The age of the Oreo: The scary state of Black politics

The curious case of Ray Nagin says it all. Here’s a politician who had specifically failed the African American community in New Orleans during its most urgent moment of need, in the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina. Yet he was able to win re-election with the help of absentee Black voters bussed back to the once predominantly Black city just for the occasion. Blacks blessed him with 80 percent of their support, even though there’s absolutely no reason to believe that the business interests he is beholden to will ever welcome the thousands of suddenly homeless and seemingly permanently displaced back to the Big Easy again.

Nagin is not the only African American leader whose loyalties have to be questioned. There appears to be an explosion of Blacks willing to leverage their skin color in a campaign only to turn around and do the bidding of big business once settled in office. For instance, Congressman Harold Ford, D-Tenn., has recently been indicted as the “Black Point Man for the Right” by the Black Commentator Magazine.

Ford, who is currently running for the Senate seat about to be vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist, delivered the inspirational keynote speech at the 2000 Democratic convention designed to get out the Black vote. At the time, he was dubbed the future of the Party in much the same way that Barack Obama was positioned as the up and coming Black Messiah just four years later.

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