USA har aldrig før haft en præsident der selv er et symbol på de problemer nationen lider under, som Barack Obama. Kun hvis Hillary Clinton overtager kan det blive værre.
Det er 68’er-generationens frugter man ser. Tressergenerationen indførte sin egen definition af retfærdighed. Den står over den borgerlige retfærdighed, der er ufuldkommen. I det gamle samfund var der aldrig tvivl om hvem der havde ret: Myndighederne havde ret, domstolene dømte og politiet håndhævede loven. Der skete fra tid til anden justismord, men ingen ville for alvor drømme om at vælte systemet pga. et justismord.
Men en sådan utopisk retfærdighed var det at 68’er-generationen indførte. Det er en gentagelse af anabaptisternes, gendøbernes revolution fra 1500-tallet; Bedre at verden går under end at én lider uret.
Frigørelse fremfor alt, frigørelse for enhver gruppe, for ethvert individ, genoprettelse af enhver uretfærdighed gennem historien.
Det var det program vores generation lancerede i tresserne, og det har rullet videre og indtaget magtens bastioner. Med wunderkind Obama rykkede det ind i verdens mest magtfulde embede. Derfra har Obama forkyndt budskabet om retfærdighed. Det var ikke tilfældig at Obama tidlig sagde at USA ikke var noget mere specielt end alle andre. Manifest destiny og den lysende by på en bakketop var ikke billeder som tiltalte Obama. Hans retfærdighed er universel og revolutionær.
Derfor har han ved flere anledninger interveneret til fordel for sorte der er havnet i problemer, og endog sagt at hvis han havde haft en søn ville han have set ud som Trayvon Martin, hætteklædt.
Det er meget specielt af en amerikansk præsident at identificere sig med en kriminel. Obama er for the underdog, men det kan gå helt galt. Dermed kommer han på den modsatte side af politiet.
Politiet fornemmer disse signaler, og de føler sig ganske enkelt forrådt.
Hvis Obama havde været præsident for alle amerikanere havde han taget et opgør med Black Lives Matter-bevægelsen for længe siden.
De har samme slagord som udenomparlamentariske grupper rundt om i Vesten; No justice, no peace. Eller: Hvis vi ikke får indrømmelser på vore betingelser, bliver det ingen fred. Disse grupperne vil selv definere retfærdighed.
Obama har selv forsvaret deres ret til at protestere. Selv under mindetalen for de fem dræbte politifolk i Dallas sagde han at disse havde forsvaret aktivisternes ret til at protestere. Det var at trampe på deres minde, for det var denne ideologi der tog livet af politimændene.
Billede: I tresserne blev politi til pigs. Det er en lang historie med fremstilling af politiet som fjenden, som også venstresiden har promoveret. Hvorfor husker medierne denne historie og fremhæver den når politifolk dræbes?
Denne ideologi har haft en lang historie i USA: den begyndte med NAACP, Nation of Islam, Black Panter Party, og flirten med oprøret mod den hvide mand og hans magtstruktur. Nu sidder Obama som leder for denne magtstruktur, og han tror at han alligevel kan udtrykke sympati for de sorte aktivister. Det vidner om en idealisme uden jordforbindelse.
Pressen forsøger at beskytte Obama. Han er stadig deres yndling.
Efter Baton Rouge falder han tilbage til selvfølgeligheder.
Nu tager han ubetinget afstand fra vold mod politiet, men han glemmer dens ideologiske udspring:
“We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement. Attacks on police are an attack on all of us, and the rule of law that makes society possible,” Obama said, speaking from the White House press briefing room. “We don’t need inflammatory rhetoric. We don’t need careless accusations thrown around to score political points or to advance an agenda.”
Obama siger at USA står sammen, men det gør man åbenbart ikke når politiet dræbes for fode:
“Only we can prove, through words and through deeds, that we will not be divided,” he said. “And we’re going to have to keep on doing it again and again and again. That’s how this country gets united.”
Men Obama har selv splittet nationen ved at forsvare en aktivisme der ser politiet som sin fjende.
Hvorfor har han givet legitimitet til kampen mod politiet? Hvorfor er han ikke gået i rette med en offer-tænkning der nægter at indrømme at en overvejende del af dræbte sorte bliver dræbt af deres egne, ikke af politiet. Sammen med politisk korrekte medier har dækningen af politiets nedskydning af sorte ført til en form for hysteri. Det er denne hysteri der har fået ustabile personer som Micah Johnsen og Gavin Long til at blive massedrabmænd.
Obama viser hvor svag han er når han må lægge skylden på sociale medier og nyhedsmedier, i stedet for at se indad og være selvkritisk:
“Around the clock news cycles and social media sometimes amplify these divisions,” Obama said. “That is why it is so important that everyone: regardless of race or political party or profession, regardless of what organizations you’re a part of, everyone right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further.”
Han henviser til demokraternes og republikanernes konvent der begynder snart.
In his brief remarks, Obama stressed the importance of staying away from divisive rhetoric and actions, particularly ahead of two weeks of the Republican and Democratic conventions where he predicted that political rhetoric would be “more overheated than usual.”
