Playa Hatin’ Part II: Bill v. BarackPlaya Hatin’ Part II: Bill v. Barack
January 13th, 2008 by Sherrilyn Ifill
When Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton “the first black president,” I knew what she meant. He had a kind of swagger, a kind of personal charisma and (in comparison to the other candidates on the ticket in 1992) a kind of “hip-ness” that smacked of negritude. Hanging out with Vernon Jordan, having power breakfasts with Ron Brown, clappin’ on beat with the choirs at black churches, Bill seemed like he could really hang. Even more telling, white conservatives hated him like they’d hate a black president. They disrespected him like they would a black president, virtually going through the man’s garbage looking for dirt. And they were obsessed by and jealous of Bill’s sexuality, just as white men have historically been obsessed by the sexuality and prowess of black men.
But Morrison was being ironic. We all know that Bill was only a pseudo-black president. So when the first pseudo-black president starts playa hatin’ on the man who could be the for real first black president, it’s time to leave irony aside and talk facts. Let’s begin by putting to bed the story of Bill Clinton as beloved race-man. At best, Bill Clinton’s record on race is checkered. Yes, in the 1990s the economy was hummin.’ Blacks in the middle class benefited from Bill’s economic policies and the peace dividend. Given the state of the war-ravaged economy today and the disproportionate effect on blacks of the housing crisis and attendant record-high foreclosures, of high gas prices, a low minimum wage and the credit crunch, the halcyon days of the 1990s are nothin’ to sniff at. And yes, Bill Clinton made strong efforts to bring racial diversity to the federal bench – even though he was often thwarted by the Republican congress. But almost from his first moments in the White House, Bill Clinton showed us that when push came to shove black people’s interests were expendable.
Even before he was elected, it was candidate Bill Clinton who rushed back to Arkansas from the campaign trail to sign the death petition for Ricky Ray Rector, a retarded black man on death row, just to show for certain that Clinton was not soft on crime. It was President Bill Clinton who gave the shaft to Lani Guinier, his former friend, denying her even the opportunity of a hearing to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Justice Department. It was Bill Clinton who signed the Anti-Terrorism and Death Penalty Act that severely limited habeus appeals for death row inmates. It was Bill who signed the Welfare Reform legislation (obnoxiously called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), and who never publicly and forcefully rejected the venal and hideous public relations campaign against poor black mothers that accompanied the introduction and passage of the bill. It was Bill Clinton (and his Secretary of State Madeline Albright), who hemmed and hawed and refused to use the “genocide” word while 250,000 Tutsis in Rwanda were massacred, in stark contrast to the Clinton Administration’s aggressive efforts to stop the genocide in the Balkans. Both later said about Rwanda, “I’m sorry, my bad, we should have done more.”
Bill Clinton was and is a politician first and foremost. His increasingly aggressive comments about Barack Obama (Obama’s campaign is a “fairytale,” Americans would be “rolling the dice” to vote for him, Obama’s statements against the war are inconsistent) are evidence of that. I have no problem with Bill being out on the stump telling Americans why they should vote for his wife. He’s in a great position to offer his assessment of her qualifications for office. But as (a recent) former president, his attacks on her opponents strike me as unseemly. It’s disturbing to see Clinton trading away his hard-won elder statesman status to engage in these kinds of attacks – especially when they’re as awkward and even offensive as some of the former president’s anti-Obama comments have been. It’s only because the Clintons think that Bill has particular “black credibility” that he’s been dispatched to take on Obama in this way. And that’s offensive. The former president recently attempted to clean up some of his anti-Obama rhetoric in advance of the South Carolina primary, making the now obligatory call to Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show to “clarify” his remarks. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103662.html?hpid+topnews . I think the better route is just for Bill to be quiet. I hate to say this, but I have to give props to former President Bush who, when his son was running for president in 2000 and 2004, deliberately and explicitly declined to say anything about or against ‘Lil George’s opponents. I think Bill should do the same for his wife.
Except that I think Bill is personally stung by Obama’s candidacy. ‘Cause Bill can’t be the first black president if there’s a real black president. This is the essence of playa hatin.’ What Bill needs to remember is that Obama is running against Hillary, not Bill Clinton. And while Bill may have for a time seemed like the first black president, Hillary was most definitely not the first black first lady. So let her prove herself. Let her figure out how to appeal to black voters (note to Hillary: saying that MLK dreamed while LBJ got things done, is not the way). Let her go up against Obama on her own. And Hillary should want Bill to be quiet. It’s anti-feminist in my book to have your more powerful and influential husband do the dirty work of coming against your opponents. That’s why I’m watchin’ how they do South Carolina so closely. We need to know, can Hillary hang? And this time we’re not falling for the okey doke.
Source: http://www.blackprof.com/?p=1946 Back | Print version | SEND ARTICLE VIA E-MAIL |
