This is part of the bi-weekly

I’m excited to do The SuperSpade’s first author interview today. Cliff Schecter, a friend and former Brave New Films colleague, is the author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him, Why Independents Shouldn’t, which was released this past May. The book is an insightful look into the political psyche of the Republican Presidential candidate.

I asked Cliff to talk with me about John McCain’s record on issues of relevance to Black voters. With all of the talk in the news over the past couple of days about race in this election, his answers are interesting to say the least.

The Interview

The SuperSpade: In your view, what’s been the most instructive example of John McCain’s ideology to civil rights?

Cliff Schecter: First Garlin, thanks so much for providing these questions. And now onto business.

When it comes to Civil Rights, it’s an easy one. While he has hired a white supremacist to work on his campaign, employed the man who created the racist ads against Harold Ford Jr. in 2006 and voted against MLK day, the one that sticks out is the Confederate Flag. And here is why: McCain has even admitted himself that he threw African Americans under the bus for political reasons in South Carolina in 2000. McCain blatantly changed his position on the Confederate Flag when he thought it would help get him votes–to appear more racist.

In January 2000, McCain said that “The Confederate flag is offensive in many, many ways, as we all know. It’s a symbol of racism and slavery.” Yet, three days later, after talking to consultants and deciding that winning was more important than civil rights, he changed his tune to “personally, I see the flag as a symbol of heritage.” When the campaign was over, he admitted that if he had “answered honestly” he feared that he “could not win the South Carolina primary.” So winning is what mattered. Not as important an issue in this country as the ongoing inequality and racism that African Americans are forced to endure.

TS: What was McCain’s explanation for not supporting the MLK holiday? Why does McCain voting against the MLK Holiday matter?

CS: I’ll be damned if I know. He changes it all the time. Sometimes it is that he hadn’t been exposed to “this issue.” (I guess one needs to be beaten for trying to eat at a lunch counter to decide to enforce the Constitution). Other times it was about “state’s rights,’ that old song and dance that was used to justify slavery and Jim Crow.

One must remember that McCain not only opposed the federal holiday in 1983, but in 1987 supported Arizona Republican Governor Evan Mecham’s decision to use an executive order to rescind the state MLK day passed by Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt. In 1994, he supported stripping federal funds from the MLK Day Commission. So there is a pattern here.

TS: McCain often praises the judicial ideology of Justice Scalia, which is an implicit endorsement of Clarence Thomas as well. This speaks to his thoughts on how the Supreme Court should be made up and be operated, and it’s alarming for women and minorities.

CS: He has said that he would want to put justices on the court like Justice Alito. Which means say goodbye to federal enforcement of voting rights, civil rights and other equal rights measures that protect women and minorities. They’ll want it to all go back to the states, which we discussed above. Another Alito on the Court is a truly scary proposition, and McCain is all for it.

TS: Black folks and other minorities have been misled before by deliberate Republican Fundamentalist Christian appeals to them in the past, including in 2004. Since McCain doesn’t have the solid support of this constituency, how has he attempted to court Black voters in the past? How will he try to court the Black vote in this election?

CS: He has courted black voters in the past by doing what he does on women’s issues, environmental issues and many others, by sounding more moderate than he is. Much like President Bush, he’ll show up for a few photo ops, and then gut Head Start or oppose affirmative action (and mislabel it quotas–also like Bush).

The difference is that McCain may not show up to churches as much, but he’ll still go to schools, take pictures with African-American members of the military, etc., so show he “cares.” In the end, especially since he is facing Barack Obama, you can expect him to receive a historically low African American share of the vote.

TS: What are McCain’s past stances on US/UN Humanitarian efforts on the African continent? Darfur? Apartheid?

CS: McCain voted against any attempt to bring about an end to Apartheid at least 6 times by my count. In the mid-80s he voted against prohibiting U.S. exports to South Africa, against other sanctions measures directly against the South African state and additionally opposed efforts to punish corporations doing business there.

On Darfur he has written a number of op-eds with other senators, arguing for the U.S. to provide peacekeeping forces, logistical and financial support to efforts by the U.N. and for pushing the U.N. to act. But the truth is that what he has unleashed in Iraq has hindered any effort to improve the situation. We don’t have the troops or the money because of that, and we certainly lack support from the rest of the world.

