In the age of Obama, and with a black attorney general and a black chairman of the Republican National Committee — is black nationalism still relevant? How can we apply the ideals of this movement to today’s increasingly complicated political landscape?
With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the racial and political scope of the country has shifted. Electorates are not so neatly divided and it would appear that the foothold that the ‘Old South’ has had in federal politics for the better part of a century has lost some ground. We can’t fundamentally discuss black nationalism or even the black civil rights movement without acknowledging the failings of that movement. The dueling perspectives of the “We Shall Overcome” sect and the “Black Power” movement were never fully addressed, which had a lot to do with the movement losing ground as time wore on. In 2008, Newsweek acknowledged that “the unresolved biracial ‘black-white’ fault-lines of America’s socio-racial ethnic dynamics are being complicated by a new multicultural political demography of Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Caribbean and African immigrant pressures.’ So no one can afford to think along the same lines as they did 30 years ago. The times, they are a-changing.
Can African Americans today implement the earlier ideas of black nationalism, or is now the time to seize upon a sense of systematic infiltration of the current American hierarchy? The traditional powers that be in American society, i.e. ‘rich white Christian males’ have seen some of their power base stripped away politically, but African Americans should not abandon their own agenda and the issues that come along with it in a rush to co-opt the ideals of the American power structure. The future for black people lies in the ability to keep a toe in both worlds. Understand how we can better address the economic, cultural and societal issues that plague our communities, regardless of who’s president, while not disavowing our rights and responsibilities as citizens. These two objectives are not mutually exclusive, and we mustn’t treat them as such. Many of the principles of black nationalism, including the economic and political power base by and for African Americans, are more imperative than ever. And because of Obama, they’re now more attainable than ever.
