WaPo laments Barack Obama’s blind black followers
By Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said
As the nation’s first black president settles into the office, a division is deepening between two groups of African Americans: those who want to continue to praise Obama and his historic ascendancy, and those who want to examine him more critically now that the election is over. Read more…
Really? Damn! I hate when there is a battle a-brewing among my peeps and I don’t know anything about it. It’s a good thing that newspapers like the Washington Post have the skinny on black America, so I can keep up-to-date between SCAN meetings.
Sigh…okay…politics and cult-of-personality do seem to go together these days. (And that ain’t a black thing…Sarah Palin anyone?) And, yes, black people tend to be protective of our own, like members of many marginalized groups. We know that societal biases bring lots of heat on those who are not white, male, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied and cisgendered, so we try not to pile on and give the benefit of the doubt when we can. But we are not stupid. This notion that black people are incapable of critical thought and judging members of our race fairly is getting old…really old. And I lament that some black public faces are participating in giving this meme more cred than it deserves.
The subtext dripping from this article? See, blacks really did vote for Obama just because he was black! We know it’s true, because we got three brave, black people to talk about how maligned they are for daring speak ill of the Messiah. It’s just as we thought all along! As contrast to the warriors of independent black political thought, WaPo demeans Jack and Jill Politics blogger Leutisha Stills and Black Women for Obama’s Patricia Wilson-Smith by crediting them as professing that Obama deserves only praise. I know both of these women spoke with more nuance than that, but the paper wasn’t looking for nuance. Also, note how the paper positions the Obama administration’s attempts to reach out to black people as sneaky, disingenuous and self-serving:
The Obama team has further complicated the critical discussion by deftly managing relationships with the constituencies it ignited during the campaign, providing access and information and defusing complaints before they become public battles. African Americans are one of the groups to whom the team has catered.
I hate it when people stymie my criticism of them by doing what they are supposed to do!
For the record, I believe several factors play into the black community’s evaluation of the first black president’s performance. Among them:
African Americans are the most loyal of Democrats. One could argue that we are uncritical of the party and it might be true. But black people are no less critical of Obama than we were of, say, Bill Clinton. On the contrary, several of Barack Obama’s constant critics within the black community are far harder on him, far more demanding that he embrace their agendas, than they were of past Democratic presidents and candidates.
The heat of the election brought a lot of citizens into the political arena that had not previously been engaged–young people and blacks among them. I had hoped that the high level of participation during the election would turn into continued civic involvement. For some it has. But I suspect that after their man won, a lot of people simply went back to business as usual. It is unfortunate, but all too common.
A lot of black people are mature enough to know that initiatives needn’t have our name on them to be good for us. Reviewing the White House budget proposal, I see many things that should positively benefit black people and me specifically. I don’t need those things to be packaged “just for you” to understand their worth.
Black bloggers like Glenn Ford of Black Agenda Report, who is quoted in the article, have long been critical of the ways Obama’s middle-of-the-road approach differs from their radical, left-leaning views. That is fair. Now, I like radical, left-leaning views, but as I wrote in an analysis of Ford’s “Obama Resigns from Black Nation” post, radicals don’t get elected to the halls of federal American power. They just don’t. That’s not who we are as a country. I think an astute citizen can separate what Barack Obama can do within the system and what we need to do from the outside. Also, not every African American shares Ford’s black nationalist views. That is also fair. That many black folks do not criticize when Ford thinks we should, is not evidence of black America rolling over for Obama, but evidence that we are not a monolith and may not always agree on the best path to equality.
Here’s the other thing, the black community knows our self-appointed VIPs well enough to know when their criticism of Barack Obama is legitimate and when it’s just plain old hatin’. And believe me, sometimes it so is just hatin’ (cough…Tavis…cough).
A Pew commentary out today reports that Barack Obama has a 59 percent approval rating overall and a whopping 88 percent approval rating among Democrats. Black folks aren’t the only ones who think that, despite a few missteps, our president is doing a pretty good job. But it serves the status quo much better to present Barack Obama as a black president with the blind devotion of black people too consumed with racial politics to be smart.
