Special Report
Pittsburgh, PA
January 2, 2012
By Fred Logan
December 8, 2011
This robust national black debate that we hear day-in-and-day-out about Barack Obama and the black community is one of the very best things to happen in a very long time. It must also be one of the greatest political gifts that a black US
We are indeed indebted to and should send our most heart-felt thanks to President Obama for his invaluable, though unintended, contribution to African American political struggle. Just how warmly he would receive our “Thanks” is another subject for debate.
Some prominent African American personalities including Dr. Cornel West and the Reverend Al Sharpton have jumped in the fray. But far more important still, we find the same political debate raging on black talk-radio and on neighborhood street corners, during church meetings, in Black Studies organizations, newspapers, taverns, beauty salons, and even around the dinner table. It seems to be everywhere.
We would not be arguing as long and hard as we have been about the president if Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or any other white president was sitting in the White House. We must be honest and tell the truth about the debate. It’s “a Black Thing,” regardless of who claims the United States
We have been complaining for decades that the black community needs, desperately, a dramatic up surge in mass black politics. Well this is it, not all of it by any means, but certainly an important part of it.
This often heated debate tells us some important things about where the black community is at the moment on a given issue. As black public opinion shifts, we have an indication of what some segments of the community can be organized to do politically. You can bet the sitting president very closely monitors the political moods and swings of his core, most loyal constituency.
This dispute over Obama and the black community will intensify throughout the 2012 campaign. Some black people have criticized Cornel West for some pointed remarks he made about Obama. But we must remember West’s remarks were no harsher than some of the comments Obama said to several of his liberal critics. We can not let the heat of the debate deter us. Black people are bound to exchange some very strong words during the campaign.
The black community, particularly black people who see themselves as progressive left-activists, must raise this debate to a higher more critical level. We must continue to critically examine Obama’s relationship to the black community. We must also examine the state of black politics itself, independent of Obama. And we must devise strategies and tactics to build and sustain partisan black political power-bases on the local level where African American people live out their daily lives and wage their day to day struggles.
Here is another way to say the very same thing. Black people must put black politics at the top of their agenda for the 2012 US
The 50- year mark of the 1965 Voting Rights Acts will be upon us in a minute. The black community must mark this with a rigorous, intensive, comprehensive critique of African American electoral politics over the past half-century. Also, it is way past time for a rigorous intensive black audit of the so-called post-black, race-transcending politicians of African American ancestry who have held public office across the county since at least the hey days of former US Senator Ed Brooke. We must ask and answer how the quality of black life faired during the tenures of these post-black mayors, city council members and other officer holders? We must compare “black politics” to post-black politics
We must also very carefully critique the various goals and objectives of Obama’s black supporters. Some are motivated solely by racial pride. And the primary goal for some is to gain something for themselves.
A lot of Obama’s most diehard black supporters will never admit it. But they are hypocrites. Yes, they certainly do adore Barack Obama as much as they claim. But they are even more infatuated with white power. So, they worship Obama because he is black and sits on the political throne of white power. These Obamaphiles would also worship most any mainstream black politician female or male—say Colin Powell—who won the White House.
These are some of the very same people who always bad-mouth the call for black power in African American life, but idolize white power. They worship the dollar, the mainstream corporate media, various white ethnic groups, and so on. Their love of white power transcends their love of Obama. And Obama loves white power, despite his occasional colorblind utterances.
These are also some of the very same black people who have argued long and loud since Obama took office for the black community to lay low and “give the brother a chance.” Don’t criticize the president, they scold. Way, way too many black people did lay low and gave Obama a “chance,” while he expanded American military aggression in the Middle East and Africa , while the economy continues to stagnant and devastate low and middle income people, and while a sometimes teary-eyed, pragmatic president appealed to the morality of an immoral GOP for “compromise.”
While the black community was lying low, however, the US
The establishment media and black folks who tail behind the media have heaped praise and encouragement on the national Occupy protests. By now, we must have noticed this is the same media and many of the same black people who have been bad-mouthing black protests during the Obama era!
Black politics must not be based on the asinine argument, we hear each day, and not criticize the president. Obamaphiles argue that US reactionaries will overhear this black criticism, and use it against the president. Not only the right, but other special interests groups, will manipulate this nonsense—that’s what it is—to stifle black public criticism of the status quo and to stymie the black strategizing, organizing, and struggle that go along with it. If black people continue to lay low during the 2012 campaign, that’s a signal for Obama to continue to avoid “black concerns” again should he be reelected. Contrary to Obama’s uncritical black supporters, his second term might well be more conservative than the first. One thing for sure, a black lame duck president will have even less influence with both parties during his second term.
Also, the US
We know that hand-in-hand with black criticism must be struggle, not just criticism by itself. That’s just griping. The material and subjective rewards from we gain from waging black struggle nullifies anything US reactionaries and others may over hear us say about Obama.
