Let’s not cite hip hop as representing a homogenous AA community. “Since hip hop was born from a core of AA song-writers, then hip hop must represent all AA’s.” You seem extremely well read, so I’m going to assume that you understand this as a classical fallacy.
At its core, this fallacy is the same logic that drives racial profiling. “Since AA’s commit most of the crime in this neighborhood, the likelihood of the next perpetrator being black is high”. You are using the same logical formula some in the police espouse when profiling.
The police are funded locally - as such, they can essentially represent the local community. In communities that are split into radically varying degrees of economic capacity, the police often end up, aka ferguson, protecting the wealthy against the poor.
You again step into some pretty big generalizations about what AA’s hate. They all hate the police, but they don’t all hate the IRS. By lumping AA’s into one big group, we don’t do AA’s any favors. Do all AA’s hate the EPA? Do all AA’s do anything together? NO. They are a race, not a culture. They ARE NOT THE SAME.
The analogy of the body of the state really begs the bigger question of states rights vs federalism. BART, again, receives some federal funding, but local SF tax payers carry the weight of the BART system.
If we take your analogy to its logical conclusion, then we can talk about transportation in terms of interstate roads. Roads that are for the most part in relatively decent shape, although there’s a serious infrastructure issue at hand.
The head of the state is represented, in this case by Obama, but in reality the head is very purposefully divided into the legislative, judicial and, yes, the president - the executive.
All three of these are in fact institutions as well, or the heart. All institutions contain beaurocratic mechanisms - processes, methodologies, reasons for being.
To be clear, Obama is not black. Obama is of mixed race, like many people from Hawaii are. His cultural background, which is what I believe you should be addressing, is not a part of the ‘black experience’ that you continue to address as being a whole, homogenous ’thing'.
There is no argument that minorities have been aggressed upon for generations. This is a human, tribal trait - the best way to move on is to make sure our reactions don’t do the same to other tribes. I hear you use many of the same tribal generalizations - switch your key words and it’s the same argument white supremacists use……’They’. ‘Them’.
No one has given Obama permission to ignore the issue. But, he is first and foremost a part of the ‘head’, and he probably understands the precarious balance of representing the nation as a whole, not this perpetually aggressed homogenous hip hop group you refer to.
The suffrage movement did not originate with policy. A woman’s right to vote was fought for by women. And in some parts of the United States, particularly the Northeast, women were able to vote for other women soon after.
These issues cannot be resolved from the ground up alone. We live in a heterogeneous nation, and we still talk about these concepts that you refer to in black and white terms. The absolutist rhetoric and jargon you’re using could easily be transposed and used to validate reverse-discrimination.
What has Obama done for his people? No nationally elected president should think this way. Did JFK go in thinking about how he’s going to promote his fellow irish catholics? If I understand Mr. Obama correctly, his real struggle is in making sure he’s not perceived as doing just that, but in finding solutions that work for everyone, no matter the skin color.
To state that the most effective way to help black people is to end the drug war is like saying the best way to help white people is to eliminate dividend taxes. It’s a nefarious argument that’s counter-productive. Yes, narcotics legislation needs to change at state and federal level, but black people are predominant in the realm of incarceration for drug possession not because, as your argument infers, more black males use drugs - but because poor people can’t afford lawyers.
We now move from the AA community to the LGBT community, and examples of aggression here. Sterilization is not a federal conspiracy - the example you cite was truly horrendous, and the outcry from all aspects of society, including the state and federal level, were pretty loud. The mechanisms that are in place today to attempt to make sure it doesn’t happen again are state and federal laws.
Crack in black neighborhoods. Let’s be clear here - drugs are everywhere. If you’re poor and destitute, there may be higher likelihood of falling prey to substance, (meth hits poor rural communities pretty hard, heroin and cocaine hit the urban young even harder) but let’s not be naive - drugs are in use and abuse all over america - from smoking a joint to cocaine. The War on Drugs is a war on the poor. The equate drugs and the AA community is again a fundamental lack of understanding beyond the comfortable cultural walls of urban SF.
It’s almost as though you ridicule the AA community by recommending that the greatest help would be to end the war on drugs. Why not make voting rights universal by birth certificate or citizenship? Why not a universal hike on the minimum wage? Why talk about a ‘ground level up’ only approach when discussing suffrage, but then flip the argument to make it sound as though policy can actually solve a problem first?
Your youtube video has informed me of a couple of things about your understanding of the AA plight in America. 1. You think hip hop is an accurate representation of how all AA’s feel about the police, aka, all AA’s are somehow born with a ‘hip hop’ gene. 2. You think drugs and AA’s are an inseperable reality. Both show your inherent lack of a vibrant, DIVERSE AA race that succesfully live within many cultures and worldviews.
You do your cause a disservice.