Today is the federal holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader of the 1950’s and 1960’s. I don’t have a great deal to say on the subject. The family in which I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s believed and acted on the principle that the proper relationship between white folks and black folks was that white folks should treat black folks fairly and with respect. We hired black folks and treated them well. My mom taught black kids in the schools. IIRC one of the last cases my dad was working on when he died was a pro bono case defending a young black man who was accused of robbery and who my dad thought was getting a raw deal. In my family racism was one of the worst sins you could commit.
But we didn’t demonstrate, agitate, or march. My dad didn’t believe in government by demonstration and thought that civil disobedience was an abomination, weakening respect for the law which he saw as the linchpin of our entire system.
He was skeptical of devices like affirmative action, too, wondering how such things could be made compatible with a free society. Martin Luther King was no hero in our household.
The evils that Dr. King fought were issues of overt racism, racial segregation, and separate accommodations. Those things horrified and disgusted me when I saw them firsthand when we travelled in the Deep South.
The battles being fought by today’s civil rights leaders seem, from my vantage point, to be about affirmative action and reparations. I think a better choice would be the lousy constituent service that black people are receiving at the hands of the officials they elect to office but, then, what do I know?
I think there are a lot of Americans (possibly mostly white liberals) who long for a political leader who can speak authentically across the racial divide. The most recent hope for that seems to be one of my senators, Barack Obama. In my view Sen. Obama is a smart, articulate, attractive guy that we really don’t know much about yet. Is he more than an empty suit? I honestly don’t know. I can’t speak with any confidence about him, his beliefs, or what he can accomplish.
When I was in college I had lots of close friends who were Hawaiians (from a variety of different strata of Hawaiian society), so I think I can speak with some confidence on what conditions were like growing up in Hawaii in the 1950’s and 1960’s (or, at least how things looked to my friends). Hawaii was and is the most racially diverse state in the union. That having been said not a one of my Hawaiian friends whether working class, middle class, or upper middle class had met an African American until they came to the mainland. There was a complete absence of what I’ve heard the sociologist Charles Moskos call “Afro American society”, the distinctive social conditions that most native-born African Americans grow up in.
There’s almost no chance that Sen. Obama, with a Kenyan father and a Kansas-born white mother, living in Hawaii, grew up with the experiences that most African Americans take for granted. I think that, rather than jealousy (as some have suggested) is the reason that old-line black leaders in the United States aren’t quite as enthusiastic about him as the American media are:
HE is a media darling and an inspiration for many Democrats who dream of retaking the White House in 2008. But senator Barack Obama, the charismatic African-American who is shaking up the presidential primary race, has not impressed some of the US’s most powerful black activists.
Civil rights leaders who have dominated black politics for 20 years have not embraced the 45-year-old senator, now considering a bid to become the US’s first black president.
At a meeting of activists in New York last week, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the first black candidate to run for president, declined to endorse Obama.
“Our focus right now is not on who’s running, because there are a number of allies running,” Mr Jackson said.
Fiery New York preacher Al Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004, said he was considering another run in 2008.
When asked about Senator Obama’s likely candidacy, Mr Sharpton shrugged: “Right now we’re hearing a lot of media razzle-dazzle. I’m not hearing a lot of meat, or a lot of content. I think when the meat hits the fire, we’ll find out if it’s just fat …”
Harry Belafonte, the calypso singer who became an influential civil rights activist, said the US needed to be “careful” about Senator Obama: “We don’t know what he’s truly about.”
Senator Obama and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton must attract black voters. One Democratic strategist said of the old guard’s attitude towards Senator Obama: “They are basically jealous. They’ve been toiling in the trenches for decades and along comes this son of a Kenyan farmer and suddenly he’s measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.”
Amigo
My dad didn’t believe in government by demonstration and thought that civil disobedience was an abomination, weakening respect for the law which he saw as the linchpin of our entire system.
Was a foolish position.
Sometimes civil disobedience is mere idiocy, but it is always useful to have a few people, even Left whankers, rocking the cart. Helps avoid complacency and perhaps too much group think.
I always find it funny that people born from one white parent, one ‘non-white’ parent are simply assigned the racial identity of their non-white parent. I think it makes more sense to say that Obama would be the first ‘mixed-race’ president, but to simply label him ‘black’ is to ignore half of his racial identity.
A number of my friends growing up had mixed-race parents, and without fail people would never dare call them ‘white’–they were always black, Asian, or Hispanic.
Does this go back to the ‘one-drop’ rule? And if so, isn’t it a bit embarrassing that we still rely on that classification scheme? Just a thought.
Indeed, Bill, that’s the motivation for my post’s title.