African American Political Pundit ™  

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  Date / Time: 11/7/2008 12:59 AM UTC

  Barack Obama, The Presidency, and Black America
  

  The Barack Obama win is more than historic – it's expensive, News papers proclaiming Obama's win are selling for $200 and $600 bucks, as newspaper stands have sold out after the Obama win. Newspapers in Chicago and throughout america ran out and are printing additional copies. The Washington Post is printing 350,000 more copies of the Election Edition, so is, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Houston Chronicle. Obama's historic election is red-hot! The chicago Sun times is listing where to buy a copy of the Sun-Times. NPR is wondering if this is actually a newspaper comeback? Or is it the newspapers’ Last Hurrah?

   

  OK, Now that Barack Obama has won the Presidency, and newspapers are making big money. I have been pondering like So many other African Americans  What does it really mean for America? And what does it mean for blacks in America? What's Next for Race Relations In This Country?

  The fact is according to CNN 97percent of black voters voted for Barack Obama.  This was critical in the battle ground states. Bloggers like La Shawn Barber and chilton williamson, Jr. are taking a hard look at the issues involving the presidency of Barack Obama.

  Bloggers such as The Free Slave are asking some powerful questions in his post, Mystery in The Making, in which he said:

  Will Obama win today and salve the wounds of the black masses looking for a soothing balm for our 400 year headache, while simultaneously cleansing and freeing the white narcissistic conscience and relieving us ALL of responsibility for cleaning up the toxic waste dump called America - brick by radioactive muthaf*** brick? Or will John McCain and Diebold steal our collective dream of a shiny black prince riding in on a pain-free libratory stallion that will deliver freedom like welfare on the first and fifteenth? Will these beasts steal our joy and our votes like they stole Malcolm and Martin - “coming for to carry me home” - wielding machetes, slashing at the our poised digits on the computerized roulette wheel that will, we believe, rocket us to a new freedom?

  I’ve noticed the strange silence of the AfroSpear on these questions. I’ve noticed my strange silence. I can’t breathe long enough to think and think long enough to breathe. I don’t believe in this system and I don’t believe in confronting it with lies and illusions about itself, treating the people as the ignorant rabble that they are. On the other hand, a black president is BIG. To see a black man of some intelligence and charm who is clearly “presidential” cannot help but move a soul bred in this racial pressure cooker. But my conscience won’t allow me to lounge in a placebo hot tub for long.

  No, if you, like me, want REAL change, you speak up not down to the people. You raise them up to your level (if they happen to be less conscious); you don’t leave whole swaths of reality off the table in order to appeal to their tender retardation. People know what they deny in their marrow, despite their crossed eyes and arms. Denying them the opportunity to engage with the elephant in the room that we all tiptoe around only prolongs the rampage. You can’t break the cycle if you don’t claim, draw and paint the elephant, admit its existence, tell where and how it crushes you, where it punctures the skin with its tusk and bleeds you. What kind of change can occur when you don’t tell the doctor where it hurts? More HERE

  
  

  AAPP: The Free Slave makes some great points. His post reminds me of a recent article by William Jelani Cobb who wrote what should black america expect from a President Obama in which he said:

  "We are standing on the cusp of what may be the most important event for Black America since Emancipation. The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States will mark the realization of a dream so incredible that few of us dared to speak it out loud. In the days after he won the Iowa caucus and became a serious contender we immediately began to hear the question "Is America 'ready' for a black president?" But in our quiet moments, we should also ask ourselves what it means for black America to be ready for a black president"

  For black America, the Obama nomination has been seen as the fulfillment of a dream so improbable that few of us dared believe it would happen in our lifetimes. At the same time Obama's ascent has raised complex questions in black America. What would it mean to simultaneously have a black man as president at the same time that black men are 40% of the incarcerated population? When over a third of black children live below the poverty line? How do we reconcile being represented in the most powerful office in the world at a time when nearly half the HIV deaths in this country are African Americans? We are surrounded by less than inspirational realities: an African American with no criminal record fares about as well in the job market as a white person who has been convicted of a crime. And the death of Sean Bell at the hands of NYPD officers and the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina remain fresh in our minds.

  Similarly, Nelson Mandela's election was one of the highpoints of the twentieth century. But it was also something of a no-win situation. Traveling in Capetown a few years ago, I encountered more than a few disillusioned black South Africans who were so disappointed with Mandela's presidency that they told me life had been better during apartheid.  "He spent so much time catering to the whites "that black concerns were virtually ignored," a South African friend said to me. For African Americans on the verge of possibly electing a black president, Mandela's experience is an important window into the possibilities and pitfalls of a black presidency. More HERE

  AAPP says: Yes, we have enough issues affecting our communities. Will the election of Barack Obama end what many people call racism? No!

  Will Barack obama be able to address the issue of the re-segregation of urban communities, gentrification, unemployment, black Economic losses, poverty, hunger, infant mortality, the prison industrial complex, a failing education system, and a mortgage crisis that has all but destroyed the black middle class? Good Question 

  Will the federal government, in which Barack obama will take charge of continue to do harm to black folks? YES

  That said, I concur with William Jelani Cobb, when he wrote, "The wisest course for African Americans – along with progressives, liberals and the most fervent Obama supporters – would be to set realistic expectations and evaluate him not by his tremendous symbolic and social importance or his ability to cure every social problem confronting us, but by his actions around specific issues affecting our communities."

  PS: It seems that Barack Obama will have no honey moon period. There are already a punch of losers creating, 'Impeach Barack Obama' Groups on Facebook and other social networks.

  • Tags:
  • Barack Obama
  • The Presidency
  • and Black America
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