Glen Ford on Black Realities and Delusion in the Age of Obama
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When the Pew Center recently polled African Americans it found that a solid majority of us now believe that historic gaps between black and white incomes, wages, along with disparites in health, wealth, morbidity, mortality and more are closing. Both the Pew Center and Ford agree this is good news, except for one thing. It's not true. Black unemployment is the highest it's been in 70 years and rising, and all the gaps between blacks and whites are further widening, not the other way around. The only thing that's changed is we now have a black face in the White House...
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Don't go so easy on the black
Don't go so easy on the black sheeple when excusing their deluded allegiance to and pride in Obama. Black people have experienced betrayal, lies, corruption, and ineptitude from black politicians at all levels of govt and from the self-appointed grandstanding leaders for decades. This childlike innocence/infatuation with Obama and satisfaction with him simply being "in charge" is inexcusable after all these years and certainly now as we're all one step from or already in the poor house.
If it was 1950, 60, or 70 perhaps one could excuse black folks' swooning at the mere mention of Obama and believing things are"looking up" despite evidence in plain sight. But now it's 2010 and life has been spiralling downward for far too long. Even with the media blackout of the truth, people ought to have sense enough to wake up and smell reality. I can't cut them too much slack for their childlike ability to be satisfied with a piece of candy (Obama) when said candy is choking the life out of them.
All of America is a Fantasy Land
I agree that it's hard to cut folks slack IN THE INFORMATION "AGE."
The problem is that all of American is a Fantasy Land and it's hard for most not to get caught up in the fantasy. The best anectdotal evidence of this is so-called "Reality T.V." Black "imagery" masquerades as Black "progress." The Civil Rights Movement made a deadly "detour" when it lost focus of the War on Poverty, focusing instead on "integration" and "symbolism." I'm not trained in survey techniques, but I feel confident that the "Black Progress" so noted is based on imagery and symbolism: More Black CEOs but more Black poverty, more Black celebs and Academy Award winners but more Black poverty, more Black "political stars" but Black wealth evaporates over night, more White acceptability (after ample watering down) of heretofore "controversial" Blacks (think Ali, King, Mandela) but more Black poverty both here and abroad...
Do you get the picture? The problem is that the "picture" that most get aint' the one I'm drawing.
"Can you hear me now?"
Addendum:
Most Americans believe that in the not to distant future the economy is going to rebound to where it was, despite several US states, (maybe even their state) being bankrupt or near bankrupt. They don't believe that Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid will suffer a Bi-Partisan axe. How about that for living in Fantasy Land?