President and one time supporter – now adversary – Dr. Cornel West
*I’m not here to defend President Obama, because as I pointed out in previous articles, I have an issue or two with some of his policies myself, just like I’ve had with EVERY White president. But I think we owe this brother the benefit of the doubt. He’s plagued with enough problems in having to deal with world affairs and our domestic crisis, while at the same time, having to fight off racist Republicans and envious, self-serving turncoats like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. So we shouldn’t add yet another problem to his plate by forcing him to have to worry about whether he has the support of his own people.
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To be quite frank, I think there are only two kinds of people in this world – good people, and bad people. In addition, I believe the battle over race was a part of the last war. Those who are enlightened recognize that the current battle is over class, because the current powers that be don’t care any more about poor and middle-class White folks than they do Black people. Most White people recognize that fact. That’s why Obama is president. So while I often write about what’s in the best interest of the Black community as a whole, I rarely make race a part of my personal political calculations.
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But I consider the presidency of Barack Obama a unique situation, and what we’ve been watching with respect to many Black Obama critics should be regarded as a teaching moment, because it represents a cultural dysfunction that’s been played out thousands of times over the past four hundred years. Many of us have heard stories about Black self-hatred all of our lives, but due to President Obama’s high profile we now have the opportunity, as an entire culture, to see it being played out in all of its ugliness for the very first time.
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But of course, there are going to be a few of Obama’s critics who are going to ask, “What are you saying, that Obama should be above criticism just because he’s Black?” Of course not, and the people who pose such a ridiculous question know that’s not what I’m saying before they even ask it. But just asking such a disingenuous question should also serve as a teaching moment – it shows the extraordinary lengths that such people will go to mask their“bligotry.”
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Questioning President Obama’s policies is not the problem – it’s the mean-spirited way in which it’s being done. In fact, Black haters are not merely questioning Obama’s policies at all. More often than not these people are simply using policy differences as a pretext for making slanderous assertions about the president’s character as a whole – he’s a “war criminal,” “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats,” “a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface,” and even, “He has a certainrootlessness, a deracination” [WHAT!!!?]. Notice that three out of the four slanders are racial in nature, and these quotes are from just one man – Cornel West.
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None of the criticisms above were legitimate attempts to address the president’s public policies. They were racial slanders, clear and simple. That clearly demonstrates that many Black Obama-haters are not nearly as interested in addressing public policy as they are in attacking the man himself. These slanders also demonstrate that their allegation that people who object to their criticism are merely Obama cheerleaders. That’s not true – what we’re against is what we’ve always been against – racist attacks.
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But even those haters who have the good sense to refrain from blatant, racist attacks often make themselves known by going over the top in their allegations regarding policy. They’ll often say things like, “Obama is a part of the machine.” But since we’re not privy to the information that Obama is basing his decisions upon, nor his motives for making any given decision, any allegation being made about him being a part of any “machine” are wholly without supporting substantiation at best. Critics who suggest this are merely commenting on what things LOOK like to their jaundiced eye – or what they’re trying to convince you tothink they look like - without having a shred of evidence to support their views. Their allegations have no more basis in fact than that of the birthers.
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The reality is, being the first Black President of the United States, Obama can’t approach the nation’s problems in the same way that they were approached by his White predecessors. In many cases he has to take a circuitous approach to addressing issues in order to prevent the GOP from mischaracterizing his efforts with their very special kind of malevolent spin. Thus, the way that things may look, may not always be what they seem. So anyone who would lend comfort to the most steadfast enemies of the Black community by helping to drag this Black man through the mud is on what my good friend, Playthell Benjamin, would call, a fool’s errand.
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There were people in the Tea Party who were consistently calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer, right up until he brought Osama Bin Laden’s head home in a bag. Bush spent nearly eight years and close to a trillion dollars trying to pull that off with no success, but Obama did it with three helicopters and a handful of courageous men, without busting a sweat bubble – and he did it while America thought he was just kickin’ it.
