Pundit See Pundit Do

I am writing this in response to the commentary published in the July, 9, 2011 issue of your newspaper written by George Curry, “Ostracizing Black Leaders Who Criticize Obama.” Specifically, I am nonplussed and take issue with the author’s garrulity in the suggestion that Cornell West reference to Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street Oligarchs” was “over the edge.”

West Statement is accurate. Even if the adjective “black” is removed from the statement, Obama would still remain a “mascot of Wall Street Oligarchs” just as all of the senators and congressional representatives within the beltway, as well all Presidents before him.

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications LLC, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama campaign. After being in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, in 2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. In addition Level 3 Communications, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states.

—though Obama vowed to end “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, and/or won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests. Just for raising $50,000 to $500,000 for his campaign. In total, 184 of 556, or about one-third, of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. In fact, 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took key administration posts. Also, President Obama's appointment of William Daley as his chief of staff is another example. Daley was an executive at JPMorgan Chase, the investment bank that received a $12 billion bailout during the financial crisis.

Former director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orzsag, for instance, resigned from his post and took a job at Citigroup. Incoming National Economic Council Chair Gene Sperling earned nearly $1 million from Goldman Sachs in 2008. Former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, for instance, in a short stint out of politics, earned reported $16.2 million working in investment banking for Wasserstein Perella, now part of Dresdner Kleinwort.

Moreover, I perceive this essay to be a dirigible attempt to misdirect attention from what is important for people to objectively evaluate political actions and policy, as well as advance the supposition that these people are ordained “leaders” by some amorphous corpus of out of touch people, as if we black folk are a monolithic group whom cannot think for ourselves.

In summary, Mr. Curry’s purview reflects the myopia and tolerance for tedium that makes most African Americans vote for democrats without question, or even a Presidential candidate because of his race, yet won’t even read the policies they proffer.

Yes the President is a mascot for the interest of a government in which a small group of people exercises control for selfish purposes. Yes, these people mainly thrive due to their involvement on Wall Street. I do not know of anyone who benefited from stimulus money. The members of his inner circle benefited from stimulus money, troubled asset relief programs and even comprise his core staff.

Unlike Mr. Curry, I can see this and still believe that the Preamble of this nation reads We the People, not we the corporation; something Obama seems have to intentionally forgotten albeit an expert in constitutional law.

The President, Congress, Senators and Wall Street: The True Sodomites

Now I am no biblical scholar, but I can admit to reading the Bible as well as the teachings of Buddha from cover to cover. The reason I am writing this is based on what I isolated in a post last week regarding the West-Obama narrative. Now I basically pounced on Black and Africana studies for two reasons, first it is not an area of science and singularly doesn’t mandate scholarly or intellectual discorvey pertaining to African descendents and our culture via existence. Secondly, it seems to promote more discussion regarding the use of the word black as a descriptor and issues of race and racism than pedagogy.

Many found that Dr. West statements regarding President Obama as a personal attack. In some accords they were but in other I do not think so and in fact would wager that if he had not used the descriptor black his statements would have accurately described every President since `1980 and nearly every politician within the beltway. West described Obama as being a "black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

Now if he had just called Obama a “mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a puppet of corporate plutocrats,” he would have been 100 percent on point. That’s why it seems strange to me that the quasi intellectuals who want to make a big deal of this appear to only focus on the use of the word “black” and name-calling.

The reality is they cannot tackle the content of the assertion for the reality is that Wall Street is handled as if it is more important than the people of America. They get bailed out and we loose our jobs and homes. Wall Street bankers have amassed and wield more power than Harry Potter, or the politicians they purchase like EMF’s.

Obama, just as Bush and Clinton and Regan before him are all guilty and regardless of color, “mascots of Wall Street oligarch (A very rich businessman with a great deal of political influence). Yes they are for oligarchs of big business and Wall Street have employed large amounts of loot to corrupt both Democrat and Republican politicians equally. I wonder why Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry piece in the nation doesn’t even discuss this.

Why is it wrong to note that without Wall Street, in particular Goldman Sachs (Obama's Top contributor), that Obama would have never been elected. Why is it wrong to note that the Obama policy assisted in giving bankers on Wall Street $700 billion after his election when most folks were just satisfied to have his picture on the wail on the side of Jesus opposite martin Luther King, Jr. in the front room.

Like Bush, he has sang the GOP and big business song that deficits are what we need to deal with first before we deal with the poor and middle class. In Ezekiel 16:49 the problem with those of Sodom was that they “had pride excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”

I have been saying all along that Obama was no different than the crooks that occupied the Whitehouse before him. That he was another in a long line of sodomites who give it to the populous with no Vaseline. Although sodomy is used to refer to gay sexual acts, there is no mention of such in the bible – none. Who ever came up with this was like an old television show I grew up watching, “Lost in Space.” In today’s world in the United States, The President, Congressmen, Senators and bankers Wall Street are the true sodomites, for while millions of Americans, of all ethnic/racial distinctions have lost jobs and homes, politicians like the president and others inside the beltway have turned a blind eye to the criminal activities of Wall Street’s banking and finance system. All we see are the outcomes – the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the uber-wealthy oligarchs. But what can one expect for a collection of millionares the likes of Obama and the wolk on Capitol Hill.

