Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
- In Blind Poll, Republicans Choose Progressive Budget Solutions Over Their Own Party's
- Not Guilty By Virtue of Videotape, Which, Unlike the Police, Doesn't Lie
- Manning: Before Wikileaks, Leaked Docs Offered to NYT, WaPo
- Bob Woodward Embodies US Political Culture in a Single Outburst
- State Dept. Releases Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Need for a Black Agenda
Malcolm X, whose assassination is commemorated this week, warned us that, "If we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything." Forty-seven years later, most Black politicians and mainline African American organizations are willing to stand for nothing beyond the re-election of the First Black President. For the second presidential season in a row, in deathly fear of embarrassing (or somehow tainting) Barack Obama, traditional and elected Black leadership have made no demands of the Democratic standard bearer, thus giving the world the impression that there is no African American agenda worth putting forward.
Certainly, the Black misleadership class behaves as if African Americans have nothing important to say about issues of war and peace, including deepening U.S. military penetration of Africa, and nothing substantial to propose on the domestic economic front – not even that old standby from decades past, “a Marshal Plan for the cities.” If organized Black America can afford to abstain from putting forward an agenda for two presidential contests in a row, then it is logical to conclude that its agenda wasn’t very compelling, anyway.
In fact, for more than a decade, what passes for Black leadership has been steadily corporatized. An identifiable corporate bloc emerged within the Congressional Black Caucus in 2002, with the ouster of Cynthia McKinney (Georgia) and Earl Hilliard (Alabama). By 2005, the CBC was hopelessly fractured, with 15 members voting with Republicans on at least one of three critical measures: bankruptcy, repeal of the estate tax, and energy. With no semblance of a progressive consensus, the Black Caucus lost its ability “to act as a body on behalf of its national Black constituency.” During the same period, corporate money completed its conquest of traditional organizations such as the NAACP.
Surveys continued to show that, on issues of social and economic justice and peace, African Americans remained the most consistently progressive bloc in the U.S. However, the essentially leftist character of the African American polity found little expression in the increasingly corporatized Black “mainstream” discourse of the first decade of the 21st century. Corporate media celebrated the (generously financed) ascension of business-friendly “New Black” politicians like Newark’s Cory Booker, and the long-awaited extinction of “civil-rights”-type politicos. The environment had already been prepared for Barack Obama’s national debut, at the 2004 Democratic convention, where he eclipsed the party’s previous “New Black” favorite, Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. Obama’s declaration that “there is no Black America…only the United States of America” was meant to signal the end of Black politics. African Americans cheered, right along with those who wished them to go away as an independent polity – but for very different reasons.
Corporate tentacles had also altered Black internal modes of political communication. Reverends Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Al Sharpton, long before the latter got his own slot on MSNBC, had become media entities that spoke mainly through their radio shows on corporate outlets, joined by the likes of Michael Baisden and veteran Tom Joyner. For millions of Black radio listeners, these celebrities’ personal games of positioning within the Democratic Party became the “real” world of politics.
Once Barack Obama’s 2008 candidacy was deemed “viable” – tellingly, after his victory among the nearly lily-white primary voters of Iowa – the Black rallying cry became Everything for Obama! Instantaneously, Black politics and Obama’s fortunes became one – quite predictably rendering extraneous the actual conditions and concerns of African Americans. If all that matters is Obama, then there is no need for a Black political agenda – except four more years of Obama.
Obamites routinely say that his African American critics want the president to adopt a Black agenda of his own. That’s nonsense. Obama has been a thoroughly corporate politician since at least 2003, when his name first showed up on the membership list of the Democratic Leadership Council, which was then the party’s corporate annex. As president, he has performed Herculean tasks on behalf of the Lords of Capital and, to the extent that Blacks tolerate those policies, he has neutralized what was potentially the most implacable domestic foe of corporate hegemony. Obama’s Black agenda is for Black people to disappear as an independent polity: that they have no agenda. He is undoubtedly pleased.
As discussed above, the corporate conquest of Black politicians and traditional organizations was well advanced before Barack Obama was ushered onto the national stage – although there remains a leftist Black popular consensus on core issues. Disastrously, with the notable exception of the Black Is Back Coalition, the African American Left has disintegrated as an active opposition to Obama’s corporatism. In this vacuum, the Black Left has been largely irrelevant during the greatest crisis of capitalism since at least the Great Depression, and the worst economic and social crisis for African Americans since the death of Reconstruction.
Since it is the Black Left that has always most clearly articulated the yearnings and objective conditions of Black America – which is, at root, a leftist political culture – the absence of a Black Left-formulated agenda is an historical catastrophe.
