Barack Obama: Corporate Shill? | Big Think

Barack Obama: Corporate Shill?

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Glen Ford says that Barack Obama represents no change at all; in fact, he is setting off a major crisis in the African-American political community.

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Glen Ford:

Glen Ford has had a long career as a radio host and commentator. In 1977, Ford co-launched, produced and hosted America’s Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television. In 1987, Ford launched Rap It Up, the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio stations. Ford co-founded the Black Agenda Report. Ford is also the author of The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Describe today’s crisis in African-American politics.

Glen Ford: The crisis stems for the contradictions between the two main currents in black politics. One sometimes is called the assimilations current, and that is that the struggle is about equality and nothing else; citizenship, rights, and nothing else—to become Americans and that's it. Once we have achieved this American-ness, then the movement is over. The other current is, I call, the self-determinationist current, which recognizes African Americans as a distinct people having become a distinct people here in this country, who have the right to chose their own political path, to try to build a word as they see it based upon a world of view that they are entitled to because of their peoplehood which they achieved in this country. Often, in fact, certainly all the way through the '60s, these two currents ran parallel to each other in the same direction.

However, once we achieved legal status as full Americans, the contradictions between the two currents—the one that we just like to assimilate, and measured its progress by how American-like we were, and the other which wanted to express our view of the world, to shape the world as we thought it should be shaped. That, of course, is done politically. There was a divergence there. These contradictions have come to the inevitable head with the election of Barack Obama.

Question: What change does Barack Obama represent to the African-American community?

Glen Ford: Well, it certainly is a profound change in terms of that current that seeks to be totally integrated into this American project. It does not challenge that American project, a project that began with genocide and enslavement and continues as imperialism. So, for those who simply wanted to integrate into this American project, as Martin Luther King once said to Harry Belafonte, "Run into a burning house," this is the epiphany. This is the end of things. This is the reason to call a halt to the movement.

But for those of us whose project is not a continuation of this American project from genocide and slavery, and not to imperialism—certainly, that was no signal for us to end our struggle.

Question: Are Obama's compromises part of a larger progressive plan?

Glen Ford: Obama is a Corporate Democrat. He's a corporatist. He's exactly what he seems to be. Within the black community, there is this notion, almost generally shared, that Obama is winking at us, that he's playing a game until he secures his position of authority to the extent that he can become his own man. This is when the “brother” Obama will emerge, and we should just wink and be supportive of him, not do anything that might weaken him. At some point, this blacker Obama, this more progressive Obama, this independent Obama, this anti-corporate Obama, will make himself known. We at Black Agenda Report have no such illusions. He is a Corporate Democrat who ideologically and practically is no different than Bill Clinton or his wife.

I think in fact that Obama is pretty much the perfect corporate guy. I could see him in a very large multi-national corporation with big holdings in the United States—something like a Ford or a General Motors or the old Ford and the old General Motors. Obama would be the kind of executive who would try to reconcile the various profit centers within Ford, let's say, and, more importantly, reconcile the different imperatives in that corporation. There would be some parts of the corporation who's job it is to kill the competition, to trim workers remuneration at every point of production. These are the mean guys.

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