Voting For Barack Obama By Rusty Shacklestein-gctid30094

[T'Shango Mbilishaka]

Obama or Bust                          By

Rusty Shacklestein

I will vote for Barack Obama not because he is going to save America and save Black people but because he is Black. I want my children, my students to see a Black person as President of the United States of America. Many Black children have been convinced by media they can only: play football, basketball, or other sports predominated by Blacks; make it in the rap industry as a rapper or video girl, or just be an exotic dancer. I think a Black person as president would give them hope.
   
  I am not one who confuses position with condition, meaning just because a person has a high position does not mean they control the power, nor does it mean the condition of Black people will change. Black people have had a history of firsts in different positions. For example, Clarence Thomas, a dark-skinned Black man, is a Supreme Court Justice, however, the meager legal gains made during the Civil Rights era has been slowly reversed. Other Black people, like the unflappable likes of Condoleeza Rice and stoic Colin Powell, have risen to "first" heights, yet during their respective tenures, there was no military aid that benefited people of Kmtyw descent, nor did Black troops fair any better. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have emerged as two of the most dominant figures in their respective sports, yet there are no significant differences in Black ownership of major sports teams or contracts dealt to Blacks for the building of sport venues. The collective Black condition is not getting better. If you believe it has gotten better please see the most current statistics that show Black children in America are dropping out of school every 50 seconds, Black children are being locked up every minute, and every 8 hours a firearm kills a Black teen (Children's Defense Fund, 2005). This is not to mention how criminal records are disaffecting employment and voting rights for Black people convicted of crimes, which in turn increases the absence of fathers and mothers from Black families. Yet and still, a Black President would signal that change is coming.
   
  I know that having a Black President would make much of America believe racism no longer exists but many already profess such an idea. In fact I often see Black people being accused of being racist more than white people- the reverse discrimination argument that was so shrewdly argued to turn back affirmative action laws. Recently, Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey were accused of being racist. Being Black and wanting to solve Black problems in today's society seems to result in such a label placed on Blacks by whites. The radical militant Malcolm X, whom I disagree with vehemently, once said, "You (Blacks) can't please white people. You (Blacks) lay down on your back for them (whites) to cross the street and they tell you nigger (much more nicely today) turn over on your front."
   
  As a Black female psychiatrist once said, "Barack Obama will not save Black people, Black self-respect and self love will save Black people." Black proponents of Senator Obama declare that Obama will "unite the people" (Common, 2007). Yet, he has yet to identify how he is going to address the concerns of Black people.  Again, militant Malcolm X, stated, "There can be no Black and White unity until there is first some Black unity. We (Blacks) can not think of being acceptable to others until we (Blacks) first prove acceptable to ourselves." If Malcolm X were alive today he would once again say that Black people have been hoodwinked. He might even say something to the effect of:
  "I don't think in the history of America including slavery have Black people ever hated themselves so much. Now we could argue on this point but how many Black people would line up if the government offered $30,000 dollars or 1 million dollars were offered to assassinate Barack Obama."
   
  Before you jump back awe struck at what I have written you may have forgotten Black men in this country who believed they stood up to fight against injustice have been assassinated, i.e., Fred Hampton in Chicago, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and even oversees people like Patrice Lumumba are just a few examples. We won't mention the lynchings in America where thounited snakesnds of Black people were killed every year for such infractions as looking at a white woman or maybe even making a white woman cry.
   
  Black people have been indoctrinated with so much self-hatred that many Black people state that Hillary Clinton is more qualified never questioning: how is a White woman more qualified to solve Black people's problems than Barack? The idea of qualifications has always been a tool of oppression. Black people's qualifications are always challenged to make them feel inferior or at least unsuitable for the job. How many times have you been working at the office and thought the Black person who works here is probably an Affirmative Action hire or in college you thought those Black people are probably on a sports or race-based scholarship. The same applies here because Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas is that qualification for President? What was Jimmy Carter before he became President? John F. Kennedy was so young he couldn't have really had too much experience. George W. Bush really did not have any real successes before he came into office. He really just had white Affirmative Action, which is often referred to as legacy.  The question of how Barack will do in foreign affairs also follows racist ideology. The questions begs: do we want America to be represented by a Black man? It would mess up the image of the Black man that has been portrayed around the world on B.E.T and M.T.V that Blacks are lazy, shiftless, ignorant, gangsters and thugs that don't take care of their children, rap with their pants below their waist and sell and abuse illegal drugs. I don't think America is ready to portray a different image.
   
  The self-hatred runs even deeper in Black people because they themselves believe what they see on television and start to act that way. I have overheard my Black friend and his friends call Bill Clinton the "Black President" because he cheated on his wife, smoked weed, moved into Harlem, and plays the sax. They have completely ignored the fact that during President Reagan's "War on Drugs" Black people were 50 times more likely to be arrested than White people yet if you combine the amount of Black people arrested during Reagan and Bush Sr.'s administrations it still does not equal the amount of Black people arrested during the Clinton administration.  Ninety per cent of the Black people that are in jail today are in jail for minor drug offenses according to the National Crime and Victimization Survey (NCVS) put out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
   
  Speaking about Obama's foreign policies President Clinton killed lots of Black people overseas. It seems Black people have forgotten that Clinton authorized the bombing of an aspirin factory in the Sudan that killed hundreds of innocent Black men, women, and children. He caused thounited snakesnds of death's in Mogadishu in the Black Hawk down affair. The Genocide in Rwanda was known about by Clinton but he did nothing as over 400,000 people died there. The Genocide in Darfur began on Clinton's clock and many Black people died in Haiti as a result of the overthrow of the democratically elected Jean-Betrand Aristide.  Clinton has also ignored the genocide in the Congo where millions of people are killed annually to provide rubber, diamonds, and the chips that power our cell phones. Recently, it has been discovered that the Clinton administration did nothing in East Timor when the indigenous people were being slaughtered by the government. If Black people knew about the Black population called Tamil in Timor, then they would know that Clinton's negligence to intervene has caused the death of millions of Kmtyws world-wide. The story remains to be told about how the negligence was actually compliance. Maybe Blacks suffer from cultural and historical amnesia or maybe they just forgave Clinton after he came to a Black church? I have come to understand Black people forgive without any compensation or even an apology.  
   