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So this brother ain’t no punk, and he’s not the kind of person we should second guess without very good cause. So yes, I think everyone in the Black community should get behind this brother – period. If we have a comment on policy, we should voice our concern, but we should do it politely, and very respectfully. Because while Obama is, and should be, the president of ALL of America, he is also the most high profile representative of the Black community in the entire world. So to be disrespectful of him, is to be disrespectful of us; and his success, is our success.
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With regard to Cornel West, I can only say this – any Black man who tries to publicly engage in the Dozens against the first Black President of the United States cannot be regarded as a serious intellectual. He deserves very close scrutiny, because his behavior is not only disrespectful of the president, but it betrays a gross disdain for the Black community as a whole. So he can say whatever he likes about his motives, but his behavior lends comfort to the most dedicated enemies of the Black community. Thus, the issue is not even debatable – the stupidity he’s engaged in amounts to tap dancing for the Klan
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and several other publications. He’s also a staff writer for Veterans Today and the author of “A Message From the Hood.
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.co
Acute observations, all. I wrote a piece myself detailing many of the misadventures of ‘The Wild-Wild West(s)… Obama-haters all: Cornel, Allen and Kanye. Didn’t nobody read it though. Oh well, hopefully you have a far more expansive and captive audience. Keep reachin’em and teachin’em.. always do the damn-thang…
Andre,
Send me a link and I’ll read it. This is the biggest story in the Black community, so we can’t let it die.
Seems like everyone was trying to give him a PASS his first term and the only thing that happened was the opportunity PASSED by. It is surprising that some are still asking for a pass. SMH
Afro Tapp,
The people tried to give him a pass on what? Here are just a few of the things that President Obama did in his first term:
1). He stopped the nation from hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs A MONTH under Bush. That helped the poor and middle class.
2). He stopped the nation from going into a second Great Depression. That also helped the poor and middle class.
3). He saved the American auto industry. I’m pretty sure that also qualifies as helping the poor and middle class.
4). He was the first president to successfully passed healthcare reform in 70 years. That not only helped, but will save the lives of many of the poor and middle class.
5). He created more jobs in 27 months than Bush did in 7 years. That definitely helped the poor and middle class.
6). While he was doing all of the things above, he also managed to get Osama Bin Laden in his spare time – and if you remember, Bush spent 7 years, upward of a TRILLION dollars, and killed or maimed thousands of American troops in that effort. But Obama managed to pull it off with two helicopters and a handful of men.
He did all of these things with congress fighting him tooth-and-nail – in fact, he’s already done enough where he’s been rank by a poll of presidential historians as one of the top 10 president in U.S. history. So I really don’t see where he needs to be given “a pass” by anyone. What to they want him to do, walk the water?
What many people fail to realize is, the United States Constitution give sole control of all spending to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the House is controlled by the Republicans? so Obama can’t do anything for the Black community – or ANY community – without getting them to go along with him. And the only way that Obama can get them to go along with him is if he has the support of the people behind him. That’s why I’m so heavily on Tavis Smiley and Cornel West – they’re misleading the people, and by doing so they’re hurting the very people they CLAIM they want to help.
Here are a few other things Obama has done:
- Spur Job Creation: “In addition, to help those most affected by the recession, the Budget will extend emergency assistance to seniors and families with children, Unemployment Insurance benefits, COBRA tax credits, and relief to states and localities to prevent layoffs.” .
- Reforming the Job Training System: “The Budget calls for reform of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which supports almost 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers nationwide and a range of other services. With $6 billion for WIA at DOL—and an additional $4 billion in the Department of Education—the Budget calls for reforms to improve WIA.” Strengthen Anti-Discrimination Enforcement: “To strengthen civil rights enforcement against racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, religious, and gender discrimination, the Budget includes an 11 percent increase in funding to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. This investment will help the Division handle implementation of a historic new hate crimes law. The Budget also provides an $18 million, or 5 percent increase, for the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), which is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee. This increased investment will allow for more staff to reduce the backlog of private sector charges.”
