Should there be a “black agenda” in America? And if the answer to that question is ‘yes,’ what is the black agenda?
These are the questions that black leaders and black people have been discussing more and more since President Obama took office. Reverend Al Sharpton hosted a leadership summit addressing this very issue. Recently, a group of black leaders got together on an MSNBC special to talk about this issue in more detail. And many will remember the on-air argument that Tavis Smiley and Rev. Sharpton had a few months ago about this topic.
Tavis believes that Obama isn’t doing enough. Sharpton believes that Obama need not ‘ballyhoo’ a black agenda. Most agree, though, that something needs to be done.
With a 16.5% unemployment rate (compared to 9.7% for white Americans), an education system that is under serving black children, higher than average rates of death from diseases like breast cancer, and continued social issues, it is hard to disagree that there is need for some kind of targeted and focused approach to dealing with the issues that affect African-American. But many are divided on whether or not the president is doing enough for black people, whether or not it’s incumbent on him to do anything at all, and what should or shouldn’t be done.
For perspective and insight on this continuing discussion among black people and leaders, click Here…
This article originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Aspenia, the Italian journal published by the Aspen Foundation Italy.
Don’t let the virulent hatred of Obama’s presidency – veiled in “policy differences” – fool you. Just ask someone raised around bigotry. Carlos Dews is an author, a professor of English literature, and chairman of the Department of English Language and Literature at John Cabot University in Rome.
” ‘The nigger show.”
I first heard this expression used to describe the Obama administration during a visit to my hometown in East Texas during the early summer of 2009. I understood what the epithet meant: Our minds are made up, the president lacks legitimacy, and there is nothing he can do that we will support. I was not surprised to hear such a phrase.
I grew up in the 1960s during the ragged end of the Jim Crow era, where many of the books in my school library were stamped Colored School, meaning they had been brought to the white school when the town was forced to integrate the public school system. I recall my parents had instructed me, before my first day of elementary school, not to sit in a chair where a black child had sat. And I remember my sister joked that her yearbook, when it appeared at the end of her first year of integrated high school, was in “black and white.”
The outward signs of racism of my home state have now disappeared, but racial hatred remains. My father and his friends still use the word nigger to refer to all black people, and the people of my hometown don’t hesitate to spout their racist rhetoric to my face, assuming I agree with them. I hold my tongue for the sake of having continued access to this kind of truth. I learned long ago how not to accept the hatred I was being taught and how to survive not having done so. More recently, I realized that I also learned another lesson: how to recognize racism when it masquerades as something else.
For the past 2000 years, the master narrative has colored, defined and determined the nature of human events around the world. Based on the false social construct of multi-racialism, inferior and superior political social ideas, “the master narrative” remains a successful social and political tactic, which reinforces a cast system, targeting Black Africans on the continent and the Diaspora.
The master narrative has in fact facilitated and enabled the subjugation of indigenous peoples and cultures around the world in the context of empire building and the western domination of the Christian religion. The international slave trade, colonialism, and European cultural and economic imperialism around the planet are well documented.
Despite the advances in science and DNA technology that have thoroughly discredited race as a biological fact that distinguishes various types of human beings, race based notions and discrimination remains consequential. The multi racial narrative continues to punctuate professional language as well as in the common vernacular.
Although the Judeo-Christian biblical injunction discusses all human beings as children of God, and explores the transgressions of our parents Adam and Eve, there is little leadership on the part of clergy to transcend to race based paradigm. Hence, the master narrative of white superiority remains a cornerstone of human relations in the 21st century. As such, the master narrative is a consequential factor to resolving the manifold problems plaguing America and the world.
Some have posited that racism is the basis of the master narrative and racism is at the core of America’s internal problems as well as foreign relation issues. Also it is argued in these same quarters that European imperialism, in the context of slavery and colonialism is the basis of the intractable conflicts in the Middle East, and other hotspots in the world.
Are racism and the doctrine white supremacy the basis of human relations problems and unfolding world tensions and wars?
The advent of politically correct rhetoric has also compromised the Black American political imperative and minimized its leadership edge by way of a constricted civil right rights agenda. The outcome of their parochial process was the isolation of the Black political elite from the community at large. Hence, there are virtually no new generation Black American civil rights leaders on the horizon.
