Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
In fact, I am willing to bet that as you read this article, you knew almost nothing about this march. Perhaps you heard a whimper or two about it, but you probably haven't heard NAACP President Ben Jealous on the airwaves speaking about the event. You probably haven't seen very many news stories on national media outlets about the march. If you google search the term "One Nation March" and click on the news section of google, you see a few articles in places like News Busters and The Sky Valley Chronicle.
My point in saying all this is that I can't help but wonder if black America could have been given the message a bit more often than what I've seen. I also spent time trying to figure out if the NAACP was even involved in the march and if the march had any objective other than to counter the Tea Party. Given that guys like Ed Schultz were on MSNBC speaking as if the march was his idea, I wonder if black people were simply an afterthought.
By doing some research, I was able to get some answers to my questions. The fact that I had to dig so hard to get information is a problem within itself. But the march's focus on jobs, education and equality is code language for saying that it was a black, brown, poor and liberal thing. Of course, black people can't really be mentioned in events like this, because that would scare away other groups. But there is tremendous value to the idea of fighting for things that all of us want and need out of our government officials, who seem to have gotten caught up in their own agenda.
Our school system is obviously failing. Fortunately, members of the private sector, including Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, are working to find solutions. Obama is on board with the educational improvement agenda as well, as his administration has recently made vocal steps to begin to address this problem. His public forum on education held on MSNBC was a great first step, and I expect that education may be one of the key bi-partisan agenda items for 2011.
Job creation will be even tougher to accomplish than education reform. Our economy hasn't been structured to create jobs for the past 20 years, which is why the average real wage of the American worker has remained flat. In fact, we haven't created one net new job in our economy since 1999. Without significant and radical change, the only people who will experience a true economic recovery are those who work on Wall Street.
When it comes to equality, one can only hope that the march will help us down that particular road. Based on the description of equality on the website for the One Nation march, it appears that racial equality has been left off the list. Perhaps this is the standard trade off that occurs when black organizations partner with liberal groups who don't consider minority issues to be top priority. Not to sound cynical, but I'm hardly inspired by the agenda of the march when it comes to dealing with important matters of race.
Overall, the march is a good idea, and will hopefully wake up Washington. One thing Democrats and Republicans have in common is that they are tired of their lawmakers. Liberals are disillusioned by the Obama Administration and Tea Party members are fighting with the Republicans. At the end of the day, the "Us against them" may actually be working class against elite, rather than liberals against conservatives. The recent marches on Washington seem to illustrate that point.
Marching seems to be in style these days. Perhaps I should arrange one myself. Just kidding, I'll leave that up to the people who know what they're doing.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.