We present this as a public service announcement: Anyone who is seeking to speak to a “Black leader” should immediately cease and desist. We recognize that politicians, the mainstream media, and sometimes even Black people, go out searching fo
We present this as a public service announcement: Anyone who is seeking to speak to a “Black leader” should immediately cease and desist.
We recognize that politicians, the mainstream media, and sometimes even Black people, go out searching for a “Black leader” to opine on any number of subjects.
They seek out a “Black leader” to speak for the Black community. They seek out a “Black leader” to speak for other Black people. They seek out a “Black leader” to represent the thoughts, hopes, dreams, aspirations, disappointments and frustrations of Black people. And they would like for all of those things to be wrapped up in one person.
That person does not exist.
In reality, that person has never existed, but it has never stopped those entities from seeking them out, even anointing them at times.
We’ve endured people from without our community choosing Black leaders, which actually served to undercut whatever leadership we may have. Those choices always served someone else’s purpose, not our own.
This is not a new conflict.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was sought after as a “Black leader” almost to the exclusion of other experienced leaders who had been on the scene for years: A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins. They are hardly mentioned as civil rights leaders of that era, yet they were enormously important.
When the media wants to talk about Blacks being anti-white or anti-Jew, they cite Min. Louis Farrakhan as a leader.
The fact that the Nation of Islam provides a wealth of services to the Black community and serves as a role model to many Black youth is ignored. He is never cited in that leadership role.
The Black Panthers were only considered “leaders” when the police and the FBI were trying to snuff them out.
The media doesn’t contact Condoleezza Rice as a “Black leader.” They do not seek out the opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas. Sure, they know Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, but they can probably only name a handful of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and have no idea who the Black heads of Greek letter organizations are.
Now, of course, they are in a quandary because they want Barack Obama to be the “Black leader,” and he is no more capable of doing that than John McCain is able to be the “white leader.”
Our leaders won’t be chosen by white acclimation. They won’t be picked by white politicians or even by some panel of Blacks. They won’t necessarily be elected.
The Black community does not require some overarching leader, just as the white community does not. Stop looking for a “Black leader.” Those leaders are providing leadership every day, whether you “find” them or not.
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Copyright 2008 Chicago Defender. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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