Can He Hear Us from the Mountaintop?

Chances are, if you would have asked any number of African Americans young or old if they ever thought that they would actually see a Black President within their own lifetime, most certainly almost if not all to a one, they would have surly answered with a resounding NO! It simply did not seem possible! This is because of the truly ubiquitous nature of racism in American life. Nevertheless, even as those words have just fallen from my pen, you had better believe that there are now probably thousands if not tens of thousands of Black people who are already beginning to foam at the mouth while anxiously awaiting an opportune moment simply to proclaim directly to my face:

"You're just playing the victim!"

"Racism hasn't kept me down at all!"

So, just for the record let us be clear. You see, this is necessary because that is not exactly what I said now is it? However, sifted through the bizarre psychopathology of mute racial discourse in the United States, nothing is ever quite what it seems. What is true nonetheless is that American life has always been shrouded in a grand ritual of delusion. Here is an entire society that was formed around the core principle that "all men are created equal," It is nation nicknamed "The land of the free and the home of the brave!" What was seldom stated along with those immortal words is the fact that at least half of the nation's population has always been made up of woman, and they did not actually receive the legal right to vote until nearly 150 years after the fact.1 What is also true is that this nation was actually built upon pure barbarism and primitive accumulation; on genocide and slavery. Add to this the specious creation of money and therein lies the illusionary foundations of a uniquely American ritual of delusion. This is to say that racism is so endemic to American culture that it is approached each and every day as if it were simply some deformed child that we all have kept hidden in our basement. We all know that it is there, but we really not supposed to talk about it. Nevertheless, it was just two years ago on November 21, 2006 that a 92 year old Black grandmother was actually gunned down in her own home by the Atlanta police; simply because the police in America appear to have been groomed to kill (lynch) Black people at will. Just two years earlier, on June 4, 2004 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the largest public lynching in American history occurred. 2 On that day Fredrick Jerome Williams a Black deacon fell into an epileptic seizure and was severely beaten and then tazzared to death by police in front of what was ultimately to become a worldwide audience. Instead of receiving and ambulance and the medical care that he needed, Freddie Williams lost his life simply because his wife made what has all too often proven to be a deadly error in American life. She was a Black and she dialed 911. Today, it should be of no surprise that many African Americans still appear to be somewhat in a daze as if they have not yet fully synthesized the reality that Barrack Obama a Black man actually won the presidency of the United States. This enormously historic event has had the instantaneous effect of fatally wounding the powerful lingering perception of Black racial inferiority. Thereby eradicating the single greatest pillar of racism; humanizing Black people once and for all in American life. No longer can the blatant serial police lynching of African Americans simply pass beyond the rubric of worldwide scrutiny. These are crimes against humanity, illustrative of an unremitting pattern of the blatant violation of the human rights of an entire community. However, the question still remains, now that we have been to the Mountaintop where will President Obama take us from here?

Countless comparisons have been made between Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy. Yet, grossly overlooked is one glaring similarity that truly bears greater analysis. It is the respective approaches of these two men to the struggle of Black people. While Senator Barack Obama worked aggressively during the 2008 Presidential Campaign to avoid altogether the issue of race (especially his own), Senator Kennedy did at the least pay lip service to the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement during the 1960 Presidential Campaign. Despite a blatant racist onslaught that lasted from the primary campaign all the way through the general election, Obama seemed to insist that the struggle of Black people would have to be rendered truly irrelevant in order for him to win the Presidency. Even so, volumes of data suggesting a queer discrepancy in America's treatment of Black men over many decades still remains a legendary specter of the culture of the United States. However, while no amount of plausible data exist that would even seem to remotely suggest that Black men are somehow more prone towards delinquency as fathers far and above that of other races of men in the country, this did not stop Obama from using Father's Day as an opportune moment to certify the lingering racist perception by singling-out Black men for special criticism. This was rightly criticized as insulting to all Black people. Without a doubt, this was Obama's Sista Souljah Moment.

Kennedy had opposed the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. However, during the Presidential Campaign, Kennedy promised that if elected he would use the office of the Presidency to address the Civil Rights concerns that Dr. King, SCLC, SNCC and others were currently fighting for. His last minute phone call as an expression of sympathy to Corretta Scott King while her husband sat in the notorious Reidsville Georgia State Prison, facing four months of hard labor for a trumped up traffic violation was largely seen as a smart political calculation that garnered Kennedy the Black vote and perhaps the Presidency itself. Nonetheless, throughout his presidency Kennedy appeared wavering on the issue of Civil Rights, and for a time the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War provided him a perfect cover to skirt the looming domestic crisis. Initially, Kennedy employed subtle almost purely symbolic measures to force the issue of integration. He threatened to close Washington Stadium until the Redskins football team hired Black players, and he instructed his brother the Attorney General to bring over 50 lawsuits against Southern states that obstructed Black voting rights. Soon, the actions of doctoral student James Meredith 3 and Birmingham Alabama's Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene Bull O' Connor 4 along with the astonishing attack upon Assistant Attorney General John Doar days after the June 12, 1963 assassination of Megar Evers in Jackson Mississippi seemed to force the President's hand. Doar was the Justice Department official sent escort James Meredith into Ole Miss. He was a towering figure who famously put his body between a group of young Black protestors and a ferocious mob. Two years earlier, John Seigenthaler another assistant to the Attorney General was attacked and knocked unconscious while attempting to protect Freedom Riders in Montgomery Alabama. For a Justice Department official to actually be attacked in the segregated South, while attempting to protect the civil rights of African Americans was somewhat akin to a tornado taking out the crisis control center during a hurricane; or terrorist bombing the bomb control unit. By the summer of 1963, Kennedy publicly vowed to pass a Civil Rights Bill. Sadly enough, months later an assassin's bullet dashed any prospect of an enduring J. F. Kennedy legacy in favor of Civil Rights. Fortunately, his younger brother (Ted not Robert) would ultimately fill the void.5

