John McLaughlin of public TV's the McLaughlin Group aroused liberal outrage by calling Barack Obama an "oreo" during last weekend's show.
So did Ralph Nader for accusing Barack Obama of "talking white". And Jesse Jackson by threatening to emasculate Obama for "talking down to black people".
McLaughlin summed up the criticism of Obama by Nader and Jackson this way:
"The point of contention is that instead of Obama solely lecturing
African Americans on parental duty, particularly fathers, he should
have also given equal attention to the large and many believe
prejudicial incarceration rate for blacks, their lack of economic
opportunity and other public policy issues that limit choices for black
males."
He's right. All three are right. Obama is trying desperately to win a majority of the "white" vote (which no Democratic presidential candidate has done since the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act) by running what some have called a "post racial" campaign, frequently using the conservative catch phrase "personal responsibility" to scold black men for shirking their familial duties. Although such talk may resonate with whites, it doesn't play well with descendants of African American slaves, especially older ones, a distinction that Obama can't claim. His mother was white, his father a Kenyan. His ancestors weren't American slaves.
Obama's campaign is politically astute but racially and historically insensitive. Smart politics is why he threw over his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright, a slave descendant who had good reason to say "goddamn America!" And it's why John McLaughlin proclaimed on the same show:
"But then he’s exactly what Jeremiah Wright says he is. He will do whatever’s necessary to win."
Given the publication of Douglas Blackmon's new book, Slavery by Another Name, which provides documented evidence that for tens of thousands of black Americans, slavery --involuntary and unpaid servitude-- didn't end until World War II, I don't believe we've reached the era of "post racial" politics. And neither should Barack Obama.
How can that be slavery didn't actually end until the 1940's? How is it that slavery was re-established and practiced in the South for nearly 80 years after it had been officially outlawed? I'm not talking about Jim Crow segregation or lynching. That's well known and well documented. I'm talking about a concerted effort to restore the system of coerced labor that the South relied on for its economic survival . The "Slave Codes" prior to emancipation were simply replaced with what southern legislatures called "Black Codes".
Here's an excerpt from Blackmon's interview with Bill Moyers (the incomparable and indispensable Bill Moyers):
"The results of those laws and the results of particularly enforcing
them with such brutality through this forced labor system, the result
of that was that African-Americans thousands and thousands of them
worked for years and years of their lives with no compensation
whatsoever, no ability to end up buying property and enjoying the
mechanisms of accumulating wealth in the way that white Americans did.
This was a part of denying black Americans access to education, denying
black Americans access to basic infrastructure, like paved roads, the
sorts of things that made it possible for white farmers to become
successful.
"And so, yes, this whole regime of the Black Codes,
the way that they were enforced, the physical intimidation and racial
violence that went on, all of these were facets of the same coin that
made it incredibly less likely that African-Americans would emerge out
of poverty in the way that millions of white Americans did at the same
time."
I would add that the buying and selling of black men through much of the twentieth century allowed them scant opportunity for the learning of "personal responsibility." That's an historical reality that can't be ignored in "post racial" America.
Bill Moyers calls Blackmon's book "stunning". It's that, and more.
It should be required reading for all "post racial" politicians. In fact, it should be required reading for anyone compelled to comment on the state of race relations in this country.
Recent Comments