Another equally asinine argument we constantly hear everyday in the black community contends black people should not ask the federal government for programs that only help black people. In reply, black people should ask, why not? American farmers, for example, request help for farmers. US big banks, another example, are quick to ask the US
The Obama administration argues, and his black apologists repeat, farmers, big banks and similar special interest groups will spend their federal aid monies in the US economy and this will stimulate the overall economy, and this will—according to bourgeois economic theory—benefit the country as a whole, not just the immediate recipients.
African Americans also spend their monies in the domestic economy at Verizon, Wal-Mart, you name it. Most everyone should know by now that black folks’ little bit of money is notorious for circulating faster than white folks’ great big money. So, on average, it stimulates the economy faster. Doesn’t Obama know where black people spend their money? Or, does the American president believe that black people here in these United States of America spend their money in the Republic of New Africa
When black people request federal aid for the black community, they never say just help us, but don’t help anyone else. Black people, at large, want and support similar aid to Native Americans, Latinos and the society at large.
As the establishment dictates, Obama very often soft shoes race when black people raise issues related to white racism. But the liberal, moderate, and conservative wings of the US establishment—and this includes the Obama administration—gladly point to the president’s “blackness” to fend off any charges from foreign critics of American racism. So, “race,” does indeed still matter to the beneficiaries of the status quo when race supports the interests of the status quo.
Obama’s eagerness to publicly scold the US black community and African heads of state says loud and clear for all who would heard that in a tight 2012 campaign with the GOP, his political survival instincts would direct him to come out and harshly chastise the black community at large—including his black apologists—to court so-called white independent voters, and to take the black vote and black concerns for granted. The black community would be wise to be on watch for this in the 2012 campaign.
Directly tied to this, Obama’s 2012 victory is so dependent on the b lack vote that just a 10% stay at home by 2008 black voters would be disaster for Obama. It would indicate and an even larger drop off by non-black voters. This underscores Obama’s political dilemma with “race’ in a racist society.
Taking their cues apparently from Nietzsche, the centurions of the status quo have officially proclaimed, in unison, “Black politics is dead!” You must have heard them say that by now. We hear it every day and everywhere. Case closed! If this proclamation is true, then we are duty bound to ask, “What under the sun is the establishment’s definition of alive?” Is it the Tea Party? Or, is it the Democrats? Or is it the Republican Party?
Mainstream US United States
Today is December 8, 2012. It has been exactly three years one month and four days since Obama won the White House on November 4, 2008. Black people all across the city of Pittsburgh United States
However the election to the White House of the first African American president has had very little, if any, impact on black electoral politics in Pittsburgh
Obama has paid several visits to Pittsburgh Pittsburgh as host city for the Nov. 2009 G-20 Summit Pennsylvania Allegheny County
Compare Obama’s victory to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory. Obama himself has on occasion praised Reagan. Both came to the White House with a multitude of enthusiastic supporters, who were fired-up and rearing to go. Following Reagan’s triumph, conservatives won office all across the land, north, south, east, and west. This was the immediate direct product of a grassroots conservative movement and Reagan’s coattails. Right wing reactionaries did not tell their supporters to lay low and give Ronnie a chance. They mobilized, organized and won.
Obama has not aggressively encouraged progressive grassroots political mobilization and organization to counter the right. He was not the product of a progressive movement. And Barack Obama has no coattails.
It is a long standing scared tenet of US politics that elected officials first and foremost do their best to mobilize the political clout of their core base, their most loyal supporters. Obama has been a glaring except to this tradition, at least in Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
George Bush was powerful in Washington because he was powerful back home in Texas
The African American community in Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
Before we make further reference to Pittsburgh
Last point before returning to Pittsburgh
Over sixty years ago, Black people in Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
Today, the private and public education industry and the health care industry are the most prominent sectors of the city’s white collar economy. A super market chain, Giant Eagles, is the largest private employer. Compared to many other large urban areas, the region’s cost of living is less expensive. This is, however, only because of the weak local job market. Pittsburgh US
The 2010 census counted 79,710 black people in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania ’s largest enclave of black people outside of the Philadelphia area is in the far eastern end of Pittsburgh and the adjacent borough of Wilkinsburg and parts on Penn Hills .
The widely reported University of Pittsburgh 2004 Benchmarks Reports found, “Comparisons of African American conditions in the 70 largest cities, 50 largest counties, and 50 largest metropolitan areas show that African Americans children, working-age adults, and elderly in the Pittsburgh area are among the most disadvantaged in America Pittsburgh with the highest poverty rates in the 40 largest US Pittsburgh
A recent study, Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh since World War II cites some of the countless civil rights, education, and other social struggles that the Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
For the past 77 years, Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
The city and county both lost a great deal of commercial properties. ALCO, Gulf Oil, and Rockwell are some of the international corporations who moved from the city over the past 40 some years. Many former appointed government jobs, Pittsburgh Pittsburgh
As yet, not one of the African American politicians who has been elected from a majority-black city, county, or state district in Pittsburgh
The Black Women’s Political Crusade and the Allegheny County Black Political Assembly are two of the numerous efforts that rose and fell in the on-going struggle to build a local black political organization. Black organizations have lacked the reward and punish patronage-mechanism that has been the foundation of the local GOP and Democratic Party machines. For the same reason, local white political organizations outside of the two major parties have failed to build a strong political base.
