http://www.blackcommentator.com/336/304_cover_aal_time_for_revolution_walters_printer_friendly.html
By Dr. Ron Walters, PhD
August 6, 2009
It struck me while analyzing the current victory of Barack Obama that
the last time there had been such a formidable Democratic landslide
was in 1964 and the election of Lyndon Johnson made possible the
mandate he used to create the Great Society. At that time, the
racial progress of blacks was at the center of the '64 election, but
today the fears and anxiety of Americans for their own economic
viability drove the 2008 election. Given the difference, the great
question that blacks must face now is whether they yield their own
needs for change entirely, in light of the fact that they have been
the most damaged recipients of both the inhumane policies of the past
30 years of conservative government and have doubly suffered
disproportionally in the current economic crisis.
The answer to that question may be that in binding up the wounds of
the nation, the Obama administration should be demanded to consider
the truth of the previous statement and find a way to attend to the
black community simultaneously. Blacks may benefit from ratcheting
down spending for the war in Iraq, or from universal health care, or
creating jobs from the stimulus package. But while it may be
obvious that they are conjoined, many analysts also feel that
although occasionally strong patterns of general economic growth have
lifted blacks too, they have not lifted them sufficiently to overcome
the inequalities that persist without targeted policies.
In the last 30 years, legislators have pulled back from policies that
favored disadvantaged adults, leaving them to the vagaries of the
demand and supply of Capitalism. They have also eliminated policies
that appeared to favor racial or ethnic groups of color, viewing that
as "preferential treatment." Yet, there were few blacks who have
profited from the from tax cuts or no-bid contracts; instead they
fought the wars, filled the jails and survived on their "personal
responsibility."
I believe that a revolutionary approach to the current crises is
absolutely necessary, since what has happened to America is not just
the fault of a few bad decisions, but a structural crisis, produced
by a way of thinking about privilege and the use of power. Events
rom Katrina to the present, have uncovered the inability of
government institutions to address the needs of people because they
were not fundamentally structured for that purpose, but to serve
powerful interests.
Bayard Rustin, an associate of Dr. Martin Luther Kings, Jr., said in
a 1965 Commentary article that the movement from protest to politics
could affect American institutions. Rustin felt that the
participation of Civil Rights leaders in the 1964 election proved
their capacity to promote such a project to launch a new revolution
that would transform American institutions that served human needs.
By 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was convinced that political and
moral corruption had led to the Vietnam War and what was needed to
restore American morality was "a true revolution of values." In his
speech, "A Time To Break Silence," he said that this kind of
revolution would "look uneasily" and say "this is not just," to the
glaring contrast of poverty and wealth," to capitalists who invest
but care little for the people whose profits they take out, to
Western arrogance which has everything to teach people and nothing to
learn, to people who believe that war is the only way settling human
differences, to those who inject the poisonous drugs of hate into the
veins of normally humane people.
With a strong election mandate, an equally strengthened political
party in government, the wealth of the resources from his campaign,
his positive personal appeal in the U. S. and around the world and
the abilities of those around him, Obama is in an important posture
for historically significant change. His approach has been not just
been focused on immediate fixes, but to embed in them the seeds of
long-term change as well. Furthermore, the depth, severity and
comprehensive nature of these crises should lead any logical observer
to conclude that they cannot be fixed by merely returning to business
as usual, Obama must go beyond that, he must affect a "true
revolution of values" that affects the structure and mission of
American governmental institutions.
If this project is done right and if it includes and is sensitive
to -- the relevant leadership of those communities who have the most
to gain from a new American revolution, then perhaps many of the
problems that African American people face could be addressed.
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