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In 2008, only a few months before the historical election, which would eventually crown our country’s first Black president, I appeared on an online radio show and engaged in a loud and very heated impromptu debate over the current state of our political Black class.
At the center of the tension was then-senator Barack Obama’s comments on the acquittal of the four officers who shot and killed unarmed Sean Bell on the eve of his wedding. At the time, Obama, who was running on a platform of hope and change and bringing our country together racially, told reporters (as reported by the Washington Post):
“Well, look, obviously there was a tragedy in New York. I said at the time, without benefit of all the facts before me, that it looked like a possible case of excessive force. The judge has made his ruling, and we’re a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down,” he said in response to a question at a gas station in Indianapolis, where he was holding a news conference.
“The most important thing for people who are concerned about that shooting is to figure out how do we come together and assure those kinds of tragedies don’t happen again,” he continued… “Resorting to violence to express displeasure over a verdict is something that is completely unacceptable and counterproductive.”
It is true that no one likes insurrection. It is messy, it is destructive and things get fucked up. However, after multiple generations of being a people who have protested, marched, voted, petitioned our government for reprieve and appealed to the hearts and minds of the dominate culture, with no signs that anyone is listening, the so-called violent response is a viable option. After all, you can not expect a people who live under economic and social apartheid and who are getting killed out in the streets by police in state-sanctioned violence, to always remain calm. If someone keeps punching me in my face, after I asked them nicely repeatedly to stop, I might just haul off and knock them out. And as far as I have always been concerned, after everything that has been done, and continues to be done, to us as a people, the mere fact that this country is still standing and not a heap of ashes is a testament to just how calm and peaceful we truly are.
Besides, it is disingenuous to say that calm and peace is the answer when our country routinely uses its might to not just defend itself, but to spread its agenda around the world. Violence was the answer during the American Revolution when, with Crispus Attucks, a Black man, died in the Boston Massacre. Rioting was the answer when patriots threw the tea into the harbor with the belief that there should be no taxation without representation. No one championed peace and calm during the Whiskey Rebellion, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, The Seminole War (all three of them), the Civil War, The Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, World War I and II, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan war and the occupation in Iraq.
One thing that America understands is that sometimes, violence is the only and just answer. And if violence is not the answer, than what has Obama, who was running for not just the highest office in the land, but the most powerful position in the world, proposed we do instead?
The thing is that no where in his calls for calm, has he offered any sort of viable platform position to deal with police brutality and killing. In short, his pleas to respect our nation of laws was shallow just as much as it was dismissive. And since he failed to offer even the tiniest bit of lip-service to our rightful grievance and political demand, than he was and is no different than the his Republican and neoliberal (ahem, Hilary Clinton) opposition. This was my position.
Naturally, the hosts at the time, both Black, didn’t see it like that – or least they agreed with me about the need for serious Black political leadership in our community. But, in spite of our collective needs, they also felt that it was important we maintain a united racial front for the benefit of this one man. And whatever Obama needed us to do in order to get him elected, including ignoring the tragic murder of Bell and the courts of New York, which sanctioned it, we must do it.
Despite all indicators that our grievances weren’t even in the same automobile, let alone the backseat of Obama’s agenda, these hosts were certain that Obama was the changemaker that he claimed himself to be. And that once in office, he would rip off his mask of neutrality and become the Black president the country needed. However, he had to be more strategic. That he couldn’t come right out and just say those things without sounding like a radical and risking his chances to become president. In due time, is what these hosts told me. And that all I had to do was be patient.
Nearly eight years later, I am still patiently waiting for Obama to rip off that mask. And nearly eight years later, now-President Obama is still singing the same tune about peace and calm he once had caroled as presidential candidate.
As reported by CNN:
“There’s no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive,” Obama said at a press conference from the White House. “When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they’re not protesting. They’re not making a statement. They’re stealing. When they burn down a building, they’re committing arson. And they’re destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities. That robs jobs and opportunity from people in that area.”
He also called those who looted and burned down the CVS “criminals” and “thugs.”
For all the talk about hope and change; for all the hoopla over what the first Black president would mean for not only bridging racial gaps in this country, but for our community more specifically, it is clear that our President Obama is not thinking about us. And it is not just Obama. For all the Black mayors, governors, city council people, district attorneys and attorney generals and even dog catchers we have lifted on our collective backs and hoisted into office, we haven’t produced anything to our benefit other than symbolic “firsts.”
Sure, they have made strides in personal achievements and preserving the status quo, however the dream of W.E.B DuBois’ that the Talented Tenth would lead and raise up our people to a more equitable and fair future has been a dismal failure. When it is time for them to lead, we are reminded that they are not beholden to us or our interest alone. And when it is time to redress our grievances, we are reminded about the need for calm and peace. My question Mr. President, if the so-called violent response to a man having his spinal cord damn-near severed in half while in police custody is counterproductive, then tell me Mr. President, what is it to counterproductive to? Because right now, he nor very few else within our Black leadership class, has offered any sort of suggestion, policy change, legislation or even a got-damn speech to the long-standing crisis of police brutality and killings. And this is unacceptable.
We chide our children for focusing on Jordans and other materialism symbolic of wealth, yet we engage in the same surface level facades of progress. We bitterly denounce the youth for their violent protests and not bringing about change in the appropriate way, without once considering the piss-poor roadmap we have left them to follow. Many in the leadership class are scared to rock the boat out of fear that they might lose what little bit of status and crumbs from the oppressor’s tables they have accumulated over the years, yet shrewdly try to hold back those who are out here, risking freedom, life and liberty to free us all.
Obama, and everybody else within the failed leadership class, may be one man, however he is one man with considerable power and a position to do a lot more for us than any other Black person in history. And just like I am one person, who every single day uses her voice and small platform here at MadameNoire.com to say, “no this shit is wrong,” he can do the same.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am sick of symbolic gestures of progress; I want the real got-damn thing. And I will no longer be compelled to tell people to go vote, particularly for a Black candidate, when the only best we have offered thus far are spineless candidates and politicians who act like their hands are tied to do anything. Or worse, blame the victim.
By the way, in addition to condemning the thug criminals for their so-called violent response, Obama also took a few moments to finally criticize America’s police forces for what he called “a slow rolling crisis.” He also pledged that he would send some representatives from the Justice Department to Baltimore to lead an investigation into Freddie Gray’s death. Something tells me that if folks would have continued to wait and peace and calm, we might not have even been given that.
