I had a friend who sent me an email in which he was livid over Barack Obama's recent flip-flop on the FISA Bill. He was outraged that Obama would allow his right-leaning agenda to cause him to embrace a bill that clearly violates American civil liberties.
I agreed with my friend, since I too have been shocked at the lengths to which Obama has gone in order to appease the right wing. He is losing supporters on the left fast, and the wide-eyed optimism he met during the primaries is long gone. I hope he knows what he's doing.
What I found most ironic about my friend's irate email is that he and others had just told me that I should "chill out" over my concern about Barack Obama's Bill O'Reilly-like Father's Day Speech. During the speech, Obama clearly implied that black fathers are the worst dads in the country, and that black men not living in the homes with their children are behaving like little boys instead of men (listen carefully to his words: "Nowhere is this more true than in the black community.....too many fathers are not in the home.....they are behaving like little boys instead of men"). He mentioned nothing of the Draconian child support laws that put men in tough financial positions (thus threatening them with prison time for trying to see their kids without having the money to do so), nor did he mention the rampant parental alienation that can occur when the custodial parent refuses to allow the father to see his child or poisons the child against his/her dad. What's worse is that black men who are doing the right thing were forced to have their special day marred by a politician appeasing conservatives by spending the entire day talking about those who are screwing up.
Obama's attack on black men is like my showing up to your birthday party with a list of all the things I hate about you. I could say "On most days, you're a good friend, but on a lot of days, you're just a bastard and a bad person." That would be a tough way to spend your birthday. It's also a bad way to spend Father's Day, a day to celebrate good fathers, rather than holding an entire ethnic group responsible for the bad ones.
What's even more interesting is that these attacks provide excuses for discrimination against black men, not educating black men and the continued mass incarceration black men. After all, if black men would just behave better, we wouldn't have any reason to continue attacking them so much. This is all part of what I call "The good negro behavior protocol", in which our community truly believes that if we would just behave ourselves, the world will stop attacking us. The truth is that if someone doesn't like you, they are always going to be quick to point out your imperfections.
I can further analogize the hypocrisy of these attacks on black fathers to be like my telling you that you are a bad person because your breath stinks and leaving the smell of my own breath off the table for discussion. While over 50% of white males also divorce their spouses and don't live with their children, I dare Obama to give a speech telling them that they are behaving like little boys. Don't give me that stuff about him being a black man and having the moral authority to give that speech. He is also 50% white, so he has just as much moral authority in the white community. Also, whenever he is asked to take a stand against racism (i.e. standing by Jeremiah Wright and his church for the past 20 years), we are firmly reminded that he is "everyone's president" and not just the "black candidate".
What people have to realize is that Obama's support for FISA, his insults to the Muslim community and his recent attacks on black men are all part of the same agenda. There is a REASON that the great racist Bill O'Reilly agrees with everything this man has been doing for the past 3 weeks. It's because it all fits neatly into the same bucket of conservative thought: black men are flawed, the constitution is dispensable and being a Muslim is associated with terrorism. In other words, Obama is being forced to abandon his own intellect to cater to racial ignorance, all so he can have access to the White House.
My friend and some of my other colleagues are so irate with Obama that they are considering taking away their support and backing Cynthia McKinney. I am going to continue supporting Obama. But I could not help but chuckle when seeing my friends who told me to "chill out" suddenly going up in arms when the gun of the right wing was pointed at them. Racial ignorance is like a contagious disease: if your friend is attacked by the symptoms, you are not too far down the list. Obama's Right Wing push is hitting everyone.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, BET, CBS and ESPN. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.net.
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