China buys oil there, but I have yet to see McCain think about pulling back on our trade with China in an effort to exert pressure (or any other economic pressure for that matter–now I may have missed something, but I have not seen it).

I think, like on many other issues, on Darfur McCain will talk big, but when it comes time to act, he is nowhere to be found.

—

This is just part of Cliff’s exhaustive analysis of McCain and his record on just about everything. I’d encourage you to check out the book.

Race in the Race

I think that race is important in this race. I applauded Obama for confronting race head on a few months ago. I wished he would have done so earlier to preempt racist smears that have come against him.

I want people to be clear on who McCain is and what a McCain Presidency would look like for the country as a whole, and for Black people in this country specifically. Covertly, and in some cases, overtly prejudiced practices and policies are no good to anyone, and their existence is proof-positive of the myth of the post-racial society. This election has the opportunity to create chances to have even more candid dialogues on race than we’ve ever had. During those conversations, we will see that John McCain is definitely not the answer, and we will also find opportunities to make solid and observable progress towards achieving true equality.

One Love. One II.

Today we look again at the concept of individuality. James wrote a piece today called Am I destroying the black community? that is a response to something I wrote last November called How the myth of individualism is destroying the Black community. In it, he refutes many of my points, but I think at the core he misses some fundamental truths that are necessary for individual success and collective advancement.

2 I’s don’t make a We

James says (my emphasis added):

Charging those of us who fail to drink collectivist Kool-Aid with “destroying” anything is to miss many points, and the most obvious is that despite whatever struggles black people face, black people in America, in 2008, have it better off than we’ve ever had it and it’s not even close. There’s a very good chance that a black man could be elected President in November, yet we’re all supposed to open our history books to page 128 to study yet another of America’s broken promises to black people. As Barack Obama said in his race speech from Philadelphia, what’s amazing isn’t how badly blacks are doing, but how much we’ve accomplished, given the odds against us.

Life is undoubtedly different today than it was many years ago. Barack Obama becoming President is a net positive for this country as a whole. However, I firmly believe that outliers do not define trends. Making that statement is not an indictment on said outliers; it is instead a proclamation of the reality that having a Black Council[wo]man/Mayor/Senator/Governor/President in an of itself has limited impact on day-to-day life.

Let’s look at some data on Black male joblessness since Brown v. Board of Education. That’s just one measure, but it’s one of the more important ones because joblessness is often the first step towards other social issues. Tell me if this is better or worse:

• Employment rates among black male teens and young adults ages 16 to 19 have dropped considerably over the past 50 years, from 52% in ‘54 to 20% in ‘03. Worse.
• Among 20 to 24 year old black men, employment rates averaged just 57 percent during the past three years, compared with an average of 80 percent employment in the late 1960s. Worse.
• In 2002, a full quarter of African-American men ages 20 to 64 were not employed at any point during the year. The year-round joblessness rate for black adult males in 2002 was twice as high as that of white and Hispanic males. This trend has been steadily increasing since 1973. Worse.

What’s interesting is that over this same time period, we’ve seen a large wave of Black leadership is business, government, and pretty much everything else. There are individuals that are indeed breaking through. But a larger number of people being able to say “I made it” hasn’t translated very well to people being able to say “We mad it.” People being able to say “I made it” is nice, but they are using the “I” in “Individual” instead of the “I” in “Institutional”. Working towards the “Institutional” goal of collective advancement can make the phrase “I made it” actually matter to more people than you.

It is not selfish to [want to] achieve individual success, however you define it. It is short-sighted, however, to have that as the only end goal.

The Cost of Double Consciousness

James says:

Gilchrist’s argument brings to mind the very same reason individualists shy away from the black community: membership fees are often too high. When people hear that they need sacrifice their individualism to join the black community, they start thinking that maybe the community isn’t for them.

W.E.B. DuBois is credited with coining the phrase double consciousness, which in simple terms the duality inherent in the African American identity, that you were literally part African and part American. It talks about the gift and curse of having two parts of your identity, and how that manifests itself (or should manifest itself) in one’s thoughts, words, and deeds.