The competitive political advantage is now swinging to the emerging eclectic Black American demographic, who have no links or affinity to civil rights politics. The civil rights leadership and agenda had little if any impact of the success of President Obama’s nomination and general election campaign, for example. The role of civil rights as defined by 19th and 20th century African American politics is apparently inconsequential to Black American political needs in the second decade of the 21st century.
Apart from the monumental achievements of the civil rights movement, the Black American community is a political weakling as compared to all other political minorities in America. Despite the fact that Black American’s are the oldest, arguably the most numerous, and have the most elected officials. Political leverage in Black America is the weakest proportionally, as compared to Asians, Jews, Latinos, gays, etc. This undeniable fact of Black American life constitutes a fascinating political paradox.
Following the passing of the civil rights and voting rights legislation in 1964 1nd 65 respectively, the civil rights movement was responsible for the election of impressive numbers of Black politicians to state and municipal government, characteristic of the electoral achievements of the 19th century civil rights movement. While the successes of the 20th century civil rights movement remain noteworthy, the civil rights organizing tactics, techniques and strategies are no longer as effective for moving the Black American community from point A to point B.
Today, the civil rights agenda and tactics bring dubious political results for Black folk. But civil rights political weapons are the only arrows in the quiver of these leaders. Strategies that establish political leverage within the emerging Black American community are the way forward, but the inherited traditional leaders don’t seem to have a clue.
Civil rights politics are based on race victimization, and political minority juxtapositions will no longer advance the legitimate political aspirations of 21st century Black America. The sophisticated and skillful way in which President Obama handled the political mined field of race and racism, was a decisive blow to the future relevance and fortunes of civil rights politics.
However, the civil rights leadership may have sealed its own ultimate fate during the late 1970s and 80s when politically correct rhetoric was promoted. In this context, the word minority became a substitute for the Black, and African American. Subsequently, when these leaders mentioned the phrase Black community, they would qualify it by including Latinos, or by saying Blacks and other minorities.
First the Black American community morphed into the “minority” community, then the phrase Black people was transformed into people of “color.” More recently, political correct rhetoric completely eliminated the term Black community altogether in favor of “communities of color.” And the minority community was expanded to include, people of color, Gays and Lesbians, the LBGT community, and progressive whites.
The end result is that the civil rights agenda minimized and in some instances moved beyond the political imperative of Black folk, and embraced a generalized “social justice” agenda. Hence, Black American’s marginally benefit from civil rights gains, such as Affirmative Action legislation, while white women and others benefit the most comparatively.
… When Governor David Paterson was asked who was going to carry the torch for Harlem as the old political guard enters obsolescence, he answered that it wouldn’t be him. As he walked out of a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at St. Bart’s church on 51st Street on March 17, Mr. Paterson told The Observer, “Somebody once wrote that you shouldn’t pity the community for wondering who its leaders are—you should pity the community that needs leaders.”
The son of former State Senator Basil Paterson—who along with former Mayor David Dinkins, former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and Representative Charlie Rangel formed the legendary “Gang of Four” that ran Harlem politics for decades—Mr. Paterson was always an unlikely standard-bearer. Then the fates, acting through Mr. Spitzer’s sexual proclivities, elevated State Senator Paterson to the governor’s mansion. Had Harlem found a new generation political champion?
Following a recent appearance at the Langston Hughes Auditorium of the Schomburg Center on 135th Street Congressman Rangel was asked whether Mr. Paterson now represented political Harlem. Mr. Rangel, the reigning Harlem power broker and dubious chairman of the House’s Ways and Means Committee, responded, “I don’t think so.”
“Because remember,” said Mr. Rangel, “Dave Paterson was a senator in the minority for most all of his political career and then things started changing. It changed so fast when he was hurtled into the actual political leadership, because he is governor. But it’s not as though as senator, he was that much more ahead of a Bill Perkins or Keith Wright.”
Mr. Rangel had participated in a panel discussion with other Harlem politicians on how best to capitalize on federal stimulus money, during which he had spoken of “our great governor, David Paterson.”
Outside the auditorium, Mr. Rangel said the very idea of a torch-passing to Mr. Paterson was a false construct. “I don’t think old-timers like me sit back and say, ‘Now which one of these will receive the torch?’” he said. “I don’t think Adam Powell was waiting for someone to come. I don’t think most communities do that.”
