POLITICAL SCAMS AND WILLFUL IGNORANCE

                Back In the hood, when somebody ran a game or a scam, we called it the ole Oki-Finoki.   There were all kinds of Oki- Finoki, like the guy who runs the three card Monte scheme, or the guy who finds an envelope full of cash who wants to share it with you if you’ll just put up a good faith amount of cash.  Magicians use misdirection to entertain their audiences while scam artists use the victim’s greed and naiveté to fleece them.  We referred to being victimized by a scam as being put in a trick bag.

                As I’ve studied and grown I’ve come to understand that our entire society is based in way or another, on the good ole Oki Finoki.  The Oki Finoki has poor and working class White folks voting against their own best interests.   Variations of the Oki Finoki have placed more Black men in the penal system  than were enslaved.  It has millions of inner city kids thinking they can be NBA stars or rappers without a single backup plan for when those dreams dissipate.   From drug and gang warfare to disintegrating families, the omnipresent Oki Finoki has been there; the straw that stirs the drink.

                This all came back to me as group of chess buddies and I were interviewed to share our thoughts on the state of politics in America today for an upcoming program on BET television.  I gave an individual interview in which I lambasted Republican obstructionism as well as the complicity of the media in giving equal weight to falsehoods as truths in the name of objectivity.  The television crew eventually asked to others to join in, and that is when my education began.

                The good news was that the brothers were angry.  The bad news was that all the anger was directed toward President Obama.  They blamed Obama for not dealing forcefully enough with OPEC to bring down gas prices.  Some were upset that Obama had endorsed same sex marriage.  

                I explained that the gas prices were the result of speculation on Wall Street and that the way to end that kind of speculation was to regulate Wall Street.  I also pointed out that whenever Obama has tried to bring up regulations, the Republicans refer to them as “job killers” as well as further proof that Obama is a socialist.  The complaints over what Obama had not accomplished continued to flow, and I continued to explain things like how the Republicans had made unprecedented use of the filibuster to thwart Obama’s efforts to correct many egregious situations.  But I seriously doubt if anyone knew what a filibuster was.  Still, I waited to hear the anger that I knew would be forthcoming over the Republicans’ unpatriotic tactics of putting party above country.  I waited in vain, for those criticisms never came.  Slowly an epiphany began to unfurl revealing the method to the Republican’s madness.

                As I’ve observed the Republicans’ shenanigans, I’ve been astounded by the bold audacity with which they have operated.  On Issue after issue, they have refused any compromise whatsoever, while blaming Obama for failing to “reach across the aisle.”  Don’t they know that people can see what they are doing? I have wondered aloud.

Yet now I understand what the Republicans knew all along.  They can tie up government so nothing gets done, and blame the lack of progress on the president because people don’t pay attention to the process, they just see the result.  African Americans pinned hopes and dreams on Obama, not the Republicans, so he gets held accountable when those hopes and dreams aren’t realized.  The issue is not that Obama has been perfect ( he hasn’t) but that we continue to be locked in a race/class war that we don’t even know we are in.

This is the Oki-Finoki   at its finest.  I don’t know if large numbers of people will ever pay attention to what is going on in this country.  But I do know that as long as we’re too busy to pay attention we will remain where we’ve always been:  in a trick bag.

ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE “THINGS I WISH OBAMA WOULD SAY” SAGA

Once again President Obama (aka the most disrespected president in history, who coincidentally just happens to be Black) has been dissed by a “reporter” interrupting him during a speech.  Just once I would love to hear our president say,”  Whether you respect me personally or not is irrelevant.  But you will respect the office of the President of the United States of America.  If you cannot respect this office, the Secret Service will remove you.”