We’ve got to fix that, and quickly. In the process, we will discover who the Black Left really are at this stage in our people’s journey.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
24 Comments so far
Show AllIn our society, along with much of the modern world, capital/currency is the thing everything hinges upon. Naturally, this gives major advantages to those with lots of it. The same machinations that subdued the Black Left also compromised what Chris Hedges terms: the Liberal Class. At one time, more churches, the press, and universities taught (or at least expressed) Progressive ideals. But as things like real estate came to cost more, each entity became more beholden to its highest donors; and where money is offered, the spoken or otherwise clear quid pro quo means that money gets what it wants. And big money tends to be conservative.
When we examine how a number of things crystallized virtually simultaneously, we recognize that Capital Interests probably planned for the ostensible outcome (a disabled Left) the way military strategists prepare multi-tiered campaigns against (alleged) enemies.
The evidence on view:
1. Universities began to fire or censor the more radical professors, and there was talk of turning in teachers whose opinions proved too radical
2. Media was bought out by conservative, Pro-war corporations
3. The Supreme Court gave its imprimatur to official bribery (under the banner of campaign contributions) and thus turned elections into pay per view "democracy"
4. Spying on citizens was rendered retroactively legal
5. Protests were locked into allowable zones
6. NDAA means anyone tied loosely to the nebulous idea of granting material support to terrorists (or state enemies) can be held without trial, indefinitely
7. 'The entire political spectrum moves to the right, acting to preserve big business profits while the nation's people sink into debt, misery and despair
8. Universal health care is OFF the table
9. Both parties maintain the same platform with respect to: 1. further tax cuts to the very rich 2. tax clemency to offshore corps that hide their profits 3. maintenance of foreign wars 4. lack of meaningful investment in Green Energy
10. Radio acts as an echo chamber for right wing misconceptions (i.e. the lies told often enough, perceived as true)
11. An outfit like Fox News can get away with defining itself as "Fair and Balanced" when it's a statistical fact that it led viewers to the lie that Saddam Hussein was the perpetrator of 911
12. A worsening economy virtually insures ready fodder for the MIC machine
13. Public Ed discourages independent thought and essentially places children's minds into a vice by teaching FOR seedy, standardized tests (whereas outfits that produce these fictions are owned by families connected to the Bush tribe)
14. The "War on Drugs" amplifies the US prison population exponentially, and sets up a drift-net for the prison-probation pipeline
15. Voices with media pulpits on the purported Left are if anything, slightly to the left of Center so that the entire national DISCOURSE has veered dynamically to the right
16. Cable TV allows Christian broadcasting to spread, and the growth of the fundamentalist movement begins to erode the line between church and state (while it also champions "conservative" causes, at the same time giving the most vile and violent of political candidates, moral cover for their blood lust for war and an extension of the killing fields)
I could go on, but I'll stop here. My point is that it's not that the Black Left sold out per se, or that the Left is dead, or that the liberal class brought this on... the inescapable truth of this era is that big money works like a tsunami, and good luck to any force that seeks to stand up to it.
If a society can enforce a minimum wage, it should also enforce a maximum endowment. I wrote about this 20 years ago, and suggested that title holders become title givers, and that once a threshold is financially met, the person gets to start over again. In place of 20 cars and 5 yachts, the type of ego that cannot be satiated gets to instead brag about how many times it started over, only to hit the jackpot (threshold) again and again. And $, meanwhile, circulates so that life doesn't only thrive at the tippy top of some manmade pyramid, but actually benefits all those present.
What a load,,, when do I get a white agenda w/o being called raceist!!! turn the mirror around sometime, and tell me where the raceists are today! >^^<
Geez, learn how to spell racist if you are going to be one.
Sad that the black community is satisfied, perhaps mesmerized, with the tokenism of seeing Obama in the White House--or is it the penthouse now?
Was this not part of the elites plan. Looks like it totally neutralized not only the Black community but also what was left of the "Left." Meanwhile Obama continues to push forward the Right Wing's disastrous agenda.
Ever wonder why there's no substantial Repub candidate opposing Obama. Why would they need one? They have their man.
Some black intellectuals oppose Obama (like Glen Ford here), but you hear a lot of discontent among poor blacks. I know a lot of poor black people and I think despair might describe their feelings. Many poor blacks don't vote because they need to struggle to survive and they know nothing changes, except for the worse.
IMO the only black agenda that makes sense on this continent is a separate nation carved from 30 percent of the former United States of America. I don't say that facetiously nor with prejudice. This is not a popular thing to say because it is outside-the-box. At present, the USA is 1) a disunited farce, 2) irretrievably broken in terms of democratic process, 3) bereft of vision. We live in a land better called ZOMBIE.
