Politics ain't beanbag: 'tis a man's game, and women, children 'n' pro-hy-bitionists had best stay out of it.
-- Finley Peter Dunne
What I have come to learn in this election season of black political partisans is that they remain too dainty. And as if on cue, here comes Colin Powell waltzing in to place his two beans on the doily. As I consider the matter at length, I think we are witnessing another manifestation of the power of rhetorical patronage. Of course I always run the risk of insulting too many blackfolks when I speak of them, but then again blackfolks of my generation have always insisted that they be taken separately as to the origins and meanings of their politic. And so I think blackfolks feel justified in having their own take on things that matter when it comes to electing Barack Obama, our great adopted son. So take my opinion as it is, or as one of the opinions of blackfolks. Your call.
As most people who suffer the affliction of the desire to be consistent, I am drawn to criticize those who apparently don't give a fig. And I have been singularly stung by the scorn and bigotry which I have categorized as lowball sniping at the figure of VP candidate Sarah Palin. By the way, whatever has prompted her handlers to have her appear on Saturday Night Live in the wake of some apparently devastating parody of her, must only be considered as entirely lunatic. In my attempt to actually promote the common bonds of working class folks I see in Plaid Flannel America, I have been reminded with some emphasis that although there may be but one Sherwood Forest, few of the camps in it share much love for each other. And as if on cue I have witnessed how clearly the culture of West Coast Customs is apt to clash with the culture of American Chopper. Thank you Discovery Channel. It ain't all good.
My conclusion? 'They' are racist. 'We' are the victims.
There may be other more significant issues to be brought to mind when considering how it is that the black electorate expends its social capital, but none of those counted for much in this election season. So far as I can see, there is nothing that Obama's plan does in service of black communities that McCain's doesn't do as well. Understand that I'm only speaking from a material perspective - you know, the nuts and bolts of an actual education program or tax package or health care provisioning. On those two things, both candidates can be considered moderate no matter how far they may have decamped from their respective ideological roots to get to this moment. But no matter how far either of them have traveled to get to the center, there is one thing they symbolically remain no matter what to black political partisans: they are true to their race.
A bit of traveling is necessary to understand the matters of this 'truth'. You need to go back to my past, because like most evolving partisans, I have a paper trail. As I embarked on my journey as Boohab to rid American politics from its curse of racial disrespect, I became rather popular. It is a popularity I have given up for a new sort which I think is a bit more honest (now), but a tangible popularity nonetheless. It was as Boohab that I was invited to be a host at Cafe Utne's Society conference. I understood multiculturalism backwards and forwards and while I didn't necessarily cosign identity politics, I was concerned about what flavors people gave up in order to be considered mainstream. It seemed to me then that a certain amount of cultural work was absolutely necessary to do proper respect to constituents of different flavors, and those who refused this work were not worthy inheritors of our democratic politics. There were object lessons in courting the Latino electorate, the black electorate and every other fungible demographic. Candidates and their campaign managers had to learn the lingo - what does it mean to invoke the dialectic between Booker T and WEB? This is what the evolved candidate must do.
Except I can't ever recall those names uttered by Barack Obama any more than you can recall them uttered by John McCain. I have grown to understand that politics ain't beanbag, and it also ain't Burger King. You can't have it your way. You take what you can get and you fight for every inch.
It only takes a minute girl, to fall in love. Nobody loves John McCain. Barack Obama is much loved. It only takes a minute to understand that in democratic elections, love trumps respect, and this is as it ever was even before democratic politics. It takes half a minute to understand that fear trumps love. So while it is obvious that McCain and Obama share signs of respect for each other, Obama has taken the time to sow the seeds of love for himself and fear of McCain for good measure. And so we have witnessed how devastatingly ineffective McCain's respectability has become in the face of the fear of 'McPalin' and the love for the candidate of 'our better selves'. Only us bloodless logicians appear to be immune and seek for well, as I said, consistency in political philosophy. Unfortunately, the metaphors of war and peace are not my running buddies in this matter as they have been in 2000 and 2004. Somehow all that's not so important as the threat Sarah Palin's flannel-clad associates are to the domestic tranquility of racism's zero-tolerance crowd. It's OK to hate and fear the people who pal around with Palin, but not Obama's pals. I've heard the confessions.
