[lbo-talk] Adolph Reed on the politics of the crisis

Dorene Cornwell dorenefc at gmail.com
Wed Oct 1 16:43:07 PDT 2008


Thanks for the Harris-Lacewell references. I will try to look some up.

You're right I am not exactly in a position to tell anyone how to be African American, so here's my experience:

--Long ago in a grad school far away, the good Reverend who was everyone's favorite spokesguy of color for campus protests quite frequently used the same line about male responsibility. He's a reverend; he's allowed to have certain biases and that might or might not have any impact on whether I buy his other theories.

--Strangely enough, my reaction to Cosby: he sounds like my father or God forbid, Archie Bunker spouting off about pehnomena he does not understand. Despite having gone to school with denizens of The Cosby Show's upper crust world it came across as oddly to me as it did to an African American housemate but we both loved the show in the same way one loves all sorts of trash television. --Actually paternal responsibility and importance is a hot topic for everyone from a couple nutball reverends, one Black, one white, to a wealth of ed psychologists. Structuring society and economy to facilitate that and to facilitate that for all layers of society, not just the uppoer crust is one angle that SHOULD generate revolutionary thinking.

--OF COURSE Obama is pandering. Half the white voters think he's the Anti-Christ. Some of them say so in snootier language but they still think he's the Anti-Christ. The country's on the verge of being majority minority or whatever the current buzzterm is anyway so Whitey is less upset when the result is someone like Obama who also strangely enough speakrs to lots of other people with feet in more than one world. I am actually almost relieved to have no illusions about Obama's progressive cred because that means I can go back to what I tend to like best anyway, campaigning for what I am FOR and trying to make the politicians catch up to me.

DC

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 4:49 PM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:


> Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Obama has repeated the right wing talking points on "personal
>> responsibility", which are absolute garbage, on many occasions.
>> This is an attack on all poor people and Reed is accurate on this
>> point.
>>
>> John Thornton
>>
>> ^^^^
>> CB: Garbage.
>>
>> Jesse Jackson, a leftwinger , used to do a whole rap much longer than
>> Obama's, on Black, men's "personal responsibility" as fathers. " A boy
>> can make a baby. It takes a man to raise one", etc., etc. Nobody called
>> them rightwing talking points then, 'cause they weren't.
>> Obama is a _Black man_. His discussion of these responsibilities is
>> left-wing criticism-self-criticism.
>>
>
>
>
> You mean the same Jesse Jackson who said he wanted to cut Obama's nuts off
> for "talking down" to Black people and "morally lecturing" the Black
> Community and perpetuating inaccurate stereotypes about negligent black
> fathers?
> So Jackson and I agree that Obama is using right-wing talking points about
> personal responsibility that are garbage. Good.
> You know what I'm talking about Charles.
> It's crap when Cosby does it and it's crap when Obama does it. You know it
> is.
>
> Dorene I hate to seem condescending but I don't believe you have any idea
> what I'm getting at.
> If you read transcripts of Obama's lectures and then read Melissa
> Harris-Lacewell's critiques of them you'll understand better what I'm
> getting at.
> She's a professor of African-American studies at Princeton, knows her shit,
> and has more specific examples on the subject than I.
> Or try Michael Eric Dyson's criticisms. He's sociology professor at
> Georgetown university and an Obama backer but is bothered by Obama's
> nonsensical rhetoric about personal responsibility as pandering to his white
> supporters because he know Blacks won't abandon him.
>
> John Thornton
>
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>



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