There are times when acquaintances are unhappy in their marriage and are consumed with telling others about it, and consumed with seeking advice how to fix it. And you want to shout to them: GET A DIVORCE - there is LIFE AFTER DIVORCE.
The summer I was ten I discovered =The Poetry of the Negro= by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. The summer I was fifteen I reached out my right arm - for the first time - to shake hands firmly with a black adult. His name was James Farmer.
MY ANGEL
That night my angel stooped and strained
To lift me from the mud.
He could not lift my heaviness.
My angel sweated blood.
He said: You are the heaviest grief
In heaven since the flood.
All night my angel stooped and strained,
Loath to abandon me:
The heaviest load since Lucifer
Shook heaven's regency.
All night he interceded for
My black necessity.
He rose. And two wings hid his feet
And two wings veiled his face,
And two wings took him, weary wings,
To angel's resting place.
He flew away. He left with me
Despair and my disgrace.
-- Jonathon Henderson Brooks, 1904-1945
(A black American poet)
Perhaps in stead of a North and South Dakota, we need a ten year social experiment with a White Dakota and a Black Dakota. What if it WORKS !?
Trylon
Trylon,
The Dakotas belong to the First Nation. Try your experiment elsewhere.
Yep. They warred upon each other, often taking women and children as captives.
What they did to male captives probably can't be described on Common Dreams.
Trylon
We are discussing the worst atrocities here everyday, you are not frightening anyone with your race baiting bullshit. Suggesting more forced relocation and segregation is "beyond the Pale", try harder at being clever.
I'm calling a spayed a spayed. On CD, I often say things and express thoughts and ideas that others will not. Furthermore, I sometimes express them in ways that irritate others, dividing readers into 1) those who will pause to think, and 2) those who will not. An example follows.
A forebear, for whom I am named, was a US Senator for 25 years, beginning in the days of Reconstruction. He pushed for, and won, the establishment of a federal fund available to former slaves who expressed desire to emigrate to Africa. The federal government would pay the expenses of any Negroes who wished to do so. It is not known to me the approximate number of freed slaves who chose that option.
Here is a thought experiment. Let's pretend that there were 100 pairs of male, identical twin, former slaves. Half of the twins chose to go to Africa circa 1875 and half of them remained in the USA.
Each cohort left descendants which are alive to-day 136 years later. Suppose we can locate their descendants and take random samples for completing psychological measures of contentedness with life, if not happiness.
What do you think the possibilities are that the great-grandchildren of former American slaves who immigrated to Africa are - in total - happier being in Africa than the great-grandchildren of slaves here are happy being in the United States?
I think the chances are pretty good, or this column would not have been written. Yet I can tell you that my forebear is trashed on Wikipedia and vilified in history books. IT IS MY OPINION - and I'm entitled to have one - that if 30 percent of the former USA (now deceased) were evolved to a separate nation of, by, and FOR black people that test results in a comparable test DONE IN THE FUTURE would show more citizens contended in "Melanonia" than minority black citizens in "White Psychopathia".
Okay, form two groups: 1) those who think & reflect, 2) those who react.
Trylon
"As discussed above, the corporate conquest of Black politicians and traditional organizations was well advanced before Barack Obama was ushered onto the national stage – although there remains a leftist Black popular consensus on core issues. Disastrously, with the notable exception of the Black Is Back Coalition, the African American Left has disintegrated as an active opposition to Obama’s corporatism. In this vacuum, the Black Left has been largely irrelevant during the greatest crisis of capitalism since at least the Great Depression, and the worst economic and social crisis for African Americans since the death of Reconstruction."
Glen Ford is exactly correct about Black misleadership and the failure of the Black left. Worse, substitute "white progressive" or "organized labor" for "Black" in the above paragraph (and throughout the essay) and you get pretty much the same result.
I say it is worse because, in general, white progressives and leftists (especially men) and organized labor leaders (the vast majority of whom are white men) had fewer battles to fight and should be less susceptible to co-optation.
The same can be said for progressive women too, but they had/have tremendous hurdles to overcome that men do not, as do the Peoples of the First Nations.
In any case, it seems abundantly clear that progressives -- whatever ethnicity or gender -- have almost no clear-headed, courageous, uncorrupted leadership.
Good points.
Always love reading Ford's column. Like the man he quoted in his opening, it's always good to find someone who is willing to say what needs saying---even if it pisses people off.
I remember Ralph Nader repeatedly asking the same question of "all" Democrat's that Mr. Ford asks of African American's. "Why are you not making any demands?"
