How Obama and Black Politicians Have Reinvented the Negro

Politicians of African descent in America, in concert with the non-concern of their voting constituency have reinvented the Negro, or better yet made the Negro retro chic. What do I mean by this? Well from an etymological perspective, the word Negro is Spanish for black. The Spanish language comes from Latin, which has its origins in Classical Greek. The word Negro is derived from the Greek root word necro, meaning dead. It was a reference to the state of mind for millions of Africans. Politicians thrive and live on the fact that folk are negro as opposed to self determined individuals with the ability to reason and problem solve, thus ensuring their hold in politics. But what they fail to understand that if they truly want to deal with the economic plight of African Americans, they need to face the fact that economic improvement cannot be accomplished within the context of mass incarceration and the environment of the criminal justice arena that foster incessant Jim Crow-like practices. For the same dynamic that led to Jim Crow after the Civil war and emancipation proclamation has led to the present day mass incarceration of African Americans.

Just as slavery, Jim Crow and today’s focus on mass incarceration operates within the context of a system of institutions, policies and laws that function in concert to subordinate and disenfranchise a select group of folk defined mostly on race. Until our political figure heads address this and make this connection, nothing economically will improve in areas with high concentrations of African Americans. Only difference is the type of laws. There used to be “vagrancy laws,” “eye rape,” or “insulting gestures,” that could serve to keep newly freed African American men and former slaves in check. Now they have new names under the war on drugs such as “stop and frisk.” Even the way in which we were incarcerated during the era of the Jim Crow period are similar – to date all white jury’s convict black men for crimes that whites would never be take to trial for. Could you imagine white folks being prosecuted for marijuana possession offenses at the rate young African Americans are today? No because white politicians would change the laws.

More clearly defined, the way the prison and justice industrial complex operates is merely a continuation of the maintained of Eurocentric power and hegemony by changing the rules and names of those rules. In theory the 13th amendment abolished slavery, but it was always accepted by law that slavery still was an acceptable punishment for crime. As it is today, for the way in which law and order is mandated politically today, the only sure result is the arbitrary arrest of African Americans disproportionately to their numbers in the nation and according to the crimes.

If our elected officials from the Executive branch to or local level truly are interested in addressing the economic woes of our community, then they must deal and address mass incarceration and the disparate manner in which the criminal justice system is designed to race-neutrally target African Americans. If they do not, not only do they ignore the math involved in economic revitalization, but are equal in action to a George Wallace who stood in front of Schools in the segregated south blocking the entry of African Americans. We have to have our elected figures address the unconstitutionality of the obviation of our collective 4th amendment rights and fight “stop and frisk” laws and court sanctioned “race-neutral” racial profiling.

Prison is used to force African Americans into a system and existence of oppression and control today as Jim Crow and slavery were employed centuries ago. It is a direct result of the conservative position observed in the Jim Crow period in which they perceived that special laws (abolition of slavery) moved blacks ahead of them in position and standing. This was unacceptable so Jim Craw laws and the black codes were developed and designed to keep poor and uneducated blacks in a permanent subordinate political and economic position for it is their argument, from Goldwater, to Nixon to Regan to Santorum that poverty is caused by black culture.

Our present coteries of African American politicians hide behind the illusion of progress, especially economic progress in terms of the idolatry of having an African America President. Unfortunately their delusional states prevent them from comprehending that there cannot be any real economic progress in our communities if those locked up behind bars and ostracized from the community are not included in the poverty or unemployment statistics. To do so is saying our political representatives are no better than the slave masters and house Negroes and Klansman who maintained hegemony via legal and violent subjugation and marginalization. Thus what we confront via this legal mode of operandi is a caste system equal to that propounded by the Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws, for what we faced then in practice and outcome is no different than what we encounter today through our extant criminal justice system’s convention of mass incarceration.

Why? Well first, after the assassinations of King and Malcolm, the civil rights movement stagnated. This was during a period of a rise in conservatism that centered on animosity of the recent and quick gains of Africa Americans. In addition, it was a time in which African American, especially males were not need to sharecrop the fields and technology was replacing low wage jobs unskilled and uneducated African Americans typically received. It was the start in the disproportionate rise in black unemployment, which conveniently happened on the heels of Regan and Clinton’s war on drugs, which made unemployment even worse.

