Yesterday I submitted a Dairy that included a letter I sent to Newseek attacking two of its authors, as well as Senator Obama for ignoring the true meaning of the concerns of Cornel West and tying those concerns into judging Senator Obama's black "authenticity".
The responses I received were mixed, but the majority were critical of my belief that the Senator has no meaningful concern for the plight of poor black Americans. They provided links (hats off to DemocraticLuntz) which describe his true perspective, as well as his specific response (see below) to Mr. West's concerns that can be found within the same article I cite.
Although the kossacks who clarified the Senator's position must think I am daft, I would argue that I am not (yes, this is debatable). Then how could I be so wrong about Barack Obama's stand on black issues, even with it explicitly stated within the article I presumably read? This question is at the heart of the matter. I now believe I can address how I came to write a letter that misses the mark on this particular issue.
To those who agreed with my stance, this diary is not a refutation of that perspective, per se. Instead it is an attempt to clarify how I came to the conclusion I did. For all I know, there still could be a very good case to chastise Senator Obama for his alleged indifference to certain causes. Obviously, I have not been following his campaign that closely, which is why I thought I would read the Newseek article for a concise understanding of this fellow African American's campaign for the White House.
The reason I had been uninterested in Obama prior to this time was what I heard him say on cable news a few months ago. He was asked if the 2004 election was legitimate. He, to my utter consternation, said that indeed it was a fair election and therefore George Bush is the appropriate president of our country. Since the purpose of this diary is not about election fraud or how the Republicans have blatantly stolen offices in at least the last three elections, I will leave this explanation of my disinterest in his campaign at that.
What I would like to discuss is how I became indignant after reading the Newsweek article. After reviewing the logic which I was using, I have come to a conclusion: the authors of Newsweek either purposefully or inadvertently implied that not only did Cornel West challenge Obama’s "authenticity" (speaking, dressing and thinking as an average black American), but also implied that Obama’s answer was one of callous indifference to the issues at hand.
By Richard Wolffe and Daren Briscoe
Newsweek
July 16, 2007 issue - Cornel West was on fire. Bobbing in his chair, his hands sweeping across the stage, the brilliant and bombastic scholar was lambasting Barack Obama's campaign. Before a black audience, at an event outside Atlanta called the State of the Black Union, West was questioning why Obama was 600 miles away, announcing his bid for the White House in Springfield, Ill. Did he really care about black voters? What did that say about his willingness to stand up for what he believes?
"He's got large numbers of white brothers and sisters who have fears and anxieties and concerns, and he's got to speak to them in such a way that he holds us at arm's length," West said, pushing his hand out for emphasis. "So he's walking this tightrope." West challenged the candidate to answer a stark set of questions: "I want to know how deep is your love for the people, what kind of courage have you manifested in the stances that you have and what are you willing to sacrifice for. That's the fundamental question. I don't care what color you are. You see, you can't take black people for granted just 'cause you're black."
A few days later, West was sitting in his Princeton office after class when the phone rang. It was Barack Obama. "I want to clarify some things," the candidate calmly told the professor of religion and African-American studies. Over the next two hours, Obama explained his Illinois state Senate record on criminal justice and affordable health care. West asked Obama how he understood the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and interrogated him about a single phrase in Obama's 2004 Democratic-convention speech: that America was "a magical place" for his Kenyan father. "That's a Christopher Columbus experience," West said. "It's hard for someone who came out of slavery and Jim Crow to call it a magical place. You have to be true to yourself, but I have to be true to myself as well." A few weeks later, the two men met in a downtown Washington, D.C., hotel to chat about Obama's campaign staff. Just a month after ripping into him onstage, West endorsed Obama and signed up as an unpaid adviser.
West may have come around, but he raised one of the most potent—and controversial—questions facing the candidate: is he black enough? It's one that has long dogged Barack Obama's career, though he says he settled his own struggle with racial identity (as the son of an African father and white, Kansan mother) in his late teens. Questions about black "authenticity" are hardly unique to him; many successful African-Americans face them, too. Obama just happens to be grappling with the issue in full public view as he runs for the highest office in the land.
To the candidate, the debate says more about America's state of mind than it does about him. "I think America is still caught in a little bit of a time warp: the narrative of black politics is still shaped by the '60s and black power," he tells NEWSWEEK. "That is not, I think, how most black voters are thinking. I don't think that's how most white voters are thinking. I think that people are thinking about how to find a job, how to fill up the gas tank, how to send their kids to college. I find that when I talk about those issues, both blacks and whites respond well" ....
If you will allow me to point out how the first five paragraphs of this article caused me to stop reading it altogether and "pick up my pen."
The first three sections that I have placed in bold discuss how Cornel West initially perceived the Senator, as well as the things he asked for clarification, however vaguely presented. The next bold phrase explains how Cornel had come to terms with Obama’s positions and endorsed him for president.
Given my complete and unchanging respect for Cornel West, a Harvard professor, I should have just accepted his endorsement as reason to feel comfortable with Obama’s stances and objectives in regard to black issues.
However, the very next paragraph implies that Cornel raised the question of whether Obama was "black enough", which completely confuses the issues of "authenticity" and serious social concerns. Therefore, I took issue with the authors for convoluting the actual question: "What are you planning to do to assist black Americans in their struggles", to "Why don’t you identify with being a black American?" These are two different issues, the former being infinitely more important than the latter.
Then, the authors place Obama’s response to the actual question of black identity beneath Cornel’s concerns about black Americans. As another poster of yesterday's diary pointed out, Obama's response is legitimate. Had I known it was not a response to Cornel, I would never have attacked him. Either they purposefully wanted to confuse some readers, myself being one, or they inadvertently attributed a callous response to serious questions to Obama by starting the article with Cornel, then leading the piece into questions about Obama’s black identity.
As one of the posters to my diary of yesterday pointed out, Obama did directly respond to the questions of Cornel West later on in the article, which did me no good when I am disgusted with the lot of them, to the point of not finishing the article, before reaching the second web page.
Thanks to Happy Days (when will they be here again?), I am now aware of Obama’s actual response to the authors:
I just want to be very clear on this so that there's no confusion. And on this I think Cornel [West] and I would agree. Solving our racial problems in this country will require concrete steps, significant investment. We're going to have a lot of work to do to overcome the long legacy of Jim Crow and slavery. It can't be purchased on the cheap.
I am fundamentally optimistic about our capacity to do that. And I do assert that there's a core decency in the American people and in white Americans that makes me hopeful about our ability to deal with these issues. But these issues aren't just solved by electing a black president.
In sum, I should not have assumed that someone as well-liked as Senator Obama would respond so unsympathetically to Cornel’s concerns. I also should have been thoroughly confused as to how Cornel could have endorsed him if this was how cavalierly Obama would respond to these critical issues.
Now that I have resolved the differences from my diary of yesterday inside my scattered little head, I have three questions. Did Richard Wolffe and Daren Briscoe wittingly attempt to persuade potential voters that Obama was actually lying to Cornel West and is indeed indifferent to black causes? Or was it their innocent attempt at starting an article in a compelling way, then proceeding to address the issues that face Obama without realizing how it could be construed? Or, more humiliatingly, did I just draw illogical conclusions from the article?