Rice Left out in Middle Eastern Cold …
February 20, 2007
To say Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s once hyped Israeli-Palestinian peace summit ended in dismal failure is an understatement. In fact, it’s a sad, unfortunate example of Rice’s growing ineffectiveness in that region and on a topic – the matter of Palestine – that is said to be one of the driving forces behind radical Islamic rage impacting countries such as Iraq, Pakistan and Lebanon.
We can’t help shake the feeling that Rice is not take as seriously as those before her – at least Colin Powell had the presence of authority. But Powell’s problem is he couldn’t shake the retired soldier in him, the sense of duty and missive honor that always held him back from trusting his instincts. For Powell, he could smell the stench – but he kept on smelling it. Rice seems as lost as a climber on Mt. Hood, Oregon, all the while grinning profusely for photo-ops, but always caught blinking in a tired daze of resignation. We see “why am I here?” & ”when will this end?” – and perhaps she’s holding out simply based on pure, unadulterated loyalty to her Commander-in-Chief friend, football buddy and one-time foreign policy student.
There are a number of reasons for Rice’s ineffectiveness, least of all because she’s a Black Republican. Please – Rice is a brilliant woman of great intelligence, wit and academic style. Perhaps that’s her problem, and perhaps that’s hampering her ability to judge the players, the pimps, the pompous warring leaders who refuse to see beyond pointless years of religious fanaticism, territorial disputes and plain prejudice. She’s too textbook, some might say. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin (once groveling for her legs) is out of her control, and that one part of the world where she was always considered an expert is now unpredictable and shady.
Adding insult to injury, she’s a Black woman in a region that displays little respect for its women – and she’s Black on top of all that. We sound cynical, but it must be asked: how can a Black woman mend fences in the Middle East when the majority of women who live there are routinely oppressed by their husbands, fathers and brothers?
But, we also can’t shake the feeling that she’s being left out in the cold. The feeling that her boss is much too pre-occupied with other matters – such as Iraq and looming Afghanistan – than to be distracted with peace talks between angry neighbors in a land mass the size of New Jersey. This is the main reason why these talks go nowhere, because everyone knows the President of the Free World’s head is elsewhere … and it certainly isn’t focused on finding a resolution to the neverending Israeli-Palestinian problem.
Racial Comments & The Quadruple Standard …
February 2, 2007
As we are now several days into Biden’s bite on Obama, the moral of the story is pretty much burned into the American psyche as it relates to the use of the word “articulate” – specifically, it’s use as a point of reference to describe that African American whom White Americans find comfortable. Less “Black,” as we’ve heard it.
The other unseen consequence of Biden’s comment is that it may actually do Obama more harm than good when it comes to a voting arms race for Black votes in the Democratic primary, since crabs in the barrel have already targeted the accomplished Senator from Illinois as “not Black enough.” Thus, all kinds of uncomfortable conversations about how White folks feel comfortable around Black folks who speak King’s English, yet Black folks castigate those of the same persuasion who speak King’s English as “acting White” or “being uppity.” Don’t ask us – we didn’t create the rule, we simply pray for an exception.
And so, that’s the first double standard by which Barack Obama must be challenged and that we find ourselves so unfairly faced with. That he is comfortably ”articulate” around the likes of Joe Biden and the sea of aging White men in the Senate, but uncomfortably “too articulate” (translated: acting too White) around the likes of those who describe themselves as being “down.” The contradiction here being that if an Obama wasn’t running, there would be a problem; now that we have one running … there’s a problem. Indeed, it’s all rather maddening.
The second double standard is that a White Republican could never get away with a comment like this, or a pattern of comments, without risking his political future. Biden, to date, has experienced very little backlash from within the Democratic ranks, with only tamed remarks from Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, and no noticeable response from the many organizations that would typically line up for verbal effigy if, say, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) would have said it. In fact, as far as we know, Biden is still running for President. Few seem troubled that the “articulate” moment was only the latest in what seems like a string of comments, including his self-described ability to woo Southern voters because “Delaware was a slave state.” On this point, we agree with some Black Republicans and conservatives. Regardless of party affiliation, call it as we should see it.
