[GPSCC-chat] August 4th, Obama's Birthday

[alexcathy at aol.com]

 Dear Friends,

Today is U.S. President Barack Obama's birthday. See below a link to an essay by the diwtinguished African-Amercisnactivist and journalist Bruce Dixon the web site Black Agenda Report that expresses my view better than I could say it myself.Mr. Dixon refers to the listserv for SNCC veterans and supporters thst serveral of my old "Lefty" friends subscribe to.

The U.S.A. is in the gravest political and economic crisis of the last 70 years -- yes, greater than the crises of the1960s that our entire bipartisan elite is so hopelessly "stuck" in.  In this context I am so over the hype about Mr. Obamasbeing "The First Black President."

Alex Walker
Posted on The Black Agenda Report, July 21, 2010.
Tea Partyers, Fox News, "Negativity" Against the President? Are These Really Black America's Most Pressing Problems?
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon 

On July 19, an item popped up on the email listserv of SNCC veterans and supporters.

Like anything on these kinds of mailing lists, it was the opinion of whoever posted it, no more and no less. But it pretty much summed up the current strategic thinking of a lot of what passes for African American political leadership, our black intelligensia and a lot of self-identified activists. It was bright red and in bold typeface several times normal size, and before going out to the triple digit number of subscribers to the SNCC list, it had obviously been forwarded to hundreds more. It went like this, (only much larger):


We call on ALL who support President Obama to take action.  On August 4th, the President's birthday, we ask those who support him to wear any campaign item from the Presidential election as a demonstration of our ongoing support. Bring out your old campaign paraphernalia.

If you don't have caps, buttons or tee shirts, wear a red, white, and blue tri-color ribbon or clothing on August 4th.  If nothing else, this simple demonstration of support for our President will provide a counteraction to the negativity that spews forth daily.  We can do this.  YES WE CAN. YES WE WILL.


Mark Your Calendar for August 4th! Pass the word on...

As far as most of the black leadership class --- most of our pastors, politicians, professors and such tell it, those are our marching orders. On the president's birthday, we're all supposed to break out those old Obama stickers, shirts and hats, and like the citizens of Oz in The Wiz, we'll flaunt red, white and blue on the president's birthday. Thus we will show our united opposition to the flood of racist invective against the president. We will demonstrate that we are Thus black America will demonstrate that we are the president's millions strong shield against the torrents of “negativity” that issue forth daily from the likes of Fox News and the tea party. That'll show 'em.

Am I the only one who thinks this is just plain dumb? Are the number one problems of black America really the insults and negativity directed at the president by a bunch of crazy people who are not even in power? Are these the times of Shakespeare's Richard III, when the only political yardstick that mattered was whether and how much you did or didn't love the king? Why should Fox News, the tea party, and insults and negativity directed at the president even rank among black America's top ten or twenty problems? And if black America is called upon to make some kind of united political statement in this season of unprecedented joblessness, homelessness, family debt, privatizations and mass incarceration, is flying the red, white and blue to support the president really the most useful thing we can do?

. . .


= = = = = = = =

About Bruce Dixon:

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and based in Atlanta, and will not be wearing red white and blue any time soon. He's a member of the state committee of the GA Green Party. A habitual troublemaker and incorrigible activist, Bruce Dixon has been comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable since 1968.

As a rank and file member of the Black Panther Party in 1969-1970, a 1970s rank-and-file union activist in a string of factories, plants and workplaces, a 1980s community organizer in what were then some of the nation's poorest neighborhoods, to organizing and consulting through the 1990s Dixon has built an impressive record of service in and to the cause of human liberation.

In 2002 he began writing articles for Black Commentator, the predecessor of this publication, and broke the first accurate analyses of the phenomena around the election of Denise Majette over Cynthia McKinney in Georgia that year.As managing editor at BAR Dixon is chiefly responsible for maintaning this web site.  He currently resides in metro Atlanta.



Read the whole essay at:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/tea-partyers-fox-news-negativity-against-president-are-these-really-black-americas-most-pres


 


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