{"id":606,"date":"2012-10-13T18:52:48","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T22:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=606"},"modified":"2012-10-13T18:52:48","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T22:52:48","slug":"blackism-obamas-true-ideology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html","title":{"rendered":"Blackism: Obama’s True Ideology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the span of the last four years, there has been much talk over whether or not our 44th<\/sup> president is a socialist.\u00a0 Of course, that Barack Obama is a socialist will be denied only by those who choose to give his redistributionist agenda a different name.\u00a0 But in the final weeks leading up to Election Day, we ought to realize that Obama is no less committed to another ideology, one that hasn\u2019t been nearly as often remarked upon.<\/p>\n

Obama, you see, is every bit as much a proponent of blackism<\/em> as he is a champion of socialism.\u00a0 In fact, it is his embrace of the former that explains his embrace of the latter.<\/p>\n

Like any other ideology, blackism consists of a small handful of basic, interrelated principles. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, the blackist affirms an explicitly\u2014and thoroughly\u2014racial conception of history.\u00a0 Historical actors, here, are nothing more or less than abstract racial categories\u2014whites, blacks, etc.\u00a0 And history is an epic melodrama, a perpetual contest between the forces of white \u201cracism\u201d or \u201csupremacy,\u201d on the one hand, and, on the other, the \u201coppression\u201d suffered by people of color.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Second, white racism is endemic.\u00a0 This the blackist must believe with all of his heart.\u00a0 Whatever gains black Americans and formerly colonized peoples of color in other parts of the world have made over the decades, white racism remains as formidable, and destructive, a force as it has ever been. This explains the blackist\u2019s insistence that white racism, far from diminishing, has simply gone covert.<\/p>\n

Third, blackism demands of all of its adherents in good standing that, whenever possible, they express some measure of indignation or rage regarding the historical injustices suffered by blacks and the persistent omnipresence of\u2014what else?\u2014white racism.<\/p>\n

Fourth, the blackist unabashedly heeds the call of \u201csocial\u201d or \u201cracial justice.\u201d\u00a0 What this in turn means is that he must favor a robust and activist government, for only such a government will possess the power necessary to compensate blacks for the past harms that had been visited upon them by white racism.\u00a0 And only such a government will be strong enough to protect them against its ravages in the present and future.<\/p>\n

Finally, central to blackism is the idea of \u201cracial authenticity.\u201d\u00a0 Racial authenticity can be achieved, it promises, by way of the very simple act of affirming blackism!<\/p>\n

Like all ideologies, the ideology of blackism is a distillation of what we may call \u201cblack culture.\u201d\u00a0 It is the cliff note, so to speak, the Reader\u2019s Digest <\/em>version, of a complex of black cultural traditions stretching back centuries.<\/p>\n

In theory, the tenets of blackism can be affirmed by anyone.\u00a0 However, only a biologically black person can be a blackist.\u00a0 That is, it is instant made for just those blacks like Barack Obama who, while biologically black, know next to nothing about black culture.\u00a0 For those blacks, like Obama, who are in search of racial authenticity, the ideology of blackism is their Rosetta stone.\u00a0 It is their salvation.\u00a0 The reason for this is simple.<\/p>\n

To genuinely know a tradition well enough to make it one\u2019s own, it is necessary to immerse oneself in it.\u00a0 In glaring contrast, the knowledge of an ideology can be mastered by anyone in no time at all, for an ideology is constituted by just a few simple propositions that any school child can effortlessly confine to memory. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The blackist par excellence was, not coincidentally, the one person whose autobiography Obama alludes to more than any other book in his first memoir: Malcolm X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Malcolm would invoke \u201cthe authority of history,\u201d as he put it, in condemning whites for having \u201cstole our fathers and mothers from their culture of silk and satins\u201d and bringing \u201cthem to this land in the belly of a ship [.]\u201d\u00a0 He famously declared that blacks \u201cdidn\u2019t land on Plymouth Rock,\u201d but \u201cPlymouth Rock landed\u201d on blacks.<\/p>\n

Malcolm also blasted whites for having secured their \u201cposition of leadership in the world\u201d through \u201cconquering, killing, exploiting, pillaging, raping, bullying\u201d and \u201cbeating.\u201d\u00a0 Throughout the white man\u2019s \u201centire advance through history, he has been waving the banner of Christianity\u201d in the one hand and, in the other, \u201cthe sword and the flintlock,\u201d Malcolm charged.<\/p>\n

The light-complexioned Malcolm, who, like Obama, was raised and schooled within a predominantly white environment, never spared an occasion to assert his racial authenticity.\u00a0 In addition to decrying white racism from the rooftops, he was also fond of blasting other blacks\u2014like Martin Luther King, Booker Washington, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, and Roy Wilkins\u2014as \u201cUncle Toms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Obama, obviously, is not of the same temperament as Malcolm.\u00a0 But he is every bit as much of a blackist.<\/p>\n

As its subtitle makes abundantly clear, his first memoir was designed to be \u201ca story of race.<\/em>\u201d \u00a0This alone weighs substantially in favor of this thesis. But if this doesn\u2019t convince, there is much more evidence ready at hand.<\/p>\n

Obama has a long history of allying himself with the most radical and anti-American of types, it is true.\u00a0 But it is his 20-plus year relationship with his pastor and friend, the self-avowed champion of Black Liberation Theology and Louis Farrakhan admirer, Jeremiah Wright, which most decisively determines his allegiance to blackism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet now that Obama has had four years to govern, we can see that he hasn\u2019t governed in a manner that is appreciably different from that which we could expect from Wright himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Pat Buchanan and other commentators have noted, Obama\u2019s redistributionist policies have the effect of disproportionately benefitting blacks while disproportionately harming those whites whose resources will be confiscated to fund these policies.<\/p>\n

Obama has uttered not a word to stop his supporters from charging his opponents with racism.\u00a0 He has actually exacerbated interracial relations by siding with those blacks, like Trayvon Martin and Henry Louis Gates, who were involved in nationally publicized confrontations with whites.\u00a0 Flash mobs have formed all across the country during Obama\u2019s tenure, yet he has been silent in the face of these orgies of black-on-white violence.<\/p>\n

His appointments, from Eric Holder to Van Jones, further reveal Obama\u2019s racial commitments.<\/p>\n

Going into the voting booth on November 6, let us realize that while our current president is an ideologue, the ideology to which he is most attached\u2014and that is most dangerous\u2014is not socialism or leftism.<\/p>\n

It is blackism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the span of the last four years, there has been much talk over whether or not our 44th president is a socialist.\u00a0 Of course, that Barack Obama is a socialist will be denied only by those who choose to give his redistributionist agenda a different name.\u00a0 But in the final weeks leading up to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBlackism: Obama's True Ideology<\/title>\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.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blackism: Obama's True Ideology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the span of the last four years, there has been much talk over whether or not our 44th president is a socialist.\u00a0 Of course, that Barack Obama is a socialist will be denied only by those who choose to give his redistributionist agenda a different name.\u00a0 But in the final weeks leading up to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-13T22:52:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blackism: Obama's True Ideology","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blackism: Obama's True Ideology","og_description":"Over the span of the last four years, there has been much talk over whether or not our 44th president is a socialist.\u00a0 Of course, that Barack Obama is a socialist will be denied only by those who choose to give his redistributionist agenda a different name.\u00a0 But in the final weeks leading up to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2012-10-13T22:52:48+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html","name":"Blackism: Obama's True Ideology","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-10-13T22:52:48+00:00","dateModified":"2012-10-13T22:52:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/blackism-obamas-true-ideology.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blackism: Obama’s True Ideology"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}