(Photo credit: The Washington Post)
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:
Oh, of course. You see, while blacks blindly followed Obama, there were these white rednecks who proudly backed McCain and Sarah Palin because they shared similar political ideas… oh wait… no it was becuase they were white and Christian!
Dumbasses. This is why I’ll never take mainstream media whores seriously.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
bittersweet wrote:
I’m a Black woman who lives and works in the DC area, and I was BOILING when this article appeared! Truly sitting in my cubicle at work and FUMING! Such a weak piece of journalism… a fabrication of a “trend” when there isn’t one. Lazy and dishonest.
I was pissed that certain ppl. would read that article and swallow it as truth, and I was pissed that when I spoke up against it, I was perceived as the “angry, defensive Black woman” by certain ppl. Can’t win.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 11:28 am ¶
foshothoyo wrote:
“Anybody who cares about making history more than they care about the transformation of their community and their country has a real misplaced understanding of what making history is supposed to mean. . . .”
I think that says a lot right there. The difference between “haters” and people with legitimate criticisms is the concern for the black community, the black diaspora, and Africa that seems to be left out of policy. Especially the fact that he laughed at the thought of even altering the drug laws that are, and have been historically used as a surreptitious pretext to swell the incarceration industry’s jails to their brim with blacks. War in afghanistan…re-naming troops…blah…blah…gaza…wiretapping…Mumia….need I continue?
Nobody in the black community is calling him a muslim or a socialist (nobody credible anyways), but it is absurd to suggest that to demand that a black president throw his weight around to meet the longstanding needs and strivings of his own community isn’t too much to ask. In fact, it would be stupid not to ask.
We should expect more of him, but the fact is, we didn’t pay for him to get where he is. We voted, sure. But he doesn’t owe us for that. We don’t own his debt. Lobbyists and Special Interests do. What the criticism means is that if black people owned his campaign debt, things would be looking a lot different around here.
And let’s face it. He’s a model minority. For all of his “leftist past” or whatever you want to call it, he has clearly traded that past for a seat at the table as a salesman for the groups that own his debt. That’s the system, fine. But he’s still president, and he still has power, which means we shouldn’t stop speaking the truth to him.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 11:32 am ¶
Celeste wrote:
That article get’s a big ol’ eyeroll from me. Tavis needs to sit down. Have we ever been this critical of a president 4 months into the first term?
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 11:48 am ¶
Katie wrote:
This is something of a derail, but continuing to use “blind” as a synonym for “unthinking” is incorrect and ableist.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 12:17 pm ¶
MacDaddy wrote:
I love the fact that Ford and The Black Agenda Report speaks from radical viewpoint. But, like many blacks, I recognize that President Obama is the best we can get from the American racist, sexist, gay-bashing, corporate state. And it’s the old black guards, or guardians, of the civil rights movement who have failed to recognize that they have to change their tactics and move forward. And now they are angry that Obama filled the void; and many of them are showing us black folks that their behavior all along was more self-aggrandizement than true black liberation.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 12:35 pm ¶
9jah wrote:
The title is suggestive of exactly what Tami is trying to debunk, i.e. that there are “blind black followers”
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 1:20 pm ¶
Abenadiva wrote:
Just this morning my 73 year old mother scolded me about this. She said, “Don’t turn on Obama…” I watched an interview about a book called, “What shall we do with the Negro.” It detailed how Lincoln really felt about black people. I wondered if Obama’s inattention to the needs of the black community were simply a continuation of Lincoln’s policies since he’s such a fan. Lincoln really didn’t care about ending slavery he only cared to preserve the Union… I hope that this is not the legacy that Obama has chosen for himself simply to be a conciliator.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 1:24 pm ¶
marci wrote:
maybe because i am black in the uk, i have a more objective take on this..