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- Support Historically Black Colleges and Universities: “The Budget proposes $642 million, an increase of $30 million over the 2010 level, to support Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), including Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In addition to this discretionary funding increase for MSIs, the Administration supports legislation passed by the House of Representatives and pending in the Senate that would provide $2.55 billion in mandatory funding to MSIs over 10 years.”
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- Help Families Struggling with Child Care Costs: “The Budget will nearly double the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle-class families making under $85,000 a year by increasing their credit rate from 20 percent to 35 percent of child care expenses. Nearly all eligible families making under $115,000 a year would see a larger credit. The Budget also provides critical support for young children and their families by building on historic increases provided in ARRA. The Budget provides an additional $989 million for Head Start and Early Head Start to continue to serve 64,000 additional children and families funded in ARRA.”
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- Reform Elementary and Secondary School Funding: “The Budget supports the Administration’s new vision for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) … The Budget provides a $3 billion increase in funding for K-12 education programs authorized in the ESEA, including $900 million for School Turnaround Grants, and the Administration will request up to $1 billion in additional funding if Congress successfully completes ESEA reauthorization.”
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- Increase Pell Grants: “The Recovery Act and 2009 appropriations bill increased the maximum Pell Grant by more than $600 for a total award of $5,350. The Budget proposes to make that increase permanent and put them on a path to grow faster than inflation every year, increasing the maximum grant by $1,000, expanding eligibility, and nearly doubling the total amount of Pell grants since the President took office.”
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- Help Relieve Student Loan Debt: “To help graduates overburdened with student loan debt, the Administration will strengthen income-based repayment plans for student loans by reducing monthly payments and shortening the repayment period so that overburdened borrowers will pay only 10 percent of their discretionary income in loan repayments and can have their remaining debt forgiven after 20 years. Those in public service careers will have their debt forgiven after 10 years. The Budget also expands low-cost Perkins student loans.”
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- Prevent Hunger and Improve Nutrition: “The President’s Budget provides $8.1 billion for discretionary nutrition program supports, which is a $400 million increase over the 2010 enacted level. Funding supports 10 million participants in the WIC program, which is critical to the health of pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants. The Budget also supports a strong Child Nutrition and WIC reauthorization package that will ensure that school children have access to healthy meals and to help fulfill the President’s pledge to end childhood hunger. The President continues to support the nutrition provisions incorporated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).”
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- Revitalize Distressed Urban Neighborhoods: “The Budget includes $250 million for HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program, which will target neighborhoods anchored by distressed public or assisted housing with physical and social revitalization grounded in promising, measurable, and evidence-based strategies.”
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- Increase Funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program: “The President’s Budget requests $19.6 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher program to help more than two million extremely low income families with rental assistance to live in decent housing in neighborhoods of their choice. The Budget continues funding for all existing mainstream vouchers and provides flexibility to support new vouchers that were leased and $85 million in special purpose vouchers for homeless families with children, families at risk of homelessness, and persons with disabilities.”
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- Preserve 1.3 Million Affordable Rental Units through Project-Based Rental Assistance Program: “The President’s Budget provides $9.4 billion for the Project-Based Rental Assistance program to preserve approximately 1.3 million affordable rental units through increased funding for contracts with private owners of multifamily properties. This critical investment will help low-income households to obtain or retain decent, safe and sanitary housing. In addition, the Administration requests $350 million to fund the first phase of this multi-year initiative to regionalize the Housing Choice Voucher program and convert Public Housing to project-based vouchers.”
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- Promote Affordable Homeownership and Protect Families from Mortgage Fraud: “The Budget requests $88 million for HUD to support homeownership and foreclosure prevention through Housing Counseling and $20 million to combat mortgage fraud. In addition, the Budget requests $250 million for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation’s (NRC) grant and training programs. Of the $250 million, $113 million is requested for foreclosure prevention activities, a $48 million increase (74 percent) over 2010.”
