I've said it before but I'll focus on it this time. Barack Obama is the first and last of his kind: the politician who is ambiguously black. It's not that he is not solidly within the mainstream of black culture, rather that his ascendancy marks divisions within black politics. It is an evolution and it is a good thing, but it will leave a trail of blind, crippled and crazy pseudo-politicos in its wake.
I predicted with some ease that Obama's association with Rev. Wright would end in tears for Wright. What I expected was some deep investigation of black liberation theology. What I found in short order was that the theology itself wasn't quite deep enough to withstand a deep investigation. Obama is doing what a lot of smart black individuals do when people come at him with stereotypes and half-considered notions, he takes a bucket of water to the body and then he shakes it all off like a short haired dog. He may drip briefly, but two minutes later you can't imagine he was soaking. Now wary, he's far from your bucket and won't be fooled again. There have been many such buckets of cold water waiting for the multiple strands of black protest politics that have never been fully tested by the attention of the mainstream. And as Obama shakes them off, one by one, so too are dying various places for radical black politicos to expect influence.
Who was Sistah Souljah in the first place? She became, all of 25 years or so, a symbol of black grass roots gripes with the American system. An enfant terrible her cause was briefly celebrated when the 'black president' Bill Clinton kicked her and her inflammatory rhetoric to the curb. But more importantly, Souljah represented a segment of black politics that thinks it deserves power if it does right by the aspirations of at-risk youth. So hiphop often represents itself as a political demographic worthy of attention. Attention can be bought and paid for in the entertainment industry but too many folks confuse fame and renown. In the end, a nation of millions of head bobbing kids in the streets or in their parents' basements is not a nation at all.
Obama is a significant departure for such grassroots attempts to co-opt the famous and loud because he has given every indication that he belongs to everybody except for the traditions of power in America. But while he may be somewhat new, he knows what does and does not work in the horse-trading and sausage-making that is the powerball of American democratic politics. It has not, does not and will not belong to those without money, influence and organization. This is where the hopes and dreams and shouts and callouts all claiming to be black politics fall flat. And as the Obama train moves on by a lot of people are going to spend a lot of time looking at their own holey sneakers. If any comparison of symbols is most apt in describing this difference, it would be Obama in Germany vs Sharpton in Jena.
There once was a time when black protest meant something in the world. I remember reading about the Bandung Conference, and I read its procedings. But nobody remembers what was said because nothing was done. There was a time when Jesse Jackson could go different places in the world and do. Now he is as impotent as any Hollywood celebrity.
So it comes as no surprise that Obama has dismissed the support of Ludacris, the rapper whose pretensions to political lyricism lives up to his moniker, finally. One can only hope that the magentism Obama singularly presents to black politicos draws them all into the light so they can have their moment of fame. All of the identity politics that has attached itself loosely to the black race can now be exposed if Obama's principles hold up. This is the fork in the road for all of the umanned, unfunded mandate of the black voice on the street. It's Obama's way or the highway.
And yet, Obama is quite unbaked enough for masses of unsure Americans to poke at Bush. He can do this one time while America actually deals with the reality of race in a presidential campaign. Next time it will be a lot simpler, we will have done it. And so the next nominee of African American descent won't be able to play sentiments so easily - he'll have to show and prove without the wiggle room jungle fever gives. Thus all those Sistah Souljahs who think they can be one-man megaphones of the black street, or black political anything will get even shorter shrift. Amen to that.
Recent Comments