Martin Luther King, Jr.

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By: MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
Professor, Georgetown University

Race Has Affected the 2008 Presidential Election

There is little question that race has affected the 2008 presidential election, though often through inference and innuendo.

Initially, Barack Obama’s historic quest for the highest political office in the land was rife with suspicion from white and black quarters.

Eventually, millions of black voters signed on to his campaign after relinquishing skepticism about his being black enough and after he proved in Iowa that he could win over white voters.

Educated white voters followed suit, though Obama has had a far more difficult time effectively wooing working class white voters.

That has to do in large part with the effective, if cynical, effort of conservative activists to falsely paint Obama as an unpatriotic figure who pals around with terrorists because he is secretly a Muslim.

The manipulation of the public image of Obama as a subversive presence who hates the nation rests on racially coded inferences about unreliable blackness as it tinges the face of American politics.

Few quarters in American life have been tolerant of the complex black identities that constitute African American communities.

Republicans — Backward, Bigoted, Racist and Nativist FILTH of America

As a result, a punishing and narrow range of stereotypes have obscured the fact that black struggle for social equality and racial justice was never antithetical to the best interests of the nation.

Because black people loved the nation so much, they fought hard to make sure that it lived up to the true meaning of its creed, as Martin Luther King said.

Barack Obama represents both the maturing of black American politics, and the increased willingness of significant portions of the white population to embrace a worthy black presidential candidate.

Whether that is sufficient to propel Obama to the presidency remains to be seen. Still I am cautiously hopeful that it is.

[Enlarge] About The Author: Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan) is an American writer, radio host, and professor at Georgetown University. Dyson has a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University. He is an ordained Baptist minister. Dyson taught at DePaul University, Chicago Theological Seminary, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University and Brown University, before going to the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. There he was the Avalon Professor of Humanities. Since 2007, Dyson has been University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, teaching courses in theology, English, and African American studies. A University Professorship is said to be the highest position that a faculty member can have at Georgetown. From January 2006 to February 2007 Dyson was the host of a daily syndicated talk radio program, The Michael Eric Dyson Show, which aired on weekdays from 10AM to 1PM (EST) on the Syndication One Radio Network (owned and operated by Radio One). He is also a regular commentator on National Public Radio, CNN, and the HBO TV program Real Time with Bill Maher. Dyson is best known for his commentary on American culture, particularly as it pertains to African Americans. Dyson uses the terms “Afristocracy” and “Ghettocracy” to describe a bifurcation in American black society. He is also a leading scholar on hip-hop music and the culture that surrounds it, as well as its roots in African and African-American cultures and influence on American popular culture. Dyson is well known to repeat his famous line, “Go Ahead. Axe me a question.”

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On August 17, 2006, I wrote an article titled: “Macaca and Terror Politics - America is headed the wrong way!” — in which I chastised George Allen, the former Senator for Virginia, a Republican Presidential hopeful at that time, for calling a student of Indian descent a “Monkey” in coded racist language.

Allen said: “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia………”

It has been reported widely that Northern Virginia Republicans, realizing they need to improve their appeal among the region’s large ethnic population, will stage a “unity” rally next Saturday — to attract ethnic minorities who “represent an increasingly powerful voting bloc.”

Organizers said the annual rally, which has grown in recent years, is particularly significant this year because ethnic minorities represent an increasingly powerful voting bloc that will help decide which presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, wins the state Nov. 4.

George Allen among others is expected to spearhead this GOP “minority reach” event.

LOL!

This is the same man who has in the past:

1. Led the charge against a holiday for Martin Luther King - a prince of racial peace.

2. Is a key figure in fueling the rampant anti-immigrant mood in the country today - kick them ALL out (legal & illegal), they are contaminating our culture, taking our jobs, raping our women and introducing new diseases to our beloved motherland.

3. Had been dogged by numerous allegations of racial insensitivity for years as governor - his record as Governor of the state of Virginia (1994-1998) reeks of racially intolerant acts, including cavorting with white supremacist groups — such as the Council of Conservative Citizens.

4. Allen has bragged about stuffing a severed deer head into an African American family’s mailbox.

4. Has a past that includes a vociferous admiration of the Confederate flag (a symbol of racism) and an office that once displayed a noose.

Hey Allen — You are just another filthy bigot — stay in your “RAT HOLE.”

Someone at blacknell.net summed it up hilariously. He/she said:

LOL!

A word of caution to the GOP bigots — If Barack Obama wins this November 4th — it will mark the beginning of a long “layoff in purgatory” for the Republican Party.

An Obama win will signal the beginning of the minority/”young white” vote upswing — as they come of age in large numbers — most of who are less inclined to react favorably to Nativist/Racist Republican fear-mongering and hysteria, as do older white folk.

As these two groups and especially Hispanics grow over the coming years, and as the older “Republican Bigots” die off, America’s population will move toward a “minority majority,” and its political complexion will become more Democratic.

The GOP will have to re-invent itself, for simply appealing to the “bigot vote” will not be enough.

The Latino Factor — Elections ‘08

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When Senator Barack Obama steps onto the stage on Thursday, next to Berlin’s Victory column, the world will be expecting a momentous speech.

