The Man Behind the Mask (Really L-O-N-G)

Now that we’ve all seen the “man” behind Obama’s mask, and the man who had a hand it shaping it, let’s take a closer look at the symbolism of it all—the meaning of the larger picture.

The larger picture, which the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has so kindly brought out into the light, is racism from within, and the clever mask of civility that covers it.

It’s really a shame that Obama didn’t have someone like Bill Cosby or Wayne Perryman for a spiritual advisor—he would’ve been way better off, but Jeremiah will do for this purpose. Unfortunately, too many Jeremiah Wrights (and worse) have played the fatherly role to many fragmented, vulnerable, and susceptible families over the years.

The phenomenon of “masking” is what black people do when they can’t get past the hate and misery that’s been handed down to them from generation to generation through people like the Reverend Jeremiah, relatives of the family, fabricated from whole cloth, or even personal experience. Hate and violent tendencies may have been festering up since the days of slavery, in spite of or because of being freed, and have been passed on as pretty much the only legacy for many families—people who’ve been unable to let go or cope with new and strange situations. A great fear of the unknown exists, but to dispel that fear is to learn and become informed—something that’s seen as “acting white.”

Obama, like many before him, became a “bargainer” to co-exist among his own family and other races—his chosen occupation notwithstanding. A lawyer is a negotiator, hence, a bargainer, and Obama has mastered the art of bargaining his way through a mixed-race family, life, and world, and now wishes to put his bargaining skills to work for the country. The problem with this is the continuation of masking the REAL problem: the two faces of black America. Instead of healing this internal divide, he only serves to heighten and perpetuate it. So far, he has managed (beautifully) to become its poster child.

Why does much of black America have two faces? There are many reasons, starting with a deep and wide inferiority complex, followed by lack of decent nutrition for adequate brain/emotional development, parental abandonment issues, lead paint/pesticide/toxin exposure, all the way up to a lack of basic understanding of how the world works (or is supposed to) and how to function in it. To make up for one or more deficits, a mask is employed to show the world a pretty, civilized face that appears to know, understand, and can function in society—WHITE society. The other face, the one that has been trained to view the world much like a Muslim extremist, is hidden from view until the proper setting is obtained: home, church, among friends and family, in night clubs, etc. Then the “homey” accents come out, the slang is used, and the whole environment changes—this is what we’re not supposed to see.

I’ve personally witnessed a black friend’s mother’s transformation from civility to “sistah-hood”—I went over to visit her, was having a conversation with her, and then the phone rang. It was a black friend of hers, and the mask came off, the slang drawl rhythm of “hood-speak” came out, and I could barely recognize the woman in front of me. All of a sudden, everything was “axe” instead of “ask,” the “f” sound was used in place of the “th” sound, and she was using words and phrases seemingly from another planet. Then she hung up the phone, returned to my conversation, and all I could do was sit there stunned. One minute, she was polite and very articulate, the next, someone totally different. I asked my friend about it, and she didn’t have an answer.

I can only imagine what goes on in the Obama household when polite company has gone home. Does Ebonics come out of closets and cupboards to flourish in their family room? What do they tell their kids about social justice or injustice, and are they keeping some sort of mental scorecard of perceived wrongs done to them or their race?

After years of masking, some blacks have gotten fed up and chosen to constantly air their grievances, however real or imagined, and have gone the way of Louis Farrakhan, preaching hate and violence to air out the once-masked face. Sometimes that face never gets covered up again, and becomes the one true face. Sometimes the mask slips, and we see both faces (even for a short time), like in Obama’s case. Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright are nothing—the very bottom of the misery well has got to lie with the New Black Panthers, and their message of a whole separate nation, justice system, administration, religious system and exemption from taxation and military service, not to mention their local objectives, effectively setting civil rights back to the “separate-but-equal” phase—and this would somehow equal “progress” in their eyes. There are already places on the planet like that, starting with Haiti, Rwanda, and Darfur. None have the freedoms and opportunities we have here, so it’s no wonder the New Black Panthers haven’t gone in search of a new world just for themselves—the infighting that’s happening HERE is a cakewalk compared to the tribal wars and ethnic cleansing over there.

