Facing Reality: Racism, American Politics, and the False Mythology of Transcendence

All,

The following is a post that I wrote today to some friends and colleagues on an internet messageboard regarding the article I printed yesterday in this space ("Obama & Wright are Both Wrong: A Classic Case of 'Divide & Conquer' Politics") on the Obama/Wright debacle:


I agree with you all and the basic content of your excellent posts. Clearly Wright is hurting and can continue to hurt Obama if he chooses at this point and he has become a very selfish and irresponsible loose cannon in the process. That is obviously something that should not be happening and I said as much in my earlier post. I'm just as angry as the rest of you about that irrefutable fact because even though I'm sometimes justifiably critical of Obama's approach, I too fiercely support him 100% for the Presidency. Even with his own limitations Barack is by far the best and most honorable candidate running this year.

However my earlier post about the 'Divide & Conquer' dynamics of this entire affair goes back not so much to the mundane and obvious fact that Obama's political enemies and opponents were going to engage in such manipulative tactics because that is indeed the brand of ruthless and corrupt politics that both the Republican Party and the Clinton Machine 'excel' in. What I was and still am deeply chagrined and troubled about is the fact that Obama and Wright didn't have the foresight, concern, and maturity directly after the fabricated "controversy" first broke last month to simply sit down like the brothers and colleagues that they were and calmly hash out a mutually respectful and effective compromise on how they each would publicly respond to the crisis (remember that a real crisis is both a problem to be solved AND an opportunity to solve it-- as the Chinese say).

All Barack and Jeremiah had to do was sit down over a cup of coffee and "agree to disagree" about certain political statements that the Reverend was alleged to have made (again quoted out of context for the most part in the sound bite videos that appeared), and Barack could have simply said to Reverend Wright that he not only strongly disagreed with some of his remarks and would be compelled and duty bound to say so publicly but at the same time assure Wright that he wouldn't disparage and embarrass him personally or dismiss his historical record of service to the church and the larger black community in Chicago. In exchange for these assurances Obama could have then extracted an ironclad promise from Wright that he in turn would not go the national media and either repeat these same statements (the ones Obama openly disagreed with), nor would he say or imply things to the media that in any way suggested that Obama was being dishonest or opportunist in his critical political response to the airing of the sound bite tapes. As long as these mutual requests were made in a straightforward manner that was calm, sober, and mutually respectful of each other's humanity, public reputation, and record of service, the two men could as I said before agree to disagree about certain, specific aspects of their individual political needs, desires, and agendas. This would allow Obama to clearly and unambiguously distance himself politically from some of Wright's statements and political positions but would also make it possible for Obama and Wright to still maintain a reasonably cordial personal relationship.

In other words both men could have and should have come together as mature individuals and mapped out a mutually beneficial strategy (within unavoidable limits of course) that would save the face and reputations of both men whether others agreed or disagreed with one or both of them or not. The truth is that both men were clearly set up and baited in this affair both before and after this travesty and BOTH MEN TOOK THE BAIT. On the street as you well know the ugly vernacular phrase for taking the bait under such contrived and obviously manipulative circumstances is known as being CHUMPED or even more crudely PUNKED OUT. And that regrettably is what happened in this situation. That is not only the absurdity but the TRAGEDY of it all. BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAVE TO HAPPEN THE WAY IT DID.

Thus both men have to take full and complete responsibility for a media travesty that had Obama and Wright simply relaxed their individual egos, fears, ambitions, and anxieties over what they were being baited about they could have jointly resolved the issue by TRUSTING EACH OTHER enough to approach the mutual resolution of the manufactured crisis i in a way that would maintain the integrity and independence of both men while still addressing the problem at hand. Failing to deal with it in this manner (because fear, opportunism, ambition, selfishness, and resentment took precedence over respect, civil disagreement, and comradely support) only assured that Obama and Wright would BOTH lose in this situation. Of course they may not see it that way themselves at this point but I assure you in the long run that's exactly how their mutual abandonment of each other in this situation will play out.

PART II: AND THE UGLY BALL ROLLS ON...

A great, disturbing, and very accurate piece on racism and its real character in this country TODAY...Stay tuned...

Kofi


The Trouble With Transcending Race
Why the Double O's are standing on shaky ground.
TheRoot.com

May 1, 2008 -- They both have unique names and amazing life stories. They have legions of adoring fans who find them inspiring. They have sold millions of books and can fill stadiums like rock stars.

Few black Americans have occupied the rarified status of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, two "racially transcendent" blacks whom white admirers find appealing and admirable. But it seems the pedestals on which the "Double-O's" have been perched are very wobbly these days. Pennsylvania shined an ugly light on Obama's very real problem with white working-class voters. And, since she endorsed him, Oprah's approval ratings with her adoring white public have dipped, too.

Could it be that because of unpleasant and race-loaded issues like the "scary" and "angry" Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Oprah went to his church, too), flag pins and uppity comments about "bitter" white voters, that Oprah and Obama no longer seem so special or different from, you know, other black people? Are they starting to seem kind of ordinary black?

In the quest to continue the interracial honeymoon, Obama has always had higher hurdles to clear than Oprah. He is a black man, not a black woman. And his road show is not merely a feel-good gabfest on how to "live your best life." He wants to run the free world. And, in that context, for some, race becomes impossible to ignore. An exit poll conducted during the Pennsylvania primary last week found that 19 percent of all voters said that race played an important role in how they voted, and that 13 percent of those voters where white and voted for Clinton -- or depending on how one looks at it, against Obama..

But in a surprising instance of collateral damage, people's considerations about Obama seem to be hurting Oprah, too. A new national survey shows Oprah's favorability rating among television viewers has dropped noticeably since she endorsed Obama. A widely cited article in The Politico last week tracked several polls over the past 20 years showing Oprah with consistently high favorability rankings – At one time 78 percent of Americans held a favorable opinion of her and in one survey she ranked second only to Mother Theresa – until she endorsed and campaigned for Obama.

"Ten days after she went on the stump for Obama, Oprah's favorability ratings dropped to 55 percent, the lowest level of favorability ever registered for Oprah in opinion surveys," the article states. "Oprah's negatives also spiked, with one in three respondents (33 percent) reporting unfavorable impressions of her."


So what is happening?

If some white people are rethinking their feelings for Oprah and Obama, it's because those people's unrealistic expectations of the two have been betrayed. Oprah and Obama were idealized blacks. They were supposed to be above reproach, neutral on all matters of race, unencumbered by the tiresome legacy of American race relations, colorblind in their politics. They were not supposed to associate with people like Jeremiah Wright, let alone consider them friends.

They were supposed to reflect blackness in the way that made white people comfortable, a blackness that lacked any hint of anger, resentment, or dare we say it, "bitterness." They were also supposed to pretend their blackness didn't matter. Oprah could be the black girlfriend who white women felt good about themselves for having, Obama could be the black candidate they felt good for supporting.

Whites have long felt comfortable with black people entertaining them. Politics is not entertainment – at least not intentionally. Still, it's hard not to wonder if the massive white crowds that came out for Obama's speeches early on weren't also seeing him as some kind of eloquent performer, and now it's sinking in that Obama really isrunning for president and not for American Idol, and that he comes, like all Americans, with some racial baggage. Could this be why so many white people are now asking, more than a year after Obama launched his campaign, if they can really trust him and basing those doubts not on his political record but on the speeches of his minister?

If Oprah's troubles are, indeed, somehow linked to Obama -- and not merely to Ellen DeGeneres' hard-earned hot streak -- it's a sad statement on race in America. Oprah's not seeking keys to the White House. Can the country only stand one transcendent black person at a time? A sampling of recent blog posts suggests that something bigger than Ellen is at play:

"She spent her entire career promoting women, yet for the first time in history, a woman is running for prez, and she rejects Hillary for a man ," said another reader. "…Oprah is a fraud. I lost all respect for her."

"Oprah is a backstabber in more ways than one. So are the rest of the black people who turned their backs on Hillary…..."

"The support of white women made Oprah her billions. While she has every right to vote and campaign for whomever she wants, she stabbed all women in the back. She used her clout against the first viable white woman. Hope she sinks into oblivion. I will never forget."

Perhaps the last comment was the most telling. It reflects the patronizing attitude that white support should be appreciated and met with unquestioning loyalty and gratitude by blacks who receive it.

In this odd political season, nothing is certain. Obama, now emphatically distanced from Rev. Wright, may find a way to connect with those elusive, working-class white voters – and, more importantly, with superdelegates. Oprah for one, unlike Obama, has proven her staying power. She is a billionaire and will remain one even if some of her fair-weather fans stay mad.

But the undeniable truth is that black celebrities and politicians are held to ridiculous standards of acceptability. As long as white people are defining those standards, "transcendent" black leaders will continue to walk a racial tightrope, and everyone is destined to end up disappointed.

Majorie Valbrun is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist.

Also on The Root:

Andre C. Willis on the Double O's religion lite. Martin Luther King Jr. says why he loves Oprah in an imaginary Q&A with Michael Eric Dyson. Jimi Izrael on the Oprah Effect.

Return to The Root Homepage

URL: http://www.theroot.com/id/46238
© TheRoot.com

Why Obama & Wright Are Both Wrong: A Classic Case of 'Divide & Conquer Politics"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/us/politics/01obama.html?nl=pol&emc=pola1&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30dowd.html?em&ex=1209700800&en=bcf5d601b00f5a27&ei=5087

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign30apr30,0,1707691.story

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEbwr37RE9HI&refer=home

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/04/obama_disavows.html

"It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation's history, but prominent African Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden."

New York Times
Editorial
April 30, 2008


All,

The bottomline reality is this:

Both Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright have foolishly allowed themselves to be used and manipulated by their mutual enemies and opponents in this entire fabricated melodrama. It's a classic 'divide and conquer' moment in American politics that does a profound disservice to the politics, reputations, values, and legacies of both men and in the end merely aids and abets the larger reactionary forces of racial division and exploitation that this country's racist and opportunist politicians as well as media routinely use to mislead and manipulate the American people.

Neither Obama nor Wright has intelligently or responsibly dealt with the political implications or consequences of their actions in this entire ridiculous episode and neither one has been completely honest and forthright about their personal/political agendas and motivations. As a result they have both burned individual bridges with each other that never should have been burned in the first place (and that can only have negative consequences for both men in the long run), and neither man has fully communicated to the other exactly why each one of them felt (justifiably AND unjustifiably) hurt, misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned by the other. When this so-called contrived "controversy" first erupted in the media last month (planted no doubt by both the Republican Party and the Clinton Machine) Obama erroneously and rather naively assumed that Wright would simply 'understand' and 'accept' why Obama felt compelled to publicly portray Wright in his now famous 'A More Perfect Union' speech in Philadelphia March 18, 2008 as not only a man that he personally disagreed with on some political issues, but as a fundamentally irresponsible and divisive figure in general whose major views were inherently "wrong" and "destructive" to the country as a whole. While doing so Obama obviously felt that by adding that the distortions of the selected looped 30 second soundbites that the Republicans (and the Clintons) were using against Wright were a "caricature" of his pastor's overall views and his exemplary 40 year service to the African American community of Chicago he was sending a clear signal to Wright that he still loved and respected him. Thus the statement by Obama that he "could no more disown Wright than he could the black community" was perceived by Obama (as it was by many others) that while openly and severely criticizing some of his views he was not cutting himself off from Wright.

However in that same speech Obama also compared some of Wright's views to that of his white grandmother's tendency to express fear and loathing of young black men or use ugly racial slurs. This statement as well as the one made by Obama that Wright was basically wrong about the United States in many of his quoted statements no doubt infuriated Wright because he not only felt the exact opposite way to Obama about many of these same quotes, but more importantly Wright felt Obama was fundamentally disrespecting him and holding him and his overall views up to public contempt and ridicule. Thus Wright felt humiliated by some of Obama's comments and gfelt that his public reputation was being besmirshed. Wright also felt that Obama's speech was not helping him deal with the firestorm of media harassment, and persistent racist death threats on him as well as vile attacks on his character and his church by many white Americans in the wake of the airing of the soundbite videos.