But, in this case, Democrats get away with it – the third double standard. Former South Carolina Ernest Hollings and his “cannibals” comment to describe African dignitaries in 1993. And let’s not forget his segregationist activities in ’60s. Or, the admitted Klan membership of West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd during his teenage years. Of course, people change. It’s just that with the stubborn disposition of Senators these days, you just don’t know how much.
Lastly, we’ve observed that the fourth double standard is when White politicians in general get a fairly interesting pass when making publicly inappropriate racial comments. In Biden’s case, former Sen. George Allen’s (R) case and numerous others, there is a mainstream tendency to describe such moments as “gaffes” or “political incorrectness.” Biden is described as “idiotic” or a “bumbling idiot” who just ”said the wrong thing at the wrong time.” Stuart Rothenberg strangely describes Biden as being ”wrong and right at the same time” in his Rotherberg Political Report blog. Howard Kurtz’s famed “Media Notes” blog roundup at Washingtonpost.com makes no effort to browse the rather “articulate” (lol) and diverse African American blogosphere on the subject, as if to say “I really don’t wanna be bothered.” Mainstream news outlets - White dominated news venues - are not eager to engage a discussion on the racial or White privilege reasons behind Biden’s comment and will, instead, produce much psycho-babble on Biden’s inability to manipulate a soundbite. Biden is analyzed, his head picked – he gets incessant media therapy over the affair.
However, we find little flexibility for the Black political figure, who would be immediately rebuked, denunciated and condemned if an unkind comment about certain racial, ethnic or sexual demographics. There is no careful reflection on the root cause of such, simply astonishment and a collective call to mute any healthy conversation on the topic.
The popular assumption whenever Delaware Sen. Jospeh Biden (D), now presidential apsirant speaks, is that he’s got this terrible case of verbal diarrhea, a chronic condition that prevents him from seriously thinking before he speaks. But, we’d like to think that Sen. Biden is a rather smart man, being the Democratic party’s “go-to guy” for foreign affairs issue … and now chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’d like to believe taxpayers are getting something out of this deal other than a yawn inspired grey hair in a dark suit who keeps his foot in the mouth for every public appearance.
By this point, you’d think a close advisor or colleague would’ve leaned over to Biden and said: “Joe, it’s about time you shut the $%^&! up.” Or, he’d be reviewing replays or tapings of interview segments and decided, after much self-reflection, that “… man [in that infamously rusty voice Joe Biden way], I really do sound like a dumb ass.”
Instead, Biden keeps rolling like the Energizer bunny on crystal meth. His latest dip into the Hall of Dismay occurs during a New York Observer interview in a cozy Delaware diner (a state once notorious for its profiling, racist state troopers who frequently stopped Black drivers for mundane, non-existent offenses like “broken tail lights”) where he rails on colleague and campaign opponent Barack Obama:
Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”
NYO writer Jason Horowitz is quick to note “backhanded” because he quietly acknowledges what Biden says: that many White people have a funny way of reverse complimenting, therefore slighting, Black people whom they deem “bright” or “articulate.” And so if we had a penny for every time an innocent acting Caucasian fool overemphasized the “intelligence” of a Black man or woman to simply promote harbored racial doubts and social commentary implying collective lack of Black group intelligence, we’d be rich.
What we appreciate about Biden is that he says it, unabashedly – so we know where he stands. Horowitz toys with it. Perhaps he meant the “first” Black presidential candidate of “bright” caliber – but, what about Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton before him? And: why cats keep leaving out Lenora Fulani and Shirley Chisholm confounds us. So, in actuality, Obama isn’t the first. But, in some way, Biden is implying that age-old stereotype of the slick, wily, cunning and fast Black hustler, as if to say Obama is the “first” to pull it off.
Whatever it is, we’re not so quick to dismiss this as a sudden Delaware “macaca moment.” Biden’s a smart man.
