Which Black Candidate Then?

Barack Obama is the candidate of the Democratic Party in this year's election. Needless to say, he is a Black man with African and American roots. His politics are from the left side of the political spectrum and has been given a solid chance to be President of the United States of America.

There are some people who will vote for him because he is Black and many who will not because he is Black. As much as we would love to get past the racial aspect we cannot no matter how hard we try. It is perhaps a failing of this country that this is so but it is something that sooner or later will have to be dealt with.

From a Black perspective, there are many Black people who are enthusiastically and hopefully backing him with the anticipation that with him in the White House, Black people's grievances can be addressed. There is considerable debate connected with that hope... that he will perhaps not be a governor of all the people on one hand, and the governor of only a few on the other. He is in a no-win situation on that score.

We've had Black people run before: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Shirley Chisholm, etc. but none were given a chance to be President because they were dismissed as Black, or in some cases, too Black.

More than likely, it was their liberal politics and racial perspectives which also played a large factor as the country turned more conservative with Ronald Reagan's ascendancy.

So, let's look at something for a minute. What if Barack Obama does NOT win?

Let us say that his politics prevents him from being the candidate of all of the people and he does not win. What Black man, or woman, will then be the best choice to be "the Black candidate?"

I can hear scoffs now as some will bristle at the words "Black candidate" but isn't that what most Black voters seem to want? Someone who will be "presentable" enough to be "accepted" by all of America and therefore her President?

One can argue that if it were ANYONE running against John McCain, they would vote for them but we know that the real reason Barack Obama is so highly treasured by Black voters is his skin color and not necessarily his politics even though most Black people are more liberal than conservative.

Do they HAVE to be more liberal than conservative? Who says so? Are liberals the only people who can identify and feel empathy enough about Black people to have us become fully functional members of this society; to stand on our own feet without feeling beholden to the government for our very existence? Do we feel an allegiance to anyone at all, liberal or conservative? Should we?

Clarence Thomas is Black...and an angry Black man at that. He is angry at how Black people treated him throughout his life and how he was dismissed and discarded along the way because of his complexion. Should he simply forget that? People may want him to and want him to remember that he is Black after all and that he is subconciously "one of us" when his politics make him a pariah.

Condi Rice is Black and an extremely talented Black woman at that. Yet, she is vilified for her politics because she is more conservative than liberal and works for a Republican administration...yet, have you noticed the pull of Obama on her...how her identity is being drawn out of her; how her affinity for her ethnicity and the horrors of her youth have not caused her to forget?

Colin Powell is Black and an accomplished military man...afour-star general with a distinguished career. Yet, because he worked for Republicans he is not "qualified" to represent Black people and his politics paint him as uncaring and insensitive to their needs. He considered a run for the Presidency but we all know where that led. Shouldn't a man possessing the highest in strategic skills as well as the strength to be a strong representative to the rest of the world be qualified for us?

Let's face it. Black America is in so many ways separate from, well, "White" America. The contrast in skin tone is one clear component of it yet we are Americans nonetheless and I think that most of us simply want America to do what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked: honor your IOU to us.

We have problems of our own making and many of others doing but we are still here trying to survive and overcome--even overcoming ourselves most of the time. So, I ask what kind of Black candidate should/could/would represent "us" best? Should they be a man or woman of principle like a solid and well-rooted minister? Their impeccable morals could not ever be questioned, could they?

Should they be a man or woman of industry? After all, their sense of business and conquest and savvy would be a boon to anyone, right? Should they be a man or woman of the intelligentsia? After all, it takes a person of remarkable intelligence to navigate this complex world of ethnic and national entities. Should it be a Black man or woman at all? Do we believe that we are actually capable of running a nation like America with its built in challenges to progress on so many levels with one of them being racial progress?

I think of my friends who are fervent Obama supporters. I know they are supporting him because he is Black and yet no one questions the white voter who supports a white candidate because he is NOT Black. No one calls into question the racial motives of the rest of the electorate but all candidates find it necessary to give enormous import to "the Latin vote" or the "Rust Belt vote" or the "stay at home white mother vote" and so on and so on.

Only the Black vote has to be qualified in this manner so no matter how much one wants to paint the Obama supporters as racially motivated, it goes both ways, doesn't it?

This blog entry is not an endorsement of Barack Obama nor is it an indictment of him. Politics being what it is, I have a hard time with all politicians no matter how well-meaning their rhetoric is.

It asks the question of what kind of Black Candidate should there be in the future if Barack Obama does NOT win? From where and what part of our society should they come and be a viable candidate who can possibly be seen as a candidate first and a Black person secondarily.

I am not even talking about THIS election but those in the future so as such I am not even speaking of Barack Obama.


November 5th will tell this country a lot about what kind of country it is by the ticket that wins. You can extrapolate your own vision of the future if either party wins but since so much attention is being paid to Mr. Obama's ethnicity, I think that this blog entry asks a very fair question about who should be the Black man or woman within our eyesight of the near future who could possibly get this close to the greatest brass ring there is.

Again, this is not a pep rally for anyone in this election. It is about the political future and footprint of Black people in this country going forward.

Your thoughts...please?