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From the jump I have seen the anti Obama claptrap, especially from the Negro hand side, as basically a cover for the Hillary’s . This is even more abundantly clear now. It is one of the reason’s that “Strangle Rangel” shd become one of the themes of the New York campaign. Just as in New Jersey, “He gives me a Pain!”, should be used to squash Congressman Donald Payne’s traitorous support for Ms Hillary.

But after the consistent victories in the primaries and the dominant position Obama has in both delegates and popular votes , except for the clearly Clinton surrogates and representatives it should be very clear that not only have large sectors of the Afro American popular vote gone to Obama, but that the façade of reason which earlier might make the anti-Obama rhetoric seem a basis for debate has crumbled, & is now simply a weak cover for Clinton doubletalk or straight out racism. Even from people who have been taught to hate themselves. Or to, as DuBois sd, see your self through the eyes of people that hate you.

The last time we were here one panelist suggested that if we supported Obama we were helping McCain get in. There was also the infantile left approach that has distorted and warped our political efforts where people think it is revolutionary politics simply to call our enemies names, or shout Free All Political Prisoners, and by that, we will be as this same brother said ,“destroying the empire.”

Not that we shdn’t be constantly struggling to free all political prisoners, but to make that, or any singular, by definition, narrow political line our sole effort is to restrict our methods and path to equal citizenship rights and self determination.

But it’s like comrades who just want the cry of Reparations Now to encompass our entire political line. That’s not politics but narrow obsession.

The under and overview of the revolutionaries’ work must be the seizure of power. That is why, in our earlier & more enlightened in many ways, history we called for Black Power. Because we understood that politics is about the gaining , maintaining and use of power. And a politics aimed at the seizure of power must be flexible to focus on Reparations, Freeing Political Prisoners , Boycotts & Strikes, Demonstrations, Disruption if need be, as well as electoral politics.

Marx said in the 19th century in The Revolution in France that the Bourgeoisie knew what do about violent street demonstrations in the 19th century, shoot you. Mao said our efforts as revolutionaries must be to preserve oneself and destroy our enemies.

So that the question one of reawakening he Afro American people politically has been answered, what should be discussed is how to take that reawakening further, to create a permanent Afro-American political presence, which can function and have the impact, in the US and internationally, of 40 to 50 million people with the 16th largest gross national product in the world.

We understand that one consistent opposition to Obama’s efforts as well as our own will be the racism and national oppression that has confronted us steadily since the emancipation proclamation. The racist rooted remarks from the Bonnie and Clyde Clinton team have been consistent. The South Carolina primary brought it out in Clyde Bill, for a minute I thought he was gonna use the N Word. He used a reference to Jesse J instead. But in this demonstration of how dogs cant stay up on two legs indefinitely, it should have become clear by then that Obama was not limited by the racial stereotyping in the same way Jesse was. Though Clyde Bill tried to introduce it. The Clintons hurt themselves by doing that.

Geraldine Ferraro sounded like the voice from Howard Beach with her comments about how being Black privileged Obama. His rejoinder was precise and incisive, what better way to characterize her racism than “Historically Absurd! “But we must always be aware that the race carnard will be used as many times as possible. The Clintons as well as the McCains know how racist this country remains and that vulgar politicians like these will always use this.

The Jeremiah Wright hoopla is the same attempt. Though t o me what Rev Wright said you can hear in most Black churches on any Sunday. Plus it was dead on. It is the bible out of which comes the voice of God damning such sin as America has historically been guilty of, just as the bible damns America. For it’s greed and murder in the middle east today. And Must we be quietly meek and smiling about Slavery. My wife told me how one old brother reacted when questioned about Rev. Wright’s remark, “Well he wasn’t Nat Turner!”

Obama’s speech explaining his own relationship to the church and Rev Wright was brilliant as he said, “I could no more distance myself from Rev Wright than I could from the Black Community.” But it is our clarity that must be sought about the entire Obama campaign. He is running for President of the United States
not the head of the NAACP!

This is what makes remarks from the juvenile delinquent left merely impotent. What is Obama’s positions on Reparations, Political Prisoners., they ask as a means of staying on the sidelines calling names but no action Though we must raise the question of Mumia’s state lynching. As Bush settles all his scores before he leaves)Have you asked and in what form. It is important that we create a form that can really have an impact not only on Obama but on the people. Those questions would have much more impact asked of the president of the United States. But not if that president were Hilary Clinton or 100 years in Iraq John McCain.

