On the book front, I had a meeting with my editor last week. We're just trying to build up momentum here and get the idea machine cranking so The Celebrity Collaborator can just jump in and press the gas. The FUNBE (friend/upstairs neighbor/book editor) and I got to talking and tried to deconstruct the intensity of the the two leading Democratic candidates' sparring. We got particularly stuck on this idea of Bill Clinton being the first black President.
While it's not that surprising that this meme has come up as Clinton and Obama vie for the Democratic nomination, it's pretty amazing that people treat it as if it's an actual issue. Let's be real: the whole thing started as a joke. A warm jest, an inclusive jape. Bill Clinton, savvy image-worker that he is, never seemed to protest too much under this make-believe melanin mantle. And, sure, he's got some offices in Harlem. And, yes, you can trot out all the other things people point to as signs that Bill's got that one drop floating in his veins: the single-mom Southern roots, the saxophone, the Links/Jack-and-Jill crew he hangs with, the ladies-man swagger and all the empathy and rhythm in his voice. Debate those all you want, but the reality still remains: Bill Clinton ain't no Black President.
I'm not talking about his political record here. I'm talking about the elusive hoodoo that makes up the collective subconscious and wells up in certain individuals. While the FUNBE (who I must note is a smarter man than myself) and I were parleying in that midtown Manhattan office, I decided that maybe, just maybe, Black President isn't even an electable position, at least not in the way that the U.S.A. selects its Commander-in-Chief anyway.
Because, the way I envision it, becoming Black President is a hearts-and-minds thing. It's about groundswell.
Fela Kuti was a Black President. (It's the title of one of his albums and where the germ of this idea started in my head.)
Miles Davis was a Black President. (Yeah, even with all his fucked-up shit.)
Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes and James Brown were the Black President at the same time. (No, not Co-Presidents. Separate Black Presidents with overlapping terms. Chew on that.)
Duke Ellington was a Black President. (Thus proving that you can be royalty and President at the same time.)
Jacob Lawrence was a Black President. (On the strength of the campaign posters alone...)
Zora Neale Hurston was a Black President. (First female President in 2008? Yawn. Got there like 70, 80 years ago. Thanks for playing, though.)
Ralph Ellison was a Black President. (Hell, Invisible Man's practically a manual about the electoral process.)
That nameless, faceless S1W (Remember them? Peace to the Security of the First World soldiers. ) in the crosshairs of the Public Enemy logo? He was a Black President.
Dave Chappelle was a Black President. (And he can return to active duty whenever he wants, as far as I'm concerned.)
See, Black Presidents wage sociocultural campaigns and get elected in invisible caucuses. No announcements need to happen, because the results become readily evident. Sometimes the hoodoo vote and the ballot-and-button world might collide. (I'd like to think that Shirley Chisolm was a Black President.) The status of Black President comes from the planes of persona, iconography and metaphor, from participating in those areas in both conscious and subconscious ways. It's a dangerous alchemy that a BP candidate can't always control and, moreover, shouldn't necessarily try to. Eventually, one might find that the right stew jes grew.
I'm not gonna run the metaphor into the ground and start parsing who the Black Cabinets and the Black Prime Ministers are or have been. We can debate and disagree* on who's actually on the official roster of past and present Presidents; that's just part of the dynamic. No one person decides. Most importantly, I'd even say that you kind of know who isn't a Black President. (Sorry, Tavis...) Heck, I'll even go so far as to say that, if elected, Obama may not even wind being a Black President. He could wind up being an African-American President or a multiracial President, but it may well be that he didn't do so hot on those invisible caucuses. (However, I will quote a writer I spoke to recently who said that all it took was watching Barack greet an associate while stumping to convince him. "He gave dude a pound. Side handshake, pulled in to the chest and the pat on the back. That's not scripted. That's instinct.")
Looking back, maybe Toni Morrison was putting some rootwork on Bill. ("Oh, you know, let's call him that if it'll help him–and us–out.") What Slick Willie may not know is that nowadays he's dangerously close to Anointed Ofay** territory and those guys never become President. They're frickin' harbingers of doom.
Developing...
*Lord knows there's lots of people on the bubble. Let’s talk it out, people! Jesse? Al? Dyson? And, yes, anyone who knows me knows that I'm being generous by even putting that last guy down as a maybe.
**If you don't already know, you'll just have to pick up the book to find out what this means. 'Course, that means I have to write it, too.
7 comments:
Jesse on the bubble? C'mon. Jesse was the FDR of Black Presidents. Al, on the other hand, wants to be a Black President, but he just can't quite get over the hump.