This concept is the basis of my thinking on individualism. My view of this double-consciousness is not only that I’m one part African and one part American, but that I am one part individual and one part member of the larger community. With this view of myself, I have equal responsibility and equal accountability to both myself and my community. It is not that one necessarily takes precedence, but what’s important to understand is that they both exist. If this notion was to inform our thinking of ourselves, our communities, our nations, our world, and our environment, we wouldn’t view helping others as payment of membership dues. We’d look at it as paying dues to ourselves.

The destroyer

I people do not think about or act in the best interest of the community or environment in which they exist, that neglect will become destructive to that community or environment. We have seen this with the environment virtually every day for the last 100+ years in the Western world. I don’t want a climate crisis to occur within the Black community due to similarly destructive neglect.

One Love. One II.

What’s up fam, this week James Dickson ripped into The New York Times (NYT) for their not publishing an article on the conflict in Iraq penned by Senator John McCain. For context, McCain’s piece was a defense of his supporting the conflict in Iraq and it was a response to an article written by Senator Barack Obama that was published the week before.

James said,

Rather than the nation ignoring McCain’s piece, as it almost certainly would have, the NYT has made it the first must-read political tract of 2008. Rather than bypass the piece when it would’ve run in the NYT, I instead read the piece — which, admittedly, was the typical “BUT THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE!!!1″ Republican attack line — on CNN.com, a site that, if it has lower circulation than NYT, isn’t by much.

I actually disagree that McCain’s piece is now a must-read political tract. This type of analogy is is akin to people buying NWA’s music solely because it was banned. And not for nothing, Obama is a really good writer and it is painfully obvious that he wrote his article while it appears that McCain’s article was written by the Communications staff and quite frankly, it read like it went through the campaign filter about ten times before they sent it to the NYT.

James himself admitted that McCain’s piece was lackluster which begs the question, why does the NYT editors have to publish bad journalism? Regardless, James went on to point out that decisions like the one made by NYT serve to highlight the growing prominence of the blogosphere and the decline of mainstream media. I think this claim is a bit overblown because the vast majority of political blogs react to articles in the mainstream media via commentary/analysis. (like we are doing right now)

The larger issue is that McCain is losing in the marketplace of ideas and by that I mean that his ability to paint an inspiring vision of a better America is similar to the article he submitted to the NYT; lackluster. And while the notion of fair and balanced news analysis is seductive, it is fleeting, which is why you can get more in-depth analysis by reading Black on Black Thought.

Stay up fam,

Brandon Q.

]]> http://thesuperspade.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/mccain-feels-disrespected-by-nyt-black-on-black-thought/feed/ 0 brandonq http://thesuperspade.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/stop-speculation-now/ http://thesuperspade.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/stop-speculation-now/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:39:23 +0000 Garlin Gilchrist II http://www.thesuperspade.com/?p=1553 ]]>

This is part of the bi-weekly Black on Black Thought feature.

Guess what? Gas is expensive. Expensive gas impacts almost everything in Americans’ day-to-day lives by making almost everything we do or consume more costly. One of the large contributors to the high cost of fuel is speculation, which in simple terms means to buy something you have no purpose for other than to make money off of its unstable price.

Well, the argument against excessive speculation, especially on commodities like oil, has brought together groups of citizens, organizations, and companies that often times are at odds with one another. The Stop Oil Speculation Now effort has caused many to join in a call for smarter, more responsible government regulation and an end to one of the major drivers if high gas prices.

How to stop speculation

The big ways to limit the impact of speculation is to regulate, eliminate loopholes, and increase transparency. This coalition, thankfully, is proposing just that . Specifically, the group is asking for 5 things:

1. Re-establish strict position limits on energy commodities
2. Close the London Loophole
3. Regulate “swap trades”, which are related to the “London Loophole”
4. Fully close the Enron Loophole
5. Bring transparency to all energy trading

Is this really the problem?

Speculation, when regulated, is not necessarily evil. However, like most things, when something grows beyond a natural, logical, or sensible balance, it becomes cancerous.

In simple terms, what’s happening is two basic yet sinister phenomena:

1. Oil companies are artificially driving up the price of their own product by betting on high prices in the futures market.
2. As a result of #1, we’re getting gouged at the pump [and everywhere else].

Take a look at this video describing “dark markets” that have sprung up, allowing U.S. companies and investment houses to artificially and amorally drive up the cost of commodities like oil. (The most ironic thing is, the ad you’ll see on that video will probably be an ExxonMobil ad. Gotta love capitalists).

