Editorial

Beyond “Kumbaya”

“Sure, I’m glad Obama is president. But I don’t have no job.”

The election of Barack Obama as president has had a dramatic effect on race relations in America. This enormous sociological shift has stimulated responses in various segments of American society.

Conservatives with negative racial attitudes have rallied around talk show host Rush Limbaugh. He established his racial insensitivity credentials when he played the insulting ditty “Barack the Magic Negro” on his program during the presidential campaign. He then asserted that Gen. Colin Powell’s articulate and well-conceived endorsement of Obama “… was totally about race.” After Obama’s inauguration, Limbaugh secured his position as bigot-in-chief when he proclaimed, “I hope Obama fails.”

At the other pole are those Americans who sense an opportunity to create a “post-racial” nation. They want to increase the intensity of interracial discussions with the hope that the significance of racial and religious differences will then evaporate. While this is indeed a desirable objective, history tells us that the significance of ethnic differences seems impossible to eliminate.

Since World War II — another so-called “war to end all wars” — there have been innumerable armed conflicts around the globe. These wars usually have their roots in ethnic, tribal or religious differences. A brief review of some of the conflicts that generated the most public attention will indicate the elusive nature of world peace and the underlying causes of racial and religious discrimination. The list includes:

• Arab-Israeli Wars — 1948-1949, 1956, 1967, 1973-1974, 1982

• Korean War — 1950-1953

• Vietnam War — 1959-1975

• Nigerian-Biafran War — 1967-1970

• Khmer Rouge slaughter in Cambodia — 1975-1979

• Anglo-Irish wars

• Tamil Civil War in Sri Lanka — 1983-present

• Basque Rebellion in Spain — 1960s-present

• Liberian Civil War — 1989-1996, 1999-2003

• Bosnian Serb genocide of Muslims — 1992-1995

• Rwandan genocide — 1994

• Al-Qaida attacks in New York — 1993, Sept. 11, 2001

• Darfur genocide in Sudan — 2003-present

A primary cause of the conflicts is a perceived grievance by one group against another. As is clear in the al-Qaida terrorism, there is often only a tenuous connection between the grievance and the culpability of the victims. It is clear that ethnic and religious hostilities are quite entrenched.

Some well-intentioned people are inclined to pursue a “Kumbaya” approach to ending racial and religious bigotry, but there is another, potentially more critical problem on the horizon. While the election of Obama has generated optimism among African Americans, there is also a growing sense of desperation among lower-income residents because of the economic meltdown. The violent expression of black desperation would certainly hamper efforts to achieve racial understanding.

There was euphoria in black America after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2. However, there was not an extended period of patience for positive results. Just a little more than a year later, on Aug. 11, 1965, the Watts riots erupted. This was the first of a number of urban riots to beset the nation.

Expectations are now high, but the economy is weak. The unemployment rate for blacks is more than 5 percent higher than it is for whites. Conditions are even worse among the young, the most volatile group. There needs to be a major effort to help keep young black males on the right track even as the Obama novelty wears thin.

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Apr 14 16:16pm by Rodney Singleton [66.92.67.156]

Anonymous,

I agree that identity is important. It also helps synthesize solutions that are meaningful and relevant. This approach, however, may only be helpful to us though. The person(s) looking from the outside in may not share our perspective. Are we providing a sense for our perspective to on-lookers?

Apr 14 15:00pm by Rodney Singleton [66.92.67.156]

No question the bigoted rantings of some conservatives offer no substantive basis to progress talk about any of our shared values or differences as Americans, least of all our racial differences.

A more worthy conversation, however, is the one taking place between conservatives and liberals of color that’s peppered with the idea that we need an agenda for wall street, main street and the sides streets of Hip-Hop America that respect and celebrate our differences, while reminding us that we all share the same values as people.

This conversation can get heated as well and very often comes to a boil when we start talking about responsibility and accountability.

The best example of this banter is the discussion over education. For our democracy to even function, we hold government accountable for providing an educational system that one has access to and enables each of us to be active participants in the governing process and pursue how we see ourselves contributing to this country, no matter what generation we happen to be in. But demanding and holding accountable is not enough, we must also be responsible about assessing the value of our demands and seizing the opportunity to make the best use of them.

The values we share always trump the differences in the color of our skin, the language we speak, where we’re from, what religion we are, what sexual preference, what party affiliation, what income level and a host of other differences that make living in America unique and is the source of our strength as a people and a nation.

The challenge is realizing our shared values in the context of our diversity and constructively discussing those values so we all benefit. It’s a tall order, but a discourse that is heightened with Obama. This will help the cause, not hurt it, so we should start talking about what we share. We’re more apt to make progress.

Apr 14 0:44am by Anonymous [65.96.176.207]

I enjoyed your editorial last week. I felt it spoke to some thoughts that I have been having about the power of song for resistance and all those techniques used by the people from a long, long time ago. I'm still wondering about how useful they are today. I don't know how to get past the violent outrage in our community, but someone said that the freedom songs are only of use to the people who believe in them. I believe this is true, but how many of us believe? I wear my African American identity and legacy around me like a mystic cloak and I use it to walk through the world because I know that my great-great ancestors did too, and that was how they got over. But the practical use of the art of religion and food and music and all of the good stuff about African American culture is waning as the traditional African African story gets lost among the rich and diverse pool of other people's stories. African American is yet another ethnicity within the whole framework of the Black identity and race, and while I think my ancestors did great things, my friends have a million more other things to say about their Jamaican, Trinidadian, Haitian, etcs. ancestors too. I guess. Being the great-great-granddaughter of African American farmers, I am truly a daughter of the American soil. Those slaves songs, and those freedom songs, those spirituals, and the prayers to an unseen God were said for me, and I'd be a fool to not use the same techniques to get through the contemporary world. Perhaps if other blacks would explore and utilize the good things about the customs and beliefs of their ancestral heritages, like do what the old folks did, bring back a politic of black cultural aesthetics, we might just be able to forge a Black United Front and really get over as a people.