Just to give you an idea of the depth of black misery for some, I’ll share a portion of a transcript of Glenn Beck interviewing Malik Shabazz, current leader and legal counsel for the New Black Panthers, and president of Black Lawyers for Justice on 3/20/08:

SHABAZZ: I would say that, if you study the Tuskegee experiment and the syphilis that was injected into black men, if you study the research that my legal organization, Black Lawyers for Justice, and others have shown that in Fort Dietrich, Maryland, and under Henry Kissinger, that biological weapons programs targeted at depopulation of key areas, including Africa and other darker areas, that this took place in America, it has not been disproven that AIDS does not come from a manmade source or the United States government. It`s still a debate around that. It`s not a product of paranoia…How would you feel -- the reason why -- how would you feel, Glenn, if you had to understand that your ancestors had been in slavery and bondage for 300 years, that your ancestors had been denied the right to become policemen, firemen, attend schools and get mortgages, how would you feel if...(statement cut off by topic change)

BECK: I`ll tell you -- I would feel -- I`ll tell you, I would feel -- I would feel so unbelievably proud that that country has made so much progress that the richest woman in America is Oprah Winfrey and possibly the next president is also an African-American. I`d feel pretty darn good that we`ve made an awful lot of progress…Obama`s message is to come together, yet your message, according to your Web site, is the trials of blacks only, by all black juries, end of all black cooperation with police departments, and a separate country for African-Americans. How is Obama your man?... Is he going give you a separate nation? Is he going give you a separate police force, do you think?

The anger and hatred has twisted and turned into paranoia and fantasy, easily spread through various forms of gospel—rap music, church sermons, simple conversation, TV, print, and radio—and with nobody to repudiate. How on earth is someone supposed to heal when his injuries are this deep, and he’s busy creating new ones? How do the rest of us get along with this man in this society when his belief system is so screwed up to begin with? He obviously has trouble with authority figures—he wants his own world, and he wants to lead it. HE wants the power, but I wonder what he’d do with it.

Bill Cosby said it best on an Oprah show: “Hurt people HURT PEOPLE.” That was so deep I almost fell in.

Now I’m no expert on race or race relations, but I tend to believe that the whole race thing is largely a matter of INTERNAL fighting, not an “us vs. them” issue. I see black-on-black violence, blacks using the “N” word freely amongst themselves for identification and not denigration, black dope users buying from black dealers, black pimps herding black prostitutes, black rappers openly denigrating women and the women complying, and black con artists preying on black citizens as examples of how the race case has moved beyond white America and has gone on to consume large chunks of black America like a hungry python. Black America is now exploiting its own.

Then the issue becomes bigger and more complex with the addition of politics and political gain—since the Depression, Democrats have been feasting like starving vultures on the scraps of black America and using their liberal media to enhance the hunt. Even though it is commonly believed that a Democrat will fulfill promises to give, give, give to the black man, the opposite is true—Abe Lincoln, a Republican, freed the slaves against a Democratic backlash of slave owners and segregationists. Civil rights were granted, one by one, through Republican efforts, and not Democrat ones. To this day, legislation that would serve to further enslave a person, whether metaphorically or literally, comes from the Democrats—handouts and regulations are actually deterrents, but we aren’t supposed to know that. Thanks to media spin, that little fact is often forgotten in the quest for power and money off the backs of taxpayers—even black ones.

Even before the Depression era, Marxist issues were preached and handed down by parents, grandparents, preachers, and others who feared doing for one’s self (and instead developed a reliance on God and government) because freedom was such a new concept. Freedom from slavery was like tossing over the keys to the car, but not bothering to teach anyone how to drive, what a car could do, or even bothering to including a manual.

Along with this new form of “togetherness” through collectivism for the common good came the hatred of policies and laws from times past—some people could not get over the so-called “wrongs” of social justice perceived by them, but had to find ways to cope and get through daily life, so a mask was created. It’s said that Sunday is the most segregated day of the week, but the segregation of emotion (especially in one’s self) is actually the clue that we really haven’t come very far in the quest for equality and common bond.

Democrats would have us think otherwise with such programs as EEOC, Affirmative Action, and diversity policies. What these programs really did for the black man was obliterate merit and lower the bar to the ground. Even with the bar lowered this far, there are STILL people who can’t get over it, so we have legislation like No Child Left Behind, which serves to slow down the entire group rather than focus on the slow individual. I’m just waiting for the official version of No Adult Left Behind, because we have a LOT of those running around!

All of a sudden, a whole new world was opened up—forced quotas and reduced standards, which gave way to a huge loss in character, honor, a sense of accomplishment, and the desire to achieve. Why work any harder than you have to, right? Whitey OWES you!

I’m still trying to figure out what we whites owe, and when this unpaid bill was generated. Somebody call Grant-Thornton, because I demand an audit!

Speaking of whitey owing someone, have you noticed that The Dynamic Duo of Race Card Dealers has been silent and scarce lately? I expect they will make even more efforts to be scarce now that Obama has effectively blown the lid off race and race relations. If they couldn’t see fit to surface during a solid week of TV bantering on Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and the implications of race, why bother coming out at all? There’s no (political, monetary, or reputation) gain to be made here, and nobody to exploit, so they stay dormant.

So we have Marxist beliefs, psychological issues, political and media misrepresentation, and the fight for internal power and recognition all rolled up into a double-standard behavior, and everyone is just supposed to accept it and learn to deal with it. This is one suitcase full of trouble that I wouldn’t want unzipped in the Oval Office, because this would influence every decision ever made as President. Believe me, there isn’t enough storage space on Capitol Hill for that amount of hard-wired baggage.