The 2008 election can arguably be said to have signaled the ultimate end to the hegemony of the Civil Rights Talented Tenth cabal over the political affairs of the Black community. Nevertheless today, just one month before the inauguration of the first African American president of the United States, their remains no clear evidence that President Obama will actually put forth a comprehensive Human Rights agenda for the African American community. On the other hand, the President-elect's Transition Team recently hosted a two hour meeting with Jewish leaders representing every conceivable outpost along the political spectrum. Traditionally, in the African American community, after the early decades of the 20th Century and the demise of the Marcus Garvey Movement, this sort of gathering would become quite rare; after the regime change of 1968 it would become completely unheard of altogether. The voice of Black America was forcibly channeled though a single-minded mouthpiece, and the world was painted a Disneyland version of the past. Oddly enough, even though he has almost single-handedly brought a community that looks just like him, to the proverbial precipice of true social liberation; to the mountaintop if you will, there still does not exist any plausible evidence whatsoever that Barack Obama has actually taken a moment to 'look over' the edge of the mountain. Nearly 150 years after chattel slavery came to an end in the United States, there exists little hope that there shall ever be a plebiscite of the people. No surveys shall be distributed asking Blackfolk just what the Promise Land might actually look like to them.

Yet, African Americans are still the only community within the United States whose lingering nationalist instincts remain perpetually under attack. This is so wherever it may be that a true sense of Black Nationalism is to be found manifest on U.S. soil. On the other hand, for every new immigrant that comes to these shores, even those who arrive from nations once considered amongst America's fiercest enemies, a celebrated embrace of their Motherland goes without question. This has never been so for the African American. Every expression of love for the culture that gave birth to Black people is measured back of a suspect desire for violent retribution. This is so, whether it is transmitted through the vessel of the Garvey or the Black Panther Movements; calling out the Black community with the simplest refrain: "Up You Mighty Race, you can do much if you will! " and "All Power to the People!" or as this sentiment is curried through the proud quiet demeanor of the resolute residents of Black Wall Street and the Nation of Islam, saying simply "Do For Self!" Nearly 200 years after the Nat Turner Rebellion, even the slightest expressions of Black Self-determination remain under suspicion in American life. First there comes that fool who lives next door, and acts solely to demean every ounce of your conscious efforts. Marcus Garvey called them"The Negroes Greatest Enemy". Next there comes the American government making it clear that a price has been placed upon your head; least you may indeed infect a whole new generation. This is what F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover meant when he directed his agents to enact an illegal and murderous dirty war against Black nationalist in order "to prevent the rise of a Black messiah".6 If ever African Americans are in need of a single Hitler at which to point their finger, if Nathan Bedford Forest just will not due, Hoover is your man. Unfortunately, the President-elect has offered no indication whatsoever that any of this would actually change under his administration. Thus, one can only expect the bloodlust for Black life to continue on American soil.

Perhaps the best barometer of his trajectory as a historic Black leader can be measured in the coming months with two issues of note that are sure to immediately rise in significance. It is a fact that Obama does not exactly share the same psychic memory of the bullwhip days as do most African Americans. He actually comes from a slightly different legacy of colonialism in Kenya. It shall be interesting to see just how President Obama responds to the incessant calls for a regime change in Zimbabwe. Just like Haiti and Cuba, here are a truly dignified people who are today being punished for triumphing over the ravages of genocide, colonialism, and war. It is a matter of just where his administration will actually stand in the midst of the overwhelming illusion that has come to cloud a really heroic example of African resistance. By the same token in the spring of 2009 the world will once again convene The World Conference on Racism. This event is sure to test the next administrations relationship with the Zionist community, with the Black community here and abroad, and with progressive around the world. Nine years after the fact, will the United States once again boycott this event? If not, then just who will attend representing America's interests and the face of the Obama Administration; Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, or Susan Rice? These shall prove to be important first steps in the shape of the change to come. Early on in the life of the new administration, they will become significant moves upon the chess board of Obama's emerging cultural worldview. Every new President sets the moral tone for the entire nation. The question for Pookie, Shanikqua, Muhammad 3X, and Brotha Mukasa, is whether or not change has truly come? Has the blood-letting come to an end in the Black community? Or shall it remain the political dumping grounds for the nation's ills? Can their concerns be heard from the mountaintop?

Endnotes

1 Woman did not receive the right to vote until Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919.

2 It does not require a rope and a tree to lynch someone.

3 On October 1, 1961 James Meredith became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi. This became a significant event in the Civil Rights Movement.

4 Eugene Bull O'Connor famously used dogs to attack Black protesters.

5 Ted Kennedy (The Lion of the Senate) would ultimately become the Charles Sumner of the 20th Century passing more Civil Rights legislation than any other legislator in history.

6 The F.B.I's Cointelpro Program was directly responsible for the death of several Black Panthers.