Democracy Now! | Race and Gender in Presidential Politics: A Debate Between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: And so, to pretend that we can somehow take [race and gender] out of the conversation when a white woman runs against a black man, when she tears up at being sort of beat up by him, when her husband can come in and rally around her and suggest that we need to sort of support her because she’s having difficulties, while Barack Obama is getting death threats, basically lynching threats on him and his family…

I’ve been meaning to put this up for a while. It’s still an excellent debate with some good points to ponder… Is there still a race now anyway?

Democracy Now! | Barack Obama and the African American Community: A Debate with Michael Eric Dyson and Glen Ford:

The above link will take you to an excellent debate on DemocracyNOW concerning the impact of Barack Obama and the implications of an Obama presidency on black people.

I especially like this quote from Glen Ford:

We’re in this era of firsts, and the ultimate first, a first—possibly a first black president. But we already had two firsts. Colin Powell was one of them, and Condoleezza Rice, his successor as secretary of state [was another]. How did that redound to the benefit of black people for the United States to have a black – put a black face on imperialism, on aggressive war, on violations of international law? How does that make black people look better in the world? Is that the kind of burden that black people want to carry around?

Again, a problem is that Obama, through no fault of his own, has to carry a burden for ‘black people’. And this is whether he wants to or not. Just ask Tiger Woods for his opinion on this. I believe that Obama does deploy his blackness strategically, and so the criticisms are warranted. But as Ford points out, a black-face (I mean this in both senses of the term) on imperialism is not something to hope for.

Visual diversity means little.

The white man has convinced us, and some of their own no doubt, that they are a homogenous group. Believe me, if black people did not exist in the world, white people would get on with the far more important work of killing other white people. However, since we do exist and enter their space, we suffice as target practice.

You could have a perfectly mixed and ‘diversified’ sample, and have no actual diversity. Or put another way, a room full of white people can be incredibly diverse. In that room you may have some Jewish people, some from Russia, an Irish descendant from New York, English nobility and members of the Canadian working class and they would in all likelihood, disagree on everything. The myth of racial solidarity is exactly that: A Myth. It was created out of necessity in and around the Caribbean sugar plantations, and has persisted until today. I say this in the hope that Black people will stop talking about “white people” as if they were some monolithic political party, but also in the hope that I can remember to stop talking about “black people”.

If there were no white people in the world, Blackness would not matter, and we would then get to the more important work of remembering why we hate each other. Similarity of color means nothing. Two black people may have nothing to talk about and nothing else in common. The sooner this truth hits us, the sooner we can move on to more profitable stereotyping.

The smokescreen of visual diversity and the political cushion it provides should not be underestimated. People generally assume that color of skin comes along with an ideology. To be Black is to be liberal, and if one lives in the US, a democrat. Black people have rhythm, are athletic and listen to rap music. Right. We also assume that because a certain government administration has x amount of Blacks in high positions, x amount of Latinos, z amount of “non-white” people, it is diverse. You can hire as much of these people as you want and engineer complete visual diversity with every shade of skin under the sun and it could, I emphasize could, mean nothing. All of these visually diverse people who look nothing alike may be intellectual clones.

What does “multi-cultural” even mean? Again, a room full of white people can be multi-cultural. But multi-culturalism is the hot word of the day. The buzz word. Another useless plaything of a word that goes down smooth but has no nutritional value. It’s a politically-correct junk-food tortilla-chip of a word. Multi-culturalism, as far as I can see, only means visual diversity, which is only a useful gauge of telling how many black people are in a room, and as I am arguing, this doesn’t mean much.

I am not saying that we should throw away the quotas and the affirmative action policies; most bureaucrats in their more lucid moments will say that these programs encourage diversity, and perhaps they do. Since we live in a visual society and crave visual stimulation, I guess we will have to settle for visual diversity. Just don’t be surprised when everyone says the same things.

…

I offer you these observations only because they have occurred to me, not because I offer an alternative or even a point. Do you expect me to come up with everything? I am only a writer. I have no credentials other than what you have just read. If I had a PhD would it matter? Or would it take you that much longer to realize that I am full of shit?

If I have a point, it is this: there are forces that exist out there, forces that are shaping our minds, our opinions, our outlook, and the majority – regardless of color – are plugging in and zoning out. To be awake and alert takes effort, RADICAL effort. We need to forget what people say, forget what color they are and watch and remember what they do. The important thing is the degree of correlation between words and deeds. This process takes a lot longer. It takes a lot more work. Your mileage may vary. But maybe, just maybe, you will go a day longer without being duped.

Another one is born every day and I’d hate for it to be you.

“No option can be taken off the table” – Sen Hillary R. Clinton.
“We need to keep all options on the table.” – John Edwards
“we should take no option … off the table.” – Sen. Barack Obama
“I will never take any option off the table.” – US Pres. George W. Bush

Been hearing a lot recently about the US and Iran. Lots and lots of noise. The rhetoric is starting to build to a fever pitch. The war drums are beating so loud that my bones are rattling, shaking even. From the ‘liberal’ Democratic candidates all the way to the Cheneys and the Bushes who still control the power, one point has been made remarkably clear and with a chilling consistency: In these negotiations with Iran, and we are led to believe that someone somewhere is, in fact, negotiating, no option is to be taken off of the table.

What are these people talking about? I would like to think that they mean regular ole military action. But any one who has the short-term memory of an advanced Alzheimer’s patient has to know that military action is always in the cards when it comes to dealing with the US. What I find disturbing is that in the buildup to Iraq II I don’t recall hearing this refrain and certainly not with this frequency. The regular code words for military action are ‘serious consequences’. And the US has been threatening Iran with serious consequences for a while. This sounds a lot different.

No option should be taken off of the table.

What other options are there? What is on this metaphorical table? One option sitting by the salt and pepper shaker collecting dust is diplomacy. But no one in this busy age really has the time for that, and besides, this is Iran. They can’t listen to reason anyway. Why waste breath when you can shoot bullets right?

Air strikes are probably also sitting there on this table like a rabid and twitching black cat. Of course we call them ‘surgical strikes’ in this day and age.

The C.I.A. is always available for that other option, you know the one that they pulled before in Iran, where they deposed their democratically elected leader and installed a puppet dictator. Ok, alright, so that was a while ago. And that agency is probably too busy planning birthday parties in Venezuela anyway. The general rule of thumb is that you don’t turn a situation into a world crisis and then run a covert operation. Even for the US, that doesn’t make sense.

I would like to think that a ground force invasion is the final option on the table, but the troops, like the butter, are spread pretty thin. So what do they mean? What could they mean?

Could they possibly mean a nuclear strike?

Could this be the unspeakable ‘option’ that everyone says has to stay on the table? I would like to think that the world saw the nuclear bomb used in warfare for the first and last time in 1945. Surely they can’t be talking about that. Are they really that crazy?

For the love of God man, take that ‘option’ off the table!

Please.