As a result the month long public silence of Wright after Obama's speech on race was apparently taken by Obama and his campaign handlers as a sign that Wright was simply going to let the entire episode pass without comment. But that was not only an absurdly naive and rather dumb assumption on their part but a serious misreading of the political and ideological landscape of African American discourse vis-a-vis the Obama campaign for the Presidency. For Wright was correct to assume that he was now being made a convenient and easy media scapegoat for whatever political problems Obama had or were assumed to have with white voters. Meanwhile Wright's public reputation, historical achievements, and that of his church in Chicago was being assailed and derided in much of this country if not the world because of the constant, relentless focus of television, internet, and newspaper coverage on him, Obama, and their respective views.

Needless to say all this created a very disturbing and isolating experience and environment for Wright who was now being forced to respond by not only the dictates of his own personal pride and ego, protection of his public reputation, and sense of self but by the unrelenting pressures of endless media scrunity, as well as a dangerously reactionary lunatic fringe surveillance of him, his comments, and his personal actions. So it was inevitable that the pressure cooker would implode and Wright would decide to go on the offensive against both his real and imagined enemies. Unfortunately Obama became one of Wright's targets in his new public offensive precisely because Wright (not without some justification) obviously felt that Barack was 'dissing' him via some of his earlier and subsequent critical statements about Wright's views, and that Obama had not done enough to communicate to him DIRECTLY why he felt it was politically expedient to say his now 'former pastor' was a divisive figure to his campaign.

So it was not because of their different politics in some areas that Wright felt distressed and even used by Obama--after all they had always mutually disagreed with each other over certain specific political statements both had made in the past (and again presently)--but because Obama had not done enough in Wright's view to personally reassure Wright that he meant no harm to him by his remarks. Wright however was deeply offended and felt (like Obama did on tuesday) betrayed. This is what led Wright to openly state during both his interview on Bill Moyer's program last friday evening and again this past monday at the National Press Club that "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls." The glaringly obvious fact that Wright happens to be 100% correct about that (at least about 90% of the time) is of course passed over and dismissed by the general media and many others because Wright said it but in this particular instance Obama justifiably took offense to what Wright said by making the following statement in his response during tuesday's press conference: "At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough...What I think particularly angered me was his suggestion, somehow, that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing." However, Obama's disingenuous and rather insipid assertion at the press conference that he is now all of a sudden "shocked" and "appalled" by some of Wright's views and comments at this late date in their 20 year relationship strikes me and even many other supporters as the feeble stance of a scared, hack politician rapidly backtracking and parsing language in classicly sordid Clintonese style. This is not because I or many others think every single thing that Wright has said and done is politically mature, correct, progressive, or necessary--far from it--but because Wright has every right to express his views (many of which are not only not "controversial" but are patently true) completely independent and even critical of Obama's campaign and Obama also has every right--and responsibility--to express his own views and to calmly point out where he and Wright agree and disagree. But it is neither man's right or obligation to tell the other what those views should be or to try to sabotage the other in public which is what they both have essentially done--whether they intended to or not. All of this could have--and should have--been avoided by both men by approaching and dealing with this entire affair in a far more mature and mutually respectful manner. The hysteria around this inherently non-issue was created by others who clearly mean ill will to both men and Obama and Wright should have been savvy and sophisticated enough to see that they were both being used and xploited to take down the other to their mutual demise.

As a result what we now have at the end of this entire political 'dirty tricks' encounter (egged on and enabled by typically racist media) is a serious strategic and tactical undermining of Obama's campaign by both the Republican rightwing and the Clinton Machine which can only hurt Obama's chances in the long run race for the Presidency, and the serious dismissal of, and bitterness toward, Jeremiah Wright by not only many white Americans but many African Americans as well who not only see Obama's chances being negatively affected, but also Wright's once stellar reputation in Chicago's black community being openly criticized, attacked, and dishonored by what he has done and failed to do with respect to Obama's candidacy throughout the country.

As for Barack Obama himself this episode has for the first time exposed a serious weakness in Obama's campaign style and focus that needs to be honestly acknowledged and addressed--that the so-called 'racial divide' in this country--caused for the most part by institutional and systemic racism--is a major social, economic, cultural, ideological, and POLITICAL question and reality that no amount of "transcendent" rhetoric can or should obscure. The sooner Obama takes complete and unequivocal responsibility for clearly understanding and concretely dealing with that fundamental fact of American life in his campaign and his politics the better--Reverend Wright or no Reverend Wright.

Kofi


After Break With Ex-Pastor, Obama Tries to Move On
By JEFF ZELENY and ADAM NAGOURNEY
New York Times
April 30, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS — Senator Barack Obama sought on Wednesday to set aside the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and steer the conversation in the Democratic presidential campaign back to the economy.
One day after forcefully breaking with Mr. Wright, Mr. Obama returned to Indiana for a series of events intended to highlight his proposals for tax cuts for the middle class. With six days to go before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Mr. Obama is trying to retake control of his message, which had been overshadowed by incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright and by Mr. Obama’s response.
Still, campaign aides conceded that the subject of Mr. Wright’s views and his relationship with Mr. Obama were hardly going away. Mr. Obama sat on a picnic table Wednesday afternoon in Garfield Park in Indianapolis, surrounded by a few dozen voters, with the idea of answering questions about the economy. The first question was about high gas prices, but the second was from a voter who wanted to know “how much of a toll” the Wright controversy had taken on Mr. Obama.

“The situation with Reverend Wright was difficult, I won’t lie to you,” Mr. Obama said, speaking slowly and solemnly. He restated his denunciation of the incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright, calling them “unacceptable” and adding that it was “important for the American people to know who I am, what my values are.”
But Mr. Obama tried to turn the conversation back to the issues affecting voters’ lives, saying: “What we want to do now, though, is to make sure that this doesn’t continue to be a perpetual distraction.”

Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, were scheduled to be interviewed together on network and local television on Wednesday. Those appearances will be the first opportunities for Mrs. Obama, who also was close to Mr. Wright, to address what the pastor has said in a series of public appearances.

As the Obama campaign dispatched other high-profile surrogates to tamp down the potential political fallout from the controversy — Caroline Kennedy was scheduled to make appearances in Indiana, for example — both contenders in the race for the Democratic nomination continued to aggressively pursue superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who get automatic seats at the national convention.

Representative Baron Hill, Democrat of Indiana, announced his support for Mr. Obama Wednesday morning, and Representative Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, intends to do the same today, a spokesman said, while Bill George, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Pennsylvania, came out for his opponent, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Both candidates are campaigning in Indiana on Wednesday, with factory visits on each candidate’s itinerary.

Mr. Obama used a news conference in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Tuesday, before leaving for Indiana, to denounce the remarks that Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days, in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that had enveloped his candidacy at a critical juncture.

In tones sharply different from those he used on Monday, when Mr. Obama blamed the news media and his rivals for focusing on Mr. Wright, and far harsher than those he used in his speech on race in Philadelphia last month, Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the clergyman who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.

In the appearances, Mr. Wright suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism against other people, and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.

“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”

The Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, less than a week away, are being closely watched by party officials as a gauge of which candidate would be the stronger nominee. With Mrs. Clinton having shown particular strength among working-class white voters in recent big-state primaries, the racial overtones of Mr. Obama’s links with Mr. Wright have been especially troublesome for the Obama campaign, calling into question his ability to unify the party.

Asked how voters would react, Mr. Obama said on Tuesday: “We’ll find out.”
At a minimum, the spectacle of Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour and Mr. Obama’s rolling response grabbed the attention of the most important constituency in politics now: the uncommitted superdelegates — party officials and elected Democrats — who hold the balance of power in the nominating battle.

Eileen Macoll, a Democratic county chairman from Washington State who has not chosen a candidate, said she was stunned at the extent of national attention the episode has drawn, and she said she believed it would give superdelegates pause.

“I’m a little surprised at how much traction it is getting, and I do believe it is beginning to reflect negatively on Senator Obama’s campaign,” Ms. Macoll said. “I think he’s handling it very well, but I think it’s almost impossible to make people feel comfortable about this.”

The derisive remarks about the United States government made by Mr. Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have become a fixture of cable television. Mr. Obama said that he was “shocked and surprised” to read the transcripts and watch the broadcasts of Mr. Wright’s public appearances on Monday, and he felt compelled to respond more forcefully than he had before.

“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday. He added: “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”

Fielding questions from reporters, Mr. Obama appeared downcast and subdued as he tried to explain why he had decided to categorically denounce his minister of 20 years. It was at least the third time he had sought to deal with the issue, including his well-received speech on race last month in Philadelphia.

“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday.

Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate from California, said the difficulties Mr. Obama had experienced put a premium on results in the remaining contests.

“We’ve got nine elections to go through June 9,” Mr. Mulholland said in an interview. “I’ve never been involved in a successful presidential race where the candidate had no trouble in the primary. It’s challenging to him. He is a young man, and this is the first time he’s run for president. I see this as a learning experience.”

Asked how he thought Mr. Obama was doing, Mr. Mulholland paused before responding. “Getting better,” he finally said.

The appearances by Mr. Wright, which began Friday and concluded Monday, were anticipated by the Obama campaign, but aides said they were taken aback by the tenor of the remarks. Mr. Wright’s first interview, with Bill Moyers on PBS, offered few hints of what he intended when he arrived at the National Press Club on Monday.

“At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough,” Mr. Obama said at the Tuesday news conference. “That’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.”

Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.” Joining Mr. Wright’s church helped Mr. Obama, with his disparate racial and geographic background, embrace not only the African-American community but also Africa, his friends and family say.

Mr. Obama had barely known his Kenyan father; Mr. Wright made pilgrimages to Africa and incorporated its rituals into worship. Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school. Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.

As Mr. Wright’s more incendiary statements began circulating widely, Mr. Obama routinely condemned them but did not disassociate himself from Mr. Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama tried to explain his pastor through the bitter history of American race relations.

Five weeks later, the men seem finished with each another.
“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people.”

Jodi Kantor contributed reporting from New York.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


April 30, 2008
EDITORIAL
Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright

It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and he made it clear that the preacher does not represent him, his politics or his campaign.

Senator Obama has had to struggle to explain this relationship ever since a video surfaced of Mr. Wright damning the United States from his pulpit. Last month, Mr. Obama delivered a speech in which he said he disapproved of Mr. Wright’s racially charged comments but said that the pastor still played an important role in his spiritual life.

It was a distinction we were not sure would sit well with many voters. But what mattered more was the speech’s powerful commentary on the state of race relations in this country. We hoped it would open the door to a serious, healthy and much-needed discussion on race.

Mr. Wright has not let that happen. In the last few days, in a series of shocking appearances, he embraced the Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. He said the government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill blacks. He suggested that America was guilty of “terrorism” and so had brought the 9/11 attacks on itself.

This could not be handled by a speech about the complexities of modern life. It required a powerful, unambiguous denunciation — and Mr. Obama gave it. He said his former pastor’s “rants” were “appalling.” “They offend me,” he said. “They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”

He said he was angry that Mr. Wright suggested that he was insincere when he previously criticized the pastor’s views. “If Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well,” Mr. Obama said. “And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.”

In March, Mr. Obama tried to walk a fine line — seeking to dispel any sense of a political relationship with Mr. Wright, while trying to preserve a personal tie that was clearly important to his religious development. On Tuesday, he abandoned that.

“I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” he said, adding that if Mr. Wright speaks out again, he will not represent the Obama campaign.

It was the most forthright repudiation of an out-of-control supporter that we can remember. We would like to say that it will finally take the racial charge out of this campaign. We’re not that naïve.

It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden.

Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.

If Mr. Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, we fear that there will be many more such commercials. And Mr. Obama will have to repudiate Mr. Wright’s outbursts many more times.

This country needs a healthy and open discussion of race. Mr. Obama’s repudiation of Mr. Wright is part of that. His opponents also have a responsibility — to repudiate the race-baiting and make sure it stops.


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


OP-ED COLUMNIST

Praying and Preying
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 30, 2008
New York Times

Barack Obama has spent his life, and campaign, trying not to be the Angry Black Man.

Early on, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” he discerned the benefits of playing against the ’60s stereotype of black militancy.

“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he said. “One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”

Obama and his aides often brag about his Zenlike serenity. “I’ve learned that I have what I believe is the right temperament for the presidency, which is I don’t get too high when I’m high and I don’t get too low when I’m low,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

The next morning, he was hurtled into the worst political crisis of his life. On Tuesday, the Sort Of Angry Black Man appeared, reluctantly spurred into action by The Really Angry Black Man.

Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem, N.C., the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke. “When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it,” Obama said. “It contradicts everything I am about and who I am.” He said that the riffs of the man he prayed with before his announcement speech give “comfort to those who prey on hate.”

Obama, of course, will only ratchet up the skepticism of those who don’t understand why he stayed in the church for 20 years if his belief system is so diametrically opposed to Wright’s.

He’s back on the tricky path he faced as a child, navigating between two racial cultures. At Trinity, he may have ignored what he should have heard because he was trying to assimilate to black culture. Now, he may be outraged by what he belatedly heard because he’s trying to relate to the white lunch-pail set.

Having been deserted at age 2 by his father, Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church, the man who inspired him to become a Christian, married him, dedicated his house, baptized his children, gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign.

At the very moment when his fate hangs in the balance, when he is trying to persuade white working-class voters that he is not an exotic stranger with radical ties, the vainglorious Rev. Wright kicks him in the stomach. In a narcissistic explosion that would impress Bill Clinton, the preacher dragged Obama into the ’60s maelstrom that he had pledged to be an antidote to. In two days worth of solipsistic rants, the man of faith committed at least four of the seven deadly sins — wrath, envy, pride and greed (book and lecture fees?) — while grandiosely claiming he was defending the black church.

He was certainly sore at Obama, after helping him get connected in Chicago politics, for distancing himself. But he was also clearly envious that Obama has been hailed by his flock as the halo-wearing Redeemer of America’s hope.

If Obama was going to co-opt his role as charismatic evangelist, why couldn’t he morph into a spinning politician? Obama’s anger, an unused muscle, had to be stoked by his advisers, who pressed him with drooping poll numbers and the video of Wright at the National Press Club. He again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol, and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad.

But in the end, it was Wright showing “disrespect” by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate’s slow-burning temper. “What I think particularly angered me,” he said, “was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing.”

For some, Obama didn’t offer enough outrage. “He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he doesn’t like cheesecake or cream cheese,” said one Hillary Democrat. “He’s more passionate about basketball.”

The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns, but if he did, he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth: The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home, knocks off his father and assumes the throne.

Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment; it was a painful form of political patricide. “I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency,” Obama said.

In a campaign that’s all about who’s vetted, maybe he should have.

Independent Citizen Groups for Obama: A New Mass Movement for Democracy

All,

There are many independent citizen websites throughout the country who are vigorously supporting Senator Barack Obama for the Presidency of the United States. The great majority of these sites are not officially sponsored by or directly affiliated with the Obama campaign itself, yet have done a tremendous job of politically educating and mobilizing millions of both actual and potential voters to exercise their constitutionally protected democratic franchise and to hopefully cast their ballots in both the primaries and the upcoming national election for Obama. These highly creative, hardworking, and passionate advocates and eloquent defenders of community based grassroots democracy in action are some of the most committed and sophisticated political organizers in this country since the advent of the legendary 'New Left' activists in the 1960s and 1970s which ushered in such important mass participatory oriented groups and organizations as SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), MOBE (National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam}, Public Citizen (popularly known as [Ralph] "Nader's Raiders"), BSU (Black Student Unions), The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the Black Panther Party.

These organizations and many more during that volatile and dynamic era were all seriously engaged in fighting for political, economic, and cultural democracy at the grassroots level of community participation and became a historical template for many people of how to organize for both mass-based radical and reformist political objectives and social/economic policy changes in this society.

Two of the most impressive independent grassroots groups organizing around the Obama candidacy are Black Women for Obama (BWFO) and Asian Americans for Obama (AAFO). The following articles from their respective websites (see links and articles below) indicate why they are so important and representative of an extraordinary new wave of mass based political and social activism generated by American citizens in response to the democratic potential of the Obama campaign. What these sites and many others involved in this national mass movement reminds us is that there will not and cannot be any real, genuine democracy without the masses of citizens engaged at every single level of the political process and that ultimately the Obama campaign is not about him as "public personality" or based on his "success" as an individual candidate or politician but on what we are all able to do as citizens to actually fundamentally change the very form and content of the American and global political economy "on the ground" from one of rank corporate exploitation, social oppression, and structural inequality to a system that advocates, defends, and organizes for the progressive advancement of mass democratic principles, programs, values, and institutions.

Kofi


http://www.asianamericansforobama.com/home/2008/04/after-pennsylva.html

http://blackwomenforobama.wordpress.com/2008/04/


Asian Americans for Obama

Asian Americans for Obama is a grassroots organization founded to help organize the Asian American community to elect Senator Barack Obama the next President of the United States


April 24, 2008
After Pennsylvania: What Really Matters?

Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania and now all the pundits ponder the meaning of 10 points--the new numerology for the new millennium. Some try to read the minds of the "bitter" white working class. Some conclude that there is a winning magic in the dark arts of negative campaigning. Some dismiss Clinton’s victory as an illusion and others praise her miraculous comeback onto the stage. Frankly, after spending last week away from the elections and marching 28 miles with thousands of different workers in Los Angeles, I find this whole show to be really ridiculous. It is too easy to be caught up in this superbowl of elections and its recent devolution to “kitchen-throwing” game play and forget what this race is really about. For some of us, this election is not about whose more electable but something deeper.

Last week, janitors, hospital employees, teachers, homecare workers, iron workers, machinists, dock workers, actors and actresses, probationary officers, security guards and many others trekked by foot over 28 miles through Los Angeles over 3-days from “Hollywood to the Docks” to fight for good jobs. Over 350,000 workers in Los Angeles have union contracts expiring this year. The march ended with thousands of workers rallying around the ports. I walked with them under the sun across the expanse of the Los Angeles region. Along the way, different people shared their stories with each other. Joe, an Asian American actor, commiserated with David, a Latino iron worker over the tenuous nature of their jobs. Joe and his pregnant wife had to turn to Medicare for healthcare benefits despite the fact that he possesses a Masters degree and has appeared in a number of plays and films. The web world of downloadable films has left him and many actors and film crews behind with no right to residuals. David, an ironworker, found himself without a job as the economy entered recession with few opportunities for those who build with their hands. They walked in step with Theodore, a Korean probationary officer, who wants to continue helping the next generation and remembers a young man, a former juvenile on probation, who approached him: “ He came up to me..to thank me for what I did for him. I was happy to see him on a path to success.” They and many other workers took turns pushing my 7-year old daughter Mina in a stroller who begged to join the march because she wanted to be around a large group of people who deeply cared for her. Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor knelt down next to her and told her that we all really love her.

We all knew that the march would not automatically lead to better working conditions but we all appreciated the new community nurtured across age, race, gender, and jobs. We all understood the power of creating new community and regular people taking control of their lives. This was the first time in LA history that all these different workers and unions joined together for something that was not strike support or election mobilization. We knew we would be there for each other and the future. We knew we were making history by crossing the lines that have long divided us.

Like the emerging camaraderie of the historic 28-mile march in Los Angeles, I saw a similar synergy in the coalescing of new voters around the Obama campaign. For some of us, this presidential primary is not about who can beat McCain by any means necessary but how we can rebuild our sense of community as a nation again.

By the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, it cannot be doubted that Hillary Clinton positioned herself as the candidate who knows how to work the status quo but not change it. She cast herself as “Republican-Lite” by arguing that only big states count, justifying negative and divisive attacks as a necessary evil to vet the best candidate to take on McCain and exploiting the fears of people. In a sense, she has become a faint shadow of McCain. She has made herself to be, to quote community leader Eric Mann’s words, the “anti-hope candidate.” To applaud her victory in Pennsylvania, we not only overlook Obama’s success at shrinking her 20-point lead in a state we expected Clinton to win but we are saying that we accept “the way things are” and the same way we have been doing politics for the last several decades—the same approach that has alienated young people, new voters and the wider electorate who have usually sat out of the elections. The last time we had large numbers of young people, African Americans and independents coming out in large numbers our country witnessed an emerging Civil Rights Movement and dramatic changes in our national consciousness.

This primary election is not just about Clinton versus Obama but how do we want to do politics. Like the actor, ironworker, probationary officer and many other workers who walked through Los Angeles, we want to create the community that will support my daughter and future generations. We need someone who is willing to help us challenge ourselves to walk one step further and risk saying “ we will not accept the way we have always done things.”

Posted by John Delloro at 12:39 AM | Permalink

Hope Changes Everything!
April 4, 2008
By Patricia Wilson-Smith

Hope really does change everything, doesn’t it?

If you’re like me, you remember the early days of the Obama campaign, when hope was all we had. We were Obama supporters before being Obama supporters was cool, back when it was one thing to know that we saw in him a quality that was unmistakably presidential -and quite another thing to think that one day he would be on the brink of actually becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee.

But we had hope. Hope that the nation would one day see what we saw, hope that neither his race, nor his age, or any other superficial deterrent would get in the way of the Senator’s rise. Hope that the greatest political machine in our nation’s history could somehow be neutralized in order to fulfill our dream of an Obama presidency. Hope.

But the hope went far, far beyond just the Senator’s electibility. As we, the soldiers of the early days made our way from house to house in the hot South Carolina sun, or stood in line waiting to see Senator Obama speak long before stadiums were necessary to contain the crowds, we also hoped for a new unity, one born of the need to move our nation in a different direction; away from failed Bush policies for sure, but also, away from a divisiveness that our partisan politics and class-warfare had only made far worse.

And so we met up with other Obama soldiers, and we planned, and we worked. Black women stood shoulder-to-shoulder with young white men and painted signs; elderly black men rode vans with Asian college students, and traded stories, sang songs. And slowly but surely, we realized (as Senator Obama put it), that we were in fact not nearly as divided as our politics would suggest.

It’s been an amazing ride, and it’s not over yet. Black Women for Obama has made a small mark on the political landscape, by proclaiming early and often that there was no moratorium on our vote, and that we believed even before the rock-star receptions on college campuses that Barack Obama was and is destined to become the next President of the United States. Not because he is a rock star, but because he’s rocked our collective political worlds, by teaching us how to look to the future as a truly united nation, and how to begin the work of leaving the past that still haunts us where it belongs - as a reminder of where we’ve been, but no deterrent to what we can become.

I have fallen madly in love with Senator Obama - sorry Michelle, it had to be said. He has renewed my faith in politicians, men, basketball players, and religion. He has reminded me that it was in the black church that those who came before me found the strength to fight for the liberties I now enjoy, and made me realize that it’s okay to “do me”, and not cling to the crutch of past racial injustices as I make my way in the world. But most importantly, he has taught me that I actually do have a voice, that can grow as loud as I dare dream for it to. He has deepened my appreciation for democracy, and reaffirmed my belief in what’s possible in this nation that I love so much. He deserves my undying love for that reason alone.

And so, let’s face it - this journey nears it’s end, and through the light at the end of the tunnel, I can see a huge, red, white, and blue sign that reads, “Barack Hussein Obama, the 45th President of these United States”. And each day that the Senator’s opponent fudges the truth, fakes the numbers, and continues to play transparent political games, my view of that sign grows a little clearer. And so hope, in practice with works and faith, becomes a vehicle for change, real honest to goodness change. And all I can ask myself as I sit here happily typing away is, “When the inauguration is over, and it’s time to get down to brass tacks, what will this nation dare to hope for next?”

Patricia Wilson-Smith for Delegate, Georgia’s 7th Congressional District
April 19, 2008 in Commentary, Did You Know?, Politics, The Campaign

Dear Fellow Obama Supporters!

This evening, I received something that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

This evening, I received an email that contained a letter of endorsement from Senator Obama himself for my candidacy for Delegate from Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. This is an honor that is beyond description, and it proves that Senator Obama and his campaign are steadfast in their belief in the power of the engaged individual.

Tomorrow, April 19th at 10am sharp, voters from all over Georgia’s 7th Congressional District will be casting their votes for the delegates that will represent not only them, but Senator Obama in August in Denver. I’m writing to ask you to come out and vote for me, Patricia Wilson-Smith, delegate from G7.

Why? Because things will get tough in Denver, and we all know why. Senator Obama will need only his strongest supporters on the ground, and I have worked tirelessly over the last year and a half to build Black Women for Obama, a professional grass-roots organization with 20+ chapters around the nation. I have traveled to Texas, South Carolina, and canvassed and worked hard in Georgia to help the Senator win crucial primaries. I have devoted a major amount of time on my talk show, “Talk It Out” spreading the word about Senator Obama and openly debating his detractors, and most of all, I have written a myriad of op-eds discussing my views on issues from the campaign as they have arisen, many of which have been featured in the AJC, The New York Times, and The London Daily Telegraph.

