AA Clips, 1.23.08

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Congress' black women favor Hillary Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8055.html By: Josephine Hearn Jan 23, 2008 07:07 AM EST As Democratic candidates battle to gain the favor of black women in South Carolina, a key demographic in Saturday's primary, African-American women in Congress, have already made up their minds: Hillary Rodham Clinton. Seven of 10 black female lawmakers who have made endorsements are supporting Clinton, mirroring a wider trend in congressional endorsements in which the New York senator has a wide lead over rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards. With the potential for either the first African-American or the first woman president to be elected in November, black women voters find themselves in a unique position, with identity politics pulling them in two directions. Among black women in Congress, though, most made up their minds early. "I have never been undecided," said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), national co-chairwoman of the Clinton campaign. "Even when Barack Obama entered the race, there was still no decision for me." Tubbs Jones said she was thrilled with the strong performances of both a woman and an African-American, but she said Clinton is not new to the black community and she has more experience than Obama does. "I would just pray that people don't let emotions rule out reason when they're deciding," Tubbs Jones said. "People say [Obama] is more inspirational, he's this, he's that. I don't need a president to inspire me. I need them to do the job." Among the other black female lawmakers to endorse Clinton are Democratic Reps. Corinne Brown (Fla.), Yvette D. Clarke (N.Y.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Laura Richardson (Calif.) and Diane E. Watson (Calif.) and Del. Donna M. Christensen (D-U.S. Virgin Islands). Although Tubbs Jones was set in her decision early, there were some black female lawmakers who were wrestling with the choice in the same way voters were. "I'm a black woman. It's pretty hard to make some early decision when everything that you have fought for all of your life comes true, all in one election," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) told CNN on Sunday. Among black women nationally, Obama enjoys an 11-point lead over Clinton, a recent CNN poll showed. Norton and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) remain uncommitted in the race. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) are backing Obama, and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) is with Edwards. All of the black women in Congress, as well as all of the black men, are Democrats. Lee said she had carefully considered her choices before endorsing Obama in December. "Having the first woman president, the first person of color, this is a defining moment," she said. "I'm very excited about all of it." But she said that other considerations besides the race and sex of the candidates had guided her decision. "He's the best person at this time to unify the country and reshape America's image in the world," Lee said. "He has the ability to engage people at the grass-roots level. He's a man young people look up to." In the Congressional Black Caucus as a whole, 17 members have endorsed Obama, 16 are with Clinton and two are with Edwards. Among women in Congress, 30 are with Clinton, six are with Obama and three are with Edwards. Many members of Congress will make no endorsement in the presidential primary, preferring to avoid a potential minefield of shifting alliances and political fortunes that can make what once seemed a prudent decision appear foolish later. Clinton's appeal in the black community stems largely from her husband's popularity among African-Americans. He has been called the first black president, only half-jokingly, because of his policies that benefited African-Americans and a familiarity with the community. His office is located in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. "She's been with us," Tubbs Jones said of Clinton. "She's not new to our community. She's been very supportive." Playing the Race Game in South Carolina Black Agenda Report http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view& id=503&Itemid=1 Wednesday, 23 January 2008 by Kevin Alexander Gray As the "Black primary" in South Carolina approaches, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "talk as if" John Edwards, "the more populist Southern white man in the race were invisible." Heretofore, this strange campaign has seen the Black candidate "ignoring what should be his natural base - black voters. That is, until he needed them." His white female opponent, meanwhile, relies on her husband's supposed special relationship with Blacks, who are expected to forget facts such as that "Black incarceration rates during the Clinton years surpassed those during Ronald Reagan's eight years." Unless some issues can be injected into this substance-less campaign, it will amount to "a family spat that soon will pass" - a conversation between Black and female corporate Democrats, with a white man on the side. "Neither Clinton nor Obama is taking on the weighty substance of our issues." I hesitantly step into the Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama family scuffle over South Carolina's black vote. Both candidates are products of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Clinton is a DLC star, chair of its American Dream Initiative touting free markets, balanced budgets and middle-class know-how, while Obama's political action committee, the