Black Community Is Increasingly Protective of Obama

http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902638.html

Black Community Is Increasingly Protective of Obama
By Darryl Fears
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008; A04

In black America, oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Bill Clinton is no longer revered as the "first black president."
Tavis Smiley's rapid-fire commentaries on a popular radio show have
been silenced. And the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., self-described
defender of the black church, has been derided by many on the Web as
an old man who needs to "step off."

They all landed in the black community's doghouse after being viewed
as endangering Sen. Barack Obama's chances of being elected president.
And the community's desire to protect the first African American ever
to be in this position may only grow with his win in North Carolina
and his close loss in Indiana this week.

"I have parents who are still living who are very enthusiastic about
Obama," said Valerie Grim, the chair of Indiana University's
Department of African American and African Dias****a Studies. "They
live in Mississippi. For a time, my parents couldn't vote, and when
they could, their only choice was a white person.

"This means more than just saying there's a black person on the
ticket. It represents the things they had been denied. It's being able
to see the unbelievable, that the impossible might be possible. It
represents for them a new day, a new op****tunity to see that black
people can contribute, on the ultimate level, to the social order."

Given such sentiment, it has not taken much for other public figures
to move from icon to pariah.

When Bill Clinton called Obama's position on Iraq a "fairy tale" in
New Hamp****re, "I think black people felt betrayed," said Andrea
Plaid, a blogger who writes under the pen name the Cruel Secretary.
African Americans continued to regard Clinton highly even after he was
impeached for lying under oath. "And you turn around and do this to
us?" Plaid said.

Smiley, the renowned black author and commentator, took issue with
Obama for skipping his "Covenant With Black America" event in New
Orleans so he could campaign in Texas and Ohio. The resulting backlash
left Smiley feeling "hammered" and "barbequed" by black Americans.

"There's all this talk of 'hater,' 'sellout' and 'traitor,' " Smiley
said at the time. ". . . They are harassing my mama, harassing my
brother."

The animus dogged him even on the radio, where his commentaries on
black causes for the popular "Tom Joyner Morning Show" were renowned.
In a terse statement issued last month, Smiley announced that he was
leaving the show to focus on other ventures.

Smiley "did a disservice to the black community," said L.N. Rock, the
blogger known as the African American Political Pundit. He noted that
Smiley billed the New Orleans gathering as an event for the people.
But while the people agreed with Obama's compromise of dispatching his
wife, Michelle, to speak in his stead, Smiley balked. "He should have
been hammered for that," Rock said.

Wright has been hailed by many in the black clergy as a brilliant
liberation theologian. But after his speech and question-and-answer
session at the National Press Club last month, people commented on the
blog Jack and Jill Politics -- billed as a political sounding board
for the "black bourgeois" -- that the minister should have known
better than to pick a fight with the media at such a crucial point in
the presidential campaign.

Few of those who commented took issue with the substance of what
Wright said. Rather, it was the timing of his presentation and the
unapologetic showboating of a man who was already a radioactive
presence for Obama that riled black people.

A few sup****ters called Wright a man of conscience who preached the
truth. They were shouted down by others.

The backlash is not limited to the well known. Christopher Chambers, a
Georgetown University professor and Obama sup****ter, said a woman
tracked down his cellphone number, dialed it and called him a race
traitor after he said Wright's performance would doom the senator's
presidential run if he did not act decisively. Obama denounced
Wright's appearance later that day.

Barbara Reynolds, a black columnist who brokered Wright's appearance
at the press club, was also under assault. She rejected a wave of
rumors that cast her as a Hillary Clinton sup****ter who set up Wright
to damage Obama.

Although Reynolds has strongly criticized Obama, she said she is torn
over which candidate to sup****t. However, she said, she is unbowed by
her critics: "They can label me, but I'm not going to shut up."

Paradoxically, African Americans wondered early on if Obama cared
sufficiently about their concerns. But that was before he won the Iowa
caucuses. Standing in the path of Obama's campaign has been dangerous
ever since.

"Yes, I wish Wright had sat down and decided to be quiet," said
Venetria Patton, director of the African American Studies and Research
Center at Purdue University.

Of Bill Clinton and his wife, she said: "The more he opened his mouth,
the more I was against her."