As the video and its accompanying article state, this is going on beneath the nose of regulators and beneath the noses of Americans. Why businesses? Because, to put it bluntly, they can. Pit bulls without leashes bite babies.

These types of things can be stopped with sensible energy and economic policies that are sophisticated enough to close loopholes, yet simple enough to be consistent with core principles of fairness and protection against exploitation.

Fool me once?

This is not the first time that gross over-speculation has led to tragedy. Another example was Enron. Remember those rolling blackouts? Yeah, those were neither accidental nor natural. That was just one part of the fallout with regard to Enron, the worst of which was the financial devastation experienced by its employees.

We have to do something about this economic terrorism

There is a larger problem/challenge here, and it is one of national security, national defense, and national pride.

National Security

We have to think about this sort of purposeful, targeted, financially selfish, short-sighted, irresponsible and destructive behavior as what it is: economic terrorism. No, that is not hyperbole, it is calling a spade a spade.

Terrorism can defined as:

Those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

Unsuspecting Enron employees, innocent-yet-affected citizens, and American consumers are the non-combatants. The ideological goal is wealth at all cost: greed. The fear or terror is the feeling of apprehension we feel every time we think about our financial futures. The way to combat this type of terrorism is by intelligent, preventative regulation, just like the way to combat terrorism in general is intelligent, preventative diplomacy.

National Defense

One of the purposes of the government is to defend our nation and its people. Well, what better to defend against than terrorism?

Stealing from people their financial stability and confidence in the economy is a threat that must be defended against. People have more to be defended against than just bombs.

National Pride

A financially secure citizenry is a proud and enthusiastic citizenry. When businesses, especially American businesses, threaten this security, they are saying that the pride of the country is not a concern of theirs. Such anti-patriotic actions are shameful.

Can I trust this coalition?

When I first read the list of companies that are part of this coalition, I was at first apprehensive. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in the end, an end to rampant speculation is good for everyone, businesses and consumer.

The large issues that we face impact us all without prejudice. In order to face them, we have to come together for our common, human interests. This can be an example of just that.

One Love. One II.

James wrote an interesting response to the New Yorker cover called “The New Yorker and Archie Bunker”. The gist of his analysis is the following:

Wlady Plesczynski, longtime editorial director of The American Spectator, blogged that the cover was “too clever by half, taking some generally known unserious tropes and having a field day with them, as if at some level the magazine actually thought such a caricature had some basis in fact.” That is exactly right. If the cover were an attempt to pre-empt and ridicule conservative attacks on Obama, two things went terribly wrong in that thinking:

1. This will only embolden — it certainly won’t scare — conservatives. Now that a liberal publication has fired the first salvo, one far worse than any that Republicans have conjured up to date, it’s far more likely that we’ve entered Open Season than any chance of conservatives shying away from playing the race angle.
2. Most Americans are, in the words of a former colleague, “only negligibly literate.” While the inside-the-Beltway types will see the cartoon for what it is — a poorly done jab at the right-wing — I doubt that the people in “Flag City, USA,” many of whom actually do believe that Obama is, or was, a Muslim, will see the nuance. More likely they’ll just take it as proof that see, I knew that Obama he was some kind of Muslim; my friends were right all along — even The New Yorker said so.

I agree with James that this is satire done with the skill of dog writing poetry. However, we differ on the underlying reason why this article cartoon cover failed so miserably.

Political satire requires irony

James’ colleague’s quote that most Americans are “only negligibly literate” is, while harsh, tragically applicable to this situation. The few people that actually read the accompanying article would quickly realize that its content is wholly unrelated to the cover image. This would be effective satire if the article would have actually talked about the stereotypes that were shown on the cover, which have been both passively and actively perpetuated by conservatives and even the now defunct Clinton campaign, and shown how ridiculous they were. That did not happen. Because these things are not addressed, they are left to stand on their own, which make James’ #1 & #2 scenarios real possibilities. There is no irony here, only encouraged idiotic ignorance.

The framing of a candidate

The larger issue here is that is at hand here is the definition, framing, and ‘ownership’of Obama’s image. Obama has done something during this election cycle that while frustrating to myself and some other progressives is actually a political stroke of genius. He has set a broad boundary for the definition of his political self, and laid on canvas upon which people and groups can project their ideals & positions onto him.