i am proud of what president obama has achieved but i am under no illusion that he is still a politician..
i am listening to him… listening real hard and watching what he does… and more to the point – how he does it… like i would any other politician…
politicians mess up.. he will mess up.. it is inevitable.. and lord forbid anyone excuses this mess up because he is black.. that would make his presidency a sham… and that would be a shame..
any leading ‘world’ politician that messes up affects my world.. they mess up and it affects the whole world..
the fairy dust around this one is settling and the whole world is watching…
i say congratulations on your achievement mr obama..
we have yet to elect our first black priminister in the uk… i will be so very happy when it happens…
but please take note that our first woman in that position has gone down in history as the most evil and hated there ever was and it will be one hell of a long time before there will be another…
let’s hope president obama finishes his one or two terms in a better light eh… in saying that – his predecessor is a hard act to follow in that respect thankfully…
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 4:23 pm ¶
ILLAIM wrote:
Bittersweet: Sometimes logical truth can find no audience.
Overall I found this to be a very good read, I just happen to disagree with those that think Tavis is “Hating” he is just holding our President up to the standards that he set for him self.
Some in our community need to take a cue from Common and realize the adage “If I don’t like it I don’t like it it doesn’t mean that I’m hating”, because the more I hear people bring the hating charge against Tavis the more they sound like Russell Simmons when he called him a sellout his first night on BET.
In general tho I wish those left of center would take some pragmatism pills and really be honest about political realities “doing the right thing” every time. In the very short time he’s been in office President Obama has been the best moderate I’ve seen in my lifetime and hordes of people are already calling him everything short of a communist
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 5:58 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:
Another dumb downed and simplistic piece of reporting from American MSM. So his black admirers are all nothing more than “unthinking” followers while his black critics are “leftist radicals”? Something tells me this is just MSM’s way of deflecting attention away from any legitimate criticisms people from either side of the Obama love-hate divide may have about his policies. Whatever criticisms may exist will simply be dismissed as the “crazy” utterings of those “radicals”.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 6:34 pm ¶
Mahsino wrote:
I love how in every article that talks about how black people blindly follow other black politicians Michael Steele and Alan Keyes are conspicuously absent from the conversation. It shouldn’t matter if they’re Republicans cause we all just stick together right? Just like all us womenfolk lined up behind Sarah Palin because we had matching parts.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 7:33 pm ¶
robyn wrote:
Obama has reneged on so many of his campaign promises. An end to lobbyists, troops home, changing the drug laws. His appointees are ALL Wall Street and his social policies are following Bush but at an even more extreme level.
I know lots of people of all colours and from many contries that really thought he would be different but as foshothoyo points out, he is just the salesman for the people who have paid for him and organisied for him to be where he is now. It would make no difference if it was McCain in power now ( or any of the other candidates with the possible exception of Ron Paul). The same people behind the scenes are the ones with the power. The president is just the frontman.
I REALLY recommend the Alex Jones film ‘the Obama deception’ Its free on You Tube and is a damn scary two hours. I realise some people may not like the style of the film but just ignore the messenger and study the message. Its important.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 2:56 am ¶
MoeHailstone wrote:
I’m with Celeste, Tavis needs to go to sleep for awhile. What is bothersome is that it reminds me of something at work where your white counterparts ask your opinion about another african american and they expect you to answer in a negative fashion about that person (celebrity) to show you can be objective.
To hell with that, never allow them to ask that of you. Shut the *uck up Tavis!
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 6:18 am ¶
Brandon wrote:
@ Abenadiva: Lincoln didn’t care about ending slavery? I don’t think that’s anywhere close to accurate. He absolutely abhorred slavery, but didn’t feel like he had a mandate to dissolve it where it already existed. I’ll admit that the Civil War wasn’t directly about slavery, and that Lincoln’s prime objective was keeping the Union together… but to say that he didn’t care about ending slavery is not the same.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 8:53 am ¶
rikyrah wrote:
This article was ridiculous. We did two scathing commentaries about it at JJP.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 9:38 am ¶
Dawud Adib wrote:
I think the article made some good points. The Pro-Obama people are far to sensitive of even the slightest perceived criticism of him. He is not much different than other Presidents
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 10:13 am ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:
I’m sure the same kind of contention happens in other minority communities: Should we stand behind our man or criticize him if he’s wrong?
