I must say that I am getting a kick out of reading and watching those on the right, particularly the religious right, predict how African-Americans will desert President Obama come election day due to his support of marriage equality.
It’s hilarious to me to read the right-wing publications and blogs give room to a supposed angry black pastor/pastors who whines about how Obama has betrayed the black community, of course omitting the fact that said pastor/pastors never really supported Obama in the first place and that these individuals live off of the attention given to them by the religious right.
I get a kick out of the pundits who are predicting the same in their all-white panels (yes I said it) or panels with just one African-American pundit who can’t seem to get a word in edgewise.
Of course why should the black pundit get a word in edgewise? His words don’t matter. Only the fact that he is seen on television as a token so that the news program can claim that they weren’t being racist or omitting black folks.
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And don’t even get me started on the absence of LGBTQ of color pundits.
I find it funny because when push comes to shove, these so-called concerned individuals don’t give a flip about the black community. They look at us as monolithic Borg type creatures who are motivated by solely by pastors with big titles and even bigger mouths.
God forbid that they actually sit down with a group of us to have a real discussion on the matter. Some are only interested in driving a narrative. And when how we act doesn’t suit their narrative, they show their true colors, such as Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham. This is what he said on twitter recently:
So apparently if African-Americans vote for Obama, we are not Christians anymore because Graham sits on the right hand of God. Who would have thought?
And it gets even funnier when one takes into account the words of Harry Jackson, a black pastor who has done really nothing for the black community (consistently sucking at the teat of the religious right doesn’t count as something which moves the black community forward,):
“The black community is in an adulterous relationship with President Obama,” Jackson said. “He is asking us to stray from the most basic tenets of Scripture – that marriage is an institution made by God for man and woman to become one and procreate. He’s telling us it’s fine to hold onto our beliefs but that it’s also okay to accept his stance on a position that goes against that core belief.”
“This is no different than a married person having a relationship with someone other than their spouse,” said Jackson.
So according to Jackson, black people who vote for Obama is akin to having a sexual relationship to one who is not your spouse.
All Jackson’s and Graham’s comments come down to are the real reasons why African-Americans will probably still support Obama in massive numbers. We are not a monolithic community and our actions are not dictated by whomever is the pastor of what church we attend.
We are people who will vote for the person who we feel will do right by our community and country, just like any other voter. And as such, we should be treated like any other voter. Not like people who are dominated by father figures, and not like folks who are willing to cut off our noses to spite our faces in pursuit of a single issue.
Perhaps if we were treated like such by folks like Graham and Jackson, more of us would be inclined to vote their way.
But we all know that’s not going to happen. Because they, like so many other conservatives and pundits in general, seem to think that they know us better than we know ourselves.
Conservatives throwing tantrums at black community over Obama support