A very interesting, important and ambitious current project is the New York State Freedom Now Party that is being spearheaded by Brooklyn city council representative Charles Barron and a multicultural coalition of progressive activists during the reign of a black Democratic US president.
Black Pittsburgh may not be ready—yet—f or an independent political party. But this does not excuse its failure to establish less ambiguous but important institutions to serve its interests. Black politicians often make the lame argument that they represent not just black people but also Asians Americans, Latinos and other non-African Americans, and they can not discriminate against them. They do represent more than just their black constituents. And these black politicians must do all they can to help all of them. This does not conflict. Obviously, a politically strong black community can do infinitely more to lend material and moral support to its allies than a disorganized politically weak black community.
It must be made clear. None of these organizations or institutions we cited can, either individually or together, guarantee that the black community will win each and every political battle it encounters with the establishment. What they can do is help maximize the community’s political power to wage these inevitable struggles.
Notwithstanding a black president in office, we still find African Americans everywhere who remain cynical and distrust the American political system. They share a vexing question common to many oppressed people. Can they employ the same political system, which down through history has exploited and oppressed them, as a weapon in their struggle for liberation?
Conscious of this or not, all black people engage this question in all political encounters and the answer we receive always reflect the moment and is never permanent. Yes, a black president sits in the White House, but the jury is still out on this question.
Here we should keep in mind that positive things often come from negative things. We can grow the most beautiful flowers and most nutritional vegetables with decadent bovine manure. Likewise, we can, at times, exploit the inherent contradictions in the decadent American political system, which historically ordained and codified the ground rules for slavery, sharecropper-feudalism, and present-day post de-jure, but still de facto white racism to advance the struggle for African American Liberation. And just as in fertilizing flowers bovine manure is what it is, the very same holds true of the US
Among other things, progressive black electoral politics and black elected officials must always pursue the highest ethical practice; constantly for the equitable distribution of goods and services; be rooted in African American culture; persistently organize, mobilize, and educate the masses; be accountable and in deference to the masses; integrate electoral politics with direct action and other modes of social struggle; and relentlessly struggle for immediate and long range democratic social change. Perhaps the major failure of black electoral politics has been the failure to systemize and pursue these components in its practice.
Black people will vote for Obama in 2012. That’s not at issue here, even though Barack Obama is not, and no evidence says otherwise, the MLK-progressive many black people force themselves to believe and vehemently argue he is. Some of Pittsburgh
Self-respecting black people cannot vote for Obama’s Republican opponent, who will and must run the standard GOP “Southern Strategy” campaign based on open opposition to African American people. In US presidential elections, the black community is always faced with the choice between a Democrat or a Republican. This is often called a choice between “the lesser-of-two-evils.” But a vote for Obama does not by any means exhaust the black political potential for campaign 2012.
Step back to 2011. Three African American candidates, the incumbent Ricky Burgess and his opponents Lucille Prater, and Charlene Mitchell, ran in the 2011 Ninth district Pittsburgh
In 2012, concurrent with the presidential race, Pittsburgh
In 2013, the issue of black politics must be addressed front and center for the black community to tackle the important issues in the Pittsburgh school board and Allegheny County Pittsburgh
The importance of the 2012 campaign in all of this can hardly be overstated. Unprecedented black attention and concern will be focused on the campaign. A heated black debate rages over the first African American president who is running for reelection. This offers black people an historic opportunity to elevate the level of their on-going debate, struggle hard, and raise the content and character of African American politics from the bottom up. It may never come again in the history of history.
Probably, no one states this critical point better than the veteran African American scholar and activist David Covin. “Finally,” Covin tells us, “we must use the opportunity President Obama … (has given) us… Not every historical period is propitious for organization and mobilizing effective political action. When such times arise, we must grab hold of them and wear them out.” [vi]
(END)
End Notes
[i] Robert S. Browne, “The Black Community and Contemporary Economic Dynamics,” The Review of Black Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2, Winter 1976, p. 147. This 1975 essay is still an extremely important analysis of key national, international issues and the black community.
[ii] Pennsylvania Governor election results – Politics – Decision 2010 .elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/politics/2010/pennsylvania/governor/
[iii] Ralph Bangs. “ Highlights of the Black-White Benchmark Reports”,www.ucsur.pitt.edu/files/frp/BWHighlightsReports.pdf
[iv] Joe W. Trotter and Jared N. Day. Race and renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh since World War II. (Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press,) 2010
[v] Tony Norman. “Justice Department came up short in Jordan Miles case.” www.post-gazette.com/pg/11130/1145351-153-0.stm
[vi] David Covin, “Is Obama’s House our House?” The Black Scholar, Vol. 38, No 4., Winter 2008, p.49.
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