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CounterPunch
December
7, 2002
Clinton and
Black Americans
Soul Brother?
by KEVIN ALEXANDER
GRAY
"... he [Clinton] has always wanted
our love and wanted to share his love with us," "It
is not about the skin. It is about the spirit and the soul of
this soul brother."
Former Transportation Secretary
Rodney Slater
I was mildly amused, a bit disgusted but not surprised
when former President Bill Clinton was named to the Arkansas
Black Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of gullibility
when it comes to the relationship between blacks and the man
from Hope. Towards the end of his term, he was viewed favorably
by a staggering 83 percent of African Americans. Now Clinton
has been named honorary chairman of the planned $37 million national
Museum of African American History expected to open in Charleston
in 2007.
Besides just having a big name draw to
raise money, it should be obvious what's going on. Clinton is
reworking his image by creating a phony civil rights legacy.
Forced to resign because of Watergate, Richard Nixon attempted
to reshape his image into that of a foreign policy expert before
his death. Jimmy Carter left office a failure with hostages
in Iran and an economy in crisis. He was still able to remake
himself into a statesman and international peace advocate. Should
Clinton get his way, memories of his real race record will fade
as he transmogrifies himself into a racial healer. And he is
getting plenty of help, as always, from black people.
Charles King the hall of fame's executive
director said the former president deserved induction "to
show him our appreciation not only for what he did as president
but for his lifelong association with us. He came to us. We were
responsible for him being governor, and president. He held on
to that. And we held on to that."
Clinton is now the only white person
among the hall's 62 members, who include poet Maya Angelou, John
Johnson, founder of Jet and Ebony magazines, and former Clinton
administration surgeon general Joycelyn Elders. Remember Elders?
Clinton fired her because she said it wasn't a bad idea to talk
about masturbation in sex education classes.
The evening of the induction Clinton
shared the dais with soul-turned-gospel singer/preacher Al Green.
The two have so much in common that it's a wonder Clinton hasn't
had a pot of hot grits flung at him. Point being - their commonalty
has more to do with them being doggish, busted males than some
twisted sense of racial or cultural empathy.
Since leaving office, Clinton's been
working his 'ghetto pass' overtime. When complaints arose about
the cost of his office space in Midtown Manhattan what did he
do? He moved to 125th Street in Harlem, historically, the intellectual
capital of black America. And the community that nurtured Malcolm
X, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jessie Fauset, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Zora Neale Hurston, Adam Powell and a host of others ate it up.
Harlem was Clinton's second choice and for that he got a hero's
welcome.
At present, the only national political
figure the Democratic Party has black or white - that blacks
identify with is Clinton. In 1998 the party's black get out
the vote effort consisted of mailing out postcards with Clinton
posing beside black families. In the 2002 elections black households
once again got their postcards with Clinton's picture followed
up an automated phone message from their good buddy Bill.
No other president in United States history
has managed to get so much black support for giving so little.
But what makes Clinton's race act so successful is that black
America never asked him to do much to begin with. In the 1980s,
Clinton was the first white candidate for governor to reach out
to Arkansas's black voters, to eat on their porches, pray in
their churches, invite them into the governor's office. For
12 years before Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George Bush insulted
and ignored black people. Consequently, when Clinton wooed African
Americans, most were just happy someone was finally paying attention.
To some degree, black support of Clinton is also acknowledgement
of the black community's need for white acceptance.
Some argue that Clinton deserves support
because his economic policies were a boon for African Americans.
During his administration median income reached an all-time high,
and poverty among blacks dipped thanks in large part to his increases
in the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit. But on
the other side of the economic coin the black-white wealth disparity
remained fixed and the gap between the rich and poor expanded
under his administration.
Others point to the record number of
African Americans in the Clinton cabinet and the picture of racial
diversity it projected. At times Clinton talked the social justice
talk generously invoking the name of Martin Luther King. While
touring Africa he even gave a half-hearted apology for America's
part in European colonization and enslavement. A black man, Vernon
Jordan, was his best friend. A black woman, Betty Currie, was
his personal secretary. It's debatable whether the blacks around
Clinton had any real power, but real or not, his mostly symbolic
gestures were much more than black people had ever seen from
a white person in power. And those gestures have carried Clinton
a long way.
The joke that refuses to go away has
Clinton as America's first black president a sentiment
enthusiastically affirmed by black celebrities, elites and quasi-intellectuals.
