I pulled out my calendar and checked, but nowhere could I find a notation on this occurrence. How could I know it was “Be Nice To White Folks Week”? I couldn’t know it, of course, but here it is%uFFFDtime set aside for Black folks to make sure
And the scary thing about the observance is that it will last at least until November 4, 2008, and probably beyond. Thankfully, Sen. Barack Obama knew it was Be Nice To White Folks Week. This past weekend, he talked to a bunch of white folks and told them some people were afraid of him, and his wife, and his Blackness. Obama has to be very nice to white people these days. White women, who are PMSing over his defeat of their standard-bearer, Sen. Hillary Clinton, are angry with Obama, and the media, and Black people.
They are mad at Obama for showing up at the wrong time. He’s early, dammit! This was their year. They are angry with the media. They are sure that Hillary was the victim of a sexist media that treated her differently because of her gender. Given the fact that this is the first time a woman had a legitimate chance to become the nominee of either party since this nation was founded, it should not be surprising that she got different treatment.
Obama got different treatment too, but, there are more women than Black people in this country, and it will take a long time before sexism goes away, and when it does, it’s going to have to be women who chase it down the block. Obama has to be nice to white men. Not that he is going to win over many of their votes because he won’t, but white men have been able to vote for other white men%uFFFDexclusively%uFFFDfor all of this nation’s existence. Not sure they even know how to vote any other way.
They weren’t going to vote for Hillary either. Middle-class, rural and lower-educated white people are unsure of Obama, so they have to be convinced that he is the right man for the job. That will also mean he has to be the right Black Man for the job. Like Jackie Robinson, Obama can’t be too defiant, too cocky, too flashy or even too good. He has to tone himself down a bit, and maybe not be so Black all the time.
The makeover underway of his wife, Michelle, is an attempt to kind of mute her Blackness (though Chicago Blackness tends to seep through even pancake makeup). And white folks don’t think it is enough that Obama and his wife disavow his preacher, and his former preacher, and his guest preacher, and friends of the preacher, and 8,500 former fellow parishioners. He also has to disavow the entire Nation of Islam, and the Faith Community of St. Sabina, and anyone who ever said anything nice about any of them.
He may have to disavow Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Dick Gregory, and Muhammad Ali and the Chicago Defender, and Ebony and Jet and BET (well, that one we should all disavow), in order to make white people feel better. And every one of us Black people, whether we support Obama or not, will have to be nice to white people, too. As the first Black Democratic presidential nominee, white folks think he represents Black people, and, in reverse, they think all of us Black people represent him. Any Black person who steps out of line in the next four months will be seen as a chink in Obama’s “change” mantra.
Any Black criminal, or Black baby mama, or Black deviant, or Black politician, or Black preacher, or Black leader is now a for-instance of why Obama cannot lead the nation. Chill out, white people. Barack Obama is not leading the 40 million descendants of slavery and white oppression on a march to the White House to politically take back what was stolen from us over the centuries by law and by lynching.
He’s running for president, and he wants your vote not because you ain’t scared of him, but more, because you should be afraid of the alternative.
Lou Ransom is Executive Editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached via e-mail at lransom@ chicagodefender.com
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