Democrats seem to figure that they have no where else to go so they take what crumbs they're given and repeat like a mantra---it would have been even worse if the Republican's won.
Maybe so, but how many times will one allow themselves to be played by these corporate ass-kissers?
Thanks for mentioning the anniversary of Malcolm's assassination Glen.
There is no longer black or white leadership.
Leadership has become a matter of green or greed.
Greed is rampant in this world and the only solutions to this must be green.
"The Need for a Black Agenda"
Agreed. And the first item on the agenda should be "The absent Black Father".
70% of all black babies in America are born outside wedlock and therefore born into a life of poverty and dependence. The government can do nothing to remedy this situation. It has to be dealt with by the Black community itself, and until that happens, nothing is going to improve their circumstances.
" 'The absent Black Father.' " You are, no doubt, referring to the incarceration rate of African Americans males for non-violent offenses at a rate much greater than their percentage in the population due to the discriminatory attention from the criminal legal system. Or perhaps you are referencing the higher unemployment rates, greater health risks, more environmental contamination sites situated in minority communities and of course, higher mortality rates. Good on you for bringing up, even if tangentially, these crucial elements.
Thank you so much for posting this. Some people forget about these very important facts as to the "Absense of the Black Father"
Nonsense. You are repeating the theme of Bill Bennett and Newt Gingrich and other racists.
What we have is an absence of jobs for Black males. And, yes, the government is the only institution that can remedy that, as that is the only entity potentially strong enough to take on the corporate overlords.
Racist? I'm repeating the theme of Bill Cosby and the numbers are undeniable. The other major problem which needs to be addressed by the Black community is the school drop out rate. It's much harder to get a job if you can't read or write. Completing education, at least through High School improves one's chances enormously of getting a job.
I plugged your "facts" into Google, and that brought up every bigoted, right wing and racist site imaginable. They are obsessed with "what's wrong with the Black community."
Higher illegitimacy and drop out rates occur in poor populations, Black or white. Blacks are more likely to be poor.
Illegitimate birth rates among poor Blacks are similar to those among poor whites. Illegitimate birth rates among affluent Blacks are similar to those among poor whites.
We have a poverty problem, not a problem with the Black community.
I wondered if you would drag out Cosby. Saying that "a Black person agrees with me, so there" is itself racist. Cosby is wrong. People who happen to be Black can be wrong, you know. You can always find at least one member of any oppressed group who will agree with the bigots in the dominant group. "Look here, here is a woman who says that women should stay in the kitchen and have no power, should be barefoot and pregnant, so don't call me sexist!!"
No one is arguing that education is not important, so I don't know where that came from. You did a bait and switch there, from the "absent Black father" theme over to "education is important." That is misdirection and deception on your part.
Interesting that you say the Black community needs to address the school drop out rate. Just what is it that you think the white community might need to address in this?
Derby Lad
You lament that, “70% of all black babies in America are born outside wedlock” and assert that these children are “therefore born into a life of poverty and dependence.”
You assert that there is an inevitable correlation between “wedlock” and childhood success and well-being versus children born out of “wedlock” whom you claim are condemned de facto to lives of “poverty and dependence” and suggest that moral failing must be the root cause of the problem.
But your assertion is demonstrably false once you look beyond the shores of the United States of America, where decades of regressive public policies -- under GOPers and Democrats alike -- have shredded virtually every last thread of the already fragile and inadequate social safety net.
You will recall that Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich teamed up to famously “end welfare as we know it,” and poor and middle-class women and children of all races have been paying the price -- and paying an especially bitter price during the seemingly endless Great Recession -- although the disproportionate burden has fallen on the African-American and Latino communities.
What gives the lie to your assertions are the examples of countries in the Eurozone that document high percentages of out of “wedlock” births while consistently scoring much higher levels of achievement and superior outcomes on matters of social and public policy than their American counterpart. Moreover, children born out of “wedlock” in the Eurozone do not descend into lives of “poverty and dependence” and their parents do not face any stigma of moral failure.
Live births outside marriage
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tps00018&plugin=1
Iceland – 65.34%
Norway – 54.78%
Sweden – 54.16%
France – 53.74
Denmark – 47.32%
United Kingdom -- 46.89
Netherlands – 44.34
Austria – 40.15
The number is 41% for the United States.
The percentage of first-born children born outside “wedlock” is considerably higher (by roughly 10% for the EU), as it often occurs that a marriage takes place after the first baby has arrived. In Latin America, such births are also common: in 2007 the rate in Mexico was 38%; in the Dominican Republic, 63%; in Paraguay, 70%; in El Salvador, 73%.
