Thursday, August 18, 2011
Politics Opinion: Impoverishing a historic triumph
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 10:45 AM
This is an editorial column by Justin E. Giboney, an Atlanta attorney, addressing the "Poverty Tour" being undertaken across the eastern U.S. by Tavis Smiley, a public TV and radio talk-show host, and Cornel West, a prominent professor of African American studies at Princeton. According to the tour's website, it's intended to "highlight the plight of the poor people of all races, colors, and creeds so they will not be forgotten, ignored, or rendered invisible during this difficult and dangerous time of economic deprivation and political cowardice."
Few events in this country's history have sparked a higher level of pride and enthusiasm within Atlanta’s black community than did the inauguration of Barack Obama. The President may not have won Georgia’s electoral votes, but the Civil Rights battles waged by Atlantans throughout the years definitely helped pave the path to victory. During Atlanta Civil Rights legend the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s inaugural benediction, the air of pride surrounding him and his generation was palpable. It was an undeniable sign of progress through decades of struggle.
Now — just a few years after this historic event — it is a sad irony that two well-respected progeny of the Civil Rights Movement are trying to turn this triumph on its head and adding to the culture of cynicism in the process.
Tavis Smiley and Cornel West's Poverty Tour, which stopped in Atlanta last week, is little more than a thinly veiled anti-Obama initiative with Tea Party-like timing. While in democracy there must always be the proverbial gadfly, in this instance their complaints are overly theoretical and counterproductive. Only in theory can an effective American president be the dogmatic activist who Smiley and West seek to portray.
Certainly, President Obama is not above criticism. Even his strongest supporters must admit that his 2008 campaign was guilty of making “Change” sound a lot easier than it has proven to be. However, the assertion that the president has not addressed poverty is patently false. Health care reform, Wall Street reform, the stimulus package and his appointees all lend support and give voice to the poor and underrepresented.
Sure, Smiley and West are right to say that this country has not adequately remedied past wrongs and still suffers tremendously from inequality. Yet, those ills cannot be reversed in four years.
But instead of cultivating the civic engagement produced by the election, the duo invokes apathy. By attempting to turn such a source of pride and affirmation into another mirror of distrust and contempt, they are unwittingly promoting the defeatist attitude that transforms our people's ambition into negativity and the kind of hopelessness that persuades our youth to choose 30 Deep over 30 academic credits. Moreover, none of the issues they complain of are more destructive than the paralysis of the cynicism the tour perpetuates.
It's hard to separate Smiley and West's new adventure from their complaints about President Obama's treatment of them personally. Their issue is likely deeper than a neglected phone call or a rejected invitation. Perhaps they deduced that the mere occurrence of Barack Obama's presidency threatened to throw their long-professed theories into obsolescence. Quite possibly, the two black intellectuals' egos were piqued by thoughts of becoming irrelevant. If so, their sucker punches are simply a defense mechanism — broad strokes in the brutish art of self-preservation. Nonetheless, base and vile.
To generations of Atlantans, Barack Obama’s presidency is social proof that the city’s Civil Rights struggles were not in vain. Smiley and West’s attempt to discount this progression is selfish and reprehensible.
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