Sagacity Raps for Obama

I was looking for a way to engage students in my Black Studies class about politics and the presidentail election. I recalled that an alum of the University also attended the Obama rally here in Hartford and seemed touched by the experience. This young man (Sagacity) was recently featured in a Hartford Advocate article as an up and coming rapper. I asked Sagacity to either write an article or rap for the Black Into the Future Blog explaining why he, as a young Black male was interested in this election. This was his response that I taped in the parking lot at work.

Dawn Fuller-Ball

Beyond Obamamania

Watching the activities by democratic candidates and their campaigns during this primary season has reminded that voting on the issues are only one part of a much more complicated equation that should be used to elect the most powerful person in the World, The President of the United States of America. That equation needs to include variables like personal expectation, societal evolution of political evaluation by the everyday voter.

Beyond the jokes, the "zingers", the pandering, and the campaign mailers your vote must be educational as well as emotional. It is an investment in a candidate and that investment must yield as high a payout as you can get for your community not just you as an individual.

For instance:
If you believe Senator Barack Obama will bring "Change”, there may be feelings of:
An inept Washington, D.C. since the 2000 elections
Real change comes from the bottom up through grassroots initiatives and real people
An inability to get Congress to move on criminal justice reform
Embarrassment and/or disgust about the Bush II years
Sen. Hillary Clinton is a professional politician not a representative of people, or maybe
Sen. Barack Obama is the best orator since President John F. Kennedy

-or-

If you believe Senator Hillary Clinton represents "Experience”, there may be feelings of:
Nostalgia of the good ole' 1990's
Real change comes from the top down through grasstops initiatives and experienced professionals
A person who Congress is ready to work with
Embarrassment and/or disgust about the Bush II years
Barack Obama doesn't now how Washington works, or
Sen. Hillary Clinton is a realist with concrete goals and the toughness to make things happen

But issues ain't everything

Whoopi Goldberg who claimed she was leaning towards supporting Barack Obama voted for Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday (Febraury 5, 2008). She reported this during her regular appearance on the daily talk show "The View". Whoopi based her rationale for doing this on the fact that Hillary Clinton was the “first” person in this year’s race to announce they would bring industry jobs back to the US. Of course to do this Hillary Clinton would have to denounce the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, which she has refused to do outright.

Whoopi’s public announcement on live daytime network television amplifies an otherwise cerebral debate voters are having as primary dates and the November election approaches them. Superficially Whoopi’s decision and rationale makes sense but by basing her individual vote on individual issues she demonstrated the risk we all face when voting solely based on issues and pandering.

It has been proven in election after election that promises on issues are never kept without organized pressure from the people who the promises were made to. Just ask Black and Latino church leaders who were promised by George Bush II that Faith Based Initiatives would increase social services and poverty programs in their communities. Or the promise by Bill Clinton that Black and Latino communities would be better off post Welfare Reform. The irony is that Faith Based Initiatives was actually written by Bill Clinton to be the answer to Welfare Reform in urban communities. What President Bi Clinton didn’t tell people was that the majority of those welfare recipients would begin receiving state assistance through the criminal justice system and he would ensure they would get those services by passing and expanding federal mandatory minimum and 3 strikes and you’re out laws.

With democratic participation comes a great responsibility and when voting on promises made by a candidate our role in democracy becomes too powerful to allow a pandering, political weather cock to represent us.

We must vote beyond issues. We need to see consistency on our issue, commitments to proposed timelines to resolve those issues, accountability of the candidate to the voter, and both access and communication to and with the candidate so progress on the issue can be monitored.

Just voting because of an issue has resulted in some disastrous results. Consider these few:
• NAFTA – Killed local economy’s by sending jobs over seas, thus killing the middle class in the US
• Welfare Reform - Fast tracked mentally ill and drug addicted to prison, created the working poor demographic, increased overdose deaths, and decreased access to pre-natal care
• Universal Health Care – created fines for businesses and forces people into day labor jobs
• Defense of Marriage Act – Turned heterosexual people against people in the LGBTIQ community
• Iraq – No weapons mass destruction, no Bin Laden, and No-Bid contracts for Bush cronies
• Bringing home the Troops – Congress?? - I guess the jury is still out on that, right!

When voting for a position as powerful the President of the United States we can not allow our vote to be reduced to a simple decision on an issue or two. That decision has to be made by analyzing the information being presented on your issue. We must have historical facts, know the context of the candidate’s larger agenda, and finally a gut feeling telling you if you do or do not trust the person pandering for your vote. Then WE all have to be prepared to hold them accountable if they win.

Here are some youtube video links on some of the issues being addressed. Don’t pull a Whoopi and allow pandering politicians to not only shift your personal vote but then use your influence to shoft a bunch of other people’s votes in one irresponsible sweep.

Health Care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjA6eJ3R-UQ

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y3HWDXmXrY

Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fmAYXeSUU

Sub-Prime Mortgages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pguJNOcssg

Iraq war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMY3dPPVucA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMajrjJ5Q5I


Shame on you Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmet77JCniU

Silly season of politics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wniuF3-QQZ4

The Dream-vs-Machine

By Lorenzo Jones and Robert Rooks: First let me say, Black Into the Future is not about supporting Barack Obama. Its purpose is to foster a conversation among real people about the real meaning of the Obama 08’ campaign. It’s written in plain English, by real people, about personal experiences in order to analyze this historic campaign.



February 5, 2008 lived up to the historical hype promoted. At last check Barack Obama had either won or closed the polling gaps between him and Hillary Clinton. While watching primary and caucus results last night a pattern became apparent. Hillary Clinton won in states like California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Arizona aka, “machine” states. Barack Obama won in Colorado, Alaska, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, Missouri, and North Dakota aka “people” states.