The problems often cited by experts regarding births outside of marriage in the United States -- low birth weight, higher infant mortality, poorer health, childhood obesity, and dismal educational outcomes – compared to children born to married women in the U.S. are not found in countries in the Eurozone that provide robust social safety nets regardless of a woman's marital status, and that is especially true in those countries that have adopted the Nordic model.
Children born to single mothers in the Eurozone typically do not experience more limited social and financial resources, while their American counterparts tend to share the problems that result from living in poverty with little in the way of social safety net supports and the equal opportunity for upward social mobility.
Wendy Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, explains: “In Sweden, you see very little variation in the outcome of children based on marital status. Everybody does fairly well,” adding that “In the U.S., there’s much more disparity.”
Contrary to your racially-charged talking point lamenting “70% of black children are born out of “wedlock” -- a statistic often cited out of context by those with a racist agenda --, the largest increase in births among unmarried women has been particularly pronounced among Hispanic women, climbing 20 percent from 2002 to 2006, the most recent year for which racial breakdowns are available – 11% of unmarried Hispanic women had a baby in 2006, compared with 7 % of unmarried black women and 3% of unmarried white women, according to government data drawn from birth certificates.
The countries in the Eurozone, especially the Nordic model, spend a much higher percentage of GDP on public programs offering a robust social safety net for families and children – whether born out of “wedlock” or born to unmarried cohabitating couples or married couples – than the United States and the UK, which record much greater numbers of people living in poverty and a growing gap between the affluent and the poor and middle class.
For that reason, those Euzozone countries perform much better than the United States on a variety of indices, including early childhood development, affordable child care, education K-through 12 and free university or technical training, free universal health care, more holidays and time off from work, generous paid family and medical leave, especially for both parents in the child’s first year of life, affordable housing, defined pensions and generous unemployment compensation and retraining for people who have lost their jobs.
Our disingenuous elected officials, both the GOPers and Democrats, tell us that “there are no easy ways to reverse these trends” -- but that’s just bullshit! We know exactly what works because excellent and viable examples currently abound in the Eurozone. But to legislate and implement such advanced and civilized social safety net programs would require the political will that is sorely lacking in both corrupt political parties. But there is always money for the military industrial complex and corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich.
Here is most recent compilation of the data from 2009:
Changing Patterns of Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db18.htm
PS – Bill Cosby? You’re actually citing Bill Cosby?
As Chris Rock would say: “Nigga Please!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah B. -- Excellent Post!!
Thanks
The corruption is not limited to these African American political butterflies and opportunist. It extend to the continent of Africa. Witness, the intersection of Betrayal and cowardice by South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon to the murderous imperial project in Libya. Keep mind that the first place Mandela visited after his experiment(not experience) in prison was to Libya and Cuba, to openly show deep gratitude for the sacrifices and attendant consequences of Libya and Cuba's contribution to fighting toe to toe the west and its proxies in apartheid Southern Africa. May those so called African leaders be cursed. A few days ago, the only african county to vote against the essential invation of Syria in the UN general assemly was zimbabwes. In south america it weas 5 countires.Other like South Africa and Nigeria performed theire slave roles to empire, the other slaves and begger nations were in hiding aka abtained
In a curious way, the rabid racist and often childish outburst against 0bama give him undeserved credibility among the inattentive . They reflexively circle the wagon without realizing that Obama's problem from the racist and right wing is that he is not sufficient prostrate or is it a game of good cop bad cop?. Obama is the corporation wettest dream come true. The whole thing remind me of the curious nature of sports psychology, whereby far removed impoverished audiences emotions and sense of well being are coupled with the success or losses of their fabulously and stupendously wealthy sports heroes. Vicarious attachments?. Controlled by remote.
Meanwhile, the white left of which Amy Goodman and the other dysfunctional silver tongued pied pipers are playing their assigned roles to empire.. The serenade you with ten superficial truths to tell you one substantial lie. Indeed, they populate CD with their rubbish and are eagerly published. Welcome to the merry-go-round of accepted political dialogues. Moving forever, yet stationary.
Martin L King, Malcolm , Lumumba, Allende, Arbenz, Didan Kimate, Yaa Asantewaa, Sankara, Fred hampton, Score of panthers, Nkrumah, Cabral, Walter Rodney, and scores of others were murdered of or neutralized by Caucasian leader of colonizers states under the pretext of "fighting terror" or some other suitable catch phrase. Today a black president of an equivalent colonizer state has added Al Awlaki and his kids, numerous Iranian college professors, Maumar Quadaffi and 1000s unknown members to the blood list. And what? Silence or worse yet, ersatz. We have lost our way in the wilderness.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29422