The Obama Wars
I’ve been saying for years that there’s something wrong when you get a group of intellectuals and critics together and everyone is in agreement. Conflict produces progress. Or, more specifically, the competitive market of ideas forces everyone to step up their thought game.
It’s no coincidence that the most productive points in black history have also been points where there were serious, deep disagreements about policy, tactics and direction.
On that level, it should’ve almost been a foregone conclusion that Obama would be at the center of the next great debate. it’s long overdue that we had the kind of crossing of swords that Tavis Smiley’s “Stand” documentary inspired. Last week Ta-Nehisi Coates responded in the Atlantic to Dyson’s critique that Obama was using his black cool points to avoid dealing with substantive black issues.
The latest installment is Melissa Harris Lacewell on CNN.com. Here’s the cornerstone:
The film and its participants (two of them my senior colleagues at Princeton University) appropriated the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to implicitly claim that they, not Obama, are the authentic representatives of the political interests of African-Americans. They used King’s images and speeches, gathered on the balcony where King was assassinated, and explicitly asserted their desire to play King to Obama’s LBJ, and Frederick Douglass to Obama’s Lincoln.
On its face, this is not a bad model. Presidents are deeply constrained by the structural and political limitations of their office. A robust administration needs an active and informed citizenry to engage, push, cajole, criticize and applaud its efforts.
But this appropriation misrepresents rather than preserves King’s legacy. King was a powerful questioner and, at times, ally of President Johnson because he was at the helm of a massive social movement of men and women who were shut out of the ordinary political process. It was not King’s intellectual capacity or verbal dexterity that made him an effective advocate for racial issues; it was his own accountability to that movement.
This is not true of Smiley and his “soul patrol,” who are mostly public personalities and tenured professors largely unaccountable to the black constituency. King’s meager income, though supplemented by the lecture circuit, was grounded in the voluntary contributions of black churchgoers.
Smiley is backed by powerful corporations, like Wal-Mart and Nationwide, that have troubled relationships with these communities. The college profs on the bus are comfortably supported by well-endowed universities. This does not invalidate their views on race, but it does make the analogy with King a poor fit.
The whole piece is here.
Hanlon
Isn’t the perennial example that of Lincoln’s mixed-party cabinet? Surround yourself with sycophants and… well, look at what happened during the Bush years. With no one around to second-guess or cross-check your ideas, things quickly spin out of control.
Caught your column on Obama and gay marriage on CNN’s site. Excellent stuff.
Jun 10, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
Nicholas
Your article on CNN website on gay rights is incredibly thoughtful, heartfelt, and right on the point. I just hope President Obama is listening to you and all gay people who are asking of the same in this country, equality! Thank you for your carriage.
Jun 10, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
Samantha
Gay Marriage in my opinion has and never will be a Civil Rights issue. Gay Marriage is and will always be a religous issue. Marriage was not sanctioned by the Government, but by God. Marriage is a union between a Man and a Woman. I belive in same sex union with all the rights of a married couple, but the bible quotes ” Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
“Gen 3:20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. ”
“Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them. ”
Need I say anymore. To be fair Fornication, adultery , are also sins. Why should I give into my beliefs to satisfy someone else. Does using the word Marriage make the act legitimate? No not biblically.
Your using the Gay Marriage issue as another way to attack Obama. President Obama has stated his belief on Gay Marriage maybe you should pay closer attention. As far as i’m concerned Marriage: union between a Male (man) and a woman (female) and that’s the way it should stay. It’s not the same as laws in the 60’s that forbide people of different races to marry because they were a man and a woman. Stop assaulting the Civil Rights movement for your own immoral beliefs.
Jun 11, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
VCF
Samantha,
Did you even read the brother’s essay?
“But the fact is that marriage is a civil institution just as much as it is a religious one…We allow atheists to marry and we do not refer to a wedding performed by a secular judge or justice of the peace as a “civil union.”"
Can you really dispute this statement?
Jun 12, 2009 @ 2:55 pm