The results reminded me of another legendary Black man, who is considered a matriarch to real people. That man’s name was John Henry. A Black man who competed against a machine that ultimately replaced thousands railroads workers.

In these primary elections Obama and his supporters have talked about him as a John Henry type character fighting against the seemingly unstoppable power of the Clinton’s Democrat machine. Obama, the Ivy League educated, community organizer is everything people like Bill Cosby said didn’t exist in today’s Black community. The rejection of Obama’s campaign by Black “leaders” like Rev. Al Sharpton, Cornell West, Congressman John Lewis, Maxine Waters, Bob Johnson, Maya Angelou, Andrew Young, and Willie E. Gary have only encouraged real people to carry Obama’s campaign. For decades people have asked; have things changed, who is the new Martin Luther King, Jr., where is the next Malcolm X, Huey P Newton or Bobby Seale, where are the organizers like E.D Nixon or A Phillip Randolph. Now we know the answers they have been stymied, killed off, shut down by the machine and their agents. Banging their heads against the boot heals of these Black “leaders”. These Black “leaders” serve as social police who maintain political order to the machine.

We’ve all seen Martin Luther King’s dream become a nightmare with characters like Condoleezza Rice, Armstrong Williams, and Clarence Thomas playing the main villains but now the villainous sidekicks who have operated in the shadows of that nightmare come to light. Langston Hughes once said, “A dream deferred is a dream denied”, these villainous sidekicks of the machine are the dream killers we’ve feared not Rice, Williams, and Thomas. These very “leaders” have told us to dream, shoot for the stars and land on the moon, but their boot heal is the glass ceiling America has been hitting our collective heads against in trying to move forward.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton are correct, nominating her would be historic; but the obvious reality is electing her to the office of President is a commitment to the status quo. Nothing changes; no power-shift, no more dreaming, no change, and ultimately the dream will continue to be deferred at best if not be a continuing of the nightmarish existence.

The irony of comparing Obama to John Henry is if he does well in the primaries and caucuses this Saturday, February 9th, the next showdown will be the Chesapeake primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. As legend has it Virginia (West Virginia being the other) is one of two States believed to have hosted the competition between John Henry and the machine.

Legend has it that John Henry beat the machine but he worked himself to death, dying of a heart attack or a stoke, but his act of fighting the machine, the railroad company, and the inventors of the machine still serves as a rallying point for not only labor advocates but as proof that we will always be up against the “machine” and it’s sidekicks. Whether it is racism, capitalism, sexism, or a collection of all these in Clintonism, we have to fight.

Barack Obama’s emergence and rejection by Black “leaders” is nothing new, people like them responded to Martin Luther King Jr. the same way. The difference is you and me and people who demand a different America. In short a quote from Obama’s speech last night, “We are the Change we have been waiting for.”

Democratic Campaign 2008, summed up is, Barack “John Henry” Obama versus Hillary “Democrat Machine” Clinton, the fight for people power against the continuance of machine production.

My Date with Barack

OK, so it wasn’t a date. Unless you consider a brief encounter with a married man surrounded by 16,999 people a date.

But it felt like one. As I stood in the XL Center waiting to find a seat, I felt butterflies. My palms became sweaty at the thought of seeing this man who seems to have united a country as diverse as ours. I wanted everything to be perfect – the coliseum filled to capacity, young and old, rich and poor, black, white and brown. I won’t go as far as to say I got my hair and nails done, but this night was as important as my first date. We won’t talk about how that turned out.

On this night though, an act of God allowed me to stand right by the steps my man would ascend. He walked out, clasping a sea of hands, including mine. But only for a moment, as a mother holding her baby caught his eye. The cynical phrase shaking hands and kissing babies nearly stole the moment from me as she thrust her child in his direction – until he took the little girl in his arms. He didn’t turn with a smile for the cameras as they flashed away. Instead, he looked in the little girl’s eyes, with all the commitment and concern her mother surely carries every day. Held her comfortably enough that her tears subsided in those few seconds. And she, like us, was enamored.

After giving the baby girl back to her mother, he stood on the stage alongside our Congressmen – DeLauro, Larson, Murphy – and among the heirs of Camelot themselves, Caroline and Ted Kennedy. He seemed both humbled and entitled standing there, graciously accepting the praise of those who’ve come before him.

They talked about him: And he talked about us. He spoke of our struggles for adequate healthcare, and promised that we’d benefit from the same perks he and his colleagues do in that regard. He spoke of our veterans, and how shameful it is that even one is homeless or sick without needed treatment. He talked about a wrong war at the wrong time and the politics of fear. He talked about our children and their right as Americans to quality education.

Then he talked about hope. And how despite the claims of others that hope had no place in politics, he hoped anyway. Hoped because as a Black man born of a single mother and an absent father, hope and love was all he had. Hoped because so many of our country’s milestones started with hope. The suffrage movement, civil rights, even the founding of this country began with hope, he said. And as he talked, his theory of change spread like contagion. Just like the audience wave that preceded his arrival, this belief in hope and solidarity and a Black man leading us there took hold. I was terrified and amazed and swept off my feet.

It was the best date I’d had in years. And like those other first dates, I wondered how long this feeling would last. I can only hope.

By Andrea Comer

Yes We Can - Remix

Yes We Can!!!

Barack Obama demands a question of America, When was the last time a Black leader or politician did something you were proud of?

• Can we trust Barack Obama will make us proud?
• Can we see Michelle Obama as the First Lady?
• Can we see those baby girls waking up in the White House?
• Can we turn emotion into votes then into power?
• Can we believe in the product of our community?
• Can we rebuke "Cosbyness" and accept "Obamamania?
• Can we be heard today across this nation?

Yes We Can!!!