When the Black Freedom Movement withered away from disuse and neglect, it left a generation of enthusiastic young activists-to-be with unprecedented "access" to white dominated institutions, but no movement with which to affiliate. What's a determined mover-and-shaker to do? Get a job, that's what. While the author's friends settled in as corporate lawyers, management consultants and other odd jobs, she was fortunate enough to become - for a time - a "professional feminist" working for "reformist" non-profits. But financial pressures pushed her towards academia, and the realization that "I and others in my group" are "repositories for the Civil Rights generation's left-over hopes and dreams." Barack Obama, she now understands, has been the "symbolic beneficiary and repository" of those dreams - which is not the same thing.
Obama, Wright, and How the Post-Civil Rights Generation Will Rise to Power
When the Black Freedom Movement withered away from disuse and neglect, it left a generation of enthusiastic young activists-to-be with unprecedented "access" to white dominated institutions, but no movement with which to affiliate. What's a determined mover-and-shaker to do? Get a job, that's what. While the author's friends settled in as corporate lawyers, management consultants and other odd jobs, she was fortunate enough to become - for a time - a "professional feminist" working for "reformist" non-profits. But financial pressures pushed her towards academia, and the realization that "I and others in my group" are "repositories for the Civil Rights generation's left-over hopes and dreams." Barack Obama, she now understands, has been the "symbolic beneficiary and repository" of those dreams - which is not the same thing.
Jeremiah Wright responds to his critics in an interview on Bill Moyers Journal. This PBS Program demonstrated a level of journalism and background that has been absent in the rush to derail the candidacy of Barack Obama. the network news shows have not taken a single step to provide any balance to the blatant distortion of the work that this pastor has done over the 40 plus years of his ministry.
Much of Black America stopped discussing Zimbabwe after its liberation in 1980; at least, we stopped discussing it for a while. After years of regular coverage of the liberation war, details regarding Zimbabwe became harder to obtain as attention shifted to struggles in Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. Not to be misunderstood, it was not that facts were being withheld for us here in Black America, so much as we paid less attention to developments, and did not dig for information.
As he heads into Pennsylvania, there’s good news and bad news for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama in the recent exit polls of white voters in Democratic primaries. The good news is that by a lopsided majority of six to one whites said that race was not a factor in considering whether to back Obama or not. That pretty much conforms to virtually every poll that’s been taken since Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring a year ago. His red state Democratic primary and caucus wins and the handful of endorsements he’s gotten from the red state Democratic senators and governors seem to bolster the poll findings as well as his camp’s contention that the majority of whites have bought his race-neutral change and unity pitch.
The nation grew a little bit last week when Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, give a speech on race unlike any this nation has ever seen. In the very week America thought it had discovered the bone in Obama’s closet that would derail his run for the Presidency, Barack kicked down the door of the closet that holds America’s worse skeletons, its race closet. We all know race is a conversation America never wants to have, because it’s a conversation they can never win. So the race closet, stacked to the top with 400 years of skeletons-from the Middle Passage through today’s colorblind racism, is closely guarded by those who know and understand this vile and twisted history. However, this time America started it by trying to radicalize Obama and racialize Obama’s Minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Barack finished it by stating that if you really want to have a conversation about somebody’s racial views - then let’s talk about America’s racial views, in its totality. It was substantive, and it was eloquent.