The simple reality is that there is no such thing as a color blind society and that nothing is race neutral as the Justice system would like for us to accept. Please explain to me the difference between hiding behind a white sheet and a badge? To assert such is like asking me to view the world as green, when I see blue skies and black asphalt. I could prove and state that I only see green but the reality is that I see more. Yes the Negro has been reinvented by our present power hungry corpus of black elitist politicians. Before we had poll tax, literacy test and felon disenfranchisement – these were staples of the Jim Crow legal system. However then, we had warrior activist and scholar politicians who were not afraid to voice support for the people if it meant losing their political clout. Today we have marijuana possession laws, stop and frisk, and felon disenfranchisement – staples of mass incarceration under the auspice of fighting a war on drugs. Only thing different is that we have a lot more cowards in leadership lining their pockets than before. Strange, Obama and black politicians quick to say Republicans are at “WAR WITH WOMEN” over the contraception issue, but run like scared dogs with their tails between their legs before they will say there is a “WAR ON BLACK MEN.” Strange, President Obama can call to comfort a Georgetown Law Student who was called a slut but not the parents of Travon Martin.

Our African American Political Followship

With the intense attention given to the inveighed execution of Troy Davis, it has become clear, in a lamentable yet derisory way, how hushed elected African American political officials (elected or appointed) have been on this subject. So reticent are this corpus and their associate vitiated apostasy to this issue that I feel they should be described as elected followers instead of elected leaders.

This obvious and intractable observation is applicable across the board. Now I do not expect President Obama to speak out against such, for his overall presentation is one that minimizes and even approaches race as an inchoate vagueness of language singularly that has no place in politics if one’s goal is simply re-election. Although I wish that he would have asserted himself into the debate, and I know when states’ rights issues of the past, saw Presidents send national guards to protect freedom riders for example, I know that the cowardice displayed in him is based on the fear of losing political capital.

With that said, I do however espouse a direct indictment against the policies evinced by the government at all levels with respect to the incarceration of African American men. As well, I also place the same egregious outcome at the inaction and silence of what we consider or elected political leadership, for they are a part of the aforementioned government.

Just using the example of Troy Davis, I have read nothing regarding their positions or antagonism against the proposed execution of Mr. Davis. I may be wrong and maybe they have, but I have not. I think I read somewhat more than the average person in particular regards to economics, politics, science and history. Nothing from Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice or Charles Rangel. Nothing from Harold Ford, Jr., Tim Scott, Allen West, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris or Atlanta’s own Kasim Reed, not a whisper. Leaders if they are such should desire to make and produce more leaders as opposed to the penchant to collect followers just to support their individual political gain in the form of re-election.

It is as if once elected, regardless of party affiliation, they develop what Randall Kennedy termed “negrophobia.” Although history and practice dictates the impct of race on political and social outcomes, it is apperant that overtly, a discussion of such by African American political officials is apparently taboo. One can speculate about why such is the case, but such cannot be ignored. As voters we are chastised for not showing up in mass numbers at the polls but the same level of accountability for elected African American officals is abrogated, not for the collective but specific individual gain (a presidency, congressional seat or governorship.This in light of factual accords that even Helen Keller could see.

We know that Black males ages 30 to 34 had the highest custody incarceration rate of any race, age, or gender group at midyear 2007 and that in 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among black males (32.2%). We know that Black children (7.0%) were nearly 9 times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children (0.8%) and that a large majority of African-American men – 55 percent in Chicago, for example are labeled felons for life or that roughly 70 percent of those on federal death row are minorities, mostly African Americans. We know that since 1990 in Georgia, Black Defendant / White Victim murders resulted in 253 executions and that the rate at which blacks are incarcerated compared to whites in Texas: 7 to 1. The icing on the cake from a political perspective is that 1.46 million Black men out of a total voting population of 10.4 million have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions. In summary meaning that 1 in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison, compared to one in every 180 whites.

The question remains if this is an intentional avoidance in an effort to appease the white power elite oligarchy that runs this nation? Such objective outcomes in the real sense marginalize the poor and minorities as evidenced by current incarceration, unemployment and poverty rates.It is possible that I am wrong to expect that elected African American politicians should fight vehemently against racial discriminatory outcomes and the policies that result in such.
Unfortunately for me it is the practices mandated by lay that produce such disparities, tend to be maintained by these people who feel we are obligated to select them to political office for our vote. I have asked the question, where have black folk been since 1989 regarding troy Davis? Asking to Free TI and Gucci mane but not him or Mumia Abu-Jamal. But I will continue to ask where are the African American politicians on the pandemic of incarceration plaguing our community. Or their views on the execution of Troy Davis? In conclusion, just as those more concerned with the release of hip hop artist from prison, these elected politicians too are followers, way more so than leaders.