In his recent commencement address at Howard University our president's racism-laced message to graduates strategically included the words, "Be Confident in your blackness." But what most got my attention was that his entire speech was presented in his own version of 'homeboy' with a clumsy Ebonic lilt/cadence. The down-home, laid-back talk that he couldn't quite pull off was, in my view, an embarrassing insult to the noble scholars and their parents, many of whom just wanted to enjoy the moment and honor the hard work it had taken both to achieve their goal.
The forty-five minutes might have been better spent encouraging them to have confidence in their hard-earned skills and knowledge. Instead, he spent nearly an hour imitating some stereotype of a brutha' and hauled out his pitifully caricatured representation of "blackness." The racial unity of our so wounded nation was once more thrown in the backseat. It was a pitiful shuck.
Several minutes into his act, my questions were, naturally, "When did you start talking like this, Barack? And why are you doing this now?" He's had several opportunities in eight years to introduce his "bad self" to America at any time before this - but he hasn't. Speaking to other predominantly white audiences - Congress, various international conferences, the United Nations, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, etc., etc. - he's talking like any articulate westerner. But This 'heart-to-heart', canned 'black' monologue came out of nowhere and flopped.
Twenty years younger, unveiling his book, 'Dreams Of My Father’, and a lot closer to the 'hood', 33-year-old Barack would more likely then talk as he was attempting to imitate - but he didn't. (Posted below) We have the Youtube resources to press back even farther in documenting the fact that his address at Howard was a complete, sad performance - no weirder than if JFK had attempted a lengthy speech at a Boston St. Paddy's Day parade - in a brogue.
I have been the welcome and quite comfortable 'token white' at enough picnics and friends' get-togethers to know that it's not unusual for blacks to have fun and linguistically 'get down' with one another. I get that. But the black pastor at one of those picnics, raised and educated in the northeast, didn't try to impress his southern congregation with a dialect everybody knew was not his - for nearly an hour. Had he done that, of course his listeners would graciously have gone along and overlooked what could be seen as condescension. I'm certain many in the Howard audience were just that gracious while enduring exactly that condescension.
I waited days before touching this subject. I was convinced that several other writers would seize upon his glaring contrivance of 'soul-brother' Barack, and I didn't want to be part of a crowd. But nobody touched it. I believe it's that a politically correct America is no longer supposed to bring up this sort of thing because our president is black, and he is addressing a black audience - and whoever, other than a black person, challenges any part of that (now closed) dialogue, is a RACIST.
But I am NOT addressing ANYTHING here that can be construed as anti ANY race. I am speaking ONLY to the FACT that our strongly educated, skillfully lucid chief executive very obviously was schmoozing these young black graduates and any among gullible America watching, in an attempt to ensure the continuance of the racial disharmony he and his wife have ardently labored to install. Ironically, he insulted his well-educated audience in assuming that because they were black they would fall for his "street speech", and that they were more dialed into Beyonce than getting serious about life and hearing any sage observation he might offer in tackling a real, hardball world. Despite his own meteoric rise, he gave them precious little of that. Who is the racist here?
But what would the liberal press have done if GW - using his fattest 'Boss Hogg' southern accent - told the predominantly white crowd at the Ole Miss convocation, "Have confidence in your whiteness!"? How would that have been received? The comparison is precisely parallel. But when Barack does it, all America (including black Americans) must now sit on their hands and like it.
Barack and his wife, Michelle, are the PC-masked, dynamic duo of racism. And both very regularly play the race card and keep that pot stirred. But they do it from a distance, and with all subtlety. The Obamas' entire presidency has kept life-blood flowing to the demons of race hate and class warfare. But they do their racism by proxy. And that was further richly demonstrated in another degrading declaration Barack made in his patronizing speech: "Beyonce' runs the world!"
Beyonce', the often nearly naked singer who did last year's Superbowl halftime show (before MILLIONS of little kids and impressionable teens), is one way Barack and Michelle, by association, can express their brand of 'blackness.' Beyonce' and thirty scantily clad, booty-shaking babes-from-outer-space in electrically choreographed bump-and-grind filth (the attraction to which this author claims no immunity), was ostensibly all about legitimizing and promoting militant 'blackness'.
The statement was sharp and unmistakable. All her girls are clad in what can easily be seen as the New Black Panthers' outfits (at least the skin-tight, black leather, lingerie collection of that). As many of my readers probably saw for themselves, it was egregiously every bit 'Black Power' and BLM, with raised fists, black berets - and Beyonce herself wearing what looked like bandoliers full of bullets. Of course this stuff feeds the minds of kids and lends great credential to the people who wear that gear for real.
All the president had to do was insert his 'product placement' for Beyonce' in his fake-black talk, and he has now used the mightiest authority in this nation to sign off on ALL that comes with her (so much of which is diametrically counter to everything a completely dignified and godly black America holds as moral and sacred).