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- Fight Gang Violence and Violent Crime: “The Budget provides $112 million for place-based, evidence supported, initiatives to combat violence in local communities, including $25 million for the Community-Based Violence Prevention Initiatives that aim to reduce gun and other violence among youth gangs in cities and towns across the country, and $37 million for the Attorney General’s Children Exposed to Violence Initiative, which targets the youth most affected by violence and most susceptible to propagating it as they grow up.”.
- Expand Prisoner Re-entry Programs: “The Budget provides $144 million for Department Justice prisoner re-entry programs, including an additional $100 million for the Office of Justice Programs to administer grant programs authorized by the Second Chance Act and $30 million for residential substance abuse treatment programs in State and local prisons and jails. In addition, the Budget provides $98 million for Department of Labor programs that provide employment-centered services to adult and youth ex-offenders and at-risk youth..”
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- Fully Fund the Community Development Block Grant Program: “The Budget provides $4.4 billion for the Community Development Fund, including $3.99 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Formula Program (CDBG), and $150 million for the creation of a Catalytic Investment Competition Grants program. The new Catalytic Competition Grants program uses the authorities of CDBG, but will provide capital to bring innovative economic development projects to scale to make a measurable impact.”
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Here are 206 Obama Accomplishments, With Citations!http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/what-has-obama-done-since-january-20-2009.html
He uses drones to kill women and children in Iraq, Afhanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Mali. That doesnt help the poor in this country or anywhere else. It just spends money and lives on senseless slaughter. That is why Obama is a war criminal.
Obama allows the banks to foreclose on millions of americans even though they were bailed out by those same americans and he has turned a blind eye to the 18% of this country that is unemployed. He could do what Roosevelt did if he wanted to but he is only interested in spending money on war and protecting the richest individuals and corporations from paying any taxes at all.
Cornel West was just stating the obvious whe he referred to Obama as a war crimial. Obama carried on with even more destructive policies than the Bush Jr. war crimial.
Marty,
Most Americans are against the killing of innocent noncombatants in war but, but tell me one war in the history of mankind when innocent noncombatants weren’t killed. It happens in all wars. That’s one of many things that makes engaging in war such a horrible thing. By definition, ALL wars are a crime against humanity, so based on that reality, EVERY head of state who engages in war is a war criminal.
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During WWII, a war that most American consider a heroic undertaking, we dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan – one each on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – killing men, women, children, newborn babies, cute little puppies, and cuddly little kittens. So again, ALL wars involve killing innocent noncombatants, but now, all of a sudden, everybody wants to whole Barack Obama to a different standard than we’ve held every head of state since long before Jesus walked the Earth. We need to examine that attitude – especially Black people, because it sounds a lot like it’s grounded in racism.
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But here’s the problem with people like Tavis and West – they invariably shoot from the hip with inflammatory comments and disseminate disinformation in order to garner headlines to promote their own selfish agendas. As a result, instead of enhancing debate, they distract from any serious discussion of the issues.
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Cornel West is not privy to even one sentence of the intelligence that President Obama has at his disposal. Yet, he’s shooting off his mouth as though the CIA is putting a condition report on his desk every morning for his review. We must never forget that Pakistan, right next door to Afghanistan – and where Osama Bin Laden was found and killed – is armed with nuclear weapons, and the president has a responsibility to see to it that those weapons never fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. If they do, America, and YOUR family, will fall under the dire threat of nuclear annihilation. So while people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are jumping up and down in ignorance, and in a recklessly selfish attempt to gain headlines, the President is engaged in serious business – America’s business.
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The issues aren’t as cut-n-dried as people like Tavis and West would have us believe. Yes, on the surface it seems like common sense that it’s wrong to kill an American citizen without due process – even if he is collaborating with the enemy. But place yourself in the position of the president for a moment. Let’s say you have credible information that Al Qaeda is going to launch an attack on an American position on Tuesday morning but you can prevent the attack by launching a preemptive drone attack on their position on Monday night. You have one problem, however. You also have intelligence that indicates there’s a collaborator on the enemy site who is an American citizen. Are you going to hold off your preemptive attack because the collaborator hasn’t been afforded due process?
