Barack's Election first draft.

At the risk of operating solely as a diatribe without cause or effect, I carefully write this criticism. Save for my own desire to speak there may be no audience and I may be a dubious source. Either way, I write:

November 5, 2008:

The recent, monumental election of President Elect Barack Obama has been received by many as an indication of the success, dedication and perseverance of the black population in the United States. He serves as a symbol for change that has been long over due. But, I cannot help but to ask some fundamental questions about his symbolism in this war time economy. I refer to Derrick Bell's criticism of desegregation and "interest-convergence." Why now?

Derrick Bell asked these questions about desegregation especially because it had not proven to benefit black children? Instead, it offered no protections to black children forced into unwelcomed, violent settings. Instead, black children were not guaranteed equitable education (let alone culturally relevant as modern educational reformists advocate). He asks, why then and for whom? He asserts that more popular white support for desegregation wasn't for the same reasons or longings for equality central to black Americans. Instead, the support for desegregation came in light of the tainted national image of America during the Cold War, the rise of communism. It needed to reestablish its international credibility as equitable and worth following. He argues that white America supported desegregation because it needed to reestablish loyalty and patriotism following World War II and the dissonance promulgated by its dissenting black citizenry (i.e. Paul Robeson). Resistance toward US policies, however minimal, could have tremendous far-reaching effects and white America was forced to contain it through the auspices of desegregation. He states that in order for the equal protection clause to have been justly adhered whites would have to be required to give up many of their fundamental rights. "...the equal protection clause clearly bars racial segregation because segregation harms blacks and benefits whites in ways too numerous and obvious to require citation." In effect, adherence to "true equality for blacks will require the surrender of racism-granted privileges for whites." A concession that desegregation white supporters (however fleeting and temporary) would never offer. Instead, desegregation would have to benefit their status quo and positions. For which Bell argues it did.

Given the historical precedence of a monumental civil rights decision and its professed progenitor, the advent of President Elect Barack Obama, Bell's question and insight remains critical. For he argues that desegregation hurt black children more than it helped. With Obama's election, coincidentally won (or seceded given the history of Republican's voracious will to steal) during its most unpopular period, in the midst of imperialist wars wrought with death and failures; why now? Why now when its citizens have been duped out of trillions of dollars? Why now when the current regime and its multi-millionare oil and banking constiutents are about to make out with more money without recourse but instead concessions and support? Why now? Why a black president now? Others have written about how a black president rises or is allowed into existence (depending upon your political leanings) only after the country has been economically ravished and is in the midst of post-keynesian military industrial complex with wars waged against numbers of countries and their citizens. Why now? Why now when the United States' image is at an unfavorable, unprecedented low? Why now when South American countries are collaborating and rising to dominance? Why now when the United States is losing credibility (however limited or fictitious) with the rest of the world including its allies? Why now?

If we say that it is because of the will of the people, I agree and support this momentous movement. But, when the will of the people want freedom for all, racial justice for more than symbolic purposes, will white America have really conceded? Did black Americans and the world watching win last night? Or did white america and its ploys against black freedom, for imperialist control dominate through this black body, Barack Obama, the beneficiary of desegregation politics. And, who will this hurt? What shields will again be inexistent when violece against blacks and other people of color continues?