Rare Political Post: Colin Powell Vis-a-Vis Barack Obama

So Former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his support to Barack Obama a few days ago. In an interview with Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press," Powell officially endorsed Obama, reasoning that the Democratic nominee displayed steadiness and intellectual curiosity while positing that McCain lacked a grasp of the economic crisis that still looms over America's head. Interestingly enough, he also expressed a dismay for his own party and the tactics adopted to win the election for John McCain, citing the time spent on William Ayers as an example of the McCain campaign attempting to distract the American people from real issues. Powell, the moderate and always composed diplomat that he is, was able to give such a nuanced--yet poignant--response for his endorsement for Obama that most would be hard-pressed to provide a reasonable counter. However, it hasn't stopped people from providing half-assed reasons.

It's interesting--and ironic--that the Republican party (and here, I speak of people who claim to be Republican, not politicians) claims to be the color-blind party; they'd rather judge by content instead of color. That is, of course, unless someone steps out of line. In the past few days, I've heard the "Powell's only voting for Obama because he's black" line tossed around more times than I care to count. Imagine, a well educated man with military experience, and a member of the Republican party itself, being tossed to the wolves as someone too tribal to think rationally. It smacks of not only short-sightedness, but downright pettiness as well. Here's a guy who served his country, and became the first black Secretary of State in US history, being reduced to a caricature of an ill-educated, ignorant black youth straight from the ghetto. The reason for this? The guy expressed an opinion. Never mind the valid points he brought up in his reasoning, such as the ugly way the McCain camp has decided to conduct its campaign in light of poll deficits and a premium on time. Never mind the fact that the Republican party has moved increasingly to the left over the past eight years. It couldn't possibly be that a black man has an actual reason for voting for Barack Obama other than his being black. At best, this is naivete, and at worst, it's pure, unadulterated racism. Powell's credentials speak for themselves, so reducing him to a cartoon and attacking the cartoon is far easier than attacking Powell himself.

The most interesting part of it all? For years, Republicans touted Powell as their black conservative. He was their answer to the left-leaning critics who lambasted the Republican party as racists. This role has also been played out through the likes of Alan Keyes, JC Watts, and--in the media circuit--pundits such as Juan Williams. The problem with this, however, is that you can't account for personal opinions. Powell was a moderate conservative to begin with, so is it really that big a shock that he expressed a dislike for the current state of his party? Is it really that much of a shocker that someone would find McCain's fixation on Bill Ayers to be--as Obama put it himself--more indicative of McCain than of Barack? With this dynamic, Republicans paint themselves into a corner; instead of making genuine attempts to appeal to black voters, they seem to think that simply touting the few black conservatives in the party is going to do it. Guess what? It's not working, and it hasn't been working. When black people see cats like Juan Williams on TV, they don't think, "Gee, maybe I should reconsider my political stances," not when guys like him are essentially black analogues to conservative personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (without the personality). Instead, they look at these guys and see them for what they are: easy scapegoats so that the far right white conservatives can feel vindicated in their own ugly beliefs about blacks. Yes, Juan Williams and the rest talk a good game about personal responsibility and the rebuilding of black families, but what most whites miss is that this attitude's been present in the black community for quite some time. Hell, these exact same principles have been present since Malcolm X, and even the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan espoused these beliefs. The perception that the black conservatives of today are the only ones in the black community with this belief set is a terribly misguided one; in fact, I'd venture to guess that a healthy majority of blacks are conservative in this regard. Where cats like Williams go astray is when they approach more complex issues with this same, simple solution set, as if something as all-encompassing as race relations can be fixed solely by black people. This ignores the dynamics between blacks and whites and makes it entirely a black problem; it shifts the burden entirely on one race of people and gives them the responsibility of fixing everything. This is the ultimate failure of experts like Williams and Larry Elder: racism is obviously a two way street, and requires effort by both blacks and whites for any progress to be made. Beyond this, though, is the constant "victim" ideology that's talked about in reference to black issues. Going hand in hand with personal responsibility, Juan Williams and his ilk have a simple solution for issues such as high incarceration rates, low graduation rates, and high crimes rates: stop playing victim, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, and make it. See what I mean by talking a good game? It sounds good, if you disconnect actions from the circumstances that surround them. And what does "playing victim" mean, anyway? That all blacks sit around and stew angrily over the white man? This is ridiculous at best and condescending at its worst to treat all black people as one solid bloc of white hatred. Contrary to what Larry Elder and Juan Williams believe, blacks do not ruminate 24/7 about the ills of the white man. We do not sit around at home--with sagging pants, low hanging gold chains, and white T-shirts--and think about the many ways to blame white people for our shortcomings. Many of us work. Some go to college, and others even like white people. None of this is to say that blacks don't have any issues, because to do so would be intellectually dishonest. I do think that personal responsibility needs to be emphasized more, and I do believe that families need to become important with the community again. However, I write because I take issue with the perception that these things are non-existent for blacks.

And I also don't mean to blast all black conservatives; I have great respect for true conservatives like JC Watts, Thomas Sowell (even as he's become more political hack than economist as the election has progressed), and Alan Keyes. However, I have no respect for the faux conservative "blame the blacks" TV/newsprint personalities like Larry Elder, Juan Williams, and Jesse Lee Peterson. They don't provide any real answers for blacks or whites, and turn the issue of race into a one-sided affair that's more ugly and disgusting than it is constructive.

Then again, they're just doing what their audience asks of them: alleviate their feelings of wrongdoing by having these guys tell them that race is a spectre in today's world, that blacks should just get over it and whites aren't to blame at all. In short, it's personal responsibility for blacks, but none for whites.