White Power in Black Face

DECRYING Barack Obama as “white power in black face”, hundreds of African Americans marched on the White House today to protest policies of the first black US president, and demand that he bring US troops home.

Do you have to be black to say this without getting everyone’s panties twisted into a Gordian knot or can we call a spade a, uh, er, or can we tell it like it is?

Blue suit, black suit, brown suit – a suit is a suit, born of a white man’s colonial military uniform.

It took some pissed off African Americans to tell it like it is. And perhaps white folks don’t want to hear it. Obama is such a darling of the Limousine Liberal crowd. They feel so good about themselves they were able to support and elect a man to shatter America’s tortured, racist past and usher in a new, enlightened era of color-blind progress and prosperity.

And it’s true. Obama’s race makes no difference to his politics. His white politics. Not to say Obama isn’t connected to his roots. Why, he is the first one out there to lecture African American men on their lazy, shiftless, irresponsible behavior toward their women and kids and malaise about working in the cotton fields of the minimum wage. Don’t folks know it’s not what job you have, but work itself is its own reward? Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but Obama is not our first African American President. He is our first Mulatto President. He’s got whitey flowing through his veins like there’s no tomorrow after 2012. And maybe that’s why he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the poor, dispossessed and oppressed, but loves them bankers and militarists.

You see, if someone say like Congressman John Lewis were our President we wouldn’t have frustrated folks in the street saying President Lewis was a minstrel show tap dancer, no siree. Because the first thing President Lewis would have done was to kick some well-deserved white ass. And about time. White folks have been uppity for far too long. Think they own the place like a global plantation.

They say the more things change the more they stay the same and one thing which never changes is the ratio of slave to slave-owner population. And for all the talk about change, it’s talk for chumps because the last thing white people want is change. They got it good. White folks look out for each other. They got to. They’re surrounded by billions of hungry, desperate folks who are not white and see all the resources and wealth of the world being sucked into Whiteyland.

Now don’t get me wrong. Some of my best friends are white people. It’s not good to generalize. White folks haven’t learned that yet. But this isn’t about white folks per se, after Bush most white folks are two paychecks away from trailer park living anyway, this is about white power.

Remember those good old Black Power days when the Panthers and Olympic runners raised their fists in solidarity to oppose the oppressive white power which has been a boot in the face of folks for centuries? Those were the good old days when black folks could drink from the same water fountain as whitey. They could eat in the same diners with whitey. They could live on the same street if they had the money and didn’t mind cross-burnings and the occasional bullet through a window – good old boys will be good old boys.

But those days of enlightenment and equality are gone. Now all there is is white power. The old boss is back because, let’s face it, the good old days never existed. Nope. Not once. Not for one single day. Just because you can sit in the front of the bus don’t mean squat if you can’t find a job or afford a meal.

You see, a slave gets free room and board. They get no pay, but they got no expense so what is to complain about? Except, you know, the slave part. But then after slavery, when everyone is free, well you got to earn a living because you got to buy everything. Slaves don’t know how good they got it, except for the slave part. You got to buy food, clothing, shelter, booze, cigarettes and hookers just like everyone else. The problem is who can afford to buy all that as a tenant-farmer, butler, seamstress or a gas station attendant? In company towns they extend you credit to pay back with wages which are carefully calculated to keep you working for the company your whole life. Can’t be slavery if you get paid, see? It wasn’t companies were loyal and never laid anybody off, but no employee could afford to quit with outstanding debt. Work or starve and they call it freedom to choose.

So, it’s no wonder black folk had some high hopes for Obama even though he’s not really one of them. He’s knows what discrimination is like. How many times during his life has he had to say, “Hey, I am half white. Cut me some slack. I’m Ivy League.” Plenty. So he knows what African Americans go through in the entitled white plantation owner mentality which permeates the US like coffee and cigarettes at an AA meeting.

Yet, gosh, darn and heck of it all, Obama turns out to be more white than black. Maybe it’s because he was raised by white folks. He coddles bankers and other fat cats and apologizes for white greed because they gave him millions of dollars to do just that. And Obama is nothing if not a hard-working guy with a mission to make his donors proud. He wears the white man’s uniform and marches to his tune. 40,000 troops here, another million dead there all in the name of the white Christian nation called Bubbaland and its right to do whatever it wants in the ‘colored’ world because if God had meant the coloreds to have civilization they’d all been born in Europe – the cradle of civilization, if you don’t count, you know, history and stuff.

White folks, except for that pesky little minority of Stone Age Palinites and Becktoids, love Obama. He’s like a puppy or something. And his family is so cute. And Michelle, she’s the next Jackie Kennedy, our favorite First Lady because she had style and pizazz and lots of clothes and cute kids too. See, Obama is the modern version of Father Knows Best. I used to love that show because he always did didn’t he? Just a jovial problem solver until you crossed him and then it was a switch to the bare ass in the garage. But a justifiable switch because obedience must be learned or else you have free will running rampant which is another word for chaos which is another word for communism and back in the 50s when Father Knew Best, that was not option like the public option isn’t an option today or peace for that matter too. Peace is not an option in a war economy and especially a Cold War economy when white folks don’t get hurt but send the Marines out to secure our freedom against the Reds.

So, again, it’s easy to understand the chagrin and befuddlement of African Americans who thought, “Yes! Happy Days are here again for the very first time.” How disappointing it must be to be betrayed again by whitey who elected a Mulatto Manchurian Candidate to protect the entrenched and entitled privilege of same-o, same-o. Because, let’s face it, after Obama it’s back to whitey. Maybe even a whitey woman like Pelosi, who led the charge to codify the country into a new age of slavery to white corporate power. Yee-haw!

What is the word beyond ironic we have a black man as the face of white imperial power which slaughters men, women and children of the non-white third world like cockroaches with RAID. Actually, are there any white third world countries? Of course not. How embarrassing that would be. It’s not a man’s world. It’s a white man’s world and Obama is doing his best Michael Jackson impression or is that Sammy Sosa?

You see most African Americans are not a thing like Barack Obama. He’s a millionaire for one. And he has a job. The African American unemployment rate is officially around 17% so what does that make it really. And the unemployment rate for young African Americans is even higher. About one in four African Americans live below the poverty level. The median income for all African Americans is right at the poverty line. One in five have no health care about double the average for whites. Most of the dodgy mortgage loans went to African Americans, which makes them the most vulnerable in the housing crisis.

And what has Obama done about any of this? Bailed out whitey. Escalated illegal wars. Sold out to insurance companies. Created a recovery for banks while the consumer slides into a morass of endless debt and suicidal depression.

So you see, to the African American community, with friends like Barack Obama, they don’t need any enemies.

Come to think of it, neither do we.