of SEIU has amply demonstrated. Obama goes a step further in deviating from Alinskyism to the right, by rejecting its "confrontationalism," which severs its rhetoric of "empowerment" from political action and contestation entirely and merges the notion into the pop-psychological, big box Protestant, Oprah Winfrey, Reaganite discourse of self-improvement/personal responsibility.
All of the above salves the consciences of our professional-managerial class peers and coworkers who want to think of themselves as more tolerant and enlightened than their Republican relatives and neighbors, even as they insulate themselves and their families as much as possible from undesired contact with the dangerous classes and define the latter in quotidian practice through precisely the same racialized and victim-blaming stereotypes as the conservatives to whom they imagine themselves superior. This hypocrisy, of course, is understood within the stratum as unavoidable accommodation to social realities, and likely to be acknowledged as an unfortunate and lamentable necessity. Yet those lamenting at the same time reject out of hand as impractical any politics that would challenge the conditions that reproduce the inequalities underlying those putative realities.
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As much as I hate to acknowledge, the first poster got it exactly right. I'm happy to see a Black man elected -- for the simple reason that it's a dagger in the gut of the people who elected George W. Bush. But in the long run, I'm pretty sure the effect will be corrosive. Sure, some of us may have more self esteem for a little while, but what will Obama really do for us? Not much, I'm afraid. But I can assure you that we will now hear Republicans say, "He did it, you can do it, too."
The talk now is of Obama veering to the right, not the left. He's making noises about being post-partisan, but what does that mean? It means simply that he is a machine politician building a new machine. And based on the people on the short list for cabinet appointments, it seems that the machine will include the same old white male warmongers, the same old white male intelligence community. Right wing talk radio calls him a socialist, but that's a joke. If only he were. But if you look at his history, it's not hard to predict what he will do. Like Clinton, he will build his power base by "governing from the center" and purposefully distancing himself from the so-called "fringe left" ... the only people who give a damn for social justice and who might actually try to dismantle the institutions that keep 99 percent of the country spiritually impoverished and imprisoned.
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