Fra wikipedia:
According to the book The History of Rap Music by Cookie Lommel, “Stephney thought it was time to mesh the hard-hitting style of Run DMC with politics that addressed black youth. Chuck recruited Spectrum City, which included Hank Shocklee, his brother Keith Shocklee, and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, collectively known as the Bomb Squad, to be his production team and added another Spectrum City partner, Professor Griff, to become the group’s Minister of Information. With the addition of Flavor Flav and another local mobile DJ named Terminator X, the group Public Enemy was born.” According to Chuck, The S1W, which stands for Security of the First World, “represents that the black man can be just as intelligent as he is strong. It stands for the fact that we’re not third-world people, we’re first-world people; we’re the original people.”[6] Public Enemy started out as opening act for the Beastie Boys during the latter’s Licensed to Ill popularity, and in 1987 released their debut album Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Over the next few years, Public Enemy released It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Fear of a Black Planet, and Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black. In addition to ushering in the golden age of hip hop, during this time, Public Enemy reached the height of their popularity, adulation, and controversy. The group then separated from Def Jam and has since been independently producing, marketing, and publishing their music. (……)
In 1989, the group returned to the studio to record Fear of a Black Planet, which continued their politically charged themes. The album was supposed to be released in late 1989,[9] but was pushed back to April 1990. It was the most successful of any of their albums and, in 2005, was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles “Welcome To The Terrordome”, “911 Is a Joke“, which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and “Fight the Power“.[10] “Fight the Power” is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee‘s Do the Right Thing. (…..)
Public Enemy held a strong, pro-Black, political stance. Before PE, politically motivated hip-hop was defined by a few tracks by Ice-T, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and KRS-One. Other politically motivated opinions were shared by prototypical artists Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets. PE was a revolutionary hip-hop act, basing an entire image around a specified political stance. With the successes of Public Enemy, many hip-hop artists began to celebrate Afrocentric themes, such as Kool Moe Dee, Gang Starr, X Clan, Eric B. & Rakim, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers, and A Tribe Called Quest. (.,….)
In January 1987, Arizona governor Evan Mecham canceled a state holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. because the holiday had not been properly authorized. In response to this action, the group wrote a song entitled “By the Time I Get to Arizona.” In the video for the song, the group was seen assassinating Mecham by planting a bomb underneath his limousine and detonating it by remote control, perhaps intending an analogy or other reference to the 1976 murder of Don Bolles, an investigator reporter for the Arizona Republicnewspaper.
In 1989, in an interview with Public Enemy for the Washington Times, the interviewing journalist, David Mills, lifted some quotations from a UK magazine in which the band were asked their opinion on the Arab–Israeli conflict. Professor Griff’s comments apparently sympathized with the Palestinians and he was accused of anti-Semitism. According to Rap Attack 2, he suggested that “Jews are responsible for the majority of the wickedness in the world” (p. 177). (In turn a quote from The International Jew) Shortly after, Ridenhour expressed an apology on his behalf.[24] At a June 21, 1989 press conference, Ridenhour announced Griff’s dismissal from the group,[25] and a June 28 statement by Russell Simmons, president of Def Jam Recordingsand Rush Artists Management, stated that Chuck D. had disbanded Public Enemy “for an indefinite period of time.”[26] By August 10, however, Ridenhour denied that he had disbanded the group, and stated that Griff had been re-hired as “Supreme Allied Chief of Community Relations” (in contrast to his previous position with the group as Minister of Information).[25] Griff later denied holding anti-Semitic views and apologized for the remarks.[27] Several people who had worked with Public Enemy expressed concern about Ridenhour’s leadership abilities and role as a social spokesman.[28]
In his 2009 book, entitled Analytixz,[29] Griff criticized his 1989 statement: “to say the Jews are responsible for the majority of wickedness that went on around the globe I would have to know about the majority of wickedness that went on around the globe, which is impossible… I’m not the best knower. Then, not only knowing that, I would have to know who is at the crux of all of the problems in the world and then blame Jewish people, which is not correct.” Griff also said that not only were his words taken out of context, but that the recording has never been released to the public for an unbiased listen.
The controversy and apologies on behalf of Griff spurred Chuck D to reference the negative press they were receiving. In 1990, Public Enemy issued the single “Welcome to the Terrordome”, which contains the lyrics: “Crucifixion ain’t no fiction / So-called chosen frozen / Apologies made to whoever pleases / Still they got me like Jesus”. These lyrics have been cited by some in the media as anti-Semitic, making supposed references to the concept of the “chosen people” with the lyric “so-called chosen” and Jewish deicide with the last line.[30]
In 1999 the group released an album entitled There’s a Poison Goin’ On. The title of the last song on the album is called “Swindler’s Lust”. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claimed that the title of the song was a word play on the title of the Steven Spielberg movie Schindler’s List about the genocide of Jews in World War II.[31] Similarly in 2000 a Public Enemy spin off group under the name Confrontation Camp, a name according to the ADL, that is a pun on the term concentration camp, released an album.[32] The group consisted of Kyle Jason, Chuck D (under the name Mistachuck) and Professor Griff.
The title of the 2015 album “Man Plans God Laughs” is a well known English translation of a Yiddish proverb [33] “Der mentsh trakht un got lakht” Chuck D has not explained why a Yiddish proverb was used.
In a letter to the editor, Leo Haber alludes to criticism by New York Times writer Peter Watrous of the group’s supposed homophobia.[34]
Reviewers John Alroy and David Wilson said that Fear of a Black Planet contained “homophobic babbling” which challenged politically correct thinking.[35]
Zoe Williams defended Public Enemy against charges of homophobia by stating that:
If you look at the seminal black artists at the start of hip-hop, Public Enemy and Niggaz Wit Attitudes, you won’t actually find much homophobia. The only recorded homophobic lyric in Public Enemy’s canon was: ‘Man to man/ I don’t know if they can/ From what I know/ The parts don’t fit’ [a lyric from “Meet the G that Killed Me” on Fear of a Black Planet]”.
— Williams, Zoe, “Hiphopophobia”, The Guardian, 29 April 2003
Flavor Flav was criticized for allegedly homophobic lyrics on Public Enemy’s 1991 song “A Letter to the New York Post”, in which he raps, “It only brings agony, ask James Cagney/He beat up on a guy when he found he was a fagney/Cagney is a favorite he is my boy”.[36]