Here's what now seems obvious: African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy. It is a fitting end to the Clintons' campaign and an almost Shakespearean coda to their career. The Clintons were exposed in their long-running exploitation and reliance on minority votes. No group was more loyal to them than African-Americans; and in the end, like everyone else, African-Americans realized that the Clintons are frauds, disloyal to the core, cynical to their finger-tips, and finally, finally, returned the favor.
He has a point. The Black community LOVED Bill Clinton, and was willing to put Hillary in the White House just to get "Bill's Third Term" (whether you like it or not, it's true).
As a younger person who was still growing up in the 90s, I'm still curious about exactly what Bill Clinton did for African Americans that was good? No one has been able to tell me, if you know, please respond in the comments.
Initially, Hillary was beating Barack in the Black community. Remember Michelle giving interviews saying that once Black people got to know Barack they would vote for him? Remember when everyone was concerned because he couldn't get the African American vote? Remember when Black people thought he couldn't win (which was probably a big reason why they weren't supporting him at first)?
(it's always a good time for Michael Jackson :o) )
Well, Hillary was doing great in the African American community before South Carolina. That was really began to end the Clinton support in the African American community. Now African Americans are being criticized for coalescing behind Barack Obama, why? Because we had the balls to do what the DNC wouldn't, and get behind the person who was going to win? I won't pretend that there aren't some African Americans out there who are voting for Barack simply because he's African American.
But I can tell you this, just like the young people, and the old people, and the rich people, and the poor people who are now paying more attention to the election process, African Americans are doing the same. We didn't just arbitrarily throw our support behind the black guy, if that was the case Al Sharpton would have done much better in 2004. I just left my stylist, and she was telling me about how her husband is so involved with this campaign, and how she is impressed with the way so many people are paying attention. There were two gentlemen in the shop when I was there too, and they were both into the election as well, we got into a nice discussion/debate about Rev. Wright.
African Americans are not blindly following Barack Obama into the night, we merely found a candidate we could all get behind. No one was batting an eye when John Kerry was getting 90% of the African American vote in the 2004 election. I suppose this primary is an anomaly because this situation has never come up before in history. There was no real way to break down races because everyone was always a White male before now. Now the political scientists and pundits can sit and "analyze" exit poll data and try to divide us all down these neat little lines to decide who the candidates need to target.
Instead of competing for the African American vote, the Clintons conceded it. When Barack Obama was down by huge margins in the African American vote, he didn't give up, he fought for the vote. Sure, now he has the backing of some big name African Americans, and the African American community is really rallying behind him, but is that really such a bad thing? Does that automatically make it a racially charged campaign? I don't think so. A lot of us, like the women supporting Hillary so loyally, see him as our opportunity to get someone that we think really understands us in the White House. And I'd wager White people feel the same way since he grew up in a pretty much all-White environment. He has the unique ability to see things from everyone's side, he can truly unite us. Are there going to people out there that vote against him because of his race? Of course. But we cannot obsess over those people.
When Bill and Hillary Clinton decided they were not even going to TRY to get the African American vote, that's when they lost it. That's when the margins started hitting 80-90%. It wasn't because Obama was African American and other African Americans were harassing the ones supporting Hillary. We felt used and abused, and we decided to get out of an abusive relationship, and Barack Obama is a very attractive candidate.
This will be history's verdict: in the end, the Clintons were defeated not by Republicans, but by African-American Democrats. How wonderful. How poignant. In the end, the karma gets you. Maybe it had to be this way. But this final coup de grace against these awful, hollow, cynical people is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
African Americans merely did what the Democratic Party didn't, and UNITED behind one candidate-our candidate-now the presumptive nominee, Barack Obama. It's really just that simple.
UPDATE: Here's a commentthat explains all of the wonderful things Bill Clinton did for the African American community:
Created the Powder/Crack Cocaine penalties that increased the number of black people in prison astronomically;
Welfare Reform - disproportionately hurt poor blacks and children;
Nafta and WTO shipped jobs overseas so that the last in first out black employees lost their jobs and spaces in the middle class;
Threw Lani Ganier under the bus for suggesting we consider the proportional representation model we tried to implement in Iraq;
Threw Jocelyn Elders under the bus for saying masturbating was better than premarital sex and teenage pregnancy.
Left Mike Epps and Henry Cisneros swinging in the wind under investigation for his sins while he pardoned people who could pay him
It's a wonder they can even show their faces in the black community.
Honestly, I'm think he maybe was adopted by the African American community more for his "less attractive qualities" than anything he actually did to HELP the community.
UPDATE II: Looks like I was right about the whole "black president" thing, from the comments:
Toni Morrison wrote that he was the first Black President not because of his policies but because of his behavior. He behaved sot of like a political Jack Johnson, taking risks and living large only to be brought to earth by the tut-tutting local sherrifs. The "white" people were agast and had to stop it. And when he got in trouble, he turned to the black community for help, because everyone else was disgusted. It is not a policy thing or an attitude thing but a behavioral thing.
The funny thing is, Toni Morrison actually endorsed Barack :o) I think she may have also retracted the "first black president" title from Bill.
UPDATE III: From the comments, some of the positive things Bill did for the African American community:
But here are some of his accomplishments to the African-American community:
Motor Voter - allowing people to register to vote on a post card, etc.
Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban
Dr. David Satcher - excellent surgeon general
More African-Americans in his cabinet and more African-American judicial nominees than any other administration (i.e., Rodney Slater)
