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Drum: YOUNGE IN NEW YORK
1. Martin Luther King 2. Bernie Grant 3. Tony Benn
“A black man ain’t got no place
running for president. If he loses
they’ll laugh at him. If it looks
like he’ll win they’ll kill him.”
In the US there was Martin Luther King (a serial
adulterer), Malcolm X (a former drug addict and
alcoholic) and of course, President Bill Clinton, whose
tricks with a cigar plunged the nation into crisis.
The fact that Nobel prize winning author, Toni
Morrison, described Mr Clinton as “our first black
president” as he was being hounded by the Right
and the media in his hour of shame, tells us
something about the racial positioning of these
characters in politics.
For black folks produce more than our fair share of
political dandies. There is good reason for this. As a
black man in Columbia, South Carolina told me last
year when I asked him what he thought of the
Reverend Al Sharpton’s bid for president: “He’s
either crazy or stupid. A black man ain’t got no
place running for president. If he loses they’ll laugh
at him. If it looks like he’ll win they’ll kill him.”
Anyone who has seen Mr Sharpton speak knows
he’s not stupid. But with a hairstyle like the one he
has, the jury’s out on crazy. For black people to
stand for high office in a Western country and hope
for black support it is indeed crucial that they first
not know their place. If you weren’t crazy before you
started battling for space in the white power
structure, it won’t take long.
In the US there is the added influence of the church,
the only vehicle through which black Americans could
organise in many areas before the end of segregation,
and that tends to produce a messianic tone in its
leadership. But when all is said and done the fact
that we are so many political characters is an
indication not of how smart and individualistic we
are but how far we are from having any real political
power. The decline in the prevalence of characters in
politics is the product of the more conservative,
centralised and undemocratic manner in which leaders
are now not so much elected as selected.
“As political leaders, the black clergy were usually
the primary spokespersons for the entire black
community, especially during periods of crisis,”
writes African American academic, Manning
Marable, in his book Black Leadership. “To some
extent this tradition has been characterised by a
charismatic or dominating political style.”
Party leaders want someone safe and marketable,
not someone who might tell a blunt truth or worse
still, the wrong kin d of lies. Money and institutional
interests increasingly ensure they will get their way.
With little to distinguish between the policies of the
main parties in most countries, they trade on
character. Ironically it is the characters, without cash
or connections but with the tempestuous and
tempting cocktail of bravery and braggadocio, who
often prove most effective at challenging them.