On the bright side, there are many fine examples of black America that have managed to live and thrive in predominantly white society, and are still doing so today. All during the 20’s, there were many entrepreneurs, socialites, inventors, and other successful and independent black people. There were even whole cities and towns that were mostly if not totally black, from the mayor down to the lowliest sweeper, and they were highly successful. Then came the Depression, followed by WWII and the New Deal, and things changed for most of black America forever.

Sadly, the New Black Panthers missed the boat on their segregated society. Even the old Black Panthers of the 60’s and 70’s missed it—too little and way, way too late.

The New Deal was crafted and passed by Democrats, and look what it did—it created a whole new world of government dependency, entrenched the economic downturn for an entire decade, and more recently, is serving to bankrupt future generations. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the donning of societal masks by black America, but it sure does sound like it could be the birthplace of such pretense and make-believe.

Now we’re left with a broken and bitter swath of black America, underground segregating behavior, and masks aplenty to cover it all up and make it look nice. Instead of helping each other and learning to get along, we shun each other and learn to get more (from Uncle Sam). I can’t for the life of me understand this, because the same source that conducted the Tuskegee experiments also ushered in generational government dependence, yet most blacks continue to trust in and flock to government and the Democrats election after election in spite of it—oh, the irony! The people who relied on government to save them from Hurricane Katrina, then complained about the outcome, are voting for more of the same, even though the Republican President’s response was the fastest disaster response on record, despite internal FEMA problems.

Emerging from the dregs of all this misery is a knight in ebony armor promising to do more for both Americas, white and black, but what does he promise? To further a conspiracy and deceit that dates back to the Depression and beyond in the quest for personal and racial power, and to tip the scales in favor of the have-nots with Marxist policy promises. Instead, he should be “teaching a man how to fish” as it were—with programs (or changes to existing programs) that will teach how to end the dependency, how to build character and integrity, and how to be personally responsible. If this happened, he would lose power and control over the would-be fisherman, and that’s not why he got into politics. When magnified, Democrats in general would be out of a job, and out of ways to seek and secure power for themselves (and money for their state) through a largely uninformed and vulnerable population. Jeremiah Wright, Malik Shabazz, and Louis Farrakhan would probably make better fishing teachers than societal flame-fanners, but alas…it’s easier and more lucrative to further exploit a demoralized and denigrated populace, and keep the anger going to ensure future profits.

Mask on or off, Obama is doing a great injustice to black America by withholding those societal fishing lessons, and instead perpetuating and “bargaining” his way out of the real issue of race and racial divide. He could be one man of many to set a huge example to the black community of how to survive, thrive, and succeed in this America we share, but no—it isn’t politically expedient. Now who’s holding the black man down? Oops, it isn’t whitey any more!

Obama went to law school, where his “bargaining” skills seem to fit in, got married, and is raising a family, but it seems that is all the societal merging he did for himself—he was led at home by a broken and inflamed family, tutored by an inflamed and tortured pastor, educated in a heavily-liberal fascist institution with no expectation of ever learning other values, and is now seeking the highest political position in the land with only 2 years of bureaucratic training. Some of us would dismiss him as the “diversity” candidate, or the Affirmative Action man, and in some respects, they would be right. Others would see him as scoring a victory for a race that has been beaten down and blindsided for generations—much of it their own doing. I’m glad the mask slipped just enough for us to get a look into what lies beneath, and to see again just who it is people are stunningly in love with and would vote for in a heartbeat.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Malik Shabazz were kind enough to show us all where negative black America hides and breeds, and just how much work we have yet to do. Obama himself is unknowingly serving as a racial issue tour guide, and figurehead of cultures and societies not assimilating—something we’ll all be experiencing more of with Hispanics, Muslims, and other immigrant races and cultures in the future.

Do we really want to vote for, or continue to live and work with, all the men (or women) behind a mask? I don’t know about you, but I‘m tired of it—everyone drop the mask, air your grievances, and let’s deal with them the way the New Deal didn’t. I bet we’ll find many grievances are misunderstandings, complete fabrications, myths built upon myths, and many other grievances are things that happened to other people, yet totally uninvolved parties needlessly carry scars for some perceived common black collective.

Obama would make a wonderful president of black America, but as long as he clutches onto his mask, he’ll never measure up to President of the UNITED States. He could start by promoting honest, sincere unity among the races, perhaps by explaining his own chosen identity—this man is half white, yet he readily identifies himself as black. Is this in color, or issues? This needs to be sorted out somewhere far from the Oval Office, and until we know more, Obama will remain the man behind the mask.

Now white America has a little better understanding of what it means to be black.