In his bit, comedian Chris Rock used Clinton's "persecution
over a $300 haircut" to support the claim. Former Southern
Christian Leadership Conference head Joseph Lowery said that
blacks like Clinton because "he plays the saxophone."
Harvard professor Alvin Poussaint joked, Clinton "must have
black ancestry." Back in1998 during the height of the Monica
Lewinsky scandal, writer Toni Morrison said, "black skin
notwithstanding: this is our first black President" citing
his dysfunctional upbringing as commonality with black males.
But the joke's an insult. The punchline is that Clinton is
decadent and promiscuous, got rhythm, got caught and got over
-- so he's black!
The notion of Clinton as a great friend
of the black community or defender of civil rights is just as
crazy. Clinton co-opted civil rights themes and figures and
distorted their meaning for his political advancement and survival.
Whether it's his telling blacks how disappointed "Dr. King
would be [in them] if he were alive today," because of black
on black crime or his attorney comparing him to Abraham Lincoln
during the impeachment hearings Clinton was an expert at
playing the race card. All the while, his policies and attitude
on due process, equal protection and equal treatment, or civil
rights (rights guaranteed to all), were horrible. A couple examples
of his racial hypocrisy come to mind. One was his initiative
requiring citizens, mostly black, in public housing to surrender
their Fourth Amendment or privacy rights. Another was the "one
strike and you're out" policy under which public housing
residents convicted of a crime, along with anyone who lives with
them, are evicted without consideration of their due process
rights. But while the Rehnquest Court upheld these assaults
on the rights of the poor, Jeb Bush (via his daughter Nicole)
and Clinton (still on the public dole) all remain exempt from
the laws they promote.
Southern politician Clinton has always
played the race-crime game to perfection. In his first presidential
race Governor Clinton ran for office supporting the death penalty
at a time when the country was split almost down the middle on
the issue. Then for good measure, he rushed back to Arkansas
to oversee the execution of convicted killer Ricky Ray Rector,
a brain-damaged black man. For years after his 1st election,
I kept a picture of Clinton and then-Georgia Senator Sam Nunn
posing in front of a phalanx of black inmates in white prison
suits taken at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Historians generally
give Pulaski, Tennessee the dubious honor as the birthplace of
the Ku Klux Klan. But Stone Mountain is hailed as the Klan 2nd
home. The picture appeared in newspapers all across the south
the day of the southern primaries in 1992. That picture is what
Clinton has always represented to me.
So, the fact that Clinton left behind
a larger -- mostly black -- prison population than when he took
office should come as no surprise. Black incarceration rates
during the Clinton years surpassed Ronald Reagan's eight years.
The incarceration rates for blacks increased from around 3,000
per 100,000 to 3,620 per 100,000 people during his administration.
That he did nothing about mandatory minimum sentences
no surprise. That he did nothing to change the sentencing disparity
between crack and powder cocaine that disproportionately affects
African Americans 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 no surprise. When he came into office
one in four black men were involved in 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. Again, no surprise.
Shortly after leaving office, Clinton
published a piece, "Erasing America's Color Lines,"
in the New York Times. He wrote that "America was now at
a point where, we can write a new preamble to the 21st century,
in which color differences are not the problem, but the promise,
of America." He outlined a path that would allow the Bush
administration to reduce systemic racism. The list included a
ban on racial profiling, an examination of mandatory minimum
sentencing and a presidential commission on voter reform.
But Clinton's suggestions were another
bit of hypocrisy given that he refused to implement them while
he had the chance. And his knowledge that George Bush will never
take any of his suggestions made the whole exercise just another
piece of grotesque symbolism, typical of his relationship with
the black community. The commentary was a perfect postscript
to Clinton's marriage with Black America, a relationship that
is characterized by the James Brown song "Talking loud and
saying nothing."
On the night Clinton was inducted into
the Arkansas hall of fame, Charles King must have lost his memory.
He forgot that, as Governor, his guest of honor refused to sign
a civil rights bill. In Charleston, the people behind the civil
rights museum forgot that Clinton dumped 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.
Maybe Clinton's name and service on the
board in Charleston will help lure the money needed to make the
project a reality. Maybe now blacks will get to use him and
maybe get something in return for a change. But he shouldn't
be allowed simply to fundraise himself into a legacy or assume
a legacy he doesn't deserve. A legacy should be more that just
showing up. As for being a soul brother? He's got a very, very
long way to go.
Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina.
He can be reached at: kagamba@bellsouth.net
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