It’s happening in the American Indian community to some degree with the controversial Ward Churchill. Are you an Uncle Tomahawk if you criticize someone who has criticized the colonialist American system? I say no but some people say yes.
For more on the subject, see
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2009/04/angryindian-vs-melvin-martin.html
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2009/04/only-vichy-indians-criticize-churchill.html
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 11:25 am ¶
CVT wrote:
I’ve been linking myself a lot lately, but I have too much to say to put it into comment form.
The real issue behind all of the mixed emotions regarding Obama’s actual service as president comes down to the confusion of folks who mistook him for a revolutionary, when he’s really a politician. Explanation here:
http://choptensils.blogspot.com/2009/04/on-revolutionaries-and-politicians.html
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 12:29 pm ¶
foshothoyo wrote:
@CVT: true, but he was branded (or branded himself) as a revolutionary, for the very purpose of conflating indignant upheval with compromise. That was his whole marketing campaign of “change”. He essentially co-opted revolutionary struggle, packaged it, and sold it to the people. If he can handle the presidency, he can handle criticism. He is not some frail child.
The idea that anyone is an uncle tom(ahawk) for criticizing “your own” is absurd. If your “leaders” are disingenuous and two-faced, and they are selling you out and you still don’t say anything, that makes you a fool who can’t tell the difference between loyalty and worship. Uncle Toms are those who become accustomed to the exploitation of themselves and their people to such an extent that they can’t fathom resisting. Uncle Toms actively collaborate in their own oppression, through their participation in the oppression of their community.
I am and will always be suspicious of messiah-like, institutionally propped-up leaders who are inevitably discovered to be bought and paid for by the very people you elected them to defend you against. These “leaders” are not Patrice Lumumbas, or MLK’s, or Malcolm X’es or Fred Hamptons. You know why? Because when you criticized these kinds of people, they could convince you why you were wrong, or they would engage you on why you were right. Real leaders invite criticism and discourse. Puppets and shills fear it. They can’t stand it, because their image is crafted, a delicate mask that can’t endure scrutiny.
I’m not sure if Obama is an Uncle Tom. I’m suspicious, and all signs point to yes (*ahem* Goldman Sachs shill *cough*), but he may be using that stance as a strategy to get things done. At this point, I don’t know if he’s a self-exploiting, charismatic salesman of a shill, or if he’s an extremely clever and patient revolutionary. Harvard may have blued his blood some, or made it boil. In four years, we’ll know, but if we critique him only in retrospect, what good does it do?
All I know is that speaking truth to power is the antithesis of supplication, no matter what that power looks like, no matter how unpalatable the truth.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 1:57 pm ¶
Manju wrote:
Look, when republicans label Obama a socialist and revolutionary we (Obama supporters) either:
1. Laugh our heads off as we watch the loyal opposition descend into farce, further alienating moderates as they sound like right-wing versions of bobby rush, except replace racism with communism or any other failed leftist dogma. oh, why do all great movements, from civil rights to conservatism, prove Marx’s dictum (about history repeating ) right?
2. Call them out on a slur, so much so that some (not I) think labeling obama a socialist is racist. (feministe had a post like this).
Yet people on this very thread think he’s secretly a socialist (except that’s a positive thing) or tried to deceptively sell himself as one.