But most of all, I’d like you to support me, because if you do, you can rest assured that I will fight to the political death on the convention floor to ensure that Senator Obama becomes the Democratic nominee - believe that.

The caucus will be held at the Destiny Ballroom, 150 Athens Hwy, Loganville, at 10am. Doors open at 9am. Please bring your drivers license and voter ID card, and bring as many other registered voters from your area as possible. I am also asking that you support two other strong Obama Supporters - Steffini Bethea, and Steve Deak.

Thank you for your time and consideration - Senator Obama WILL be the next President of the United States, and with your help, we can get him one major step closer tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Patricia Wilson-Smith, Delegate Candidate
Georgia’s 7th Congressional District

VISIBLE MAN, INVISIBLE HISTORY

All,

GREAT PIECE! So much so that I was inspired as yet another Guy Who’s Where He Is Only Because He’s Black to respond in kind...Thank you Colson...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/opinion/24whitehead.html?em&ex=1209268800&en=ffd6b0f6a393d294&ei=5087

Yeah I hear ya Colson--we "black guys" always have it so damn easy don't we? If it wasn't for whitefolks (and even some Latinos and Asians as well) reminding us sullenly arrogant 'dark & privileged ones' 24/7/365 that "we black guys" ought to feel grateful that they don't simply get rid of us for good --especially after all that money that was spent on us and "those black girls" during slavery for clothes, food, and supplies--we wouldn't have any direction at all! And just think of all the money they've spent over the past four centuries watching us sing, dance, play music, joke, rap, play sports, and get drafted for armed service in foreign wars. After all, "we black guys" should be enormously grateful and feel especially lucky that they even released us from bondage and finally allowed us to learn to read and write after slavery without being beaten and killed for it as we had been for two and half centuries before the whitefolks were magnanimous enough to (as they said before) "finally free us" and then subsequently allow us to work 12-18 hours a day for them as very cheap labor before we got the uppity damn nerve to decide we also wanted to do many other things as well like practice medicine and law, teach, write, become scientists, businessmen, astronauts, engineers, architects, economists, bankers, radical activists, film directors, stock brokers, journalists, corporate executives, and pilots. Not to mention run for political office. Yeah brother we really screwed everything up bigtime, didn't we? I mean how much entertainment value can whitefolks glean from watching us successfully compete with them as well as eloquently critique, investigate, and analyze them? Or even (gasp!) IGNORE them? I ask you brother: Where's the excitement and sense of fun in that?

Yeah brother Colson--our insisting on "we black guys" being complex, multidimensional human beings is really a bit much isn't it? After all they did try to make us 3/5 of a person in the Constitution but were we thankful? NO! Such horrible ingrates! Always complaining. Always demanding. Always insisting on being any damn thing we wanted to be and requiring clearly superior beings like themselves to fully acknowledge and respect our humanity at all times. Imagine! What GALL! Cocky, pushy race card playing muthafuckas--WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?

Why it's enough to make ME want to take pity on the poor, hapless white guys and gals who have not been allowed to get where they would or should be automatically if only "we black guys" were not being given every damn thing under the sun because we are The Guys Who Are Only Where We Are Because We're Black.

Your Fellow Black Male Partner-in-Crime,

Kofi


OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
New York Times

Visible Man
By COLSON WHITEHEAD
April 24, 2008


I TRY to keep a low profile. Maybe you see me in the hallway but don’t know my name. Say hi to me in the coffee room but don’t really know me. I break my silence now because of this election mess. Before the primary in Pennsylvania this week, Bill Clinton was doing magic tricks — now you see the race card, now you don’t. Geraldine Ferraro and Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, have been complaining that Barack Obama is leading in the Democratic presidential campaign only because of his skin color. Multimillionaire TV pundits are lecturing “the common man” on how outraged they should be about Mr. Obama’s elitism.

It’s all hokum, and I should know. For it is I, The Guy Who’s Where He Is Only Because He’s Black.

Most folks don’t know much about me, apart from the feeling of injustice that hits when I walk into the room with my easy charisma and air of entitlement. I understand. It’s weird when your government passes legislation, like equal opportunity laws, that benefits one single person in the country — me, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black.

People think I have it easy, but it’s surprisingly difficult being The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black, what with the whole having to be everywhere in the country at once thing. One second I’m nodding enthusiastically in a sales conference in Boise, Idaho, and the next I’m separating conjoined triplets at the Institute For Terribly Complicated Surgery in Buchanan, N.Y., and then I have to rush out to Muncie, Ind., to put my little “Inspector 12” tag in a bag of Fruit of the Loom.

It’s exhausting, all that travel. Decent, hard-working folks out there have their religion and their xenophobia to cling to. All I have is a fistful of upgrades to first class and free headphones. Headphones That Should Have Gone to a More Deserving Passenger.

Guns? I wish I had a gun! Ever run out of truffle oil before a dinner party and have to go to Whole Foods on a weekend? It’ll make you want to spread a little buckshot around, that’s for sure.

Look, we’re all hurting, trying to make ends meet. I have serious overhead with all the résumés I send out. The postage is one thing, but I also like to print my résumé on a nice creamy bond. I think it sends a message. Then there’s the dry cleaning and the soap — I prefer to be clean and articulate in my interviews, put my best foot forward. I think it’s working. People are responding to how I present myself.

I know some folks feel bitter about me, as bitter as the first dandelion greens of the season. Yet these people are not without hope, hope that is drizzled on those dandelion greens like a dash of sweet pomegranate vinegar. Do they begrudge the scorpion its sting, or the duck its quack? How can I be other than what I am, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black?

Frankly it’s a lot better than my last two gigs, The Guy Who Left the Seat Up and The Guy Who Took the Last Beer, although I do suffer from a lot of work-related injuries, as you can imagine. For all this jibber-jabber about how I don’t understand a working man’s problems, you should take a look at my medical chart. I have carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, miner’s lung, scapegoat rash and vintner’s dropsy, and just last week I burned my thumb making horseshoes. The funny thing is, I didn’t want to be a blacksmith. But I heard they had an opening and I couldn’t help myself.

I put in a good day’s work, unwind with a little Marx, and then settle down for some well-deserved rest. I have a nice bed. It is a California king. It is stuffed with gold doubloons, the treasure I have accumulated by gathering the bonuses and raises that would have gone to Those Who Would’ve Gotten It Except for That Black Guy. The bed is quite comfortable. I sleep O.K.

It makes the head spin, this talk of who’s elitist and who’s not. I’m confused, myself. For years, they said you can’t have this because you’re black, and then when you get something the same people say you got that only because you’re black. I mean, here I am, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black, and yet the higher up you go in an organization, the less you see of me.

It’s as if Someone Out to Prevent Me From Getting What I Worked For is preventing me from getting what I worked for. If only there were something — a lapel pin or other sartorial accessory — that would reassure people that I can do the job.

Some people say Barack Obama and I get everything handed to us on a silver platter. But we don’t let it bother us. We’re taking those silver platters and making them our canoes. Then we’ll grab our silver spoons and paddle to a place where people get us. North Carolina, maybe. Or Indiana. I hear Oregon is nice this time of year. We’ll paddle on, brother, paddle all the way to the top.


Colson Whitehead, a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, is the author of the forthcoming novel “Sag Harbor" and is also the author of two previous award-winning novels "John Henry Days" and "The Intuitionist"

Why racism among White ethnics (and Latino Americans) is undermining Obama's campaign: A Honest View

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=18152709

All,

The obvious and ominous signs are everywhere that as Dionne and so many other political analysts have pointed out Obama is being systematically sabotaged by white ethnic (and Latino American) racism both within the Democratic Party and in the larger general society. Astonishingly, commentators keep asking in infantile and very disingenuous terms: "What's behind the national Catholic vote against Obama" and "Why are they voting against Obama 8 and 9-1 across the board throughout the country?" and "Why can't Obama 'connect' with white people over the age of 50 in working and lower middle class communities" and "Why are so many Latino voters--again by huge margins of 8 and 9-1 voting against Obama?" Meanwhile the criminal Clinton Machine keeps brazenly and viciously exploiting these "differences" in every possible way their Machiavellian Karl Rove-like minds can think of...

DUH! Who do these so-called pundits and "analysts" think they're kidding with this bullshit? 99% of the "catholic vote" in this country is made up of four major ethnic groups only: Irish and Italian Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Rican Americans. These four white and Latino American ethnic groups generally despise the African American community and have as individual voting blocs consistently voted against African American candidates in the great majority of local, state, and national elections for over 50 years in the case of Irish and Italian American voters, and the last 30 years among Mexican and Puerto Rican Americans. These statistical facts are very well documented and have been written about extensively by academics and political scientists and social policy wonks since the 1960s.

It is precisely this ethnic racism against blacks (joined and augmented of course by the even more traditional and virulent historical racism of working class, and middle and upper middle class WASPS) that have been and continue to be the major obstacle to building and sustaining any kind of viable, national progressive coalition of leftists and liberals within the Democratic Party and in independent 'third party' movements--radical or reformist. This persistent problem has in fact ultimately sabotaged or destroyed every serious attempt of African Americans to join in and organize principled radical and/or liberal reform political and economic coalitions since Reconstruction (i.e. 1870-present). It happened with the populist movements of the 1880s and 1890s, it happened with the rise of national trade and industrial unions during the Great Depression period of the 1930s and 1940s and yes, it happened in the 1960s and 1970s during the Civil Rights and Black Power eras. Of course there were some exemplary exceptions to this generally ironclad rule among a small, relatively marginal number of groups and organizations led by the Communist Party USA and various small Socialist parties and New Leftist groups (especially from 1920-1970) but for the most part white ethnic and WASP racism (now coupled with the relatively recent historical expressions of antiblack racism by Mexican Americans on the West Coast and in the southwest as well as many Puerto Rican Americans on the east coast) have completely subverted, sabotaged, and destroyed any chances for a viable progressive coalition to emerge and sustain itself as a serious force either within the Democratic Party or in independent 'third party' contexts.

Thus the political catastrophes that have consistently beset the Democratic Party and all other leftist and liberal organizations over the past 60 years continues apace against Obama. From the "Dixiecrats" (southern Democrats who were virulently against and fought the Civil Rights Movement tooth and nail) to Nixon advisor Ken Phillips's insidious "Southern Strategy" in the 1970s to the so-called "Reagan Democrats" since 1980 (mostly former southern--and some midwestern and eastcoast--Democrats who simply decided to formally change political parties since they already hated blacks and women and loved white male power and conservatism so much) to the Clinton Machine DLC Democrats (who use raciist opportunism and thinly veiled white 'gliberal' southern-style demagoguery to manipulate, control, and exploit racism against blacks within the Democratic Party while at the same time using the black vote to their exclusive advantage) white ethnic and Latino American racism (along with the ever present WASP elites) have worked against African American voting interests and candidates especially on the state and national levels. As a direct result there have been only two (2) black governors in this country since slavery officially ended in 1863 (for a devastating historical constrast consider that there were two others elected from 1870-1880!), and a mere two (2) black Supreme Court Justices. Under these criminally racist circumstances one can see why the very idea of an African American president was not only taboo but considered impossible (and for the even more dismal and revealing historical record there have also never been any American president who was either female, Jewish, or of Italian, Latino, or Asian descent; in fact of the last 19 U.S. presidents since 1897 16 of them have been WASPS and only three (3) were Irish Americans. Of those Irish Americans TWO were assassinated (McKinley and Kennedy) and there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the third--Ronald Reagan--in March, 1981.

So this is the actual oppressive society that we all (and Barack Obama) "live" in. And no amount of rhetorical evasion or intellectual pretension to the contrary can possibly conceal or obscure what it all means. The task for us, as always, is immense and made even more severely difficult because the pervasive poisonous and deadly doctrinal disease of American racism and white supremacy still rules our politics, our culture, our economic system, our world, and our lives...

Kofi

P.S. Check out these other links for other important articles about racism and national anti-Obama movements as well:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/23/obama-strategist-dont-wor_n_98301.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLBlgR8dCIRw&refer=home

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_9036927

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/is-obama-mcgove.html

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obamas_white_workingclass_prob.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/politics/23penn.html?em&ex=1209096000&en=f230aa92364c80ac&ei=5087


E.J. Dionne: Resistance to Obama seems driven by race and religion

By E.J. Dionne
April 24, 2008

WASHINGTON - Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats' battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.