Congressman Rangel may be on to something when he makes the point that Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. didn’t look for someone to pass the torch to. The Congressman is one of the best knower’s of the political scenario that lead to the demise of Congressman Powell because Congressman Rangel was the direct beneficiary of Adam Powell’s demise, as it catapulted Rangel to the House of Representatives. The record of Congressman Powell is now in the public arena and it is up to the individual and history to characterize Rev. Powell’s career in terms of fame or infamy.
I sat at my desk, as frozen as a block of ice, listening to one of the most heated conversations I’ve ever heard on the radio. Tavis Smiley and Rev. Al Sharpton were mad, and you could hear it in their voices. This wasn’t “radio mad,” where you pretend to fight in order to get ratings. It was “I’m coming to your mama’s house to get you” mad, the kind of anger that normally doesn’t spill over to the American public.
The contentious dialogue was rooted in Smiley’s recent attack on Rev. Sharpton for a New York Timesarticle in which Sharpton was quoted as saying that he feels the president is wise not to “ballyhoo” a black agenda. In a platform granted to him by The Tom Joyner Morning Show, Tavis put Rev. Sharpton, NAACP President Ben Jealous, Urban League President Marc Morial, Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree and even Dorothy Height on “super blast,” arguing that these individuals have not shown sufficient evidence that they care about the interests of the African-American community.
Bad move Tavis. Very bad.
The conversation was rocky from the start, and you could tell that Sharpton was livid. Tavis Smiley was a bit calmer, and deserves credit for calling in to Sharpton’s show to have the discussion. Smiley kept saying the words “I love you,” to Sharpton, which is usually another bad sign. When Smiley says, “I love you,” that typically means that he’s apologizing for attempting to remove your testicles. Sharpton, like other New Yorkers, won’t say he loves you if he doesn’t, which made the conversation that much more awkward. What is also interesting is that Smiley, for some reason, is convinced that he can present himself as an objective observer of the Obama administration when he has spent the last three years doing everything he can to undermine Obama’s political progress. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t have done a better job.
Rather than following the lead of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has embraced passionate advocacy over obsessive confrontation, Smiley has chased President Obama to every corner of the globe, like a 12-year old pursuing a bully who stole his bike.This has not worked to Smiley’s benefit, and I am not sure if the “anti-Obama” crusade is something that even his fellow Obama critics can understand or support.
The great black divide appears to be a spillover from hard feelings in the Democratic primary, where “Team Clinton” was tossed to the side in favor of the new black face on the block. Smiley and others had access to the Clinton White House, and now a separate team of coordinated civil rights leaders have access to President Obama. Like most politicians, Obama prefers to deal with those who didn’t undercut his rise to the White House, which makes Al Sharpton, Marc Morial and Ben Jealous preferable to Jesse Jackson, Tavis Smiley, Michael Eric Dyson and others who’ve been critical of his political decisions. I don’t agree with this approach, but that’s what politicians do. While I’ve rarely heard Rev. Jackson say a negative word about Obama (other than the infamous slip of the tongue nearly two years ago), it seems that Smiley has made a career out of criticizing the president.
In a time of discrimination and segregation, young people growing up in an area of Harlem known as Sugar Hill right before and after World War II found success and inspiration all around them. Explore the people who lived in Sugar Hill and hear the stories of those who grew up there. Read the related article »
“There’s nothing liberal about the bailouts. There’s nothing liberal about standing by and watching banks use public money to get their executive bonuses. There’s nothing liberal about giving insurance companies carte blanche to charge anything they want for health care… Since when did that become liberal?”
“There’s nothing liberal about letting coal and oil write climate change legislation,” he added. “Are you kidding me?”
The 13-year congressman lamented the lack of change in economic policies, tying it to the major problems Democrats are facing.
“The minute the president appointed Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to key policy positions, and the minute that [Ben] Bernanke was named to head the Fed again, we’re looking at people who participated in the decline of the economy,” he said. “This group has done us a disservice.”
“Every area of the economy is still about taking wealth from the great mass of people and putting it into the hands of a few. If you don’t have a economic democracy, you don’t have a political democracy.”