Hope Fund, has raised money for half of the DLC's representatives in the Senate. This is how America measures progress: the DLC, founded as a vehicle for pro-business Southern white men, is now the arena advancing a black man and a white woman who talk as if the more populist Southern white man in the race were invisible. The "controversy" over Clinton's Martin Luther King comment ("it took a president to make the dream a reality") was, if anything, a set up to push Obama to talk race, something he has taken pains to avoid beyond the occasional King quote he tosses into the mix. Talking race in a white media echo chamber works to Clinton's advantage. First, it is a subtle nod to subconscious and not so subconscious racism. Secondly, it gives her the chance to expound upon the Clintons' fictional race history with blacks. "Talking race in a white media echo chamber works to Clinton's advantage." What Bill knows, Hill knows. And Southern politician Bill Clinton has always played race politics to perfection. Many have perhaps forgotten about Bill, speaking in the last pulpit King stood in, telling blacks in 1993 how disappointed "Dr. King would be [in them] if he were alive today," because of black on black crime. "Crime" has long been a white politician's code to signal, "I can stick it to blacks." In his first presidential race Governor Clinton supported the death penalty at a time when the country was split almost down the middle on the issue. For good measure, he made sure to oversee the execution of convicted killer Ricky Ray Rector, a brain-damaged black man, in the heat of the primaries. Then right in time for the Southern primaries in 1992 he posed with Georgia Senator Sam Nunn in front of a phalanx of black inmates in white prison suits at Stone Mountain, Georgia, second home of the Ku Klux Klan. That picture appeared in newspapers across the South the day people went to the polls. It was Clinton's way to reassure racists. Now, I have no expectations of Obama taking up race issues or attacking policies that have disparate negative racial implications. I have no expectation of him highlighting his blackness. He isn't running to be "president of black America" (at least not yet). His message is of the elusive and metaphoric "one America" as opposed to John Edwards' "two Americas" divided between the "haves and have-nots." Yet, as Clinton discovered before she started appealing to women and ripping off some of Edwards' with-the-people rhetoric, looking ahead and trying to run a general election campaign in the midst of primary battles can bring problems. For Obama, it has meant ignoring what should be his natural base - black voters. That is, until he needed them. "I have no expectations of Obama taking up race issues or attacking policies that have disparate negative racial implications." In politics you start with a base. Yet either the Obama campaign is attempting to reverse the process, or he doesn't see black voters as his base, or he thinks the majority of blacks will vote race without courting. Of course he can't openly appeal to black people to vote for him solely on race, although several of his supporters on black talk radio have demanded that blacks do just that. The irony is that Hillary Clinton is openly appealing to blacks to vote for her solely on Bill. One of the reasons the battle between Clinton and Obama seems so personal at times is that Clinton considers black voters her natural base, and Obama the upstart usurper who didn't wait his turn. It's almost as if, like a disappointed patrician, she were saying, "After all we've done for you people..." Meanwhile, neither she nor Obama is taking on the weighty substance of our issues. It would be perilous for Obama to respond to "Friend of Bill" Bob Johnson, founder of BET, on yet another insinuation about his past drug use. It only keeps the drug-using (and, implied, dealing) black guy stereotype alive. Johnson's comments were deplorable - especially coming from a person who made his money on the exploitation of rump shaking and rap music while simultaneously removing news and public affairs from BET. Moreover, I have been involved in enough campaigns to know that very few things said during them are unintentional, especially with smart people. Johnson will now move along, just as Clinton's New Hampshire chairman did after mentioning Obama and cocaine in the same breath. There's always someone willing to fall on his sword for the king or queen, and another one waiting to take his place. To Obama's credit he put his past drug use out there first in an effort to inoculate himself from attack. That's how the game works - tell your own story before your enemies tell it. It doesn't stop folk from throwing mud, but it makes the stuff less sticky. Perhaps if Obama spoke more forcefully about the tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands?) of nonviolent drug offenders who were not as fortunate as he, and are now locked up in jail, he might gain a bit more credibility and support from those who accuse him of being devoid of substance. "Black incarceration rates during the Clinton years surpassed those during Ronald Reagan's eight years." Obama is fortunate he wasn't busted during Bill Clinton's years in office. Clinton left behind a larger, darker prison population than when he took office. Black incarceration rates during the Clinton years surpassed those during Ronald Reagan's eight years. That Clinton did nothing about mandatory minimum sentences was no surprise. That he did nothing to change the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine that disproportionately affects