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And let us not forget, that once you set a precedent of holding off attacks in order to protect the lives of American collaborators, from that point on Al Qaeda can use that against you. All they have to do is surround themselves with American sympathizers as human shields to insure themselves against attack. So these issues aren’t as simple as they might seem at first blush. While, of course, we must be careful to protect the rights and security of innocent American citizens, jumping up and down screaming and pointing fingers is not the kind of approach that is appropriate for considering such weighty concerns.
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As Min. Louis Farrakhan so adroitly pointed out to Tavis Smiley, President Obama is not turning grey-headed for nothing. He’s dealing with serious issues, and he’s privy to information in which we can only speculate. So it’s one thing to question policy, but for Cornel West go around making incendiary comments, and calling the President of the United States a war criminal, is not only irresponsible, unprofessional, and ignorant, but it lends support to the enemies of both the Black community, and America as a whole.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBPl834LPE&feature=player_embedded
Eric L. Wattree
The Wild-Wild West(s)
I find it curious to say the least when some people make reference to the presidency and Barack Obama in particular as though that office or that personality could simply wave some sort of magical wand and reverse every living, breathing and standing injustice… and all the other shit they individually don’t particularly care for. That’s not to suggest that there exists some powerful magnet the political compass, but there are signs the needle is stuck ‘out West’.
Looking at Allen West, he looks like the guy you went to school with and happy to tell your friends you know or knew. Tall, well-dressed, well-groomed and well-heeled, he looks every bit the success story. And then he opens his mouth. Look, I used to entertain the notion of establishing a solid black base and voice inside the Repugnantcan Party. I still believe the insistence that our two-party system works best, and that the Democrats are everything we need them to be is as ‘ludicrous’ as the rapper, and not nearly as convincing or entertaining. But this poor brother is so over-the-top silly in his conservative bona fides, that he was reduced to slightly more than a caricature. I’ve seen countless instances of where a stint in the military has produced some finely-tuned, smart and disciplined brothers, but this guy appears to have been set adrift. Thankfully he lost after just one term as a congressman from Florida’s 22nd district and backed the tea-party. Coffee anyone…?
I told a friend of mine I was dating at the time it all happened that Kanye West’s charge that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” was silly and irresponsible. She didn’t see it that way, she saw it as a bold and upfront “unafraid to confront those in power” kinda statement (my words not hers, but I know what she meant). If you recall, that was during The Hurricane Katrina Disaster and its aftermath, and the people of New Orleans needed help desperately. Maybe appearing to shame the administration into doing something is ‘A’ way, but my observation is that a greater mobilization happens when the appeal goes out for leaders to lead- regardless of any individual hang-up or political leaning. And to appeal to the baser human element is to lower yourself to those terms. Since then and in any number of juvenile or silly acts, I feel even better about that assessment of an otherwise and obviously talented young man. I hope he can get it all together, because he no doubt, can speak to a generation yet on the come. But as it stands right now…“I ain’t sayin’ he’s a damn-fool… (who am I kidding) Yes I am…
The preachers, the teachers, the philosophers, the provocateurs, the politicians, the academicians… they all have their place, and all are welcomed. But it is also our responsibility to see to it that any over-bearing influence is constrained enough to fit into the larger narrative. We all know, love, respect and admire Dr. Cornel West. Having said that though, understanding that his place in our greater education is that of the “what else is there out there” advocate. And as The Rev. Al Sharpton noted recently, that is as it should be. But even more important, is the fact that a president must be The President… he necessarily has to step back from active advocacy for segmented social issues in favor of the whole. So in so much of the rhetorical back and forth that goes on, while the fact is: it is Advantage- Mr. President, often times taking advantage is whomever it is in the theatre at the time, that even if he isn’t yelling “Fire”, he’s got his hand poised just above the alarm switch… and ever so anxious.
P.S. on the wardrobe: the whole Reconstruction ensemble is timeless… either that or an anachronism.