by Danny Haiphong
If the presidency of Bill Clinton brought black America “bad policy” reasons Michael Eric Dyson, and that of Barack Obama brought “no policy”, then certainly a Hillary Clinto presidency will yield “good policies” for black America. That's about as deep and detailed as Dyson bothers to get in “Yes She Can”, his latest wet kiss to Hillary's camp.
Dyson Sings a Song for Hilary Clinton, Exploits the Black Lives Matter Movement
by Danny Haiphong
It is a story that is all too familiar. Professed Black media pundit Michael Eric Dyson has openly endorsed Hilary Clinton, the US imperialist system's most prized Democratic Party Presidential candidate for 2016. His endorsement comes in the form of an
essay in the New Republic. The essay confirms his already verified status as a servant of the Democratic Party. However, the endorsement article represents more than a mere endorsement of Hilary Clinton. Dyson's essay seizes on the nascent "Black Lives Matter" movement to further both Clinton's candidacy and the author's own career within the Democratic Party establishment.
Dyson's essay is a study in political manipulation. He begins his love note to Hilary Clinton as a supposedly critical observer of the most recent Democratic Party administrations. According to Dyson, the Democratic Party has consistently disappointed loyal Black voters with the "bad policy" of Bill Clinton and the "no policy" of Barack Obama. The article then professes that the only policy left for Hilary Clinton to carry out is "good policy."
Such a conclusion has no substantive basis in reality, which is a consistent theme in the article. Rather than engage with an honest, sober analysis of where Hilary Clinton stands on race relations and the capitalist system that produces them, Dyson promotes Clinton as a potential asset for the Black Lives Matter movement. He concludes that Hilary Clinton can do what neither her husband nor Barack Obama could. Hilary Clinton can deliver social policy that will make Black lives "matter" in the here and now.
Dyson tries to justify his hollow thesis early in the piece with the claim that " . . . Hillary Clinton has exhibited a greater sophistication about race, increased sensitivity about how blackness is lived in our country, and a deeper awareness of how the small brutalities of racism rend the fabric of the social compact . . ." The nascent Black Lives Matter movement acts as the platform for Dyson to show Hilary Clinton's apparent political transformation. He tries to show that Clinton has demonstrated an increased aptitude for the plight of Black America through her A+ interactions with Black Lives Matter activists.
Dyson begins her so-called evolution through the prism of her contacts with Black Lives Matter activists in New Hampshire and Atlanta. In New Hampshire, Dyson highlights the lecture Clinton gave to Black Lives Matter activists on the need to change policy rather than hearts. He further applauds her ability to remain cool in the face of interruption and articulate a response to the issues raised by the Black activists in Atlanta. Indeed, the article creates a golden image of Hilary Clinton to help her win the 2016 Presidential election and Dyson a glamorous career saddled to her side.
Furthermore, Dyson takes painstaking efforts to follow Clinton's relationship to Black politics to find the "lessons on race the years have taught her. He romanticizes her relationships with the Black elite, namely her long time political partnership with Jesse Jackson. For Dyson, Clinton has it all. She has the support of his partners in the Black elite and can additionally offer the nascent Black lives matter movement a chance at realistic social change.
Clinton also has the political talent to "rattle off" policy recommendations in response to the Black lives Matter Movement and the social location as a white woman to achieve "a presidency built on racial transparency and honesty, one that doesn’t lecture black people about what they should do to get themselves together, but instead thrives on principled engagement with black suffering." This type of methodical, dishonest oration is typical of Dyson. In 2012, he defended Obama vigorously in a debate with Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford. He followed up with a more personal, 10,000 word-plus attack on Cornel West. In both instances, Dyson provided cheap protection to the Obama Administration's policy of war, austerity, and repression.
His primary justification for his defense of the Obama Administration rested on the promotion of racial loyalty against the racist disposition of the GOP/Republican Party. Anyone who challenged the Obama Administration was not playing the "game" right. Now the former minister sees the light at the end of the tunnel for the Obama era. The time is ripe for Dyson to build his resume for a gig with the Democratic Party in the imminent post Obama world.
Dyson's career aspirations explain his false assertion that Hilary Clinton can somehow "offer strict attention to policy that unapologetically plays to black needs.” After all, he is speaking about the same "we came, we saw, he died" Hilary Clinton who
destroyed Libya in 2011. The same Hilary Clinton who, as Secretary of State, helped overthrow the progressive government of Honduras in 2009 and strengthen ties with already established US-backed dictatorships. Dyson has thrown his support to the same Hilary Clinton who staunchly supported her husband's policies of Mass Black Incarceration and Wall Street strangulation.
Hilary Clinton isn't what Black America or any oppressed people needs. She is everything we should stand against. But Dyson has little interest in Hilary Clinton's actual record, or how someone who has deliberately waged war on all fronts on oppressed people around the world for Wall Street profits could provide any benefit to Black America. The truth cannot support Dyson's upward mobility any more than a lie can aid a genuine struggle against the racist, imperialist system.
Politics, especially those of the racial variety, are not about facts. Politics are defined by power, who has it and who doesn't. In Dyson's case, the former minister and academic has been empowered by the ruling class to promote Hilary Clinton's campaign. Dyson's lengthy article for Hilary Clinton exploits the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement toward these ends.
This upsurge, comprised of many different organizations, has yet to formulate concrete political demands or a united ideology. Dyson sees the current state of the Black Lives Matter movement as a useful tool for the Democratic Party. By exploiting the efforts of the activists involved thus far, he exemplifies exactly why the struggle against racism is about much more than recognition or visibility. The struggle against racism is a political struggle for power. Those who wield power will predictably send out their brightest, most articulate agents to confuse the masses into alignment with the Democratic Party. And Michael Eric Dyson has proved he is more than up to the task.
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