Hillary Clinton's significant victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary was the result of many factors, but most troubling for Obama's camp were exit polls suggesting that an underlying anti-Obama vote was responsible for the size of Clinton's victory.

One little-noticed finding was that 6 percent of Clinton's own voters said that they would defect to John McCain in the fall against Clinton herself. These Pennsylvania Democrats were clearly not Clinton enthusiasts. They were voting against Obama.

What was behind the anti-Obama feeling? More specifically, did Obama's race play a role? The evidence suggests that race mattered; it's just not clear how much.

Among white Pennsylvania voters, roughly one in six said race was a factor, and three-quarters of them voted for Clinton. By contrast, Clinton's gender seemed to help her more than hurt her: A substantial majority of men who said a candidate's gender was a factor (a very small group) voted for Clinton.

The import of race was widely debated in e-mail discussion groups and on websites from the moment the exit polls became available. There is certainly a danger of exaggerating the impact of race in Pennsylvania, since Clinton also beat Obama by about 3-2 among whites who said race played no role in their decision.

Nonetheless, elections are usually decided at the margins, and these findings will (and should) prompt a more open and candid discussion of race's role this year.

Republicans clearly know that they can find ways to play on racial feeling while fully denying they are doing so. On Wednesday, the North Carolina Republican Party released a television ad showing Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, giving his now-famous sermon in which he declared, "God damn America."

Of course Wright's comments were offensive, but to pretend that the ad does not have racial undertones would be to deny the obvious. After all, why didn't North Carolina Republicans focus instead on attacking Obama's alleged "elitism" or his foreign-policy views?

And a pattern was set that may define the rest of the campaign: Will John McCain be able to profit from incendiary ads run by his partisan allies even as he insists he would never run such ads himself?

The religious factor, and specifically the Catholic factor, is equally complicated. But it is no less important. Among white Catholics in Pennsylvania, Clinton received 72 percent of the vote, 9 points better than her share among whites as a whole and 13 points better than her performance among white Protestants.

Some of the differences can be explained by the fact that self-identified Pennsylvania Catholics were older than other voters -- and older white voters have been at the core of Clinton's base. Among voters under 45, by contrast, the differences between white Catholics and white Protestants were negligible.

Nonetheless, older white Catholics were decidedly more resistant to Obama than other older whites. Even as Pennsylvania's votes were being counted, a top Clinton campaign official was touting the extensive work Clinton had done to woo Catholics.

He spoke of campaigning by nuns around the state, a special "Catholic conversation" hosted by some of Clinton's prominent Catholic supporters just before CNN's "Compassion Forum," and even of the fact that Chelsea Clinton had attended mass at St. Christopher's parish in northeast Philadelphia with Catholic supporters.

The Obama campaign was slower in organizing Catholics, but earlier this month announced the formation of a Catholic "advisory council" whose ranks include Sharon Daly, a former top official at Catholic Charities USA, and Mary Jo Bane, who served in the Department of Health and Human Services in Bill Clinton's administration. Since Catholics have a history of backing the ultimately victorious presidential candidate, the struggle over Catholic voters will be closely tied to arguments with superdelegates over whether Clinton or Obama is the more electable Democrat.

But the debate over what happened in Pennsylvania is, finally, an argument over whether 2008 really is the year when the patterns of the past will be broken.

Will younger voters or older voters set the tone of the campaign? Will past divisions over race and religion reassert themselves, or will the electorate decide to push them aside in the interest of a new 21st-century politics? Never has Obama's slogan, "Yes We Can," seemed more relevant to his political task.

E.J. Dionne's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group.

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

American Racism, Political Sanity, & the Pennsylvania Primary

ttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/politics/22cnd-campaign.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

All,

What tonight's results clearly indicate is that traditional American racism among a majority of older, less educated, poor and working class white voters (along with the national Latino vote) is finally going to determine who actually wins the national election in November--just like it usually does. Forget about Billary, Inc.'s primary win against Obama tonight. The simple fact is that Hillary is too far behind Barack at this point in terms of not only the majority of delegates and the national popular vote in the primaries but even more importantly she is not going to win most of the remaining nine primaries (ALL of which she would have to win by very big margins--i.e. more than 15 percentage points each--to have any chance at all of overtaking Obama at this point). It's thus mathematically impossible for her to catch up not only because it's clear that Obama will probably win at least 5-6 of the remaining 9 contests but also because even if a political miracle occurred and Hillary won them all she still would not have enough delegates overall to surpass Obama. Case closed...

BUT (and this is a very big BUT) if the majority of the remaining 300 'superdelegates' foolishly decided between now and the Democratic Party convention in August to give their support to Clinton anyway despite the fact that Obama leads in EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY of votes (delegate count, popular vote totals) that act would be absolute political suicide for the Democratic Party BECAUSE IT WOULD LOSE AT LEAST HALF OF THEIR BLACK, INDEPENDENT, AND YOUNGER VOTERS which would then ensure that John McCain won the national election. African Americans, younger voters in general, and independents would leave the Democratic Party in droves in outraged disgust and either refuse to turn out in great numbers to vote for Hillary-- thereby essentially boycotting the election altogether-- or a number of black and younger voters would vote for other more leftist candidates in protest, and some of the independents would even switch their votes to McCain.

So what it all comes down to in reality is whether traditional white racism within the Democratic Party is going to trump traditional white racism in the rest of the country at this point. It's certainly no surprise to me that Obama is going to have to continue to unfairly/unjustly face down traditional white and Latino racism at this late date of his national campaign but the bitter truth is also that many white voters (especially white ethnics like Irish and Italian Americans, as well as many Latino and Asian Americans in this country) still have to make up its traditionally reactionary and bigoted mind about whether it's more important to vote sanely and rationally in one's own general political and economic self interest (i.e. vote for Obama) or irrationally vote against one's own self interest by voting for McCain or skipping the election altogether "because a black man is running." We'll see if sanity and self preservation win out over traditional American racism in the end. Right now it frankly don't look too good for the forces of sanity, tolerance, and rational self interest. I wish very much that I could confidently assert otherwise. I really would. However, I know far too much about this country and its actual endlessly destructive pathologies (especially in the so-called area of "race") to pretend that Obama is finally going to be given a legitimate shot to simply win the election on the "merits" of his campaign. Clearly, IF the country can finally awake from its massive racist coma Barack might just get a real opportunity to win.

But as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Bob Marley (among so many others) always wisely cautioned us in these matters only "time will tell"...

Kofi


April 23, 2008

Clinton Wins Primary, Keeping Bid Alive

By PATRICK HEALY
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton scored a victory over Senator Barack Obama on Tuesday in the Pennsylvania primary, giving her candidacy a boost as she struggles to raise money and persuade party leaders to let the Democratic nomination fight go on.

The Pennsylvania race turned into a mammoth political battle in recent days, with both candidates pouring millions of dollars into television advertising — much of it negative — and criticizing each other relentlessly on the campaign trail. Mrs. Clinton questioned Mr. Obama’s electability and attacked him for saying that struggling Americans were “bitter,” while Mr. Obama tried to shave her lead in opinion polls.

Mrs. Clinton faces major challenges going forward: her campaign is essentially out of money, with unpaid bills piling up, and she faces growing frustration among some Democratic officials who would prefer her to end her campaign in recognition of Mr. Obama’s lead in the overall popular vote of the primaries and caucuses so far, as well as his continuing edge toward amassing the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

With nearly 90 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mrs. Clinton had 55 percent of the vote to Mr. Obama’s 45 percent.

Mrs. Clinton’s victory was propelled by her strong performance among women, older voters and less affluent and less educated voters; among white union members with no college education, she won almost three-quarters of the vote, polling showed.

Speaking to supporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton emphasized that she had triumphed came despite trailing Mr. Obama financially. “He broke every spending record in this state trying to knock us out of this race,” she said. “Well, the people of Pennsylvania had other ideas.”

But she quickly put out a call for supporters to donate to her campaign, noting that “we can only keep winning if we can keep competing with an opponent who outspends us so massively.” She urged viewers to visit her Web site and “show your support.”

Amid chants of “yes she can” — a riposte to Mr. Obama’s motto, “yes we can” — Mrs. Clinton described herself as “a president who is ready to lead on day one. That means ready to take charge as commander in chief and make this economy work for middle class families, and I thank you, I thank you Pennsylvania, for deciding I can be that president.”

Mr. Obama congratulated his opponent at a Tuesday night rally in Evansville, Ind. But he also implicitly chided Mrs. Clinton for the negative tone of her attacks over the past week — and, tacitly, acknowledged his own missteps.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics, the bickering that none of us are entirely immune to,” he said. “That trivializes the profound issues — two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril.”

He added that Americans “believe that the challenges we face are bigger than the smallness of our politics.”

Looking to capitalize on Mrs. Clinton’s performance in Pennsylvania, her campaign spent Tuesday planning a fresh fund-raising drive, while other aides mapped out political strategy and staff movement to the next major primaries, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6.

Yet with Mrs. Clinton raising $21 million in March compared with Mr. Obama’s $42 million, her advisers said they realized they had tough challenges ahead. Chief among them, besides paying bills and financing new advertising, was persuading impatient Democratic superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials — to remain neutral in the contest and let the remaining primaries play out through early June.

The Pennsylvania Democrats who cast their ballots in Tuesday’s primary did so with the economy weighing heavily on their minds, according to surveys of voters leaving polling places. Those surveys showed that more than half the voters questioned believe that the worsening state of the American economy is the most important issue confronting the country, with about 90 percent saying the United States has already slipped into a recession.

Half of those polled also said that they were looking for a candidate who could bring about change, which has been the main theme of Mr. Obama’s campaign. Mr. Obama leads in delegates, but has consistently trailed Mrs. Clinton in polls taken in Pennsylvania, though the gap had been closing in recent days.

About one-quarter of those who participated in the exit polling, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for five television networks and The Associated Press, endorsed the idea that experience, which Mrs. Clinton has emphasized in her campaign, is the most important quality to be sought in a candidate. For the polling, the margin of sampling error in the sample of 40 precincts across the state was plus or minus four percentage points.

Both candidates performed strongly among the same constituencies that have supported them in other primary states.

Mr. Obama was backed overwhelmingly by black voters and also scored well among voters younger than 45 and college graduates, the results show. Geographically, he performed strongest in Philadelphia and its suburbs, which has the largest concentration of population in Pennsylvania, with Mrs. Clinton winning the majority of the vote in the rest of the state.

Trailing Mr. Obama over all in both the national popular vote and in the competition for delegates, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said Tuesday that they were girding for a tough spring. Two associates of Mrs. Clinton said that if she had lost Pennsylvania, she would most likely end her campaign, recognizing that any hope of overtaking Mr. Obama was futile.

And next up are the Indiana and North Carolina primaries — with Indiana posing another make-or-break challenge for Mrs. Clinton, according to several of her advisers, who said that they would urge her to quit the race if she lost that state. Mrs. Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and their allies have campaigned frequently in Indiana in recent weeks, and she has some important endorsements, including support from Senator Evan Bayh, the state’s former governor.

“She has to win Pennsylvania and Indiana — pretty much everyone in the campaign agrees on that,” said one senior Clinton adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the campaign’s electoral expectations.

But Clinton advisers emphasized that neither they nor Mrs. Clinton were feeling anything close to defeatist — rather, they said, they believed that a Pennsylvania win would help her build momentum in Indiana and other states in the region with coming contests, like West Virginia and Kentucky in May.

Mrs. Clinton is particularly counting on winning sizable margins of victory in the popular vote in future contests, in hopes of edging closer and perhaps overtaking Mr. Obama on that score.

More difficult would be amassing enough delegates to overcome Mr. Obama’s lead on that front — he now has about 150 more delegates over all. His advisers say that in the coming days, they also plan to roll out additional Obama endorsements from superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who have an automatic vote in deciding the nomination and the discretion to choose a candidate.

Clinton advisers said they were already picking states, cities and towns to dispatch staff members and volunteers from Pennsylvania, and budgeting for television advertising. They are also planning a busy travel schedule for the Clintons, their daughter, Chelsea, and an army of surrogates; they are expected to focus heavily on Indiana, and to a lesser extent in North Carolina, where Mr. Obama is widely seen as strongly positioned.