African Americans was no surprise. That he successfully stumped for "three strikes and you're out" in the crime bill, for restrictions on the right of habeas corpus and expansion of the federal death penalty was no surprise. When he came into office one in four black men were in the talons of the criminal justice system in some way; when he left, it was one in three. In many states ex-felons are denied the right to vote, a factor that had a direct impact on the 2000 presidential vote in Florida. Hillary Clinton strikes a pose as the wife of "America's first black president," even as Bill's policies on due process, equal protection and equal treatment - in other words, civil rights - were horrible. One Clinton initiative required citizens, mostly black, in public housing to surrender their Fourth Amendment, or privacy, rights. His "one strike and you're out" policy for public housing residents, under which people convicted of a crime, along with anyone who lives with them, may be evicted without consideration of their due process rights is still creating housing problems for the poor. Bill (convicted of perjury) and Hillary Clinton were not similarly chucked out of their publicly subsidized housing, aka the White House. If they were poor and trying to get back into their old place in the projects right now, they might not stand a chance. That's reality in a country that left people on their roofs to die. John Edwards used Hurricane Katrina as his entrance ticket to the 2008 campaign, but at a substantive level he, Obama and Clinton seem incapable of addressing "the right of return" for the 250,000 displaced residents relocated after the storm. A "right of return" would require that they have somewhere to live and work upon return. Many of the displaced were renters before the flood. Many have the kind of credit rating that disqualifies them for most private housing and some types of government assistance. New Orleans had the highest poverty/crime rate in the region before the storm, and many of the now displaced were unemployed. A significant percentage of the 250,000 have criminal records, or someone in their immediate family does, thus disqualifying them from public housing under the one-strike policy even if forces in New Orleans weren't intent on eliminating public housing. Will Edwards, Obama or Hillary Clinton support the repeal of the one-strike policy? Will they support waiving or lowering credit requirements? Will they come out for homesteading or granting people a home and a clean start? "Talking up race or even recognizing the racial challenges of living in America brings more peril to Obama than talking up gender does for Hillary." If Obama wanted to go after the Clintons on race, there's plenty of ammunition out there, like Governor Clinton's refusal to sign a civil rights bill in Arkansas. Or President Clinton's dumping of his friend Lani Guinier from consideration for the Justice Department's office of civil rights over her advocacy of cumulative voting, the next frontier for civil rights, which would break down voting by race and party. But I am just as sure that if Obama went after Hillary Clinton to reveal the real record of the period she seems intent on restoring, he would be savagely attacked for playing the race card by the very same media that is fawning over him now. The fact is, talking up race or even recognizing the racial challenges of living in America brings more peril to Obama than talking up gender does for Hillary. Lately some of Clinton's black supporters here have taken to whispering to black voters that if Obama can't bring himself to talk about race in South Carolina, he's not going to talk about it anywhere else. They're right, but they're also snakes. As Clinton sniffed the other day on Meet the Press, "This race is not about gender, and I certainly hope it's not about race!" Nonetheless, if Obama insists on casting his campaign as a movement, he has to add some substance to it. It's not just the "old politics of division" that the Clintons represent; it's the consequences of the policies that they left behind, including the demobilization of a lot of progressive black and working class forces who gave Bill a pass because he said, in many politically masterful ways, "I feel your pain." Whatever candidate starts defining "change" in terms of abandoning those policies will get my vote. Until then the Clinton-Obama race spat is just a family spat that soon will pass. Racism in 'post-racial' America LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-iweala23jan23,0,1775254.story? coll=la-opinion-rightrail Silence about race in the presidential campaign underscores the problem. By Uzodinma Iweala January 23, 2008 I am shocked by the commentary on the prominence of race as a theme in the Democratic Party primaries. Shocked not because race is a theme but because so many in the media seem to think that race would not be or should not be mentioned. It is as if we think that not speaking about race is the equivalent of making progress on race issues. The only thing more amusing than the use of a new term, "post-racial," to describe the positive response to Barack Obama's campaign is the lamentation at the loss of "post-raciality." This entire narrative is a media-concocted fiction. America is decidedly not "post-racial." One need only observe the prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team or the Jena Six, the debate about race-based affirmative action and the atrocity that was and is Hurricane Katrina to know that racial issues are still with us. The desire that the subject of race be set aside in the current "post-racial" political