The left over right line taken by the so called Black Agenda on line journal seems to be coming from somewhere over the rainbow when they accuse Obama of secretly appealing to White Men. I wonder do they know the population of the United States.

They say we shd hold Obama’s feet to the fire, yes, but does that mean we reject voting for him. Are we holding Hilary Clinton and McCain’s feet to the fire. Hilary’s position on white men is so overt she married one. McCain is one.

The election of Obama will then bring the issue of classes and class struggle to the fore as never before in this country. In Newark we elected two petty bourgeois negroes as Mayor, Our children have never lived directly under white people they were raised on class struggle. Unless we take this election up to the next level of contradiction we will still be fighting negroes claiming some light weight nationalism, exploiting us hiding behind the absolute dominance of racism & white supremacy rather than be urging Black people to understand classes, class alienation and class struggle. Because finally even race is a class question. Racism makes Black people a lower class than other Americans.

There has been the attempt to force a divisive debate on what it principal race or gender in this campaign. It’s like the Frederick Douglass – Elizabeth Cady Staton debates right after the civil war returned to divide a presumably progressive stratum of the population into sectarian positions on whether race or gender was the most deadly form of persecution in the world. Ironically what simplifies this argument is the racist forms of argument by such prominent feminists as Gloria Steinem ,Robin Morgan or Erica Jong. Linda Burnham in “The Tightrope & The Needle” says “They’re all playing the same (racist) tune…” that they have managed to dredge up some of the least attractive features of liberal feminism. If Obama, even to these women, is a Black Man then why is Hilary only a woman and not a white woman?

Read Alice Walker’s “Lest we Forget….” She says “I wish I could say white women treated me and other black people a lot better than the men did, but I cannot” …”I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over.”

The more perfect union speech should have lit up your brain to the possibility that Alice Walker points out. And there is, and Obama’s candidacy proves this, that there is a new generation on the set. That there are young people on the scene today, Asian, Latin, White and Black who have not been as brain battered by the racism and national oppression we grew up with in this country and they are willing to take a new route. They have not had to witness Malcolm X and Martin Luther King shot down, or the slaughter of the Four Little Girls in Birmingham, or watch Black people march in Montgomery just to ride anywhere on a bus, or witnessed Black students in Greensboro sit in to eat a nasty hotdog at Woolworths Or Robert Williams rip the hoods off Klansmen in North Carolina only to find out they were state troopers.

This in most cases is a bad thing, that our educational system is so backward and racist that our own children can not develop true self consciousness by understanding our history in an organic way that informs their vision of the world. But in this case where it permits another kind of coalition, a would be post racist coalition to form as Obama’s dynamic motor force for the campaign. But even so, the deep dyed racism of this society is providing a bitter flash of how much racism still remains.

So at this point, there are no persuasive arguments for me about not supporting Obama. I doubt that anybody save the need to be strangled Rangel could come out with that now. At least not in this venue tonight. But I would add further that we should be making plans to descend on Denver during the convention from all sides. There are two meetings , the Black Radical Congress Meeting in St. Louis , June 20-22- (OBS-on the move@yahoo.com) and the meeting of the Black Left, May 31 at Chapel Hill, (Saladin 252-977-1419) North Carolina where this issue shd be raised more forcefully and with greater eye toward logistics of such move.

Because , finally, it is the utilization of this campaign to build a strong national political organization, like the Black Convention Movement in the 19th c or the Negro National Congress in the 40’s or the National Black Political Convention and National Black Assembly attempted to do that the Afro American people still must have. A democratically elected national organization that can fight for the transformation of the US political structure and culture. (End electoral college, winner take all, abolish the US Senate, abolition of private monies in elections,
Initiation of One Person , One Vote and Restoration of voting rights to felons who have served their time) These are questions we shd also come at President Obama with. As well as the questions of reparations and freeing political prisoners.

This is yes bourgeois election. And bourgeois politics , if you don’t understand that then certainly you cannot understand what socialist politics and a socialist election would be. It is our task to at least raise the level of the dialogue, to fight for Revolutionary democracy, a Peoples’ Democracy, a United Front Government to replace the monopoly capitalist Imperialist government, as a transitional stage to Socialism.

Amiri Baraka 4/1/08