The word was "danger" ( see thread title)
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Actually, the "danger" in the title is in reference to the "mania" on the right side of the hypen, not to Obama himself - e.g., "Obama-mania: where is the true danger?" Obama is not the danger, unthinking faith in his Success through Neoliberalism gospel - and the effect SUPPORT for this program is having on Black American politics and, by extension, progressive politics as a whole - is the danger.
CB:
I'm not sure what you are saying is clear ( nor that flares will clarify it). What are "null politics"?
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When someone (such as Wojtek, that beslubbering motley-minded clack-dish) says that the proper course for Black Americans is to 'stop complaining about racism, cops, prisons, etc' and move "beyond race" and "ghetto politics" to embrace the "opportunities of America" they are presenting a null - or de-fanged - political program as being a great leap forward. This is Potemkin village politics: decay is papered over, only happy talk of the success which lies ahead is permitted.
Analysis, debate, dissection, activism - gone. Now, we're only to have "hope". If I receive a diagnosis of a terrible illness, should I try to understand it and take whatever counter-measures are available?
Or, should I "think positive" and talk as if the illness is the consequence of my inability to 'move past illness'?
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Either the US faces an illness or it doesn't. This illness can either be confronted, head on, or swept under the rug to make discourse smooth and easy. By stating that the illness doesn't exist, the Obama Machine is performing an act of nullification - a rhetorical negation of unpleasant reality.
And yet, despite this nullity, this simulacrum, it is in fact still a very political act. Which makes it what I'm calling 'null politics' (though perhaps, on second thought, the 'politics of nullification' might fit the situation better).
.d.