West-Obama Narrative: Shows all Wrong with Black Academy and African Studies

I have always wondered what was the importance and utility of Africana Studies Departments around the Nation, as well the utility of a doctorate in such a field. Over recent weeks I have come to the personal conclusion that there value in the grand scope of collective community betterment is miniscule. This has been personified in recent weeks through the unmerited recapitulation of what some may call the West-Obama narrative.

First, this is not a question of intellect or lack thereof, for I do note the brilliance in many current public relations scholars including but not limited to Cornell West, Eric Dyson, or a Melissa Harris-Perry. But what is more than oblivious is the overt need of such persons to be heard and seen, all scholarship aside.

Now it may just be my locution that is misplaced – one that sees intellectuals as being scientist and researchers first over the pedantic. Although I too am considered to be an intellectual by many, most see me as a scientist first, as my research abides by scientific methods although my academic training is in psychology and statistics. However, I see such rigor lacking in the work of many that proclaim the banner of Africana Studies.

In past regardless of discipline, if one expertise was history, religion, sociology, chemistry or biology, their natural science or philosophy was justification enough to document their intellectual prowess in their said field even when it entailed the study of Africans and their descendants.

The discourse attributed between the confederates of both sides of the West-Obama discussion reflects all that is wrong with the cannon of Africana studies intellectualism. It is an aspersion that one the one side portrays a dismaying senescence and on the other, an “inchoate mutterings” to use the words of Howard Thurman. They miss the need of oration for the sake of science singular for the mundaneness of sound bites and public relations.

Strange it is to me, that when I am called to NIH by a Nora Volkov (Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse) for example for my expertise in infectious disease, I never see representatives of Africana studies. Strange it is that John Hope Franklin, Howard Thurman, W.E.B Dubois or Benjamin E. Mays never claimed the banner of Africana or Black studies. Frantz Fanon was a Psychiatrist, Dubois a Historian and economist, Charles Drew, a Chemist, yet all considered them scientist of their discipline first who served their race through their science.

Even our greatest minds, who did not attend universities, were developed in a discipline like John Henrik Clarke, Fredrick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Now, there are some scientists that do such that happen to be of African descent who place their discipline of study to better their race without using race as a jumping point. Economist Roland G. Fryer Jr is one example.

I know some would assert I am or may be jealous, but truth be told, I couldn’t tell you about any of the work most in Africana or black studies do. And it has nothing to do with where they work. I mean I was on faculty and conducted research at Emory University for 14 years, and from where was department head in the department of Community and Preventative Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine. But they are not the folk I look up to and no where close to a Chekih Anta Diop, who was a physicist, chemist and paleontologist as well as historian.

I respect the intellectualism of any scholar, but I will use my science to solve problems and proffer discussion to solve problems as opposed to speak for the purpose of being heard or to propound that I am blacker than another person. For the simple truth remains that such does nothing to tackle food inflation, the 21 percent of children living in poverty in America, the inordinate disparity of disease and incarceration in our community or that somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.

Yes, I may be wrong but I was taught scholarship and intellectualism was to serve the needs of the people, not the self. So I advise all considering doctorate degrees to avoid a PHD in black studies, we need more in math, chemistry and physics, for we are top heave in pedantic who expound expertise in the study of the color black.

John Henrik Clarke/ Cornell West: Debate on Afrikan Nationalism

40 on 40

This April will mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s been forty years since that tragic day in Memphis of which I still recall very vividly.

Forty years, so what has happened since then? Let’s us see, well outside of more folk like me on television and in movies, albeit still in the roles of tricksters and clowns, fewer African American farmers, lower literacy rates and easier access to guns, credit cards, and strip malls (and clubs), I would suggest very little.

This strikes me as strange, for although I can see some movement toward his vision, it seems wit each step we progress forward, we are either kicked back or worse, kicking ourselves back three or four more steps. Yes, we have seen four or five Presidential candidacies from the likes of Jackson, Chisom and recently, Obama. But outside of that, I can’t place my hand on any one tangible accomplishment other than the vote (BTW which my granny said they didn’t die and bleed in the streets for – in her words it was justice and liberty). She as the men in my family always told me that if you have to ask for freedom, then one must question if they are actually free.

I mean, never was this so clear, the divisiveness when I accidentally ran across the forum annual held by Tavis Smiley last week. Dr. Cornel West and another member of the panel ripped him apart, for less than petty reasons, one being that he had the audacity to announce his candidacy on the same weekend of the forum. They even had a problem with him announcing his candidacy at the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois. Never mind that it makes good sense, being that Senator Obama is the U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois, in which the State Capitol is SPRINGFIELD.

I guess folks like West and Smiley and even BET founder Jones feel that Obama has to kiss and wipe their ass for permission, or worse, that he aint black enough to stand for or represent black folk in America. Especially given his perspective regarding where Obama’s loot is coming from. Talking about "white” folk and “Jewish” folk money and all.

To me it shows that he is able to gather support from all folk not to mention that the astute scholar, who I met personally while in Ethiopia during an AIDS conference, doesn’t seem to recall that legal and tender notes we call dollars are green and have no religious affiliation. He called him the “skinny guy with the funny name.”

West himself, when invited to Chicago by Rev. Michael Pfleger to speak at his St. Sabina mass said himself that “We have been living for 40 years in a political, moral and spiritual ice age.”

Like I said, its been 40 years since that day an assassin murdered one of my idols, one of the men, regardless of color that spawned my mind to think freely, and critically. And what has happened since then, I would suggest little, now we enslave ourselves. But it took Moses 40 years, maybe now is really the time.