BLACK MEN RISING OR REGRESSING?

Pity the poor GOP. Left with no leadership, they put an Uncle Tom at the head of the RNC and radio bully Rush Limbaugh becomes their rock star, filling in the vacuum of leadership. Glad I’m not a Republican right now!

I’m not a Democrat any more either since the party that held its convention the week of the anniversary of women getting the right to vote has failed so miserably when it comes to actually supporting a woman for President or even Vice-President. I’m in that gray area called “Independent,” meaning I’m looking for direction.

I don’t expect to find it from either of the major parties and, although I voted for Green Party candidate, Cynthia McKinney, I’m not sure I’m ready to take on another party affiliation just yet. I do like that Cynthia McKinney, though. She is a true liberal. Too bad she didn’t get ANY press during the election unlike Ralph Nader who siphoned votes off from the Democrats in the two previous “selections.”

We couldn’t have that during the 2008 Presidential Election when the media was in the tank for the Dems and didn’t want anyone keeping their “chosen one” from winning and winning big. Want to know why the banks and Wall Street keep getting bail out after bail out? Watch Professor Griff from Public Enemy being interviewed in an Atlanta bookstore on YouTube.

The interview took place before the election and the rapper talks about who financed Barack Obama’s campaign. I already knew that, but I doubt that most Americans black or white were aware of how much of the Obama campaign’s funding came from the very folks who put us in the economic straits we’re in right now. Why else would Wall Street’s own Tim Geithner be selected as Treasury Secretary? And why else do these banks and AIG keep getting billions of dollars?

It’s not really Barack Obama’s doing. He’s just the front man in the same way that George Bush was the front man for the GOP for eight years. However, we at least knew who was pulling Bush’s strings – the oil companies which were represented by Dick Chaney, formerly of Halliburton (wonder how long it’ll take before he’s back on board raking in some of the millions our government gave Halliburton in those no-bid contracts?); our new President’s ‘handlers’ are keeping a low profile, although I suspect Zbigniew Brzezinski is the Svengali in this case.

This time, at least, the front guy is intelligent and articulate and can actually use something other than “good old boy” charm and charisma to convince us that we’re not being led into the river to drown as we merrily follow the pied piper. President Obama’s speech to Congress is an example of not only his oratorical skills but the kind of intelligence and thoughtfulness he brings to the office of President, which even I have to admit that this is a welcome change from President’s bumbling, fumbling speeches and press conferences.

However, not all the black folks that have “sold out” other blacks have been ignoramuses with their hats in their hands, shuffling their feet and saying “Yessuh.” Many have been well-educated, well-spoken, and well-heeled by their handlers. We had a name for black folks who let white folks pull their strings down south: the one I used for Michael Steele at the beginning of this piece.

Imagine, Stepinfetchit is alive and living large in 2009 and now he wears a suit and tie and has an Ivy League education! I wonder if that watermelon field the mayor in California put in front of the White House with the caption “Guess there won’t be an Easter egg hunt this year” was aimed as a racial jab at the First Family may have been an unintentional warning to African-Americans that things aren’t what they seem. I know that wasn’t the intent of the person who created the screen saver who said he didn’t know eating watermelon is a racial stereotype.

Of course he said he didn’t know it’s a racial stereotype! And people are upset with Attorney General Eric Holder for saying we’re a nation of cowards when it comes to race? What else do you call people who wear hoods and go around terrorizing people, make racial remarks then plead ignorance, or in the case of African-Americans, insist racism is over because there’s a black man in the White house?

In all fairness to President Obama and Michael Steele, there are a lot of black folks doing the bidding of “the master” in the media, in sports, and in the news media. I especially see this in rap music where names words like “Lil” and “Boy” take us back to slavery when male slaves were emasculated by giving them childish names, not allowing them to wear belts because “men wore belts,” and female slaves were made to bend over and shake their naked behinds for the slave masters’ pleasure just like we see the video vixens do in those rap videos, which it turns out are viewed more by young white males (who also by most of the rap music being sold).

I learned this from Coach Alfred Powell when he visited Toledo a couple of years ago and shared this information with a group of local youth, warning them not to be manipulated by corporate music moguls into regressing into a slave mentality. Well, I think some older black folks need to take heed to that advice, as well.
What better way to lull us and the so-called “liberal left” into complacency than to put a black man in the White House and give us false sense of racial equality and acceptance that may or may not actually exist in this country yet?

I don’t think we want to see an intelligent black man as a sycophant (unless he’s a Republican like Michael Steele or Clarence Thomas); however, regardless of whether we want to face the facts or not, if black folks of either party are being used to get us to sign on to an agenda that is not in our best interests, they’re no different than George Bush who sold us a war so he could give billions of dollars in defense funds to his handlers.

Is it any different when Barack Obama does the same thing, giving billions to the financial community that backed his campaign? We just have to do as Professor Griff advises in his video and think about what’s being fed to us. I was very impressed by this young man, who like me, voted for Cynthia McKinney, and didn’t buy the party line when the media manipulated most of the country into Obamamania.

Someone actually said to me recently, “If I was drowning and going down in the water, all it would take to bring me up would be hearing Obama’s voice in the distance.” This was a Christian minister saying this and she said it with the same devotion and eyes-glazed-over look she has when she talks about Jesus!

I don’t agree with those, like Limbaugh, who want President Obama to fail because his failure would be devastating for the nation. I just plan to keep my eyes open and not be fooled into thinking that having a black President means there’s someone in the White House who has my best interests at heart. Wake up, America! Stop drinking fluoridated water and drinking diet pop so your mind can function and wake up!