[Marxism] Sunday Driving - Black Agenda Report on Obama

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Dan DiMaggio quotes Black Agenda Report in the sense that supporting Obama
and his ilk is "objectively self-defeating" for the Black community.

I don't have much of a difference with the analytical part of what Di Maggio
quotes from Black Agenda Report, but I do have a difference with this and
similar political conclusions, at least as DiMaggio presents it. 

First, to the extent BAR could be read or interpreted to say that is makes
no difference whether of not there are Black faces in high places, I think
it is either a misinterpretation, or a polemical exaggeration. That is
simply NOT the experience of the community. That is why Blacks VOTE Black
any and every chance they get by HUGE majorities.

Second, the idea that the Black community will learn from preaching that an
Obama won't ACT Black as president, won't follow policies in the interests
of the Black community, despite the fact that he is Black is a voluntaristic
illusion. It is only by going THROUGH the actual experiences that *masses*
of people will come to the sorts of conclusions that the BAR editors have
already drawn. 

The BAR implicitly RECOGNIZES this reality by referring to "a huge reservoir
of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black thinking that refuses to evaluate Black
candidates' actual political stances, but instead revels in the prospect of
Black faces in high places."

The dismissal of white support for Obama BECAUSE he is Black as being
nothing more than "a widespread desire among whites to prove through the
safe and simple act of voting that they are not personally racist, and/or to
dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in society, once and for all," is
unjustified. Support for Obama BECAUSE he is Black on the part of these
layers is both a recognition of the reality of racism and an attempt to act
against it.

The key thing is this: Glen Ford of BAR argues that "Many, if not most,
Black folks yearn to see a Supreme HNIC [Head Negro In Charge] before they
die, and will not question how he got there or whom he really serves."

That is, I think, right on the money in judging the sentiment in the
community, from everything I can tell. What needs to be looked at is whether
the hostile stance of this BAR comrade towards that aspiration is
politically correct.

I believe the negative stance is wrong. As the Maoist and ex-Maoist comrades
might phrase it, this is NOT a "mass line." Or as those of us from the
Trotskyist tradition might put it, this is not a transitional approach.

At bottom, what drives the Obama-mania among the *masses*? Corporate money?
No, for Hillary, Richardson, McCain, and the others all have corporate
money, albeit in varying amounts. That he is "safe" for capitalism? No,
because is the broader scheme of things, ALL OF THEM are "safe" for
capitalism. What is driving it is that he is Black, and that by winning the
Iowa caucuses in a state that is 95% white, U.S. society as a whole came to
the conclusion that NOW it may be possible for a Black person to win the
presidency. I say U.S. society as a whole not in the sense that everyone
agrees, but in the sense that this is CLEARLY the position the ruling class
--and pretty much the ENTIRE ruling class-- has accepted.

What is the character of the Black Community's aspiration, its yearning for
a Black person to be president? It is simply one more expression of the
historic drive for political equality, representation and inclusion. As
such, it is an expression of a basic DEMOCRATIC demand -- that a Black
person has as much right to contest the presidency and actually move into
the White House, assuming the Black candidate was the most successful in
fooling the most people into voting for him or her.

The purely negative REJECTION of Obama fails to take into account THIS
aspect of the question -- that Obama right now has come to embody the
PROGRESSIVE demand for equality and the right to political participation and
representation. That he embodies much else besides that --and not trivially,
continuation of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist system-- is
obvious, and one more illustration that a purely DEMOCRATIC program in the
epoch of imperialism is insufficient to bring about the liberation of an
oppressed people like the Black Nation within the United States.

That said, what strategic approach should illuminate our tactics in this
situation? I think those of us from the Trotskyist tradition may want to go
back and re-read the section of the transitional program that I think is
applicable here.

Among oppressed nations, "Democratic slogans, transitional demands and the
problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into separate
historical epochs in this struggle, but stem directly from one another....
It is impossible merely to reject the democratic program; it is imperative
that in the struggle the masses outgrow it."

I think that central idea: that the democratic program cannot be simply
REJECTED, but that THE MASSES must "outgrow" it should occupy a central
place in how we think about these questions and the motion that has arisen
around Obama's candidacy. 

Joaquín