conversation shows that society is unwilling to openly face its worst fear: Not only could a black man ably lead this nation, but the mere fact of a black president would force both the majority and minority populations to reset our parameters for normality. Some (perhaps many) white Americans don't think it's normal for a black person to be successful; their stereotypes can't accommodate the fact of a black person having gone to Harvard and achieved some prominence. As an African American writer, I am reminded of this each time I finish a reading, when without fail a white person overzealously praises my speaking ability. The most recent version of this was a 15-year-old high school student who was amazed that I had actually attended college. Also telling is Obama's initial lack of support in the black community, which may have been a result of an African American unwillingness to see him as representative of traditional (very different from stereotypical) black America. The majority of Americans are comfortable accepting successful blacks in stereotypically prescribed fields such as entertainment or sports, where blacks are expected to be physically and emotionally strong and yet largely politically mute. When a black person becomes successful in another field, he or she becomes a "surprise" to the majority and is subsequently stripped of color. How many times have you heard a white person say that he or she thinks of Obama not as a black man but as a man, or of Oprah not as a black woman but as just, well, Oprah? I have lost count. This well-meaning, praise-expectant affirmation of colorblindness may seem like progress, but it's really indicative of having avoided the central issue: Someone who looks different (read black) could be just as qualified, just as deserving as a "normal" person (read white). The in-your-face, un-stereotypical blackness of Obama therefore forces all of us to question our ideas of race and racial progress in a way that makes us work. This type of work is difficult and scary, and it's understandable why some would rather delay the discussion or label it unnecessary and unproductive. But having this discussion will allow us to grow stronger as a country. Obama's presence forces us to ask whether it is reasonable to call a biracial man black; whether definitions of race designed to benefit slave-owners are still necessary and valid in 2008. His openness about past drug use could put front and center the debate about the patently racist sentencing guidelines our "post-racial" society employs to punish narcotics-related offenses. In general, Barack Hussein Obama brings us face to face with the discomfort our society feels with this idea of difference. Indeed, fascination with Obama's name recalls studies that show how hard it is for those with unique African American names to find employment. And it is interesting that no one has mentioned an obvious reason for the Obama campaign's initial reluctance to attack Hillary Rodham Clinton -- that it might conjure up the age-old assumption that aggressive young black men are a menace to older white women. (If that statement offends you, I'm sure plenty of young black men like myself can tell you about older white women crossing the street to avoid us in our "post-racial" society.) Even if we were to confront head-on these and other questions surrounding race, we are unlikely to grow into the "post-racial" modifier some of us so crave. That's because the idea of "post-raciality" is a total fallacy. Should Obama become president, he will not suddenly cease to be black, nor will white Americans be any less white. However, Obama's continual presence in our newspapers, on television and in our national consciousness would force us to reconsider just what these colors mean. A President Obama (or any other black president) would bring us face to face with the threatening idea that colorblindness and equality are not the same, and that real progress on racial issues means respect for, and not avoidance of, difference. Our racial past and future is something that we Americans must address. Thanks to Obama, there is no better time than now. There's no getting around race in primary The Herald (SC) http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/311250.html By Andrew Dys * The Herald Nobody can tell 73-year-old Rosa Jones, with eight children, 16 grandchildren and the great-grands too, a woman who is president of the College Downs neighborhood association where so many black people have thrived for so long through long odds, that the Democratic primary election Saturday isn't partly about race. Her race, what she has lived through as a black woman and what these candidates say each will do for people like her, matters. "When I began talking to people about this election, I told all of them that they have to remember, 'You know what you have been through. You have to think about where you came from. And ask God to guide you as you go to the polls,'" Jones said. The candidates say Saturday's primary shouldn't be about race. The black voter cannot separate life experience from the decision to be made, said Stephanie Murdock, who was among the first students to integrate Rock Hill High School almost 40 years ago. Her late husband and her sister-in-law were in that first class. I asked Murdock if she is black first or a woman first. "It is impossible to avoid it; you can't ignore it," Murdock said. "Being black is who I am." Murdock called it "overwhelming," the idea that a black man is coming to South Carolina this week asking for votes, and he has a real chance of winning the primary and even maybe