So here we are, the democratic national convention has concluded and again a historical landmark has been reached with Senator Barack Obama at the center.   It’s a time to both acknowledge and of course appreciate the significance of the tremendous and impressive broad-cross-spectrum support required  in attaining this milestone in American history.   Now there are those like the Clintons who will stress that most if not all significant gains by black folks have been due to  bold underpinning and perhaps underwriting by white people.   This is a topic that would be interesting to cover separately from my brief comment here.

This moment however raises numerous “man-in-the mirror”  questions for folks on E89th in Cleveland, Bankhead Courts in Atlanta and elsewhere.  One such question can be in seeing that Senator Obama, a black man, is one step from the White House why can’t folks in the hood be expected to have the gumption and drive to raise themselves up and better themselves and community?   If this country may soon elect a president who’s African American, what roadblocks are left for black folk and black communities?  It’s a new day isn’t’ it? Has the “black struggle” become passé?  Maybe not, but its damn sure time to broaden the perception of what our situation is here and how we advance from this point forward.

My wife in her subtle genius one day made the comment that Barack Obama has to walk a thin line that no one in politics ever has before.  For him there’s no such thing as political fair-play.  Its damned if you do dammed if you don’t with every item, event and movement scrutinized like none before.  Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan-like in the narrow prism of maintaining acceptability in keeping ‘em happy.  Yet he can’t say that his uber-tightrope walk is due to him being a black man. No mention that what he’s done in inspiring grass roots movements in all 50 states and winning the curious admiration of peoples and governments foreign is only really approached by the late honorable MLK during his heyday in the early 1960’s.  Certainly no mention that he has taken many lessons from the life and drive of Malcom X in mastering the sound-bite with oratory eloquence not seen since 1967.   No,  we likely will see little to none of this truth touched upon Obama or his organization anytime soon if ever.   To any of us that have had to do what it takes to get and keep a job, get a loan or start a business the reason may seem simple and plain, but my thought is that it probably is not.

I’m convinced that the game has changed.

Back in 1981 as a 20 year old college student I wrote a paper called “The Revolutionary Psyche” which theorized that race struggles in the West could only be seriously addressed by championing class justice/elevation rather than racial heritage.   As a black man it was in essence an admission of defeat which I struggled with some degree of guilt in coming to that conclusion.  My premise contended that as a whole black folks in America had completely succumbed to their condition and had allowed themselves to submit to sensory programming to de-evolve into an irreversible socio-economic cannibalism.  There was no other “-ism” in my premise political or otherwise…unless maybe defeatism.

However as the years have passed my initial guilt has morphed into a humbling acknowledgement of the accuracy of that premise.  The struggles of the black business in black communities, the ill state of black schools across this nation and the abominable lack of parental participation with their children’s education, a seemingly omnipotent media bombardment of nonsense, BET and especially urban radio are centrally culpable to our cultural and intellectual condition.  To add here, ironically I see and hear some of the loudest so called pro-black folks do or say some of the most destructive things possible regarding the very people that they profess to champion.  But, and actually dwarfing all other factors in the psychological internment of the mind and soul of Black America  the kicker are ourselves,  parents, business owners, educators and our complicity in allowing this to happen to ourselves and children.  We in many cases perpetuate this on ourselves and former communities for our personal financial or even religious advantage see Bob Johnson, Crefolo Dollar among others. 

Ok, back to the game.  Barack and his team seem to be approaching his candidacy a manner consistent with the concept that class stimulation is the key.  He minimizes any official focus on race while placing heavy attention to class economics, mutual respect and common destiny.   Without question a brilliant and perfectly mass-palatable approach which has to date proven the single right way to proceed.  It’s difficult to argue that a different approach would have been so savagely assailed by the power structures that Barack’s movement would have been assaulted, terminated and toe-tagged faster than you can say “yes we can”.  We’d be talking about Hillary Clinton’s chances right about now.

So what now black folks? 

The ascension of Obama now presents us with a double-edged sword that will need to be fully understood.  All of the legacy champions of the historical causes dear to the suffering descendants of Africa will have to learn like Jesse Jackson did that for us race politics has effectively been castrated.  

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