BY MALIK MIAH
SAN FRANCISCO — President George Bush's "war on terrorism" is leading to some complex and contradictory reactions among African Americans.
Like an overwhelming majority of Americans, blacks reacted to the heinous crime of September 11 with outrage and demands for revenge against those behind it. They backed Bush's new "war on terrorism" and joined in flag-waving and outer outward signs of patriotism that have become common place across the country.
Most blacks are proud that two of Bush's inner cabinet are African Americans: Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. They may not agree with many of Powell's or Rice's rightist political views, but it is a fact that never before in US history have blacks played such a central role as policy makers and thinkers in the world's only super-power.
It shows in a perverted way that narrow nationalism can bring solidarity among a historically discriminated people to support individuals who clearly don't reflect or support their best long-term interests. (It's also why the black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, an arch reactionary on most civil rights issues, is still supported by the average black person.)
Thus it wasn't a surprise to me to see the results of New York Times/CBS News poll in December. It found some 75% of black Americans supporting the Bush's "war on terrorism". Many African-Americans who had never displayed the US flag, wore it proudly or hung it from their homes. As one young black resident told the local press in San Francisco, "These [flag patches on his jacket and work shirt] are going to stay on there forever. I'm pro-country, pro-government."
But the NYT poll showed there remains a divide between white and black Americans even on the issue of patriotism and support for the government. The poll found that nearly three of every four blacks approved of the performance of President Bush — who got only 8% of the black voters in the November 2000 vote. Whites, on the other hand, backed Bush by 90%.
Another December poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press noted that 68% of US minorities backed the Bush war on Afghanistan. Some 88% of whites did.
The ambivalence among blacks is not a surprise. "It's about a contradiction in their own lives — about the difference between feeling like Americans and at the same time, feeling like America hasn't fully embraced them", Keith Woods of the Florida-based Poynter Institute was reported as saying in the February 3 San Francisco Chronicle.
There are many reasons for the contradictory response to the so-called war on terrorism. The domestic side of the war is unsettling to many Americans, especially blacks. They see the attacks on civil liberties by the Justice Department targeting Arab Americans and other immigrants for alleged visa violations or over-stay escalate. They see the racial profiling, particularly at airports. It's a reminder to blacks of what African Americans have always faced.
While blacks know that Rice and Powell aren't tokens (as was the case many times in past governments), they know they don't really represent the common black folk. They are privileged and do not support the mainstream views in the community. Like Bush, they represent the interests of the haves, not the have-nots.
At the same time, most blacks (as was seen after September 11 in New York) are "glad" to see Arabs being discriminated against instead of them. It's a misguided expression of "relief". Malcolm X called this head-in-the-sand approach to reality a reflection of low self-esteem. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Annie Nakao quoted one Oakland insurance clerk's explanation: "Let other races feel what it's like. It's been going on for a long time with African Americans."
Of course, these mixed sentiments among blacks — supporting the "war on terrorism" but being ambivalent on the new racism aimed at others — reflect the new world reality. The ability of Washington to so easily win in Afghanistan and make up its own will international law, and act unilaterally, sent a strong message to Washington's imperialist allies and Third World rulers that it alone will decide which countries are "evil".
In his January 29 State of the Union address to Congress, Bush picked his next targets as the "axis of evil" of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. He's already sent Special Forces to the Philippines and military advisers to Colombia. No country, no group, no individual can doubt Bush's words.
In that context, the black apologists in the government like Rice show the depth of the problem facing humanity. The ideological offensive to "unite" the country behind the rightist agenda includes revising African-American history. According to a story in the March issue of Savoy (a black-interest magazine), Rice, who was born in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, said that if the white supremacists had been given enough time they would have eventually changed on their own. There was no need for a massive civil disobedience campaign to end segregation. "Segregation had become not just a real moral problem", Rice said, "but it had become a real pain in the neck for some [white] people."
Rice was against sending a high-level delegation to the United Nations conference on racism held in Durban last year. She basically sides with the Republican right on issues regarding race, placing more emphasis on self help and one's own actions.
With friends like Rice, Powell (not a moderate as some liberals claim but a strong advocate of the Bush doctrine) and Clarence Thomas, African Americans already see the reactionary side of what the new world reality is for them.
It is a mistake to view US policies and propaganda against terrorism as simply a continuation of previous pre-September 11 policies. They're not. African Americans understand this better than most people.
It is not necessarily wrong to be loyal to your nation and its government. Cuban workers and peasants are loyal to their revolutionary government. That type of patriotism is progressive and serves the interests of Cuban working people.
But US patriotism is a different type of loyalty. It is a loyalty to the war policies of the super rich families that own the big corporations and live off the labour of US workers and farmers, even if the flag-wavers see it as solidarity for the innocent victims of terrorism.
A radical view of genuine patriotism starts with an understanding that the problem is the capitalist system — a system that produces war on Afghanistan, wars against freedom struggles defined as "evil" and Enron financial debacles where the common people suffer while the top executives get away scot-free.
The central lesson of African American political history is that patriotism can be shallow. What counts are fundamental changes — an end to racism with full equality, jobs and economic development.
Thus the flag waving among black Americans is both genuine and complex. When the same old racism raises its ugly face — and it will as long as the free market profit system dominates the world — we can expect a different reaction. The high poll numbers for Bush will collapse.
From Green Left Weekly, February 20, 2002.
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