“We have to be more defined as being on the side of the people and not on the side of interest groups that are so entrenched,” said Kucinich, who is widely regarded as a champion on progressive issues.
Dems ‘jumped in bed with insurance companies’
Kucinich said he’s deeply disillusioned with what health reform has become, suggesting Democrats should “slow down” and “take a step back.”
The troops overseas would like you to send it to everybody you know.
Denzel Washington, and Brooks Army Medical Center. Don’t know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States , especially burn victims. There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses.
The Fisher House is a Hotel where soldiers’ families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled most of the time.
While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his checkbook out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.
The question is: why do:
Brad Pitt, Madonna, Tom Cruise and other Hollywood fluff make front page news with their ridiculous antics and Denzel Washington’s Patriotism doesn’t even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper except the Local newspaper in San Antonio .
A true American and friend to all in uniform!
This needs as wide a distribution
as we can create. Share it!
The Rev. Beulah Leslie James heads the Niagara Ministerial Council.
NIAGARA FALLS — She’s the first female president of the Niagara Ministerial Council, a group of pastors and other clergy in the city.
The Rev. Beulah Leslie James — a Harlem-born grandmother of three who has preached everywhere from St. Croix to South Africa — comes from “a family of preaching women,” she says.
Divine inspiration may be in the genes, as her great-grandmother Bishop Rebecca Belton served as the presiding bishop of St. Ann’s Assembly in New York City, linked to churches in Grenada, Trinidad, Surinam, Barbados and Panama.
“As a child, I remember her taking trips to visit those churches,” James recently recalled. “My mother accompanied her on those trips. Many of the clergy for those churches came to New York to study and were ordained there.”
James said her grandmother Hortense Hyndman was an evangelist at Bethel Gospel Tabernacle in New York, with a special 30-year ministry to patients of hospitals for the chronically ill on Roosevelt Island — formerly called Welfare Island.
Her mom, Cassandra Beulah Potter, was a lay speaker at Reformation Lutheran Church in the U. S. Virgin Islands.
It’s most fitting that James leads a church with hallowed credentials of its own. James heads St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Falls, the oldest black church in the city, celebrating about 105 years of service to the community.
“I’m the second woman pastor in the history of St. John’s,” said James. The other, the Rev. Jocelyn Hart, left for Philadelphia in 2005.
On Garden Avenue, St. John’s sits on a former Underground Railroad site, not far from the Niagara River.
James thinks the grounds would be a good setting for a garden.
She has experience in nutrition education that targets African- Americans and Hispanics, those challenged with cardiovascular disease, the ill and the elderly, hospice and palliative care. It’s experience that started in 1987 at Brooklyn’s AME Church of the Open Door.
James was promoted to the pastoral charge of St. John’s 18 months ago, coming from Bethel AME Church in Milford, Del.
She has started a St. John Health Ministry and launched an HIV/AIDs Intervention and Prevention Project.
St. John AME traces its roots to the Free African Society. Former slave Richard Allen sued in the courts in the early 1800s for the right of his congregation to exist as an independent institution.
“These people were very resilient, having survived the incredible suffering of Middle Passage and slavery,” James said.
Prior to the Civil War, the church was so popular that even slave states Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana and, for a few years, South Carolina became additional sites for AME congregations. In 1880, membership hit 400,000 due to its rapid spread below the Mason-Dixon line. And Bishop Henry M. Turner promoted African Methodism across the ocean into Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa.
Closer to our own time, in the post-Civil Rights era, theologians including Jacqueline Grant, who came out of the AME tradition, critiqued Eurocentric Christianity for shortcomings in alleviating the plight of victims of racism, sexism and poverty.
In the 1990s, the AME grew to more than 2 million members, with 8,000 ministers and 7,000 congregations in more than 30 nations.
At growing St. John’s, there are some 300 members, including an inspired choir. James has almost doubled Bible Study participation. She’s also started the church’s monthly newsletter, the St. John Journal.
Sunday morning worship at St. John’s begins at 11.
Have an idea about for ReligionNews? Write to: Louise Continelli,The Buffalo News, P. O. Box 100,Buffalo, NY 14240 or e-mail her at
Should there be a “black agenda” in America? And if the answer to that question is ‘yes,’ what is the black agenda?
