Oh, the irony — why are so many old-guard leaders choosing Clinton over Barack Obama?

By Weekly Archive On Jan 22, 2008

BlackAmericaWeb.com

Having
known Hillary Clinton for more than 30 years, I can tell you she is a
helluva woman — precisely the type made to break the high and heavy
glass ceiling of the U.S. presidency.

She
may not be the politician or campaigner her husband was and is — but
then, he’s without peer — but she has always been a better public
servant. More than the flashy start, Hillary can be counted on for
the finish, nurturing her ideas from inception and announcement to
passage and implementation. Her husband, bless his heart, was more of
a pitchman.

But,
as much as I admire her — and as ready as I am for a woman to rule
the roost — I am stunned that so many in the old guard of the civil
rights movement have chosen her candidacy over that of Sen. Barack
Obama. On Sunday (Jan. 20), the Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of the
historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, became the latest high
profile black leader of a certain age to endorse Clinton’s
candidacy. In joining the Clinton camp, Butts joins U.S. Reps. John
Lewis (D-Ga.) and Charlie Rangel (D-NY); former U.N. Ambassador
Andrew Young and black business mavens Bob Johnson and Berry Gordy.

“I
respect Senator Obama,” Butts told an audience of “beloved”
outside the church on Sunday afternoon. “I applaud him. And I love
him as my brother.” Race had nothing to do with his decision, he
said. And “a vote for Hillary is not a vote against Barack Obama.”
He likes Hillary because she has “proven” that she has the
experience and vision to set things right, he said.

Call
me naive, but I don’t get it. There’s an intelligent, energized,
smart, resourceful, dignified, progressive black man with a major
party’s nomination for president within reach, and he’s not the
choice? But I thought this was why Lewis took that blow to the head
and Rangel hung in there so long and Young walked with King. I
thought they were fighting for this very reality.

What
are they, dogs chasing a car? Now that they’ve got it, they don’t
really want the thing? If the movement wasn’t about equal
opportunity and empowerment, why didn’t we all just stay home? I
don’t think the Woolworth’s hamburger was all we wanted.

Butts
has strong bona fides in civil rights and justice. I don’t doubt
for one minute that he appreciates Hillary and has great confidence
in her. Her appeal on the bread-and-butter issues of black
America — public education, health care, jobs and housing — is
understandable.

But,
for the life of me — and I say this with all due respect and
deference to Mrs. Clinton and her record — I don’t understand how
a white woman can be expected to do better by black Americans than a
black man. A black man like Obama — not a black man like Ward
Connerly, I hasten to add.

I
know that we tend to be leery of black people whom whites embrace,
and Obama has not been helped by breathy plaudits about he doesn’t
seem “angry,” which sounds like a compliment to the white ear,
but like a warning siren to the black one.

But
do these leaders actually believe that Obama would ignore public
education, health care, jobs and housing, black Americans and our
special concerns?

If
nothing else, this schism in loyalty underscores our widening
diversity. Not only are black people not the single-minded fops we
have been made out to be, but we have subdivisions within
subdivisions. Race may be the foundational concern, but class, age
and geography inform it.

But
I must admit, sometimes I wish we were of one mind. It’s not that I
think we should all get behind any black candidate. It’s just that
it seems we should all get behind this one.

Deborah
Mathis is a nationally syndicated columnist and former White House
correspondent for the Gannett News Service. She is the author of two
books, Yet
A Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don’t Feel at Home and
Sole
Sister:
The
Joys and Pain of Single Black Women.