A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Black Freedom Movement era icon Angela Davis tells people that Barack
Obama “identifies with the Black radical tradition” – “as if everything
he has written, said and done in national politics has not been a
repudiation of the Black radical tradition.” In doing so, Prof. Davis
“is repudiating herself, her history, her comrades – all in a foolish
attempt to artificially graft a totally unworthy Barack Obama onto a
place he not only does not belong, but most profoundly does not want to
be.”
Angela Davis Lost Her Mind Over Obama
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Angela Davis says that Barack Obama is a man who identifies with the Black radical tradition.”
The “delusional effect”
that swept Black America with the advent of the First Black President
has warped and weakened the mental powers of some of our most revered
icons – and it has been painful to behold. Earlier this month, Angela
Davis diminished herself as a scholar and thinker in a gush of nonsense
about the corporate executive in the White House. The occasion was a
conference on Empowering Women of Color,
in Berkeley, California. Davis shared the stage with Grace Lee Boggs,
the 96-year-old activist from Detroit. The subject was social
transformation, but Davis suddenly launched into how wonderful it felt
to see people “dancing in the streets” when Barack Obama was elected.
She called that campaign a “victory, not of an individual, but of…people
who refused to believe that it was impossible to elect a person, a
Black person, who identified with the Black radical tradition.”
There was a hush in the
room, as if in mourning of the death of brain cells. Angela Davis was
saying that Barack Obama is a man who identifies with the Black radical
tradition. She said it casually, as if Black radicalism and Obama were
not antithetical terms; as if everything he has written, said and done
in national politics has not been a repudiation of the Black radical
tradition; as if his rejection of his former minister, Rev. Jeremiah
Wright, was not a thorough disavowal of the Black radical tradition. In
his famous 2008 campaign speech in Philadelphia,
Obama blamed such radicals for compounding the nation’s problems. He
viewed people like Rev. Wright as having been mentally scarred by
battles of long ago, who were unable to see the inherent goodness of
America, as he did. This is the man who said he agreed with President
Ronald Reagan, that the Sixties were characterized by “excesses.” Can
anyone doubt that Obama considers the historical Angela Davis, herself,
to be a part of the political “excesses” of the Sixties and early
Seventies that he so deplores?
“This is the man who said he agreed with President Ronald Reagan, that the Sixties were characterized by “excesses.”
And that is the saddest
part of the story. Angela Davis, who retired as a professor of the
history of human consciousness, in 2008, seems not to be conscious of
the fact that she is repudiating herself, her history, her comrades –
all in a foolish attempt to artificially graft a totally unworthy Barack
Obama onto the Black radical tradition – a place he not only does not
belong, but most profoundly does not want to be. This is the guy who
declared, at his first national broadcast opportunity, that “there is no
Black America…only the United States of America.”
How, then, did Angela
Davis connect Barack Obama to the Black radical tradition? She didn't,
because even an icon cannot do the impossible. Instead, Davis quickly
told the crowd, in Berkeley, that “we need to figure out how to prevent
somebody like Mitt Romney from getting elected.” But the vast majority
of Black people are going to wind up voting for Obama, anyway, because
he's not white and Republican. There is no need to pollute the proud
tradition of Black radicalism by dipping the corporate warmonger, Obama,
into the historical mix. In doing so, Professor Davis has soiled
herself, and done a terrible injustice to Black history and tradition.
And, the biggest shame of all is, she has diminished herself and
insulted our people for the sake of a president who doesn't give a damn
for their history or their future. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen
Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
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