becoming the next president. Murdock's son, Alvin Murdock, is the pastor at Christ Deliverance Church. Murdock's grandfather long ago was the president of Rock Hill's NAACP. His late father was a black activist and then a preacher. Alvin Murdock today is a black preacher at a church filled with black people. His blood is the struggle for blacks to find equality. And with all of that, he describes himself as "a pretty conservative guy" who voted for George W. Bush for president. Twice. But not a Republican this time. "We have to be productive citizens and fulfill our duties," Alvin Murdock said of Saturday's primary. "We have to show up." The idea that a woman could be president, or a black man could be president, will make history either way, said Leon Cathcart, president of the Southland Park neighborhood association. Southland Park is another of Rock Hill's black neighborhoods filled with proud, successful families. There is the undeniable perception that Bill Clinton, Hillary's husband, when president was "always for blacks," Cathcart said. A block captain at Southland Park -- somebody who looks out for everybody on the street like that other person or home was his own family -- is 64-year-old John Coleman. He said the race of the candidate for an office so important shouldn't be the issue. Yet, "All of the black race should be proud of (Barack) Obama. I know I am," Coleman said. The Clintons are perceived by baby boomer-age blacks who "have seen that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all" as "icons and great inspirations to the black community," Coleman said. The split between support for Obama and Clinton often is generational, Coleman said, where younger people support Obama. "Either one would be good for the black community," Coleman said. This should be a week, after Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, where the exceptional successes of South Carolina's blacks despite Jim Crow segregation in the not-too-distant past are talked about. Boasted about, even. And there should also be talk about the continued problems black people face in the struggle for equality. I asked Winthrop University political science and African-American studies professor Adolphus Belk Jr. how race, and the race and experience of a person who is voting, could be taken out of the equation Saturday. He said, "You don't." Democratic candidates and the party don't want race to be divisive in this primary and national election because of the fragile coalition of Democrats, but race is going to be important to many voters, Belk said. People's politics are shaped by family, social and peer groups, he said. Polling of Democratic voters last year by Belk and professor Scott Huffmon showed some voter issues such as a downturn in the economy and the war in Iraq affect all people, but issues such as the wealth gap between whites and blacks affect blacks more directly, Belk said. What's also in play is a candidate pool that can make voters inspired -- Sen. Clinton the woman and Sen. Obama the black candidate. That could give people "someone who looks like them in public life." It is undeniable that blacks are more likely to live in poverty. The problems blacks have faced in trying for equal opportunities in education, jobs, health care, housing and criminal justice should not be ignored by the candidates. Belk said for him, the question is, "When it is over Sunday, will the political system be responsive?" to these things so important to all voters. And specifically, black voters. Cathcart said for him, Obama "responds to the needs of our community." I asked Cathcart if that meant his neighborhood, his city, his state, his country. If that means he goes to the polls Saturday as a black man, a Rock Hillian, a South Carolinian or an American. Here's what he told me, which might show why even if the race of the candidate isn't supposed to matter, the race of the voter who has experienced life does: "All of the above," Leon Cathcart said. Congress' only white S.C. Dem stays neutral Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8049.html By: David Paul Kuhn Jan 22, 2008 09:59 PM EST COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina's lone white Democrat in Congress, Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., has been curiously silent about the 2008 presidential race. Even as the nation's eyes have turned to his state and Saturday's Democratic primary here, Spratt has kept a decidedly low profile and declined to endorse a candidate. South Carolina's other Democratic congressman, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, has also remained neutral. But Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress and a kingmaker in state party politics, has nevertheless played a highly visible role so far. Clyburn's "World-Famous Fish Fry" in April 2007 attracted six of the eight Democratic presidential candidates then in the race. He dominated the news cycle last week when he expressed concern over comments made by Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton and indicated that he might endorse a candidate in response. Monday night, Clyburn appeared onstage with the presidential contenders at the Myrtle Beach Democratic debate. Spratt's absence from the fray is not so much a reflection of the merits of the leading Democratic candidates as it is a nagging reminder of the drag that the national party - and its nominees - have had on white Southern Democratic officeholders for decades now. It's a political reality that has largely been obscured so far amid the Democratic excitement over the historic candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the