The smart thing about this is that it allows for him to build an extraordinarily broad coalition of supporters. Even better, it allows him to do this without necessarily having to take a hard position on particular issues, leaving him the political flexibility and wiggle-room to govern as he needs to without having too many folks trying to cash in favors.

The risks with this strategy are also two-fold. For Obama himself, he has to very carefully and powerfully make sure that nay-sayers do not co-opt his image. I think Obama has been doing a decent jobon this, at least a much better job than John Kerry did. These means stern responses to things like this. The risk for Obama’s supporters [and to an extent the candidate as well] is that feelings of betrayal may fester (even if they are not really based on anything). We saw this with Obama’s vote in FISA and his responseto critics of that vote, and I suspect we’ll see it again on issues like Iraq and economic policy. That’s good for Obama, but could be problematic for his progressive supporters.

Satire has to actually be funny

This cartoon was good for neither Obama nor his supporters. Obama must not let attempts to take ownership of his image away from him by opponents happen without a strong response.

Actually, the cartoon itself wasn’t even good. Along with being ironic, satire must have comedic value. On scale of 1 to 10, this got a comedy factor of -50.

One Love. One II.

What’s up fam,

I am happy to kick off Black on Black Thought. This week, James wrote about CNN’s Black in America special (that will highlight life in Black America in all its complexity) and considers whether or not this series will over saturate America with “race talk” and its possible impact on the 2008 election. James basic conclusion is that we are reaching a saturation point in our “race-talk.” I think we are far from the point of saturation.

James’ article kicks off with a basic premise that America is not ready for a meaningful dialogue on race and to this end, I think he is right especially given the mistaken notion that we are living in a post-racial society and the willful ignorance of addressing the historical significance of Indian removal policy, slavery and Jim Crow (and others) as institutional wrongs whose impacts can be felt today

James goes on to question “whether America isn’t “done” with race for the moment, and whether re-engaging a dialogue on race won’t hurt race relations — but also the Obama candidacy — in the end.

I will address the aforementioned shortly but James supports his argument by stating that “By November we will have had the Wright/Pfleger controversy; Obama’s speech on race; questions about Obama’s patriotism; stories about white Americans who believe Obama represents a “change” too great; discussed Black Liberation theology; and will have “learned about what it’s like to be Black in America — and then be expected to vote for a black man in the poll booth.

If I could sum up James’ article it would be that America is getting tired of talking about race and this may have the impact of hurting race relations and damaging Obama’s chance of victory in November. However, if we are really honest with ourselves, it’s not that Americans are not tired of talking about race, they are just really annoyed and upset when it comes up.

To help illustrate my point, consider this, all of the major news outlets embark on a two-week campaign highlighting the need for Americans to give of their time and money to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. For clarification, imagine that this coverage is replete with graphic images and harrowing stories and intensity comparable to MSNBC’s coverage Tim Russert, whose passing moved me deeply and inspired me to cherish my family more. Now do you think Americans would a) Respectfully engage this campaign by watching/listening to this coverage and give of their time and money or b) Occasionally watch the coverage and before the end of the first week, start to think to themselves and become vocal in saying “OK, I get it. Katrina was bad but can we please change the subject now?” I suspect that the answer would be b) because people aren’t tired, they are really annoyed and upset.

For any remaining moral purists, tell me how long it takes for you to click away from television specials that highlight the need for giving aid to starving African children?

So if we are at a place where we can’t even mount sustainable campaigns where people have to give of their time and money for extremely worthy causes, how can we get people moved to do a far less taxing activity such as having a “race-talk.” As for Obama’s candidacy, I think his “race-talk” will be beneficial in comparison to the extent that the majority of Americans are not annoyed or angered. And in my opinion, if Americans are over saturated with anything, it is thinking that it is inherently unfair to correct this country’s original sin through public policy along with a severe lack of empathy for those less fortunate and/or different.

With Black on Black Thought, twice weekly we’ll explore various topics with James presenting a conservative perspective at his site and us presenting a progressive perspective here. To date Black conservative and Black progressive have never been juxtaposed in this way. Showcasing the diversity existent in Black political thought is not only a timely experiment in ideological exploration, but it is a necessary conversation that lays the foundation for Black political pride and Black political power.

We look forward to your participation in this journey with us.

One Love. One II.