   Great speakers: Enoch Powell, Mikhail Gorbachev, Barack Obama

   Great speakers: John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher

A team of Telegraph writers has compiled what they believe are the most significant addresses of the 20th and 21st centuries. The first tranche, speeches 25-13, can be viewed here. The top 12 are published here.

They limited the list to one speech per historical figure – otherwise, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have appeared more than once…….and, I think Obama’s speech on race relations delivered in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, deserves to be in this list.

Notes: Video and Transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s Speech on Race - in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008

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By Ali Mazrui

Prof. Ali Mazrui
Barack Obama, the US Democratic presidential aspirant, has philosophised about a new post-racial America. In his campaign, he has emphasised not merely Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality, but a more advanced dream of post-raciality.

If Obama were elected the first Black President of the United States, that would of course not be the end of race-consciousness in America, let alone the end of racism. But it would be a major step towards a future post-racial America.

Africa gave birth to the human race; Europe cultivated racism millennia later. What has now arisen is whether America will be the final resting place of racism and race-consciousness. If Africa was the garden of Eden that gave birth to the human race, will America be the garden of Eden that inaugurates a world beyond racism?

In tracing the transition from that first African Eden cradling homo sapiens to the last American Eden cradling the post-racial age, let us briefly stop at the well-trodden path of Francis Fukuyama’s thesis about the end of history.

Fukuyama saw the end of history in ideological terms. He characterised liberal capitalism as the climax of the ideological biography of homo sapiens. He regarded political culture as being at its most triumphant when in pursuit of life, liberty and profit.

Our thesis here is a different kind of ‘end of history.’ We are seeking to trace, not the end of ideological history, but the end of racial history; not soon but hopefully before the end of this 21st century. Perhaps this is what Senator Barack Obama had in mind when he started dreaming about a post-racial America.

Ethnicity in its ‘tribal forms’ started where the human species originated: that is, in Africa. Indeed, Africa invented the human family and therefore the human clan as a unit of biological kinship. But if Africa was the cradle of the human race, the human family and the human clan, Europe eventually perfected colour-prejudice and elaborate racial discrimination.

Is the United States, under the egalitarian leadership of Americans of colour? Is the United States destined to become the final resting place of ethno-racial stratifications?

Francis Fukuyama is almost definitely wrong about the end of ideological history worldwide. But is there better evidence for the proposition that the end of racial history is on the horizon – and its final culmination will occur in the United States of America, led by the struggle of African-Americans?

The United States is still one of the most racist societies in the world. Four policemen can shoot an innocent black man 41 times in front of his own house and be acquitted of all charges.

It is inconceivable that if the policemen had shot a white man 41 times they would have gotten off scot-free. Subsequently in 2007, a black man was shot 50 times on his wedding day by three New York policemen. The victim was unarmed. The policemen have also been acquitted of all charges.

But although the United States is still so steeped in racism, most indications seem to single out this country as the most promising theatre for a racial and ethnic compromise before the end of the 21st century. This is so provided that all Americans join hands and are converted to the dream of a post-racial age.

We might call this entire odyssey from the birth of the clan in Africa to the end of racial history in the United States ‘A Tale of Two Edens’-the African Eden of human genesis, on one side, and the American Eden of human egalitarian dispersal, on the other.

Historical times

There is a sense in which all Americans, of any race, are part of the African Diaspora — since their ancestors all originated in Africa. But there is the other sense of ‘African Diaspora’ when the Diaspora refers to people of colour whose ancestors came from the African continent in more clearly defined historical times.

The generic African Diaspora is the one which makes Bill Clinton an ‘African President’ of the United States. The specific African Diaspora is the one which makes Martin Kilson, Toni Morrison, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., African-Americans.

Africa is where the human species began. A persistent question in world history is whether the United States will become the final post-racial Garden of Eden before the end of the 21st century. Will it evolve into the nearest approximation of a genuine post-ethnic role model for the world? It will need African-Americans to achieve such a moral stature.

The Christian doctrine has had two Adams: the Adam who fathered the human species and the Adam who finally saved the human species. In the words of the 15th chapter of the First Corinthians: “Thus it is written: There was made the first man, Adam, living soul, the last Adam life-giving Spirit.”

In our more secular imagery, the first Adam was Africa-the cradle of human kind. Will the last Adam be the United States, a potential secular savior of the human race? We need to see the Edenisation of the United States as the beginning of post-raciality.

At the moment the United States is far from being a collective secular savior of the human race!

On the contrary, there are times when the United States displays the symptoms of evolving into a collective anti-Christ. Is that what Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, meant when he said “God damn America”?

But, in reality, the twenty-first century brings the United States to the critical crossroads. Will this country evolve into a collective savior (the second Adam) or a collective anti-Christ? Will the United States realize its potential of becoming humankind’s post-racial Garden of Eden, completing the odyssey from Africa as the first Garden of Eden? Or will this country waste that opportunity through bigotry, prejudice, and conflict?

Our children and grandchildren as homo sapiens are burdened by the gravity of that responsibility, by the weight of that momentous choice.

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