New Orleans: Oprah, Kanye, and Black People

Prop 1(orignially posted September 18)

To say it's all about race is to miss the point.

Perspective.
After the anger. After the fire. Data. Information. Knowledge.Wisdom. Perspective.
It has to be more than race. Race is too easy. "It's because they were Black!" However, the official American line screams denial "It's class!" With an arrogance that suggests to believe otherwise would be far to the left of the mainstream. The great compassionate conservative finger waving super power- America, afterall is better than that. "Race" is a program on PBS aired during Black, excuse me, African-American History Month. "That was in the past" they say. "Look how far we, as a country, have come", they say. In school, the lesson on MLKing ended in 1964 with the signing of the Civil Rights Act. But he died in 1968. As if he spent the last four years of his life... chillin'. To the contrary he sought power. Talking about 'Nam. Talking about economics. Poor People's March... then they killed him. X also sought power. And they killed him. So perhaps it's in our DNA that we want the money and the fame. Big car. Big house. Big jewels. The trappings of power without the real thing. Too scared to seek the real thing. Now how does this relate to what went down during Hurricane Katrina?

What I-you-we saw was what happens when a person or people lacks power. No juice. Israel has a problem? Line up the media and the money from Hollywood to Neo-con DC. Israel gets what it needs. Why is Hamas a global threat, part of the war on terror, but groups like the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka isn't? Is it fathomable that if a natural disaster hit VP Cheyney's home-state of Wyoming there would have been a Katrina-like response? Don't drink the Kool-Aid! When Bush finally touched down he went to the reddest of the red states Mississippi and Alabama, while he passed over New Orleans, Louisiana. Three states equally broke, but Haley Barbour, former RNC chair, is the governor of Miss.. Power. To have power is not a bad thing. Black people, urban Blacks especially, are feared, (e.g. "Don't rob me" "Don't shoot me" "Don't break into my home and rape me") (Question: Who do the people in trailer parks and in Appalachia fear?), but not respected. Beggars are not respected. They are pittied. You beg when you negotiate from a position of weakness, albeit a logically sound position. Race-based Affirmative Action. Welfare. Begging. Same shit. And that's what the, Democratic for the most part, political negroes, have yet to figure out. While it remains to be seen what happens in a post-Katrina world and after Bush's act of Reparations (Ha-ha!), the US, for the most part, had lost it's conscious. With the conservatives at the purse strings, no more free lunches for you, get a job! Similarly, no one out of the goodness of their heart is going to put a Black man or woman on the Board of a Fortune 500, just because it's the right thing to do. And, at a time when many (Black, white, other) are feeling a financial pinch it becomes every man for himself. It's a non-trivial task to articulate special aid to certain segments of a race when other segments of that same race have achieved so much. Oprah. Tiger Woods. Michael Jordan.Collin Powell. How can affirmative action policies be intelligently articulated to a white man who works for or pays money to Merrill-Lynch, Time-Warner or American Express. Compaines whose CEOs are Black. Power is just not given away.

What really pissed me off for real about Katrina is the like of voice and activism on the parts of the so-called Black elite. When shit really got hot down in NO and every night I would home from work to see babies starving and dead bodies wrapped in sheets, I would ask, "Where the f&*% is Oprah?!!!" This chick gives away cars to white women but while her people are dying she's silence. Where's Condi? And this chick supposedly had Bush's ear! Where's Cosby? Young Black men ain't this! Young Black men ain't that! Show me what's good nigga! Where was Collin Powell? Where was Chenault (AMEX), O'Neil(Merrill-Lynch) and Parsons (TimeWarner)? Where was JZ, 50, Luda and Puff? Will and Jada? Mike, Shaq, LeBron, AI, Tim and Kobe? Tiger? Spike and Denzel? Jim Brown? My guy Muhammad Ali? Now I'm sure each gave and gave generously but words were also necessary. A united front to say "This shit is fucked up!" and that we care. If right of intelligence FoxNews could have gotten down to the Convention center, then certainly Oprah could have done the same. Did Jesse go down there? These negroes reacted later than George. The Lesson? If we don't care about our own Black people then how can we expect anybody else to. And, don't trust the latest poll numbers or wave of Bush hand-outs. What collective-America asked was if a Tsunami hit California or week-long blizzard crushed the northeast, how would the Feds respond? How they vote in '06 is another matter completely.

God bless Kanye West! Inarticulate as can be, sweating under the pressure, he hit the high note. "George Bush doesn't care about Black people." Fox news asked, the world asked and the US was forced to respond. He did what Collin, Condi, Oprah and the Cos, lacked the heart to do, be controversial against the strong and in your people's best interest. That's what we don't do. When a new white CEO comes to power and brings in his or her team, if they're all white, no one bats an eyelash. Why do Black CEOs, owners and the like not do the same? Why do they not actively seek out young Blacks to mentor? And be open about it! Is it because we feel we owe loyalty to the system of fairness and justice that finally cracked the door? F-That! We as Black people in this United States of America will never achieve true equality until we are able to act, with confidence, in our own self interest. To connect with the African diaspora within and without. To set a collective agenda and move it forward but from a position of strength. Committ the money, from the Oprahs, the janitors, the Jamaicans in Brooklyn, the Hatians in Florida, Nigerians in Houston, Dominicans in Harlem, Eritereans in Maryland, suburban Atlanta, Compton hoods, Black churches, Muslims and the like to political, educational and social activism on all levels. Maybe then Georgia will have a Black governor or senator. Atlanta as "Black Meca", yeah right. Notice I didn't mention Farrakhan.