One of these days, blackfolks are going to learn the lessons of black history. I do hold out for that hope. Within black history is a path and a gateway to true humanity. I know this to be true. Slowly that road I trod, but with a steady beat. In the meantime they will obsess over their perceptions of whitefolks and fuss over every slight, real or imagined. And that will continue to fuel a certain sort of politics, as it does in communities of gay advocacy for those who, while recognized as equal in every aspect of civil rights, still demand to neuter our understanding of Marriage by law in defiance of the history of Stonewall. Until that great day arrives, as if it ever will, there will remain calls for a certain kind of rhetoric as a litmus for all. As for black partisan politics there stands a Black Knight on that road. Quoth he: 'None shall pass'. And should he even be demolished by simple and true logic, yet will he be intransigent, nor will he give the reason. It suffices only that he is the Black Night and has never been bested - it's all he knows. Just as all black politics has known is to be the underdog and to fight off all whiffs of oppression with a fury that is blind to nuance. What is racist is BLOODY RACIST and must be defeated at all costs, by any means necessary, with God as my witness, until death do us part, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end Amen.
Barack Obama promises, without uttering a word, that no racists in America shall vote McCain into office. No one who disrespects Muslims shall have their sentiments respected. He's changing all of that in American politics. He is the racial pro-hy-bitionist. He's going to drive it all underground. He's going to ascend to the top of the mountain on the backs of 'never again', and he will end racism in life as in politics. Sorta. Well, enough. Well, he *says* the right things. At least he's not a racist like John McCain, well, like Palin, well like the people who like Palin. You know how she winks at them, you know. I mean which side are you on anyway?
I'm the guy who hates racism. But I don't need America to be less racist to succeed. I just push back at it, like all sin, in my everyday life. I got 99 problems but a racist ain't one. I deal with it when I deal with it. It's not a precondition for negotiations because I don't assume it to be human nature. Racism isn't the great evil in my world. But I hate it like all sin and I fight it like I expect to fight it for the rest of my life. Nobody can say magic words to convince me that they've got the solution because I understand human weakness to be what it is. Or at least I'm confident in myself enough to suggest that I have that understanding.
I wish more black partisans had that kind of confidence. I wish they could express their confidence in their own moral strength so as not to be taken in by those who work elections by fear and love. I wish it of all citizens knowing that it is wishful thinking. What's going on here has nothing to do with the rhetoric of fear, love and respect. It's about determining who holds the office of the most powerful man on Earth, and those aren't the kinds of terms by which we ought to be deciding at least between the policies of the two men before us. But we are who we are and we do what we do.
It may sound as if I pretend that whitefolks aren't playing the same game. I couldn't be convinced that they are not. But as I said, it is no secret that John McCain isn't loved. He is no Great White Hope by any stretch of the imagination. In any case, it is my desire to be consistent to political philosophy as a Conservative, in that I disregard the lowbrow commentary of the Right more swiftly than that of the Left. I don't know what exactly the Left is trying to be true to since everybody seems to deny any latent socialism in the Democrat agenda. Every comment about gender and race by the Left indicates to me that there is no modern principle at work, but post-modernist deconstructions of 'false' concepts like a citizenship that respects no color. It is the demand for the rhetorical patronage of just the proper narrative that is at work on the Left. And it is into that narrative that I see black Democrats marching in particular, those stepchildren of liberal desire, chained as they are to the popular bandwagon, like the rest of the donkeys.
One of these days, blackfolks are going to learn the lessons of black history. Today they wonder why I as a black conservative have the nerve to set myself apart from the things that bind them in their black partisan politics, in their love for Obama, in their fear of McCain and Palin, in their demands for zero disrespect in all political speech, in their need for liberal beanbag. It's simple. I was not built for bondage.
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