Angry Black Man: Our Leaders

One of the problems that I have with Obama worship is that the man is president of the United States. His job is not to look out for Black Americans but all Americans. As such he's not going to be the man to talk about racial issues. Even though he sometimes does, I don't expect him to be the guy to talk about declining matching funds for state and municipal social and educational programs that aid places that are more chocolate or even caramel than vanilla if you get my meaning.

Beyond that, let's face it the figures of the '90's, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Farrakhan have lost their credibility as leaders of the people.

But here is a list of some of the people I look to when I think about racial issues.

Cornel West

Nobody right now discusses race on an intellectual level the way this man does. That's not to say I always agree with the man, but he has well thought out arguments that are more than him vying for media attention.





Aaron McGruder




Sure he speaks through comedy, but honestly half the time I agree with the stuff he says and I think it's practical. I doesn't hurt that he's only about 15 years older than me and isn't burdened by 40 years of tradition and emotional baggage from civil rights movement. He's the type of guy who can say on national television that while I respect Dr. King I don't think that he could politically or socially function in modern society were he still alive.



To put it another way I trust him to talk about how race currently affects our society not how it did in the 1960's.



Which leads me to.

Angela Davis



Yes she's still doing her thing. And yes every few months I will pop in a CD of one of her speeches. Again I don't agree with everything she says but I trust her. She talks about race and doesn't exploit it as a way to get, power and or money.



Dave Chapelle



I know people are going why are you putting another funnyman here. Because as with McGruder the point of most of Chapelle's comedy was to talk about race. When you listen to his out of character interviews you can really tell how much thought he put into it.