Defining Black Politics

In recent days some White writers have sought to define Black politics. The most famous of this was Matthew Bai's piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. In the piece Bai discusses the "new Black politics". He cites Sen. Obama and others as a changing of the guard of Black politicians. Bai argues that the new generation of Black politicians, who are the beneficiaries of the struggles of years past, are at odds with those same elders who provided them this opportunity. The article had been throughly and eloquently dissected and dismissed by journalist Glen Ford on Black Agenda Report so my interest is not to seek to discredit Mr. Bai's piece. Instead I question why so many mainstream and "highly respected" news organizations are seeking to define Black politics.

Mr. Ford in his repudiation of Mr. Bai's article cites the absurdity in thinking that Whites know Black generational relationships better than those groups know each other. More than that, what's troubling is that so many Blacks will see Mr. Bai's work published in the New York Times and assume it to be true. Mr. Bai and others have asserted that Sen. Obama's support is not as strong among an older "civil rights" generation of Blacks. This flies in the face of known statistics that more than 90% of Blacks have voted for Senator Obama during the primary season. Mr. Bai is not the only one to have erroneously sought to define Black politics by pitting one generation against another. Jodie Allen, a senior editor at the Pew Research Group did a study to find out who's more in touch with the African American community. The premise of the study pitted Sen. Obama against Civil Rights Veteran Jesse Jackson. The fallacy of the study is the assumption of Black Monolithic views. Black politics is more than just a choice between either Sen. Obama's trans-racial rhetoric and Rev. Jackon's cries of racial injustice.

Jonathan Tilove tries his hand at explaining how Sen. Obama and racial politics will affect racial scholarship. He does better by getting out of his own way as his piece is littered with opinions spanning a decent spectrum of Black thought. He gets input from the quasi-conservative economist Glenn Loury, the completely conservative John McWhorter and the progressive Adolph Reed. The trouble with Tilove's piece is that HE identifies who HE deems to be a "leading race scholar from the left". With no disrespect intended to Dr. Howard Winant, the man who was given the laudable title, but few who know or are familiar with Black politics would be hesistant to call anyone other than Dr. Ron Walters a leading "race scholar from the left".

Though Mr. Tilove lives up to the his journalistic responsibilities by gaining points of view from a wide spectrum of thought, he fails in his intial attempt. He is trying to ultimately define something that he apparently does not have the knowledge or experience to speak on. This has been a recent and recurring problem especially in the mainstream media. As Sen. Obama continues to travel down paths never before traveled it seems many mainstream media outlets have become interested in the Black lived and political experience. The fault is not in the exploration of such topics but rather the definition of these topics. The outlets seem to be dreadfully off base. From CNN and their Black in America series, to Matthew Bai questioning "Is Obama the End of Black Politics?" these media outlets seem to not recognize the enormity of what they are tackling.

The easiest response is because they are not going through the lived experience that makes up Black politics than, they miss the target in trying to define it. I believe though with all of their "resources" and the "committment to diversity" present in various mainstream media outlets that having intelligent qualified African Americans to explore Black politics should not be a problem. Perhaps more than that, the media outlets should reaffirm their positions of journalistic integrity and concentrate rather on the policy matters of the election. With a volatile economy, energy issues, foreign nations aggression, so many uninsured Americans, and the consistently rising cost of food there seem to be plenty of substantial policy issues for these media outlets to concentrate there intellectual resources on. It seems when the media is fascinated by a charming and charismatic Black candidate (Sen. Obama) they try to make up for the decades of neglect it has paid to the Black community, to horrendous results. Black politics do not need to be defined and contrary to many both Black and White, Barack Obama is not the epicenter of it (Black Politics). As long as there has Black Americans trying to make sense of the world around them on the local, statewide, and federal level, there have been and will continue to be Black Politics.