Black Coalition Calls Obama 'White Power in Blackface'

During one of his campaign stops last year, then-democratic candidate Barack Obama gave a rally speech that was interrupted by a group of hecklers holding up signs in the balcony of a college gymnasium.

Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary until the television cameras focused on the group. They were black people shouting out anti-Obama slogans, holding up signs decrying Obama for, among other things, not being "down" with black people. I remember thinking what do they want black people to do? Vote for McCain and keep bitching?

So now, a group of brothers calling themselves the Black Is Back Coalition staged a demonstration declaring the president, "white power in blackface." I wonder if these are the same dudes in the gym who got quickly shuffled off by security.

The coalition said:

We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in blackface," civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition, which arranged the protest, called into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion's gates. "He is a tool of our imperialist enemies, and we demand our freedom. And we demand that Obama withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan right now.

I remember cats like this in college, whom we jokingly called the "blackness police." Their mission was to serve as a barometer of who was being black enough, as though there were a set of black standards and practices that all African Americans had to follow, lest they run the risk of being called out.

They also had this to say about the president:

We're not satisfied with him, and...this hope and change rap has not been a reality for black people," Baron told AFP during the demonstration. "We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies.

Now, don't get me wrong. If anybody should hold the president's feet to the fire -- no matter who holds the title -- it should be black folks. There is a long history in this country of unfulfilled promises and rhetoric coming from the White House, which left black folks hanging. So Obama should not be excluded from criticism -- when it is warranted.

And, yes, as difficult as the task may be, the Obama administration should work steadfastly on solutions in Afghanistan, which will expedite the safe return of our troops -- just as he promised.

The same people, though, who staged the demonstration in front of the White House could have traveled just a few miles from it and saw everything from dysfunctional families to egregious poverty to wanton street violence all involving black people. But as I do my research on this coalition, I'm finding that it has nothing to say about its own direct efforts concerning these issues.

In college, the blackness police quickly turned from militants to minstrels, and that's what this "coalition" is doing.

As much as I agree with some of the points they've put forward, such as freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, ending urban gentrification and promoting real justice for black people, having marches and shouting through bullhorns really doesn't do it for me anymore. So the question I ask is what action have you taken? What child have you fed? What young man have you given help in getting a job? What pregnant young girl have you helped get prenatal care? Those are the things groups such as the Black Panthers did back in the day. They were about far more than just marches. They were about action.

Going back to my college example, there was lots of student activity among blacks on my campus. Many students participated in canned food and clothing drives, raised funds for the poor and infirm, tutored local children and helped to recruit more minority students.

With the blackness police, though, if we weren't walking around donned in the same Korean-made African garb they wore, shouting regurgitated quotes from Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, then we were sellouts. These same dudes would never lift a single finger to actually uplift black people. So to me, their actions are suspect.

They could quote Malcolm endlessly, but they apparently failed to read the instructions he laid out in the latter chapters of his autobiography about self-help.

So, yeah, the coalition, like all black people and all people for that matter, should scrutinize the government, but they lose credibility when they say that Obama is letting black people down when they themselves do nothing to help those within shouting distance.