Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity: The election of Barack Obama By Waistline2
Obama: Change or continuity? (Part III) By Elíades Acosta Matos raises a question whose answer is "both!" (http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=800&Ite) Obama: Change or Continuity? Part 5 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was a pastor who represented Harlem between 1945 and 1971. In 1944 Powell was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives, representing the 22nd congressional district, which included Harlem. He was the first black Congressman from New York, and the first from any Northern state other than Illinois in the Post-Reconstruction Era. As one of only two black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for members only. He took black constituents to dine with him in the "whites only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party. As one of the modern "first," the story of the black leader as politician basically begins here, but (!!!) becomes a political force - summed up in the cry, "Black Power," in the mid 1960’s, with the election of Carl Stokes as Cleveland Ohio and America’s first big city Mayor. Carl Burton Stokes served as the 51st mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Elected on November 7, 1967, but took office on Jan 1, 1968, he was tied to be the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city with Mayor Richard G. Hatcher Gary Indiana. Fellow Ohioan Robert C. Henry was the first African American mayor of any U.S. city. Thus Stokes becomes a marker - boundary, in the opening of the "Black Power Movement," and what would later become "the post Jim Crow era." It would seem that the post Jim Crow era, as an era emerges after the era of "Black Power," whose closing some date with the 1983 election of Harold Washington as Chicago Mayor. Still "other" point to the 1990 election of David Norman Dinkins, as the first black elected Mayor of New York City from 1990 through 1993, as the definitive close of "Black Power." Lets look at one of the quantitative boundary Obama completes. Breaking into any point in history is a tricky business. Let’s examine an outline of the migration of blacks from South to North. Let’ s take away the color factor. Blacks have basically improved their economic status in the North at the same rate as any other immigrants, and probably a little better than the Italian immigrant first arriving in the US. The improvement of the economic and then the social conditions of these blacks has proceeding in a pretty normal way consistent with our history. At certain point of Irish immigration, suddenly there was Irish domination of politics in their areas of concentration. Similarly for the Italian, the Norwegian, the Polish, Mexicans and the process is taking place in real time with the "Arab" immigrants. Likewise, there was an emergence of black politics as the blacks moved into the slums previously occupied by various white ethics at the bottom of the industrial social ladder. The difference is that the black politician’s influence and electability was limited to the so-called "Black ghetto," while the ethnic white influence merged into the exiting nationwide ideological and political sphere or more importantly the nationwide political infrastructure. American politics call this "going national." The concentration of blacks in the proletarian slums was the condition for the rise of black politics and black politicians, and the meaning of the "Black Power Movement." More often than not the black politicians interest resided more with the maintenance of segregation (not Jim Crow) and isolation of their constituency - (the basis of their power), than with the striving of the masses they were to represent. Not for one moment could the historic Daley machine in Chicago exist for ten minutes, without the support of the black political criminals, who cries for public housing hides the segregation implied in black politics. 3,000 people concentrated into a segregated conclave, be the y white, black, brown or Red is a dream for all bourgeois politicians: a captive market. This dynamic reveals the exact same path of the black trade union leaders and was the base for emergence of groups like the CBTU (Coalition of Black Trade Unionists) in the mid 1970s. Obama entered this world of Chicago politics while it was in flux, but this story is not really about Obama, but why he expressed a specific definable process in our history. A process filled with intersection of class interest, intrigue, sex, drugs and murder. Obama as the man from the land of Lincoln? His mother born in Kansas . . . "Bloody Kansas," the line drawn in the battle against the Slave Oligarchy and the cause of the birth of the Republican Party! Obama is smart and class conscious. A bourgeois politician, but class consciousness with awareness of the details of American history. Hollywood central casting and screenwriters could not have written a more detail description of political shifting and the crossing of a definable quantitative boundary, more real than the reality of Obama as history. The blacks went into the factory, improved their economic lot at the same rate as any other immigrants arriving in the North and at a certain point of their concentration "black politics" become a force entering the political and ideological sphere. What is different is that Jim Crow segregation and then white chauvinism blocked the emergence of truly national black politics or rather, blocked the black politician from merging into the general stream - infrastructure, of American politics. In 1960 only 280 blacks held office across the entire United States (Jaynes and Williams 1989). Today there are over 9,000 black elected officials in America (JCPS 2003). Blacks have won the mayoralty in most of the nation’s big cities, there are roughly 600 African Americans in state legislatures nationwide, and blacks now hold about 10 percent of the seats in the U.S. Congress. African Americans are still underrepresented at most levels of government, but undeniably they play a role among America’s political elite. However the long night - the era, of the black leader as the leader of blacks has given way to a new political era and a new political reality first signified with the ascendancy of Colin Powell. Colin Powell was not a black leader, arising from within the ranks of the military and totally divorced from the black political structures, civil rights organizations, black trade union groupings and anything else that can be called "black." Something has changed in America that made it possible for Obama’s victory. Quantifying this change must shift and be done of the basis of white voters and how class intersects in this process. Specifically, the black voters have for much of post WWII America been the "swing vote" sought after as votes or exclusion. Hence, the constant penning away by Republicans over voter registration, ACORN, and allegations of voting fraud. It is no longer enough to exclude two or three million black voters for the historic fascist current to achieve victory in national politics. In the Obama campaign the "swing vote" was a section of traditionally white Republican votes. That is different. Obama won Iowa on the basis of a solid base of white voters cutting across all classes. Obama defeated Senator Clinton on the basis of a white swing vote. In fact it was the huge movement of white voters that drew the black vote from Senator Clinton, given the black voters unreasonable love affair with the Clinton machine. President Obama’s persistent and consistent demand that there is only one America, is designed to hold the "white working class" and traditionally Republican voters in place. That is different. I deeply felt that Obama’s run for president was to set up an infrastructure for a "serious" bid in 2012 or 2016, and in the blink of an eye 118 years of history was collapsed in front of everyone eyes. That is the juncture Obama is. The marker that is Obama has cast to the side not only black politics, but ushers in the practical end of the era of "the peculiar phenomena of the Black Leader," and signify a political shift in national politics beyond the color line. The question "Obama: change or continuity" is answered, "both." end of part 5 of 6 WL. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm **************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