A greater concern in the shorter term for Mrs. Clinton is fundraising: She raised $21 million in March, compared with Mr. Obama’s $42 million, and her campaign faces a cash squeeze as unpaid bills mount and she spends more money than she is taking in, according to new campaign finance filings.

Mrs. Clinton currently has $10.3 million in outstanding primary debts but only $9.5 million available to cover them, leaving an $800,000 shortfall at the end of March. In February, the Clinton campaign had unpaid bills of $8.7 million and $11.7 million in cash.

By comparison, Mr. Obama had $43 million in cash for the coming primaries and a campaign debt of less than $660,000 at the end of March. Mr. Obama is spending 75 cents for every dollar he is taking in; Mrs. Clinton is spending $1.10.

Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.

Aimé Césaire: Revolutionary Poet, Critic, Playwright, and Activist, 1913-2008

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)

"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."

--Aime Cesaire, "Discourse on Colonialism" (1955)

for it is not true that the work of man
is finished
that man has nothing more to do in the
world but be a parasite in the world
that all we now need is to keep in step
with the world
but the work of man is only just beginning
and it remains to man to conquer all
the violence entrenched in the recesses
of his passion
and no race possesses the monopoly of beauty,
of intelligence, of force, and there
is a place for all at the rendezvous
of victory...

From: "Notebook of a Return to My Native Land" (1939)

"Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge. Mankind, once bewildered by sheer facts, finally dominated them through reflection, observation, and experiment. Henceforth mankind knows how to make its way through the forest of phenomena. It knows how to utilize the world.

But it is not the lord of the world on that account.

A view of the world, yes; science affords a view of the world, but a summary and
superficial view...in short, scientific knowledge enumerates, measures, classifies, and kills.

But it is not sufficient to state that scientific knowledge is summary. It is necessary to add that it is poor and half starved...To acquire the impersonality of scientific knowledge mankind depersonalized itself, deindividualized itself.

An impoverished knowledge, I submit, for at its inception--whatever other wealth it may have--there stands an impoverished humanity...

And mankind hs gradually become aware that side by side with this half-starved scientific knowledge there is another kind of knowledge. A fulfilling knowledge..
.
It was both desirable and inevitable that humanity should accede to greater precision.
It was both desirable and inevitable that humanity should experience nostalgia for greater feeling.

It is that mild autumnal nostalgia that threw mankind back from the clear light of scientific day to the nocturnal forces of poetry...

The poet is that very ancient yet new being, at once very complex and very simple, who at the limit of dream and reality, of day and night, between absence and presence, searches for and receives in the sudden triggering of inner cataclysms the password of connivance and power."

--"Poetry and Knowledge" (1945)

my Negritude is not a stone, its deafness a sounding board for the noises of the day
my Negritude is not a mere spot of dead water on the dead eye of the earth
my Negritude is neither tower nor cathedral

it takes root in the red flesh of the teeming earth
it takes root in the glowing flesh of the sky
it penetrates the seamless bondage of my unbending patience...

--Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (1939)

Aime Cesaire: "I would like to say that everyone has his own Negritude. There has been too much theorizing about Negritude. I have tried not to overdo it, out of a sense of modesty. but if someone asks me what my conception of Negritude is, I answer that above all it is a concrete rather than an abstract coming to consciousness....we must have a concrete consciousness of who we are--that is, of the first fact of our lives: that we are black; that we were black and have a history, a history that contains certain cultural elements of great value; and that Negroes were not, as you put it, born yesterday because there have been beautiful and important black civilizations. At the time we began to write people could write an entire history of world civilization without devoting a single chapter to Africa, as if Africa had made no contributions to the world. Therefore we affirmed that we were Negroes and that we were proud of it, and that we thought that Africa was not some sort of blank page in the history of humanity; in sum we asserted that our Negro heritage was worthy of respect, and that this heritage was not relegated to the past, that its values were values that could still make an important contribution to the world...

Our affinities were above all a matter of feeling. You either felt black or did not feel black. But there was also the political aspect. Negritude was, after all, part of the left. i never thought for a moment that our emancipation could come from the right--that's impossible. We both felt, [Leopold] Senghor and I, that our liberation placed us on the left, but both of us refused to see the black question as simply a social question. There are people, even today, who thought and still think that it is all simply a matter of the left taking power in France, that with a change in the economic conditions the black question will disappear. I have never agreed with that at all. I think the economic question is very important, but it is not the only thing..."

--Interview with Aime Cesaire conducted by Haitian poet and political activist Rene Depestre at the International Cultural Congress in Havana, Cuba, 1967

All,

ONE OF THE GREATEST, MOST IMPORTANT, AND INFLUENTIAL WRITERS, POETS, THINKERS, AND ACTIVISTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY HAS DIED.

Aimé Césaire is one of a small handful of the world's finest and most innovative poets of the past century as well as an extraordinary political and cultural theorist, revolutionary activist, political leader, playwright, and philosopher. Born in the French Caribbean colony of Martinique on June 26, 1913, Cesaire revolutionized both Western poetry and diasporic African literature and poetics during the course of a phenomenal six decade career and also played a major role in global anti-imperialist movements from the 1930s on as a radical political activist and communist. Upon leaving the Communist Party in 1956 Cesaire retained his revolutionary commitment to both an independent Marxism deeply informed and guided by his historical and social experience as a person of African descent and the bedrock principle of revolutionary socialism until his death on thursday, April 17 in his beloved city of Fort-De-France in Martinique. It was there that Cesaire sat as an esteemed member of the French parliament for over 50 years and was repeatedly elected mayor from 1945-2001. The magisterial author of many outstanding books of poetry, essays, cultural and literary criticism, and plays including such legendary and iconic texts as Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (1939) and Discourse on Colonialism (1955) Cesaire left a major impact on many aspects of world literature and philosophy such as surrealism and Negritude, as well as on radical political thought (especially in the 'Third World' of Africa, Asia, and Latin America). In addition he counted among his many students throughout the world his fellow Martinican legend Dr. Frantz Fanon (author of The Wretched of the Earth) who studied with Césaire in the 1940s and went on to practice psychiatry and become a major thinker and activist in the Algerian revolutionary war against French colonialism in the 1950s.

The following articles (see corresponding links below) are from orbituary, biographical, and historical essay sources dealing with Cesaire's incredible career and life. To say that this man was merely a "pioneer" or "highly unique individual" is completely inadequate and a gross understatement. Cesaire was one of the rare, seminal GIANTS of literature, philosophy, revolutionary politics, and cultural leadership on a global scale over the past century and his legacy will continue to resonate over many continents for decades to come. Rest in peace Aime. As your life and work always embodied so well: A Luta Continua! (The Struggle Continues!)

Kofi

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/books/18cesaire.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featkelley_116.shtml

http://www2.presstelegram.com/news/ci_8966494

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/17/europe/EU-GEN-France-Obit-Cesaire.php

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/news/obits.php

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i2Rzl9sVEWSUq_AA7SAXQYAq10lgD903PMAO1

http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/04/aime_cesaire_1913_-_2008.html

http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005052.html

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2008/04/17/D903LM882_obit_cesaire/print.html

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=349538

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimé_Césaire


Aimé Césaire, Martinique Poet and Politician, Dies at 94

New York Times
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 18, 2008

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) — Aimé Césaire, an anticolonialist poet and politician who was honored throughout the French-speaking world and who was an early proponent of black pride, died here on Thursday. He was 94.

A government spokeswoman, Marie Michèle Darsières, said he died at a hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments.

Mr. Césaire was one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated cultural figures. He was especially revered in his native Martinique, which sent him to the French parliament for nearly half a century and where he was repeatedly elected mayor of Fort-de-France, the capital city.

In Paris in the 1930s he helped found the journal Black Student, which gave birth to the idea of “negritude,” a call to blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 book “Discourse on Colonialism” was considered a classic of French political literature.

Mr. Césaire’s ideas were honored and his death mourned in Africa and France as well as the Caribbean. The office of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said Mr. Sarkozy would attend Mr. Césaire’s funeral, scheduled for Sunday in Fort-de-France. Students at Lycée Scoelcher, a Martinique high school where Mr. Césaire once taught, honored him in a spontaneous ceremony Thursday.

Mr. Césaire’s best-known works included the essay “Negro I Am, Negro I Will Remain” and the poem “Notes From a Return to the Native Land.”

Born on June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Mr. Césaire attended high school and college in France. In 1937 he married another student from Martinique, Suzanne Roussi, with whom he eventually had four sons and two daughters.

He returned to Martinique during World War II and was mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to 2001, except for a break from 1983 to 1984.

Mr. Césaire helped Martinique shed its colonial status in 1946 to become an overseas department of France.

He was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958. He later allied with the Socialist Party in France’s National Assembly, where he served from 1946 to 1956 and from 1958 to 1993.

As the years passed, he remained firm in his views. In 2005 he refused to meet with Mr. Sarkozy, who was then minister of the interior, because of Mr. Sarkozy’s endorsement of a bill citing the “positive role” of colonialism.

“I remain faithful to my beliefs and remain inflexibly anticolonialist,” Mr. Césaire said at the time. The offending language was struck from the bill.

Despite the snub, Mr. Sarkozy last year successfully led a campaign to rename Martinique’s airport in honor of Mr. Césaire. Mr. Césaire eventually met with Mr. Sarkozy in March 2006 but endorsed his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, in the 2007 French elections.


This article adapted in part from an article which originally appeared in Monthly Review.

Poetry & The Political Imagination: Aime Cesaire, Negritude, and the Applications of Surrealism
by Robin D. G. Kelley

July 9, 2001

Aime Cesaire demolishes the maxim that poets make terrible politicians. Known in the world of letters as the progenitor of Negritude (the first diasporic "black pride" movement), a major voice of Surrealism, and one of the great French poets, Césaire is also revered for his role in modern anticolonial and Pan-African movements. While it might appear that the poet and politician operated in separate spheres, Césaire's life and work demonstrate that poetry can be the motor of political imagination, a potent weapon in any movement that claims freedom as its primary goal.

Born on June 25, 1913, in the small town of Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Césaire and his five siblings were raised by their mother, who was a dressmaker, and their father, who held a post as the local tax inspector. Although their father was well-educated and they shared the cultural sensibilities of the petite bourgeoisie, the Césaires nonetheless lived close to the edge of rural poverty. Aimé turned out to be a brilliant, precocious student and at age 11 was admitted to the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France. Upon graduation in 1931, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand to prepare for the grueling entrance exams to the École Normale Supérieure (a high-level teachers' training college). There he met a number of like-minded intellectuals, most notably the Senegalese intellectual Léopold Sédar Senghor. Among other things, they began to study African history and culture, particularly the writings of German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, whose The Voice of Africa provided a powerful defense of Africa's cultural and intellectual contributions to the world.

The twosome, along with Césaire's childhood friend, poet Léon-Gontran Damas, launched a journal called L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student). In its March 1935 issue, Césaire published a passionate tract against assimilation in which he first coined the term "Negritude." It is more than ironic that at the moment Césaire's piece appeared, he was hard at work absorbing as much knowledge about French and European humanities as possible in preparation for his entrance exams for École Normale Supérieure. The exams took their toll, for sure, though the psychic and emotional costs of having to imbibe the very culture Césaire publicly rejected must have exacerbated an already exhausting regimen.

After completing his exams during the summer of 1935, he took a short vacation to Yugoslavia with a fellow student. While visiting the Adriatic coast, Césaire was overcome with memories of home after seeing a small island from a distance. Moved, he stayed up half the night working on a long poem about the Martinique of his youth—the land, the people, the majesty of the place. The next morning when he inquired about the little island, he was told it was called Martinska. A magical chance encounter, to say the least; the words he penned that moonlit night were the beginnings of what would subsequently become his most famous poem of all: "Cahier d'un Retour au Pays Natal (Notebook of a Return to My Native Land)".

