"Even committed Black progressive activists have jumped on the candidate's bandwagon-to-nowhere."
In what turned into a debate between us, I confronted the councilman with all the facts outlined above, and more. He, like every other Black Obama supporter, could offer no coherent response, except to pillory Hillary Clinton, Obama's political twin. Indeed, the interview/debate experience was audibly painful for Barron, who knows full well that Obama stands on the opposite side of the political line - when he decides to stand anywhere, at all. Finally, Barron could only offer that he "wants to give the brother a shot." That was it. The phrase, which he later repeated, was like an exhalation of used up air, an abdication of the imperative to Speak Truth to Power if the representative of Power is Black and seems to be an unstoppable phenomenon.
Barron's resigned response proved the truth of Louisville University Prof. Rick L. Jones's evaluation, that we are witnessing the "failure of the Black political imagination." Obamamania is accelerating that debilitating process - even among the best, brightest and most committed of African American politicians. .......................
If I had more time and more art - and the list more patience - I would describe to you the many (and ongoing) email exchanges, phone conversations and dinner debates which have followed almost the same trajectory. My friends and associates are confused and dismayed by my refusal to celebrate with them. Isn't this the grand moment we long dreamed of?
Regardless of the post Iowa outcome, Obama-mania is truly the apotheosis of corporate perception management. All that is solid melts into air, even the appearance (but certainly not the reality) of white supremacism on the largest of American stages.
And it's so seductive that even otherwise savvy folk are drawn towards the vortex of the unreal. The cleverest fall into place in the name of supporting 'hope'. Who wants to argue with that?
In some ways, Glen Ford must be a very lonely man. Nothing he says about the Obama Machine is popular or well understood, not even among the most left of lefties.
.d.