Posted on 03/26/2012 11:37:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Black history may soon find that it is defined by one line of demarcation: BB (Before Obama) and AB (After Obama). There might even be some historical reference to the volatile period called DB (During Obama), where an archive will contain images of black people going to blows over where our community should be positioned on the Obama issue.
The Obama presidency, unfortunately, has done more to divide black leadership than any event in the last 100 years. There are those who’ve chosen to side with the winning team, refusing to critique the Obama Administration on even the tiniest issues. Such criticism is readily interpreted as an assault on the absolute dictatorial authority that the Obama Administration seeks to maintain over African American political activity; they give us their agenda, not the other way around. The seemingly silly idea of “free Democratic thought” is as dead as the 8-track tape.
Then, there are those who challenge Obama to varying degrees. Some provide reasonable and justifiable concerns, while there are some who criticize the president without trying to even observe the pragmatic limitations of running the most powerful (and racist) nation on earth. One can’t help but notice how factions of black leadership have formed as a result of the Obama presidency, with pro-Obama leaders on one side, and “Not-so-pro Obama” leaders on the other. Mind you, they all voted for Obama; but it’s the depth of your love and loyalty for the administration that determines if you are considered to be a “hater” or not. For the record, asking the wrong questions or requesting any degree of accountability whatsoever defines you to be a hater.
One of the questions that attorney Karen Wallace posed to me the other day was “What happens after Barack Obama is no longer President of the United States?” Sadly enough for those who love Barack Obama like a husband, best friend, boyfriend or baby daddy, the truth is that he can only be in the White House for another four years. As President Obama retires to Martha’s Vineyard with the other Harvard alums, many of the most honest advocates for black America may no longer be empowered to fight for our causes. I doubt that President Obama will be volunteering to take their place.
To some extent, the black community is going through a period that can be compared to high school, where the issues we face over a four year period seem as if they will matter for the rest of our lives. Once high school was over, some realized that attempting suicide over a broken relationship or telling your parents that you hate them might have been an immature way to deal with a transitory situation.
In correlation, undermining the credibility of black public figures who’ve served the community for decades (i.e. Jeremiah Wright) might not be the best way to defend a man who will be out of office by the year 2016. We must learn how to love President Obama while simultaneously supporting advocates for our community, and honestly realize that one is not a substitute for the other. It is possible to take advantage of the present without mortgaging the future. Integration into the White House is not the same as building an independently prosperous community that doesn’t need white American validation in order to be strong.
My point is not to say that the Obama presidency should not be respected or supported. Instead, it is to say that the divides in black leadership that have been caused by the Obama presidency must heal quickly in order for us to move forward as a collective. Also, no group of politicians should be allowed to play black public figures against one another by rewarding some for their loyalty and blocking others from having access to the negotiating table. Divide and conquer is a common political tactic, and it ultimately leads us to waste our votes by providing political support without having a clear agenda. The bottom line is that Obama is not going to be president forever, and we’ve got to have a Plan B.
Shouldn’t that be “BO” and “AO”?
IMO, Obama has set race relations in the United States back fifty years.
Not just Obama, the black leadership also has to take the blame too. Not to mention all the blacks that work so hard murdering all the non-blacks.
They want to “move forward as a collective” . . . that says more than enough there.
Absolutely the wrong question.... the right question “IS”...
What happens if Obama REMAINS PRESIDENT?...
Barak Obama, in his so-called autobiography, described himself at Occidental College as a Marxist-Leninist. He has told Christian leaders he is Christian, and Islamic leaders that he is Muslim. Well he lied, as he is neither. He is an atheist.
BHO2 has managed, in tandem with the Muslim Brotherhood, to destroy the modern economies of several developing North African nations. Establishing Islamic theocracies was not his goal. Collapsing their economies was the goal. It will take centuries for them to recover, and in the meantime their populations will suffer terribly - millions of people - all in the name of Islam. And for what? It is a set-up in preparation for spreading communism, the so called Progressive “social justice”.
Social justice: that is the clarion call we hear from Black leaders here, what we see developing now in this country. Listen to those idiots whipping up the masses in in an attempt to start a race war - it’s like watching drunks act out a fanstasy or demented dream.
So what will happen to us when Obama is no longer President?
We start the long road back to common sense governing. That is the key to why a university education wasn’t one of the requirements to be President: one never knows from where genius and true leadership will arrive.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many worse things in the world than racism.
Racism is a specific, focussed form of stupidity. It is not relieved by deeper and wider wallowing in more general stupidity.
The entire term and administration if the Kenyan has been a wallowing in the depths and breadth of the most profound stupidity yet discovered.
He has somehow surpassed FDR and Carter to become the worst president ever.
Nothing about the Obama administration surprises me.
I have seen what happens when blacks come into power. I saw it in South Africa under Mandela, I saw it in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington DC.
They get the “We is in charge now” syndrome.
Payoff’s, paybacks, corruption,incompetence, they all come along for the ride.
“fight for our (i.e., black) causes” “supporting advocates for our community building an independently prosperous community that doesn’t need white American validation” “move forward as a collective”.
America can never get past racism as long as this is anyone’s mantra. There should not be a line of demarcation between white causes and black causes, and “an independently prosperous community that doesn’t need white American validation” sounds sneakily like “separate but equal”. “Divide and conquer is a common political tactic” that Dr Watkins decries when he perceives it amongst the blacks, but note that he has no problem with it between black and whites. I thought BO was supposed to be the post-racial president?
I am anxiously awaiting AB. I can’t imagine this country with 4 more years of him and his Marxist policies.
Well, they can stop right there. If they'll vote for Obama no matter what he does then it doesn't really matter what they think about him, does it? He's gonna do what he's gonna do. Blacks leaders can sit around all they want and talk about how they feel. Doesn't make any difference one way or the other.
i read a few comments and what comes to mind is an image from a movie, it was a modern day re-make of the HG Wells nove “The Time Machine” and in the far flung future you have a Morlock leader who controls the Eloi through dream manipulation and fear, eventually turning them into nothing more than cattle.
Obama the Morlock president of America?
If nothing else its Congress that has already been transformed into the meek Eloi.
They love Obama merely because he is black. Though the author, on the surface, says blacks should criticize Obama's performance as president over other black leaders because Obama will leave power at some point, it is clear there is an iconic "racial chieftain" quality he is perceived to wield over "his people".
The racial identification with (half of) Obama drips from the pages, despite the suggestion that Obama is a transient force for blacks.
They do not see themselves as Americans, but as blacks. They have chosen race over nation.
So be it.
Nature will continue to take its course.
You caught that too I see. Gee, I thought the purpose of America was for all ethnic groups to try to move forward as one? Supposedly we are all Americans and not just members of various ethnic groups. People like Boykins (and Obama) do much harm by attempting to keep Blacks outside the mainstream. As long Black "leaders" and other American Blacks think of themselves as separate from the rest of Americans, they will not progress.
Sorry, I meant Watkins, not Boykins.
The boot on our chest that has kept us subjugated will be lifted and placed on our throats for the coup de grace!!!
Obama is just the warm-up act.
I’ll see your fifty, and raise you fifty.
<full stop>
* * * Where Are The Voices Of Sanity From Black Americans * * *
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