Other black presidents:
-- Farrakhan (say what you will about the man, but who else could have gotten a million black men to show up in Washington?)
-- Tupac (God knows why, but even my mama loves him)
See, this is where I run up against the reality that there have probably been Black Presidents that I disapprove of, like Tupac. I've never been a fan but he did have that unshakable grip on the consciousness while he was around.
And you're right about Jesse. Thing is, his status has been so diminished in my eyes over the last seven years or so that it obscures the rest of his record. It kinda piggybacks on another idea that we were talking about, which is the inability the previous generation of Civil Rights leaders to hand off the baton. Call it Baby Boomer self-centeredness or whatever, but lots of heretofore self-respecting people have shown their asses when faced with the idea that someone might be continuing The Work.
I think you're off about Jesse. I don't think he's shown an unwillingness to "pass the baton" on The Work. He's always been pretty supportive (at least publicly) of next generation cats. I mean, he's endorsed Obama (following the lead of his son), and though he's been critical of him, he's treated Obama far better than he was treated by the Civil Rights establishment when he ran back in '84. They were damn near ready to lynch his uppity ass.
Jesse has a few other problems in my opinion. He doesn't understand how The Work should evolve. No one cares about protests and boycotts any more. The potential targets have figured out how to weather them, and they can't mobilize the community to do it effectively any more.
His bigger problem is that he's squandered his moral authority on trifling matters. Every time he pops up to defend Terrell Owens or denounce Dog the Bounty Hunter, he makes himself seem more frivolous, and easier to ignore. Compounding this problem is that he's become interchangeable with Al Sharpton in the public mind, so even if he does refrain from jumping into the latest trivial dustup, we all think he did because Sharpton jumped in.
Another problem is that he became too linked to the Democratic Party back in the 90s. There is no way he should have backed Clinton after Clinton used him as a punching bag back in the 92 campaign. He shouldn't have let Gore talk him out of protesting the voting problems in Florida in 2000. That kind of stuff made it seem like he was taking orders, and no one wants a leader who's gonna quietly acquiesce to the powerful white men.
You bring up some good points about Jesse, especially about the evolution of protest. It's that seemingly increasing frivolousness that mostly bothered me. Whatever happened to being strategic?
Oh, and Aretha Franklin was a Black President.
Preach on brother....
Sounds like a chapter developing
Okay -- so....
Billie Holiday was a black president -- and Coltrane -- 'Trane was a black president, ambassador and maybe a king all rolled into one.
Angela Yvonne Davis: black president for sure.
Malcolm and Martin -- black presidents for sure...
And I think maybe I wanna tuck a little bit of Basquiat -- just a bit...
Yes, preach on brother Narcisse! I’ll ignore the fact that you’re not actually licensed to preach in the state of NY. Nevertheless, I believe God is please. I love that you’re advancing the Obama/Clinton discussion beyond the tired old crap I’ve been hearing lately. You’ve given me excellent material for a good rant. Please forgive me in advance... You see, I believe my Grandfather, God rest his soul, was most certainly a Black President in his own right. As a civil rights lawyer and activist, it’s safe to say if Granddad wasn’t a President surely he was the leader of a small opposition party under a parliamentary system if you will. (Pardon the abuse of your metaphor, my brother.) I bring this up only because the true spirit of effectual public service that you so masterfully evoke is completely lost on many of the sign-waving, chest pounding Obama supporters. They truly believe that an Obama presidency is the logical and successful conclusion to centuries of struggle. Maybe Barrack is The Spook Who Sat By the Door or could he be Putney Swope in disguise? Doubtful. A dear friend urged me to consider the psychological effects of electing an African-American U.S. President on future generations of little black boys. Point well taken. But if my friend wasn’t a black man, I might find the statement offensive. To your point, Narcisse, there has never been a shortage of powerful Black Presidents for our children to admire. Folk swear they’re change-agents by simply casting a vote. Please. We have enough apathy and Folk who believe we’ve “arrived”. Yes, I want to make history in November. I just need people to gain a little perspective and not get sidetracked. The men and women that you named, men and women like my Granddad, knew that if you really wanted to be free and grow it meant more than heading to the polls in Nov. It meant you had to get down on your knees, roll up your sleeves and till the soil with your bare hands right in your own backyard. That backbreaking and often life-threatening work led many to public office. And God knows, that’s cool. But understand if January ’09 rolls around and Obama is sworn in, our children will still be catching hell in February. And we’ll still need to cultivate new generations of Black Presidential candidates to run a race that we might not win ‘til we see Glory… So I needed to vent….
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