intoxicating prospect of recapturing the White House. Every House Democrat in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada endorsed a candidate. Iowa's three Democratic House members were divided among the leading three Democratic candidates at the time. New Hampshire's two House Democrats weighed in for Obama. Nevada's sole House Democrat, Shelley Berkley, endorsed Clinton. But in Spratt's case, there's been silence. According to a spokesman for Spratt, a congressional heavyweight who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, the congressman is "lying low." Spratt declined to be interviewed by Politico prior to Saturday's primary. Clyburn's reluctance to endorse is rooted in his role as a party titan and his efforts to make South Carolina one of the party's key early contests. Spratt, on the other hand, appears to be employing a different calculus. Unlike Clyburn, a revered senior statesman and civil rights movement veteran who sits in a safe, majority-black district, Spratt occupies a conservative-minded, majority-white district where support for a Democratic presidential nominee is usually not an asset. Getting involved in presidential politics has far more downside risk for him than for Clyburn. "He was vilified for being a Pelosi Democrat, but he's not. He's a fiscal conservative, Blue Dog Democrat. He's one of the last ones," said Hartsville Mayor Michael Holt, a Republican who lives in Spratt's district. "Spratt has a strong base of support. So if he would stick his neck out there and sign up for a particular campaign, I don't know, it could have a negative effect." In interviews with three other mayors living in Spratt's district, there was agreement that he has withstood numerous challenges to his candidacy - including the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress - by maintaining his independence from the national party. But Spratt must also weigh other considerations - among them, how an endorsement might be received within his own party. His district is nearly one-third African-American, and a rejection of Obama's historic candidacy might alienate a key constituency, one without which he could not hold his seat. "It could be argued that Spratt's laying off to try to not offend a particular part of his constituency," explained Holt. Up in the northwest corner of Spratt's district, Henry Jolly, the mayor of Gaffney, believes Spratt's neutrality is a logical choice. Jolly said he "would imagine" Spratt has remained neutral because Obama and Clinton "are very prominent." "I don't see what he would gain by endorsing anybody," he added. None of this has kept candidates from clamoring for Spratt's endorsement. The morning Clinton announced her intent to run for president, she contacted Spratt by phone. Spratt remained uncommitted. "John never has played in presidential politics or, for that matter, statewide politics," former state Democratic Party Chairman Donald Fowler said. "He takes care of his district, and he does it extremely well." Obama's Rise, Old Guard Civil Rights Leaders Scowl Black Star News (NY) http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=4156 By William Jelani Cobb January 23rd, 2008 There was a time in the not-too-distant past when "black president" was synonymous with "president of black America." That was the office to which Jesse Jackson appointed himself in the 1970s -- resigned to the fact that the actual presidency was out of reach. In 2003, Chris Rock wrote and directed "Head of State," a film about the first black man to win the presidency. (It was a comedy.) And in the ultimate concession, some African Americans have attempted to bestow the title of black president upon Bill Clinton -- a white man. In the wake of his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Barack Obama has already permanently changed the meaning of that term. It is no longer an oxymoron or a quixotic in-joke. And this, perhaps more than anything else, explains his tortured relationship with black civil rights leaders. The most amazing thing about the 2008 presidential race is not that a black man is a bona fide contender, but the lukewarm response he has received from the luminaries whose sacrifices made this run possible. With the notable exception of Joseph Lowry, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference veteran who gave a stirring invocation at Obama's Atlanta campaign rally in June and subsequently endorsed him, Obama has been running without much support from many of the most recognizable black figures in the political landscape. That's because, positioned as he is between the black boomers and the hip-hop generation, Obama is indebted, but not beholden, to the civil rights gerontocracy. A successful Obama candidacy would simultaneously represent a huge leap forward for black America and the death knell for the reign of the civil rights-era leadership--or at least the illusion of their influence. The most recent example of the old guard's apparent aversion to Obama was Andrew Young's febrile YouTube ramblings about Bill Clinton being "every bit as black as Barack Obama" and his armchair speculation that Clinton had probably bedded more black women during his lifetime than the senator from Illinois -- as if racial identity could be transmitted like an STD. This could be dismissed as a random instance of a politician speaking out of turn were it not part of an ongoing pattern. Last spring, Al Sharpton cautioned Obama "not to take the black vote for granted." Presumably he meant that the senator had not won over the supposed gatekeepers of the black electorate. Asked