  Staying with the Clinton theme, an Obama presidential win would allow him to say that he is the first Black president, and dismiss the foolish claims that Bill Clinton was the first so-called Black president. Yet and still, Black people have not asked about Obama's plans to resurrect the Clinton-led initiative on race. This initiative was headed by pre-eminent historian John Hope Franklin, and died before it got off the ground. Has Obama even echoed such a cavalier and overdue examination started by the first so-called Black President? How did he vote on bill HR 40, the Congressman Conyers penned bill that would investigate whether a study of slavery is even feasible or necessary.
   
  Why don't Black people realize in a corrupt system voting is useless. One thing the radical, hate-monger Dr. Khalid Muhammad stated that may be true for Black people is, "The only people you can vote for are Satan, Lucifer, the devil and Beelzebub and no matter who wins you (Black people) will continue to catch hell."
   
  Under Black Mayors Black people have suffered severe repression; police brutality, unemployment, underemployment, riots, Katrina etc. For example, Mayor Wilson Goode was in office when a Black self-determined organization, MOVE, was the recipient of an incendiary bomb in Philadelphia in the 1980s. This is because as long as Black people don't celebrate their culture they will not have self love/group unity and without group unity collective economic power is impossible. In a society where you need at least 50 million to become a presidential candidate the candidates are loyal to those who have collective economic power not to single votes or even collective votes.
   
  Black people need their own political party or maybe even better their own system. At a bare minimum they need to come up with a system that holds Black politicians/ leaders accountable to them.  (Has anyone ever noticed I have never seen Reverend Al Sharpton nor Reverend Jesse Jackson carrying the Holy Bible?)
   
  However, if Black people were to think independently of white people and carry out their own plan the American economy would suffer tremendously because Black people are devout consumers. Therefore voting will continue to be a mirage of equality and Democracy for all to maintain the system.  
   
  In conclusion, I leave you with these thoughts on the illusion of the power of the vote.
   
  The Black media is ever quick to remind the Black electorate of the historical struggles necessary to achieve their right to vote. It indicts the community for its electoral apathy and seeks to evoke guilt feelings in those who do not participate in the electoral process- making such ritualistic participation emblematic of democracy and first-class citizenship. This is of special interest when it is realized that a very few, if any, of the major political, economic and social goals achieved by Black America, including the Voting Rights Act, were accomplished through Black voting prowess. The ballot box has been a relatively impotent weapon in the achievement of major victories by the Black community. Suddenly vigorous protest and direct-action legal suits and extralegal processes such as boycotts, sit-ins, and the like, which were used so effectively by the community to achieve its sociopolitical ends and to fight injustice and oppression, have fallen far behind the election of Black politician to achieve  the same ends. (Amos Wilson, Blueprint for Black Power p. 243)
   
  The electing of politicians to a bankrupt political system dominated by the ruling corporate elite whose values and aims are inimical to the cause of Black liberation; the election of Black politicians who are but pawns of the White Democratic Party machine and who seek to have the Black community identify its communal  interest with the politicians' personal interests; the election of politicians who in no way are interested in developing a program for the economic emancipation and empowerment of the Black community, and who are not committed to the final overthrow of White supremacy, becomes clear when we recognize their bourgeois interests. (Amos Wilson, Blueprint for Black Power p. 243)
   
  The second area for scientific examination is political action. In the
past two decades, Negroes have expended more effort in quest of the
franchise than they have in all other campaigns combined. Demonstrations, sit-ins and marches, though more spectacular, are dwarfed by the enormous number of man-hours expended to register millions, particularly in the South. Negro organizations from extreme militant to conservative persuasion, Negro leaders who would not even talk to each other, all have been agreed on the key importance of voting. Stokely Carmichael said black power means the vote and Roy Wilkins, while saying black power means black death, also energetically sought the power of the ballot.

A recent major work by social scientists Matthew and Prothro concludes
that 'The concrete benefits to be derived from the franchise-under
conditions that prevail in the South-have often been exaggerated.,' that
voting is not the key that will unlock the door to racial equality
because 'the concrete measurable payoffs from Negro voting in the South
will not be revolutionary' (1966).

James A. Wilson supports this view, arguing, 'Because of the structure
of American politics as well as the nature of the Negro community,
Negro politics will accomplish only limited objectives' (1965).

If their conclusion can be supported, then the major effort Negroes
have invested in the past 20 years has been in the wrong direction and
the major pillar of their hope is a pillar of sand. My own instinct is
that these views are essentially erroneous, but they must be seriously
examined. -Martin Luther King Jr. 1967 (Journal of Social Issues
(Vol. 24, No. 1, 1968)
 
 

(Rusty Shacklestein is an alias for T'Shango Mbilishaka. Most Black people have been conditioned not to believe Black people but to think being white means you are an expert. This article was designed to pull readers in to think critically about this upcoming election by pretending to come from a eureurasiaan. Most Kmtyw readers can tell this article is by a Black person because no white person quotes Khalid Muhammad, Malcolm X, Amos Wilson and The Black psychiatrist mentioned was Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. Statements were made to suggest the author did not agree with these scholars. )