He did nothing of the kind. he clearly stated he’s a capitalist, albeit one in the tradition of Keynes. He’s repeatedly labeled himself non-ideological, post partisan, and nuanced…labels that not only indicate he’s pulling back from free market purism of Milton Friedman (which he certainly is) but also indicate he’s more than aware of the damage left-wing ideology has done to people of color worldwide.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 6:06 pm ¶
April wrote:
Yawn…Tavis Smiley, to borrow from Barbershop, needs to sit his black a** down. He’s still whining about how Obama didn’t attend his State of the Black Union event. Most people understood it was because Obama reached to clinch key primaries…but not Tavis. Nope, it was all about him.
The premise of the WaPo article is dumb. There were many people who examined Obama’s platform critically even before the election, both in public and private. But of course to the mainstream media, we all look and think alike.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 10:06 pm ¶
Tracey wrote:
@ foshothoyo : for the most part cosign.
However, I do not think Obama is or ever will be an Uncle Tom. He is simply someone that packaged his self a certain way. In this case a moderate passing himself off as a liberal truly wanting to change the system. I do not think he is. Obama, for the most part, is on the left only to those people who thought Clinton was not only a good president but a liberal as well. I don’t think it is about selling out so much as actually believing that Keynesian economics and an institutional, top down approach will work (at least he includes a need for grassroots actions).
Posted 23 Apr 2009 at 4:36 pm ¶
foshothoyo wrote:
@Tracey: I hear your argument, and I think it’s fair to say that if Obama truly believes in the state as an institution, and believes that it can properly regulate the private sector, then in his own mind, he is quintisentially “American” and carrying on the “American” tradition.
The thing that bothers me is that, as a person who has worked as a community organizer, as a person who should understand the big three tyrranical forces: the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and the war on drugs, all three of which were facilitated and developed under the guise of “free market capitalism” and the institutions of state, how can he be doing anything less than fighting these cancers tooth and nail?
The only options i can think of are:
0. he is ignorant of them.
1. he knows, and is doing everything in his power to dismantle them.
2. he knows, but does not have the ability to do anything about them.
3. he knows, but can only do so much and still remain in power/stay alive.
4. he knows, but he thinks he can change and salvage them.
5. he knows, but chooses not to do what is necessary to completely dismantle them.
6. he knows, but he would rather use them to his own ends.
7. he knows, and is complicit in their perpetuation.
I think what you are advocating is that he is a 4, that he knows about what is going on, but he thinks that he can go in and fix what is wrong to get them on the right track, trusting in the institutions of state.
As far as I have seen, I am not sure exactly what he is, but I’m pretty sure at this point that he is between a 2 and a 6. His campaign debt might make him a 2, and his stance on wiretapping and the defense budget might make him a 6. Because I haven’t seen him do anything so egregious to make me believe that he is a #7, in addition to the fact that I know he can’t possibly be black, and have been a community organizer, and be a #0.
In the spectrum of Brer Pawn (0) to Uncle Tom (7), I have to agree with you at this point in the game that he is neither a full ignorant pawn, nor a complete shill sell-out. However, what I do know is that he is not down with a full on, all out, guns blazing, shake the high heavens Presidency, which is disappointing. I am bothered by the idea that he thinks the institutions of state are trustworthy at all.
THAT is what worries me, the idea that a man who comes from a people perpetually swindled, oppressed, and denied power by the institutions of state, would ever be capable of trusting it. Especially that the change he shouted from the mountaintops during his campaign was only won through bloody grassroots struggle, and never handed down from the halls of power freely. That discrepancy is what makes me look at the list and really think about what could possibly be going through this man’s head that could make him NOT go all out for us up there.
I would understand if it was #3, I really would, but I wish he was the kind of person who was a #1.
Posted 23 Apr 2009 at 6:43 pm ¶
dmarks wrote:
@manju said: “2. Call them out on a slur, so much so that some (not I) think labeling obama a socialist is racist. (feministe had a post like this).”
Equating socialism with race is so laughable. After all, it is a movement that has Josef Stalin, Robert Mugabe, Adolf Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Zedong, Karl Marx, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Fidel Castro, etc as its “poster children”.
But I have seen this claim made elsewhere, as have you.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 6:23 am ¶