Last year First Lady Michelle spent the bulk of her commencement talk at Tuskegee University rubbing salt in old wounds that - IF LEFT TO DIE - could be healing nicely. But she so awkwardly dragged her audience into completely inappropriate reminders of our country's darkest moments. Among other things, she had to point out how some of America's white people (her reference was about 80-years-old) have actually treated black men with little respect or called them "boy." Really? Hollywood has only made billions from that twisted portion of our history. So that was no newsflash.
Other than perpetuating hard feelings, what good do such barbs serve on this occasion, Michelle? She went on to resurrect another jab about WWII white flyers refusing to fly with the black flyers who had trained at Tuskegee. Why, Michelle? If it might have been true - does our military still reflect that attitude? And would any peace-promoting, truly great and gracious woman in her privileged office dredge this sort of viciousness up in sending tomorrow's hope out to save our nation?
Prior to Obama's reign there was nowhere near the deadly racial tension we have now in America. Unprecedentedly vicious manifestations of racial hatred are arguably the result of our president fanning dying coals into flames. By the end of his first term, the New Black Panthers were more visible than the group they had taken their name from had been in the late '60s. And every major poll during the last nearly 8 years shows a shrinking number of Americans -- black and white -- believing our leader has helped race relations at all. In the latest Bloomberg poll, a whopping 53% agreed that his presidency has made things worse.
After Obama publicly adopted Trayvon Martin, the Panthers felt secure in publicly offering a 'dead or alive' bounty on the man they had declared guilty in that debacle. A former NBP official at that time declared during her rant: "Obama, he on my side, now!" And the group's ultra-racist leader Hashim Nzinga said as much and included former Attorney General Eric Holder as an ally as well. Panthers had encouraged the wholesale slaughter of whites and their babies. The White House of course - remained silent - and so it stood.
'B.B.,' ('Before Barack') the buds of healing had pushed forth new growth in our nation. It was as though an oppressive drape was slowly lifting. FINALLY we were beginning to claim a really STRONG commonality: WE WERE SIMPLY GETTING ON WITH LIFE. And, if anything good happened from 9-11, it was at least a tragedy that caused all Americans - regardless of color - to stand for the preservation of the goodness in our land. Of course, at either end of the bell curve, you have exceptions to any rule. But we were then experiencing a breather from the tensions of racial division that had so kept us from walking together as 'AMERICANS ALL.'
It was Barack's controversial buddy and former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, who in perfect harmony with this wrecking crew's agitating, once cracked, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Both the Obamas have made great political merchandise from the Frankenstein they created in effectively, deliberately revivifying 'Racist America.' Barack and Michelle Obama are millionaires. They graduated from the BEST Ivy League schools, live in the White House, etc., because enough of ALL the people of this country elected the man twice. Their daughters attend private school. How then can they honestly whine much about racism? Far from being victims of racism, they are examples of THE AMERICAN DREAM.
The brave and sweet-hearted '60s civil peace pioneer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and lesser-known heroes like Jimmie Lee Jackson gave all in breaking up the fallow ground of millions of hearts without ever verbally or literally throwing a single stone. And the seeds they and many like them planted were blossoming. Many of us have forgotten the broadening moments of grace when nascent interracial respect and forgiveness was maturing and beginning to walk on its own - BEFORE BARACK. That balance may never again return. As the quintessential lame duck he is showing himself to be, he knows he will get away with his racist talk at Howard - and much much more. And a divided America will fall.
In so many ways and to our great hurt, Obama really has kept his promise to 'fundamentally change America.'
Dave Merrick, Davemerrick.us is an internationally known and published artist whose works reach into the greatest diversity of audiences. Known primarily for his astoundingly lifelike portraiture, Merrick’s drawings and paintings grace the walls of an impressive array of well-known corporate and private clientele. Many of his published wildlife pieces have become some of America’s most popular animal imagery.
He has more original work in the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame than any other artist. His wildlife and Southwestern-theme work is distributed internationally through Joan Cawley Galleries of Scottsdale AZ.
In his recent commencement address at Howard University our president's racism-laced message to graduates strategically included the words, "Be Confident in your blackness." But what most got my attention was that his entire speech was presented in his own version of 'homeboy' with a clumsy Ebonic lilt/cadence. The down-home, laid-back talk that he couldn't quite pull off was, in my view, an embarrassing insult to the noble scholars and their parents, many of whom just wanted to enjoy the moment and honor the hard work it had taken both to achieve their goal.
The forty-five minutes might have been better spent encouraging them to have confidence in their hard-earned skills and knowledge. Instead, he spent nearly an hour imitating some stereotype of a brutha' and hauled out his pitifully caricatured representation of "blackness." The racial unity of our so wounded nation was once more thrown in the backseat. It was a pitiful shuck.
