Critical Evaluation
Black Bloggers Are Turning Up the Heat on Clinton
2008-03-19
By DeAngelo Starnes

The issue of race during any campaign for political office is combustible.  Race is the proverbial elephant in the room.  You can ignore it and hope it starves to death.  Or you can feed it and hope it goes away.  Soon you find out it doesn’t matter whether you starve or feed it.  It ain’t going anywhere.  So what do you do?  Try to teach it tricks for the circus?  You might as well be juggling with live hand grenades.  If you’re a crossover candidate trying to appeal to various factions of the electorate, you’re juggling live hand grenades while walking on a tightrope.

But Barack Obama showed that he could deal with the elephant, juggle live hand grenades, and walk the tightrope at the same time.  Without a safety net.  His speech on race in America was masterful in its timing, location, and content

Speaking in Philadelphia, Obama utilized a deft understanding of history and insight into the current economy.  He kicked off his speech by brilliantly reciting the most critical aspect of the Constitution, “We the people in order to form a more perfect union.”  He told “we the people” that, contrary to color-blind and so-called patriotic rhetoric, the Union is far from being perfected.

He told “we the people” that an important reason for this shortfall is because we, as a society, are scared of the elephant in the room called “racism.”  He told us that we all need to take the lessons of the past and move towards a better future.  One of the reasons is that right now, the Ninety-Nine Percent are all getting the nigga treatment.  And, if we desire to get beyond that problem, we need to come together to meet this challenge this economic depression (my word, not his) poses.  He spoke to “we the people” as a group before addressing the Black and white side of the aisles separately.

Regarding Wright, he went beyond the repudiation and denouncement demanded of him.  He criticized the portions of comments of Wright’s speech with which he disagreed.  But he went on to say that that single speech does not define Reverend Wright as a person nor does it define the foundation of the relationship they have.  To drive the point home, he compared it to bigoted comments his grandmother made by saying those comments are not something with which he agreed but those remarks didn’t erase what she did for him as he grew up nor his love for her.  The comparison effectively eliminated wiggle room for his critics because if they demanded he condemn Reverend Wright, where was the demand that he condemn his grandmother?

He rose above the politics of fear and boogieman. He rose above soundbite and sloganeering campaigning.  In so doing, Obama posed a challenge to the electorate and the other two candidates for president.  Too much of what we get in political campaigning is small-minded and juvenile manure.   And the fact that he beat his opponents to the punch on articulating many ills of society along with showing that the Ninety-Nine Percent needed to rise above distractions in order to tackle the real task at hand - pulling out of this depression - was an astute and shrewd chess move.

Obama rose above being Swift Boated, and refused to be covered in the s**t that was being thrown.  Because as he said, to give in would lead to having to address distraction after distraction until we got to November.  As he said, the American people are tired of that. 

Obama did what all effective debaters do - bring the issue back to home turf.  He should keep it there because all Clinton and McCain can do is try to beat his record on being a “for-the-people” candidate or play the politics of fear and bogeymen.  Neither is a winning strategy.

Up until now, the media had been slow to draw attention to what was quickly becoming a racially-charged campaign.  It had soft-peddled the issue of race because it was too busy patting the electorate on the back for disregarding the fact that Obama was an African American and voting for him because he gave them hope to reform the ills of our society. But the tide has turned quickly.

Hopefully, his speech will expose an ugly element of this campaign that attempts to cherry-pick the kind of Black support Obama can receive in order to distract from the fact that he’s the best qualified candidate for the Presidency.  In the best world, it will expose that the media doesn’t seem to mind when we’re killing or disrespecting each other.  They don’t mind when our money circulates out of the community instead of trying to financially support each other.  On the other hand, they seem to love when we reject and denounce each other, but can’t stand when we reject and denounce racism, poverty, and injustice.  They especially hate when we give a standing ovation to those kinds of repudiations and denouncements by labeling it as “Black anger,” as if there is no justification for said anger. 
 
Last week a coalition of Black Bloggers met by phone to discuss the issue  of unfair treatment of Obama in the campaign.  The summit drew a diverse group of voices of Obama supporters and critics.  The overwhelming feeling was that this was a movie all had seen before, and that the Clinton campaign has become Rove-ian by crossing the line and using the media to appeal to racist sentiments.

The result was an agreement to come together to keep this and similar voter issues at the forefront on their respective blogs and on a central blog, Keep It Honest in '08.  The purpose is not so much to advocate one candidate over another but to advocate fairness in the campaign.  To shed light on the candidates’ platforms, political records, and the consequences of their proposed programs on the future of the country.  To counter the information and bias Fox, MSNBC, and CNN spewed to millions of homes 24/7.  Indeed, the Black Bloggers Summit decided it could turn out to be a network of news and opinion not found elsewhere on the Internet.  Sort of a Black CNN, for lack of a better comparison. 

As the Black Blogger Summit proposes, fair is fair.  You can hit hard in politics, but Clinton’s campaign is willing to burn down the barn (i.e. the Democrats’ chance to win the White House) if they’re going to lose the nomination.  And if that’s the case, Obama, again, finds himself guilty by association - even though he’s doing his best to stay above it.  His speech roared the message that he has the class to campaign above minutiae, that he can win the debate on his merits of his ideas and character rather than on the deficiencies of his opponents.

Regarding the Black Bloggers Summit, kudos to David Mills, the Undercover Black Man, for making the suggestion, and DBurt, the Afro Nerd, for conducting the forum and setting up the site.  So please tune in, participate, and let’s turn up the heat on these candidates to be honest to “we the people,” i.e. the voter and taxpayer.

In the meantime, let’s convert our applause for Obama’s speech to financial and votersupport.  He represents our best alternative to eliminating this Robber Baron Era the Reagan Coalition has created.

DeAngelo Starnes is an attorney and cultural critic based in Denver.  He covered the final season of the Wire for EbonyJet.com. Critical Evaluation is his new regular column.