He did subsequently return to his native land in the early 1940s, shortly after "Cahier" was published, and he was joined by his wife Suzanne Roussy, a fellow Martinican student with whom he had worked on L'Étudiant Noir. They both took teaching posts in Fort-de-France and, along with other intellectuals such as René Ménil, Lucie Thésée, and Aristide Maugée, launched a journal called Tropiques in 1941. Its appearance coincided with the fall of France to the fascist Vichy regime, which consequently put the colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Guiana under Vichy rule and shattered any illusions Césaire and his comrades might have harbored about color-blind French brotherhood. The racism and authoritarianism of the regime was blatant and direct. Vichy officials censored and interdicted all literature they deemed subversive, thus forcing Tropiques's editors to camouflage their publication as a journal of West Indian folklore. Yet, despite the repressions and the ruses, Tropiques survived the war as a major voice for Surrealism and a critical forum for the evolution of a sophisticated anticolonial stance as well as a vision of a postcolonial future. The Césaires and their fellow editors promoted a vision of freedom that drew on modernism and a deep appreciation for precolonial African modes of thought and practice, and produced a kind of merging of Negritude, Marxism, and Surrealism.

By the end of the war, Césaire became more directly involved in politics, joining the Communist Party and successfully running for mayor of Fort-de-France and deputy to the French National Assembly under the Communist ticket. His main concern, however, was not proletarian revolution but rather the colonial question. In 1946, he succeeded in getting the National Assembly to pass a law changing the status of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana, and Réunion from colonies to "departments" within the French Republic. He believed that the assimilation of the old colonies into the republic would guarantee equal rights, but this turned out not to be the case. In the end, French officials were sent to the colonies in greater numbers, often displacing some of the local black Martinican bureaucrats. It was a painful lesson for Césaire, one that powerfully molded his first and perhaps most important nonfiction book, Discourse on Colonialism.

First published in 1950, Discourse on Colonialism is indisputably one of the key contributions to a wave of anticolonial literature produced during the postwar period. As with much of the radical literature produced during this epoch, Discourse places the colonial question front and center. In fine Hegelian fashion, Césaire argues that colonialism works to "decivilize" the colonizer: Torture, violence, race hatred, and immorality constitute a dead weight on the so-called civilized, pulling the master class deeper and deeper into the abyss of barbarism. The instruments of colonial power rely on barbaric, brutal violence and intimidation, and the end result is the degradation of Europe itself. Discourse, then, has a double-edged meaning: It is Césaire's discourse on the material and spiritual havoc created by colonialism, and it is also a critique of colonial discourse.

Anticipating the explosion of work we now call "postcolonial studies," Césaire reveals how the circulation of colonial ideology—an ideology of racial and cultural hierarchy—is as essential to colonial rule as the police and the use of forced labor. Furthermore, as a product of the post-World War II period, Discourse goes one step further by drawing a direct link between the logic of colonialism and the rise of fascism. He provocatively points out that Europeans tolerated "Nazism before it was inflicted on them...because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack."

The political implications for Césaire were that colonialism had to be overthrown and a new culture had to replace it, one that embraced non-Western traditions while also embracing the best that modernity had to offer. He outlined this argument in a paper titled "Culture and Colonization," delivered at the First International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in September 1956. Ultimately, Césaire's insistence that colonialism and racism were the fundamental problems facing the modern world could not be reconciled with the Communist position that promoting proletarian revolution should take precedence over all other struggles. One month later, Césaire penned his famous "Letter to Maurice Thorez, Secretary General of the French Communist Party," tendering his resignation from the party. Arguing that people of color need to exercise self-determination, he warned against treating the "colonial question...as a subsidiary part of some more important global matter." Racism, in other words, cannot be subordinate to the class struggle. If following the Communist Party "pillages our most vivifying friendships, wastes the bond that weds us to other West Indian islands, the tie that makes us Africa's child, then I say communism has served us ill in having us swap a living brotherhood for what looks to have the features of the coldest of all chill abstractions."

Césaire, like his former student Frantz Fanon, was now convinced that only Third World revolt could pave the way for a new society. He had practically given up on Europe and the old humanism and its claims of universality, opting instead to redefine the "universal" in a way that did not privilege Europe. "I have a different idea of a universal," Césaire explained to his former Communist comrades. "It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all."

Césaire went on to found the Martinican Progressive Party and serve as mayor of Fort-de-France for the next two-and-a-half decades, and he continued to write. In 1960, he published Ferrements, a collection of 48 poems about black liberation and new possibilities created by independence. Using the metaphor of transforming slavery's chains into metal armor, Césaire saw the future of Africa and the diaspora as a phoenix rising. A year later he released Cadastre, which included previous poems from Soleil cou Coupé and Corps Perdu. Whereas Africa was rising (with the exception of places still under white minority rule), Europe here is depicted as a land of petrifaction and rot.

The themes of colonialism and postcolonialism dominated Césaire's work during the 1960s, so much so that he increasingly turned to history in order to explore the problems and prospects of anticolonial revolution. In 1961, he published his second major work of nonfiction: Toussaint L'Ouverture: La Révolution Française et le Problème Colonial (Toussaint L'Ouverture: The French Revolution and the Problem of Colonialism). Césaire tried to show that the French Revolution failed as much as the Haitian Revolution to achieve true liberty. Toussaint not only wanted to destroy slavery on the island of Saint Domingue but wanted to turn these ex-slaves into efficient producers for a world market, to bring his country into the modern world as citizens of the French empire. While the revolution successfully fulfilled the first goal, his dream of a modern Haiti joining a French commonwealth as equal partners was an abysmal failure. That dream died with him in a cold jail cell in Napoleon's France.

Unlike other critics, Césaire argued that Toussaint's failure lay not so much in his ambition or his ideas as in his overreliance on the military to solve social, political, and economic problems. His critique of Toussaint carried with it a veiled critique of military dictators emerging in postcolonial Africa and Latin America—a critique made explicit in his 1963 play, La Tragedie du Roi Christophe (The Tragedy of King Christophe). While grounded in Césaire's reading of Haitian history, it was also a critique of François Duvalier, Haiti's ruler from 1957 through 1971. It explores the many dimensions of postcolonial corruption, depicting Christophe as a deeply flawed but well-meaning tyrant exploiting the black masses trapped on the island. Césaire's next play, Un Saison au Congo (A Season in the Congo) (1965), about Patrice Lumumba and the struggle for independence in the Congo, went one step further, suggesting that only revolution and the violent overthrow of these dictatorships could bring about any real change.

In his final exploration of colonialism, Césaire retreated from modern history and turned to Shakespeare as his vehicle. His 1969 adaptation of The Tempest (Une Tempête) explored the relationship between Prospero the colonizer and his colonial subjects, Caliban and Ariel. Caliban rebels outright, whereas Ariel attempts to appeal to Prospero's moral conscience. Caliban is eventually crushed when he attempts to become his own master, but not before figuring out that Prospero's domination and claims to superiority are based on lies. Caliban's final speech could have come straight from Césaire's mouth, or the mouths of the radical black intelligentsia produced by colonial education:

Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(lied about the world, lied about me)
that you have ended by imposing on me
an image of myself.
Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
that's the way you have forced me to see myself.
I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
and I know myself as well.

During the course of the next three decades, Césaire continued to write but moved away from the epic hero and the problems of the colonial encounter. The Surrealism that had always undergirded his work resurfaced more explicitly in his 1976 collection Noria as well as his last play, Moi, Laminaire (1982), both of which explored language and reveled in the ambiguous, dreamlike characteristics of the unconscious.

The weapon of poetry may be Césaire's greatest gift to a modern world still searching for freedom. As one of the last truly great "universalists" of the 20th century, he has had a hand in shaping or critiquing many of the major ideologies and movements of the modern world—Marxism, nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and fascism, among others. All of these ideas are rooted in notions of progress, all are products of modernity, and all fall short when it comes to envisioning a genuinely emancipatory future. Césaire must have known this, which is why more than half a century ago he wrote: "Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge."

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FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique - Aime Cesaire, an anti-colonialist poet and politician who was honored throughout the French-speaking world and was an early proponent of black pride, has died at 94.

Cesaire died Thursday at a Fort-de-France hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, said government spokeswoman Marie Michele Darsieres.

He was one of the Caribbean's most celebrated cultural figures and was revered in his native Martinique, where his passing brought tears and spontaneous memorial observances.

The French island sent him to the country's parliament for nearly half a century and repeatedly elected him mayor of the capital.

Cesaire helped found the "Black Student" journal in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of "negritude," urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" became a classic of French political literature.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "very great sadness" at Cesaire's passing, and said "the entire French nation" is in mourning.

"I prayed for him," said 45-year-old teacher Jean Luc Martin, his eyes red from crying. "I studied his works, which forged my life and allowed me to see our differences in a new light."

Students at Lycee Scoelcher, a Martinique high school where Cesaire once taught, honored him in a spontaneous ceremony Thursday. "For us, only two men count: Aime Cesaire and Nelson Mandela," student Karl Dintimile said.

Cesaire's best known works included the essay "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."

Former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf said Cesaire led a noble fight against hate.

Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Cesaire moved to France for high school and university. He returned to Martinique during World War II and served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except in 1983-84.

Cesaire helped Martinique shed its colonial status in 1946 to become an overseas department.

In 2005, the politician-poet refused to meet with then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, now French president, because of his endorsement of a bill citing the "positive role" of colonialism.

The offending language was struck from the bill.

Cesaire eventually met with Sarkozy in March 2006 but endorsed his Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, in the 2007 French elections.

Royal called Cesaire "an eminent symbol of a mixed-race France" and urged that he be buried in the Pantheon, where French heroes such as Victor Hugo to Marie and Pierre Curie are interred.

Cesaire was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958. He later allied with the Socialist Party.

OBITUARY
Aimé Césaire, Martinique poet, has died

The Associated Press
Published: April 17, 2008

PARIS: The esteemed Martinique poet and politician Aimé Césaire, a leading figure in the movement for black consciousness, died Thursday, the French president's office and a hospital said. He was 94.

Césaire died in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the hospital that was treating him said.

Césaire was involved in the fight for French West Indian rights, and he also served as a lawmaker in the lower house of France's parliament for nearly 50 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of Césaire.

Sarkozy on Thursday praised Césaire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist."

"As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."

Césaire's 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" has become a classic of French political literature and helped develop the concept of negritude, which urges blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage.

Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Césaire moved to mainland France for high school and university studies, and finished one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.

He and Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor founded the journal "Black Student" in the 1930s, which gave birth to the idea of negritude.

Césaire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France.

Césaire served as mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to his retirement in 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84.

"I accomplished the work I had to do," Césaire said in his surprise announcement in 2000 that that he wouldn't seek another mayoral term.

Césaire's essays included "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain." His poems, written in French, included "Notes From a Return to the Native Land." He also wrote plays.

OBITUARY

Aimé Césaire, 94, poet and human rights leader
The Associated Press
April 17, 2008

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique: Aimé Césaire, a poet honored throughout the Francophone world and a crusader for West Indian rights, has died at 94.

Césaire died Thursday at a Fort-de-France hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, a government spokeswoman, Marie-Michèle Darsières, said.

He was one of the most celebrated cultural figures in the Caribbean and was revered in his native Martinique, which sent him to the French Parliament for nearly half a century and repeatedly elected him mayor of the capital.

Césaire helped found the journal L'Étudiant Noir in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of "Négritude," urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" became a classic of French political literature.

His best-known works included the essay "Negro I Am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."


Cesaire died Thursday, April 17, 2008 in the French Caribbean island of Martinique. He was 94. Cesaire was a fixture in France's parliament for nearly half a century and a key figure in the fight for French Caribbean rights.

Martinique poet Aime Cesaire dies at age 94
By HERVE BRIVAL

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) — Aime Cesaire, a poet honored throughout the French-speaking world and a crusader for West Indian rights, has died at 94.

Cesaire died Thursday after at a Fort-de-France hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, said government spokeswoman Marie Michele Darsieres.
He was one of the most celebrated cultural figures in the Caribbean and was revered in his native Martinique, which sent him to France's parliament for nearly half a century and repeatedly elected him mayor of the capital.

Cesaire helped found the "Black Student" journal in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of "negritude," urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" became a classic of French political literature.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said Cesaire "imbued the French language with his liberty and his revolt."

"He made (the French language) beat to the rhythm of his spells, his cries, his appeals to overcome oppression, invoking the soul of subjugated peoples to urge the living to raise themselves up," she said.

His best known works included the essay "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."

Cesaire was born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique and moved to France for high school and university studies. He graduated from one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.

