Substance Abuse

"It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen."

--Oliver Wendell Holmes--

"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."

--H.G. Wells--

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."

--Elbert Hubbard--

 

Last week much was said and written about the comments made by Dr. Cornell West about President Obama.  Blogs were written taking sides, the incident was discussed on WVON, and Dr. West was interviewed by Roland Martin on Washington Watch.  The blogs, radio show, and Sunday program all did great jobs of discussing whether Dr. West's comments were based on sincerity or jealousy and whether the African-American community protects President Obama even when he is wrong.  No one discussed the pimp game.

I want to be very clear that I do not think that is what Dr. West did when he made his comments about President Obama.  While I do not agree with Dr. West equating the interests of the entire African-American community with what the liberal, wealthy, academia thinks will help the poor and working class, I respect his courage and integrity to hold President Obama accountable just like any other politician.  

I have to be blunt.  There are pimps among us.  We have too many people with microphones, book deals, and media programs that claim to speak for Black America, but in reality they speak for their own egos, pocket books, personal power and privilege.  They hold on to their power by being the judge of who is the friend or foe of the African-American community.  

These pimps are not always easy to spot.  They sell the lie that the African-American community thinks with one mind and is only interested in a couple of issues.  They are long on rhetoric and short on accomplishments that actually help the poor or working class.  They are quick to claim to be the champion of the poor even though as their wealth increase the plight of the poor remains the same.  They routinely sell the poor and/or desperate the lie that the government can solve all their problems and all they need to do is vote the way the pimps want.  If these pimps have regular access to the Obama Administration then they will support the President.  If they do not have regular access then they will attack him, but in either case they will rarely do so on real, succinct, tangible policy decisions.

In order to have real debates that can lead to solutions then we as a community must require more substance from our leaders.  It is not acceptable for an alleged leader to just name problems without having a suggestion or suggestions about solutions.  And the only way to solve any problem is to break it down into manageable, succinct, and measurable issues.  If a leader can not or will not do that then we should tune him/her out.

The incident between Dr. West and President Obama will be forgotten very soon but the problem of the pimps that continue to clog the dialogue in our community with slogans instead of substance will remain until more people are willing to call them out and then tune them out.

Comments

[RippDemUp]

Very well said. In my opinion, those which are the loudest defenders of the White House in this instance are positioning themselves for access. Those interested in a seat at the table are ignoring the fact that the power is in the people.

[average brother]

I agree. However, I will point out that both sides have pimps. Some of the criticism about President Obama is being made by people with a personal axe to grind because they don't have access to the White house. Either way, both sides need to get down to real policy debates around actual tangible issues instead of the usual slogans. Our community deserves better.