why he had not endorsed Obama, Sharpton replied that he would "not be cajoled or intimidated by any candidate." More recently Sharpton claimed on his radio show that the candidates' recent attention to issues of civil rights was a product of pressure from him. Although Jackson is not entirely unfamiliar with the kind of thing that's happening to Obama -- Coretta Scott King endorsed Walter Mondale over him in 1984 -- he also got into the act. He criticized Obama for not championing the " Jena Six" cause -- the case of six young black men in Louisiana charged with beating a white classmate -- vigorously enough. After Obama's Iowa victory, Jackson demanded that the senator bolster "hope with substance." Taken as a conglomerate, Jackson, Young, Sharpton and Georgia Rep. John Lewis represent a sort of civil rights old boy network -- a black boy network -- that has parlayed its dated activist credentials into cash and jobs. Jackson, a two-time presidential candidate, has become a CNN host; Young was mayor of Atlanta and sits on numerous corporate boards; and Lewis is essentially representative-for-life of the 5th Congressional District in Georgia. Sharpton is younger than the others but a peer in spirit. To the extent that the term "leader" is applicable, these four men likely represent the interests of Democratic Party insiders more than those of the black community. Both Young and Lewis have endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ; Sharpton and Jackson have acted ambivalent, alternately mouthing niceties about Obama and criticizing his stances on black issues. It may be that, because they doubt that he can actually win, the civil rights leaders are holding Obama at arm's length in an attempt to build their houses on what looks to be the firmer ground. And there are certainly patronage benefits should Clinton win. She owes black pols, starting with Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who first suggested that the party endorse her for a New York Senate seat. Rangel has also lined up behind Clinton. There is far more to politics -- even racial politics -- than skin color. Still it is counterintuitive to think that Lewis, whose political career began when he was bludgeoned in Selma, Ala., fighting for black voting rights, is witnessing the rise of the first viable black presidential candidate and yet opts to support a white machine politician. One of the most telling aspects of Young's YouTube commentary was his statement that he'd called his political connections in Chicago about Obama and been told "they don't know him." There are certainly reasons not to support Obama, but not having friends in common isn't one of them. Young went on to announce that Obama was too young and should wait until 2016 -- a curious statement considering that Young was apprenticed to Martin Luther King Jr. , who was 26 when he launched the Montgomery bus boycotts that eventually toppled segregation. The cynical braying about Obama's prospects has not been confined to the liberal civil rights quarters of black America. The conservative commentator Shelby Steele argued in his book "A Bound Man" that Obama isn't perceived as "black" enough to win over African American voters. In fact, Obama strategists have been struggling to convince black voters that Obama can actually win over white voters and be a viable candidate. Many blacks want to support a winner and hope that Obama will become more attractive to white voters, not less. Part of this disconnect is a generational divide, one that is apparent in Jackson's own household. Following Jackson's criticism of Obama in the Chicago Sun-Times, his son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., wrote a passionate defense of Obama's activist credentials. As polls show increasing black support for Obama, Jackson, Sharpton and Young begin to look like a once-wealthy family that has lost its fortune but has to keep spending to maintain appearances. Obama's tepid early showing among blacks in the polls had more to do with name recognition and concerns about his viability as a candidate than with Jackson or Sharpton withholding their endorsement. Ignoring Sharpton or Jackson is not the same thing as taking the black vote for granted. It is a reasonable calculation that neither of them can deliver many votes and certainly not enough to offset the number of white votes that their approval could lose Obama. Jackson and Sharpton might be holding out for a better deal in exchange for their support, but with Oprah Winfrey and Chris Rock among Obama's list of supporters, they have little to bargain with. If Obama makes a strong showing in the South Carolina primary -- the first with a substantial number of black voters -- it will become apparent that the black boy network has begun bouncing checks. The irony is that for generations of black "firsts," the prerequisite for entering an institution was proving that you were just like the establishment that ran it. (Think of Jackie Robinson's approach to the major leagues, or the host of "articulate Negro" roles in Sidney Poitier's body of work.) Obama has been vastly successful by doing just the opposite: masterfully positioning himself as an outsider. In the process, he's opened the door even wider for black outsiders. Too bad his predecessors refuse to help push him the rest of the way inside. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contributions to Hillary Clinton for President are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. ---------------------------------- Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President ----------------------------------