Cesaire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France, where he served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84.
Even political rivals paid him homage.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of Cesaire, despite the poet's refusal to meet him two years earlier.
Cesaire complained that Sarkozy had endorsed a 2005 French bill citing the "positive role" of colonialism. Cesaire spoke ardently against the measure's language, and it was later removed after complaints from former French colonies and France's overseas territories.
"I remain faithful to my beliefs and remain inflexibly anti-colonialist," Cesaire said in a statement at the time.

Cesaire eventually met with Sarkozy in March 2006 but endorsed his Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, in the 2007 French elections. Sarkozy on Thursday praised Cesaire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist." "As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."

Royal called him "an eminent symbol of a mixed-race France" and urged that he be buried in the Pantheon, where French heroes from Victor Hugo to Marie and Pierre Curie are interred.

"A great voice has died out, that of a man of conviction, of creation, of testimony, who awakened consciousness throughout his life, blasted apart hypocrisies, brought hope to all who were humiliated, and was a tireless fighter for human dignity," Royal said.

Cesaire was the honorary president of her support committee during the presidential campaign. Cesaire was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958. He later allied with the Socialist Party in France's National Assembly, where he served from 1946-1956 and 1958-1993.

Associated Press writer Angela Doland in Paris, France, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Aime Cesaire: 1913 - 2008
on April 17, 2008
Category: African Diaspora, African History, Obituary


The Martiniquan poet, novelist, playwright and activist, Aime Cesaire died today aged 94. I feel sad that the last of our literary and ideological [negritude] warriors is now gone.

Sad that we people of African descent remain at odds with each other. Where the people who stayed behind have forgotten those who were stolen from their villages and towns. We stand before each other staring at myths and lies constructed not by us, but by those who wish to divide us. But still we believe not what we see but what we are told.

My friend Marian who has also written a tribute in English and French sent me this from a friend of a Martiniquan friend of hers in DC.

Dear Colleagues:

The following is to announce the passing of Aime Cesaire. A poet, playwright, writer, Mayor of Fort-de-France, Congressman, pillar of the Negritude movement, thinker of the African independence movements, Cesaire leaves us with a long legacy of struggle for the dignity of people of African descent around the world, for human rights. As heads of state and dignitaries especially from Africa and the Caribbean are making their way to Martinique to attend his funeral on Sunday, we cannot help but think of the number of people he has influenced world wide through his writings. Cesaire is taught in the majority of the French language departments in universities across the United States and around the world. Among his works “Discourse on Colonialism”, “A Season in the Congo”, “The tragedy of King Christopher” or “Return to My Native Land” have resonated in the 1960s and beyond and have been seminal to liberation struggles around the globe.

Today I also mourn the personal friend and mentor that I visited on every trip to Martinique. I will miss his guidance, strength of character and dignity shrouded in simplicity.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Your colleague, Marilyn Sephocle


Aime Cesaire
Martinique

APRIL 17, 2008

R.I.P Aimé Césaire
I just heard news that the Martinican man of letters Aimé Césaire, who authored the classic Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, who inspired such different people as Frantz Fanon and Leopold Sedar Senghor, and who created the undeniably influential but now occasionally derided concept of négritude, has passed away in Fort-de-France. He was 94.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy is due to attend the funeral on Sunday. I wonder if his speech will bear any similarities to the the one he gave in Dakar last summer.

posted by Laila Lalami at 03:16 PM


Martinique poet Aime Cesaire dies at 94
By HERVE BRIVAL Associated Press Writer

Apr 17th, 2008 | FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique -- Aime Cesaire, an anti-colonialist poet and politician who was honored throughout the French-speaking world and was an early proponent of black pride, has died at 94.

Cesaire died Thursday at a Fort-de-France hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, said government spokeswoman Marie Michele Darsieres.

He was one of the Caribbean's most celebrated cultural figures and was revered in his native Martinique, where his passing brought tears and spontaneous memorial observances.

The French island sent him to the country's parliament for nearly half a century and repeatedly elected him mayor of the capital.

Cesaire helped found the "Black Student" journal in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of "negritude," urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" became a classic of French political literature.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "very great sadness" at Cesaire's passing, and said "the entire French nation" is in mourning.

"Through his universal appeal for respect of human dignity, awareness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples," the president said a statement. Sarkozy's office said he would attend Cesaire's funeral Sunday in Fort-de-France.

Martinicans mourned Cesaire's passing.

"I prayed for him," said 45-year-old teacher Jean Luc Martin, his eyes red from crying. "I studied his works, which forged my life and allowed me to see our differences in a new light."

Students at Lycee Scoelcher, a Martinique high school where Cesaire once taught, honored him in a spontaneous ceremony Thursday. "For us, only two men count: Aime Cesaire and Nelson Mandela," student Karl Dintimile said.

Cesaire's best known works included the essay "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."

His works also resonated in Africa. Former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf said Cesaire led a noble fight against hate.

"I salute the memory of a man who dedicated his life to multiple wars waged on all battlefields for the political and cultural destiny of his racial brothers," Diouf said.

Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Cesaire moved to France for high school and university. He returned to Martinique during World War II and served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except in 1983-84.

Cesaire helped Martinique shed its colonial status in 1946 to become an overseas department. As the years passed, he remained firm in his views.

In 2005, the politician-poet refused to meet with then-Interior Minister Sarkozy because of his endorsement of a bill citing the "positive role" of colonialism.

"I remain faithful to my beliefs and remain inflexibly anti-colonialist," Cesaire said at the time. The offending language was struck from the bill.

Despite the snub, Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of Cesaire. Cesaire eventually met with Sarkozy in March 2006 but endorsed his Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, in the 2007 French elections.

Royal called Cesaire "an eminent symbol of a mixed-race France" and urged that he be buried in the Pantheon, where French heroes from Victor Hugo to Marie and Pierre Curie are interred.

Cesaire was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958. He later allied with the Socialist Party in France's National Assembly, where he served from 1946-1956 and 1958-1993.

———

Associated Press writer Angela Doland in Paris contributed to this report.

Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Monday 21st April, 2008
French poet, politician Aime Cesaire dies
IANS Thursday 17th April, 2008

Prominent French poet and anti-colonialist politician Aime Cesaire has died at the age of 94, French media reported Thursday.

Cesaire passed away in a hospital in Fort-de-France, the capital of the Antilles island of Martinique, after a brief illness.

Born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Cesaire travelled to Paris as a young man and there studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure.

In Paris, he created, with Leopold Sedar Senghor and Leon Damas, the literary review 'L'Etudiant Noir' (The Black Student), which marked the beginning of the so-called Negritude movement.

Negritude was a forerunner of the Black Power movement of the 1960s, emphasizing awareness of black heritage, values, and culture, and was used to rally decolonized Africans in the 1950s.

Cesaire moved back to Martinique in 1939 with his wife, fellow Martinican student Suzanne Roussi, and their young son.

He became a teacher at the Lycee Schoelcher in Fort-de-France, where one of his students was Frantz Fanon, who would become a prominent anti-colonialist polemicist and writer.

Cesaire represented Martinique in the French National Assembly from 1946, was mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to 1983, and became president of the Martinique Regional Council in 1983.

Originally a Communist, he opposed the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956 and left the party to form the Martinique Progressive Party (PPM), which advocated autonomy for the island.

His works include the play 'The Tragedy of King Christophe' (1963) and the poem 'Notebook of a Return to my Native Land' (1939), as well as an adaptation for black theatre of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'.

In 1983, the University of California Press brought out an edition of his collected poems.

Martinique's airport at Le Lamentin was renamed Martinique Aime Cesaire International Airport Jan 15, 2007.

Aimé Césaire was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique. In 1931, he traveled to Paris to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand on an educational scholarship. In Paris, Césaire, who in 1935 passed an entrance exam for the École normale supérieure, created, with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Damas, the literary review L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student) which was a forerunner of the Négritude movement. In 1936, Césaire began work on his book-length poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal - Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - (1939), a vivid and powerful depiction of the ambiguities of Caribbean life and culture in the New World and this upon returning home to Martinique.

Césaire married fellow Martinican student Suzanne Roussi in 1937. Together they moved back to Martinique in 1939 with their young son. Césaire became a teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France, where he taught Frantz Fanon and served as an inspiration for, but did not teach, Édouard Glissant. He would become a heavy influence for Fanon as both a mentor and a contemporary throughout Fanon's short life.

The years of World War II were ones of great intellectual activity for the Césaires. In 1941, Aimé Césaire and Suzanne Roussi founded the literary review Tropiques, with the help of other Martinican intellectuals like René Ménil and Aristide Maugée, in order to challenge the cultural status quo and alienation that then characterized Martinican identity. Many run-ins with censorship did not deter Césaire from being an outspoken defendant of Martinican identity. He also became close to French surrealist poet André Breton, who spent time in Martinique during the war. Breton contributed a laudatory introduction to the 1947 edition of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, saying that "this poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times." ("ce poème [n'est] rien moins que le plus grand monument lyrique de ce temps").

In 1945, with the support of the French Communist Party, Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and député to the French National Assembly for Martinique. He was one of the principal drafters of the 1946 law on departmentalizing former colonies, a role for which independentist politicians have often criticized him.

Like many left intellectuals in France, Césaire looked in the 1930s and 1940s toward the Soviet Union as a source of human progress, virtue, and human rights, but Césaire later grew disillusioned with Communism. In 1956, after the invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union, Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the French Communist Party in a text entitled Lettre à Maurice Thorez. In 1958 he founded the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais. In 1960, he published Toussaint Louverture, based upon the life of the Haitian revolutionary. He served as President of the Regional Council of Martinique from 1983 to 1988. He retired from politics in 2001.
In 2006, he refused to meet the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy, then a probable contender for the 2007 presidential election, because the UMP had voted for the February 23, 2005 law asking teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa", a law considered by many as a eulogy to colonialism and French actions during the Algerian War. President Jacques Chirac finally had the controversial law repealed[1].

His writings reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He is the author of Discours sur le colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism) (1953), a denunciation of European colonial racism which was published in the French review Présence Africaine. In 1968, he published the first version of Une Tempête, a radical adaptation of Shakespeare's play The Tempest for a black audience.

Martinique's airport at Le Lamentin was renamed Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport on January 15, 2007.

From April 9, 2008, he had serious heart troubles and was admitted to Pierre Zobda Quitman hospital in Fort-de-France. He died on April 17, 2008.[1]


Works
Poetry

Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939), Return to my native land (bilingual edition), Paris: Présence Africaine 1968
Armes miraculeuses (1946)
Soleil cou coupé (1948)
Corps perdu (1950)
Ferrements (1960)
Cadastre (1961)
Moi, laminaire (1982)
Collected Poetry, University of California Press (1983)


Theater

Et les Chiens se taisaient, tragédie: arrangement théâtral. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1958, 1997.
La Tragédie du roi Christophe. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1963, 1993. The tragedy of King Christophe, New York: Grove 1969
Une Tempête, adapted from The Tempest by William Shakespeare: adaptation pour un théâtre nègre. Paris: Seuil, 1969, 1997. A Tempest, New York: Ubu repertory 1986
Une Saison au Congo. Paris: Seuil, 1966, 2001. A season in the Congo, New York 1968, A play about Patrice Lumumba


Other writings

Discours sur le colonialisme, Paris: Présence Africaine, 1953.
Toussaint Louverture; La Révolution française et le problème colonial. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1960.

See also

Négritude.
Créolité
Frantz Fanon
Antillanité


References

Caribbean poet Cesaire dies at 94. BBC (2008-04-17). Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
Césaire, Aimé (1957). Letter to Maurice Thorez. Paris: Présence africaine. p. 7.
Christian Filostrat, La Négritude et la "Conscience raciale et révolutionaire sociale" d'Aimé Césaire. Présence Francophone No 21, Automne 1980. pp 119 - 130.
Joubert, Jean-Louis. "Césaire, Aimé." In Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la littérature française. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1999.


External Links

Obituary from the International Herald Tribune
Aime Cesaire, biography, by Brooke Ritz, Postcolonial Studies website, English Department, Emory University. 1999.
Aimé Césaire, bibliography, biography, and links (in French), "île en île", City University of New York, 1998-2004.
Aimé Césaire, biography and bibliography, Pegasos literature related resources, 2002.
Khalid Chraibi, an interview with Aimé Césaire, (in French) on occasion of the Paris première of "La Tragédie du Roi Christophe" in 1965.
Expo Photo consacrée à Aimé Césaire, Collection of photos from a retrospective of Cesaire's literary and politcal work