What Happens To Black Folks During A “Second American Revolution?”

Over the past month or so, the genie has clearly been let out of the bottle with regard to the topic of race in America and, along with many other formerly taboo issues, overt racism appears to be firmly back in style. In fact, it’s a rare newscast that doesn’t prominently feature a new, recent, race-based controversy.


Immediately on the heels of the disgraceful treatment of Shirley Sherrod, for example, there was a lazer-like media focus on “ethics violations” by two black U.S. Congresspeople, Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Throw in the news about Kwame Kilpatrick’s mom, seven-term Michigan Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, losing her recent re-election bid and you’ve got a negative, media “three-fer” for the Black Caucus.


Still focusing on black-related news out of D.C., we’ve seen the Senate vote against providing the $1.2 billion in government support that has been owed to black farmers since the 1990’s, even as the Obama administration has promised $1.5 billion in farm aid to Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln. (Go figure).


We also hear Democratic U.S. Senators and high-ranking Democratic Congresspeople making noises about eliminating all federally funded diversity programs, and a New York Times columnist charging that, perhaps, the Obama White House is “too white.”


As if all of this hasn’t been “black enough for you,” take the case of former Memphis Tennessee mayor and holder of a doctorate degree from Southern Illinois University, Willie Herenton. Dr. Herenton had been prominently mentioned in national news stories for including as part of his “Just One” campaign theme for the 9th Congressional District seat in Tennessee, the fact that, out of nine Congressional seats in that state, none are held by an African American, even though the state’s population is 16 percent black, even though the City of Memphis, which is included in the district, is 61.4 percent black, and even though the 9th Congressional District is the only African-American-majority district in the state of Tennessee.


Despite all of that, Dr. Herenton was presented in national mainstream media accounts as being somehow irrational and, even, racist, himself, for emphasizing these pieces of information as part of his campaign.


Was Herenton, who is also a former head of the Memphis School District, wrong when he said that the state’s 1,058,000 black residents seemed to lack representation?


By the way, the incumbent U.S. Congressman, Steve Cohen, who happens not to be African American, was endorsed by Barack Obama. Cohen won.


It really does appear that the issue of race relations is being moved back onto mainstream media’s “front burner” once again, right where we need to keep it, until the issue is finally resolved.


I’m all for that.


For far too long, even pre-dating the election of the first black president, it seemed that there had been some curious unwritten agreement between black folks and the national media that if we didn’t bring up our own issues, if we wanted to pretend that race-based inequities had disappeared, then they would function accordingly.


It went like this: A significant percentage of African Americans would all agree that, no matter how desperate the conditions for the mass of black people, no matter how unfair the incarceration and sentencing procedures were for African Americans, no matter how high our poverty and unemployment rates grew, as compared to the mainstream, and no matter how much we were disproportionately abused by financial services companies, we would simply look the other way, and pretend it wasn’t happening, at all.


It was almost as if we thought that, by remaining quiet in the midst of sweeping black adversity, some of us would be able to move more easily into the mainstream. You remember the old lines from the Stepin Fetchit movie era: “Sh-h-h, don’t say nothin’…ya’ll goin’ to get us in trouble.” Regrettably, it seemed a lot like that.


Unfortunately, that approach didn’t work for blacks in the 1930’s, and it hasn’t worked for us now, in the 21st century.


In any event, if you’ve been listening really closely you would have heard far too many trusting, hopeful and, regrettably, naive black folks saying that racism in America was an outdated, "60’s" phenomenon, that all those run-down black communities across the country looked that way simply because the “irresponsible black men and women” who lived there “really didn’t want to work,” and were “choosing to live that way.”


With blinders tightly affixed, and heads firmly planted in the ground, or elsewhere, some black intellectuals even began to publicly criticize African-American activists, offering that black protests were passé, and that demonstrating for economic access had gone out with the “Afro.” They even began to agree with media pundits that any claims of race-based injustice, no matter how valid, were simply cases of “playing the race card.”


Sadly, the “race card” terminology has been no more than a slick, verbal sleight-of-hand created to make African Americans feel guilty about discussing their own issues. Unfortunately, it has worked beyond all reasonable expectations, for the past 15 years or so.


With all of that as backdrop, our challenge, now, is to mount a political, economic and communications strategy that will allow us to deal effectively with the return of the harsh new, race-driven reality before it consumes all of us – blacks, white, red, brown and yellow. While still demanding the respect our ethnicity has always deserved, we need to work to finally eliminate the "artificial heirarchy of race," which has been concocted to keep whites at the top of the pyramid, Hispanics and Asians in the middle and blacks solidly at the bottom. Pretending that this is no longer an issue is not only non-productive, it's self-defeating.


As I see it, everything is “on the political table” in the months leading to the mid-term elections and in the two years leading to the presidential elections. There are even political factions that are ready to further amend or eliminate, entirely, the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. In addition, the U.S. government is embroiled in an immigration-related lawsuit against the state of Arizona that has attracted a growing number of other states to join forces against a sitting U.S. president in a fashion that has not been seen since the Civil War.


Perhaps, as a direct result of all of this, the president’s approval rating dropped to 41 percent, recently, the lowest at any time since he took office.


Even worse, CNN pundit Jack Cafferty, two weeks ago, raised the question of whether “the time is ripe for the second American Revolution?” In making his case, Cafferty quoted an editorial in “Investor’s Business Daily” that offered that, perhaps, the government is, now, under Obama, doing “more harm than good.” The commentary went on to accuse him of conducting an “imperial presidency” and made the point that he is “diminishing America from within.”


Wow!


On top of all that, a number of states around the country, most notably Missouri, two weeks ago, are challenging the federal government’s right to impose the Healthcare Reform Bill that was, by all accounts, legally passed by both houses of the U.S. Legislature and signed by the president of the United States.


In my opinion, we’re living now through one of the most volatile political periods in this young nation’s history. Racial animosity and scape-goating are growing phenomena, people are broke, a significant number of them have lost their homes and jobs, along with their hopes for a better future…and thanks to the National Rifle Association, an overwhelming number of them – black and white – are heavily armed.


In the midst of all of this uncertainly, it is of the utmost importance that we in the black community remain vigilant and engaged. When overt racism has raised its ugly head, again, and there is a growing willingness among media pundits to “go negative” on racial topics, when there is talk about fundamental changes in the U.S. Constitution, discussions about the feasibility of a “Second American Revolution,” and outright, direct challenges to the power of the Presidency, we need to ensure that we remain focused and not be reluctant to speak forthrightly on behalf of our own issues.


Everyone else already seems to be doing so.


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