{"id":1276,"date":"2013-08-05T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T08:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/obama-black-paternalism-and-the-passive-revolution-part-2.html"},"modified":"2013-08-05T08:58:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T08:58:00","slug":"obama-black-paternalism-and-the-passive-revolution-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/obama-black-paternalism-and-the-passive-revolution-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"#Obama: Black Paternalism and the Passive Revolution, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

by Joseph Boston<\/a><\/span>
R3 Contributor<\/span>

<\/span>*Parts of this first appeared in the\u00a0<\/span>Joseph Boston<\/a>\u00a0blog<\/span>
<\/span>**Read Part 1 here\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Ta-Nehisi Coates at \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d has been writing some balanced critiques on the president focusing on black paternalism. In the piece entitled \u201cHow the Obama Administration Talk to Black America\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a forthright critique on the hypocrisy of the black paternalism of this president in regard to Black Americans that is noticably absent when it comes to the nations other oppressed demographics. He states \u201cIn all of this, those historians will see a discomfiting pattern of convenient race-talk\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
This rears its head yet again in the speech President Obama gives about the Zimmerman verdict in relation to the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, where he speaks to the reality of life for black males in America and what can be done to help make that better.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

How are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they\u2019re a full part of this society and that \u2014 and that they\u2019ve got pathways and avenues to succeed \u2014 you know, I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we\u2019re going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

President Obama speaks as if he lacks power or agency to do something about this. He acknowledges that there is black pain and a context to that pain that he himself has experienced but apparently is powerless to do anything about it. All while he presides over a \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d that is significantly impacting African- Americans to the benefit of the prison industrial complex and a financial recession that has devastated the black community and home ownership.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
The hypocrisy of all of this is that the president has been on record and stated that he\u2019s not the <\/span>President of Black America<\/a> but the President of the United States.\u00a0<\/span>So, he\u2019s the President of the United States when it comes to policy, but when it comes to black pain or dictating \u201cblack personal responsibility\u201d as reflected in his speech at Morehouse College last year, he\u2019s the Black President?<\/span><\/div>\n
The speech while symbolically powerful is relatively meaningless and is a continuation of rhetoric that directly speaks to Black Americans paternalistically but paradoxically denies the reality of black folk when it comes to working toward policy that will make a difference. I ask, in what way does President Obama want to make black males feel more inclusive as he seeks to put a staunch advocate and user of the police tactic of \u201cstop and frisk\u201d, NYPD Police Commissioner \u201cRay Kelly\u201d into his cabinet as the Head of Homeland Security. Ta-Nehisi Coates again brings the president to task with yet another brilliant piece from his column at \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d entitled \u201cProfiling Comes to the White House\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by stating that:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Communities do not become pariahs simply through the actions of independent citizens. Policymakers send signals about what is acceptable and what is not. Should Barack Obama appoint Ray Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security the signal will be clear: Profiling is not, as Obama once claimed, \u201cmorally objectionable\u201d and \u201cbad police work,\u201d but an acceptable tactic presently condoned at the highest levels of government. Such a development \u2014 in Obama\u2019s second term, no less \u2014 would be a betrayal of African-American voters who endured long lines and poll tax tactics to elect this president. This should not happen. This can not happen.<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I echo Ta-heisi\u2019s sentiments. This should not and cannot happen. Whether it\u2019s in defense of injustice being perpetrated on American citizens as President of the United States or whether it\u2019s as the sometime but non-existent role of \u201cBlack President of the United States\u201d where he acknowledges and identifies with black pain and the context within\u2013 he is compelled to do something about it. The one thing he can\u2019t do, the one he shouldn\u2019t do is be an active or passive participant in that oppression and pain all while he profits from it as he has by the black voter turn-out that assisted in securing his two terms.<\/span><\/div>\n
I\u2019ve long stated that with this president, with as enigmatic and distracting as his presence has been, he is a \u201c
\nmaster reverse code switcher\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n
When it comes to getting votes, he knows how to play ball, give dap, and reference hip-hop to engender himself to the black community but when it comes to effective policy for Black Americans he adopts a malignant color blind gaze that leaves them without anything substantial in terms of effectual change.<\/span><\/div>\n
However, I believe that it\u2019s this reverse code switching and his very presence that has passified black progressives and voices of dissent. This is the mark of what the Italian socialist, philosopher, sociologist and writer Antonio Gramsci dubbed\u00a0\u201cpassive revolution\u201d<\/i>. In a brilliant piece written for Al Jazeera by William I. Robinson entitled \u201cGlobal Capitalism and 21st Century Fascism<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Robinson outlines the process by which white patriarchal power proceeded to conduct a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cpassive revolution\u201d<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>in light of growing dissent at the tail end of the Bush administration. He states:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of passive revolution to refer to efforts by dominant groups to bring about mild change from above in order to undercut mobilisation from below for more far-reaching transformation. Integral to passive revolution is the co-option of leadership from below; its integration into the dominant project\u2026..\u00a0
<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obama\u2019s campaign tapped into and helped expand mass mobilisation and popular aspirations for change not seen in many years in the United States. The Obama project co-opted that brewing storm from below, channelled it into the electoral campaign, and then betrayed those aspirations, as the Democratic Party effectively demobilised the insurgency from below with more passive revolution.<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this sense, the Obama project weakened the popular and left response from below to the crisis, which opened space for the right-wing response to the crisis \u2013 for a project of 21st century fascism \u2013 to become insurgent.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is this\u00a0\u201cpassive revolution\u2019<\/i>\u00a0that the illusion of \u201chope\u201d was brought to America but in particular Black Americans. It is under this same passive revolution that Black Americans have seen the first \u201cBlack President\u201d refuse to acknowledge black oppression from the perspective of policy but receive a a heavy dose of proverbial \u201cfireside chats\u201d when it comes to black personal responsibility and \u201cbehavior management\u201d, things of which white patriarchal power has always faulted black Americans for not doing: working hard and good conduct.<\/span><\/div>\n
The message hasn\u2019t changed, the face is just different. It\u2019s more benign and relatable however it is still as ineffectual. It is for this reason I believe that the Obama presidency has shown us that it doesn\u2019t matter what color the President of the United States is, unless the systems behind the man that stands in the front of the presidential seal are completely changed, the office of the president will remain openly hostile to the plight of black people\u2013 even if it be passively so as in the case of this latest iteratation.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Joseph BostonR3 Contributor*Parts of this first appeared in the\u00a0Joseph Boston\u00a0blog**Read Part 1 here\u00a0 Ta-Nehisi Coates at \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d has been writing some balanced critiques on the president focusing on black paternalism. In the piece entitled \u201cHow the Obama Administration Talk to Black America\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a forthright critique on the hypocrisy of the black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n#Obama: Black Paternalism and the Passive Revolution, Part 2<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Joseph BostonR3 Contributor*Parts of this first appeared in the Joseph Boston blog**Read Part 1 here Ta-Nehisi Coates at \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/obama-black-paternalism-and-the-passive-revolution-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#Obama: Black Paternalism and the Passive Revolution, Part 2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Joseph BostonR3 Contributor*Parts of this first appeared in the Joseph Boston blog**Read Part 1 here Ta-Nehisi Coates at \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/obama-black-paternalism-and-the-passive-revolution-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-05T08:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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