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President Barack Obama is the Black Opiate for the Masses.

October 30, 2013 by  
Filed under News, Opinion, Politics, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Yvette Carnell recently wrote an article with the title, “Bloomberg: Blacks Wrongly Believe Obama Made Their Lives Better.“  The article references the fact that many African Americans, because of their deep love and loyalty for President Obama, are typically disconnected from quality-of-life indicators that would determine how effective he has been as president.   When presented with statistical evidence to show steep declines in black wealth and employment rates, those with persistent loyalty for the president either explain why none of this is his fault or argue that it was the black community which neglected its responsibility to improve our condition (as if black people suddenly became less hard working during the Obama presidency).

Personally, I don’t have a horse in the game either way.  I don’t love or hate Barack Obama, since I don’t typically get too closely attached to any politician.  But, my commitment to being objective about Obama’s performance is usually interpreted as hatred by those who somehow feel that Obama should have his picture in the living room right next to Jesus Christ (I’m not kidding.  I know people who’ve done this).obama-ok-now

You see, black people have a long tradition of faith.  Faith is a beautiful and powerful thing when used in the right context.  But it can also be a breeding ground for self-destruction and prolonged ignorance if you’re not careful.  Faith sometimes tells you that even if your doctors say you have cancer, it will go away if you pray hard enough (even if you skip your medication).  As the amazing blind writer Angela Braden explained, even after her mother took her to church after church, having hands laid on her and holy water sprinkled, she still ended up going blind during her senior year of high school.   Angela articulately made the point that faith isn’t always enough.  Instead, you must honestly assess your condition and engage in constructive action in order to make it better.  But it’s OK to pray along the way if you feel like it.

When I saw the title of Yvette’s article, I realized something: Most of those who feel that black people are better off under Obama than we were under Bush or Clinton really can’t pull together stats to prove their point. But there is a value people gain from the symbolism that makes them high, like a drug that numbs your pain.  When I say this, I’m referring to those people who love saying things like, “I love my president” or join Facebook pages with titles like, “I love waking up in the morning with Barack Obama as my president.”  So, when something makes you feel better, it often makes you believe that things actually are better.  

When we mix the euphoric high of having a black president with the psychological power of faith even in the absence of confirming evidence, you get the kind of prolonged, consistent, undying loyalty that some people have for President Obama.  Barack could join the KKK tomorrow, and most of his supporters would never let him go.  After all, he’s the only black president we’ve got.

This kind of thinking is not much different from a woman who knows a man for two months and believes he can do no wrong, or the professional athlete who remains close with his drug dealer homie from middle school.  Some women may know nothing about a man’s history, his HIV status, his financial condition, abusive secrets of his past, or how he’s going to treat her in the future, but her faith leads her to remain as loyal to him as she might be to her own father.  When President Obama rose on the scene, making one smooth statement after another, some people fell in love with him without knowing much about him other than the fact that he has adorable kids, a gorgeous wife, and a Harvard law degree.  At that point, faith carried him through the first five years of his presidency.

There are those who’ve tried using logic to make points about the effectiveness or lack thereof, of the Obama presidency.  The fact is that these arguments are a waste of time in some contexts, because logic is rarely an effective tool for confronting intense faith:  It becomes as frustrating as trying to make the weather change by swinging a baseball bat toward the sun.

President Obama has not won the minds of black America; he has won their HEARTS.  Also, the president is a political opiate for a  suffering people who are looking for anything to grab onto to make them feel better about their existence.  When you’ve been conditioned through 400 years of oppression to believe that you can’t change your world, then the only thing you can do is use some kind of mind-altering substance or escape mechanism to allow you to change your perception  of the world around you.  A person using a drug or consuming something that makes them feel good (like fried chicken, s*x, or a*****l) isn’t thinking about whether or not the drug is healthy. Instead, they are focused on the way the thing makes them feel.

So, it appears that, if you can’t objectively prove with data that black America is better off under Obama (most indicators say we’re far worse off than before), then effectively, Barack Obama is your drug. When put in the context of all the other ways that black people self-medicate (whether it’s an addiction to a substance, an activity or even religion), it all makes sense. Of course some people are going to get mad at me for making this point, but as my friend used to say in Kentucky, “The hit dog always hollers.” 

If I’m wrong, then please prove me wrong.  Otherwise, your perceptions might be defined by your emotions. 

Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.

 


Comments

12 Responses to “President Barack Obama is the Black Opiate for the Masses.”
  1. ROBERT says:

    @ RICHARD COLEMAN

    HEY DICK

    I am taking the word of the doctor who performed the autopsy ;inspected the crime scene and testified at trial he might know a bit more than you ;ya think!

  2. No No No! The Opiate of Black People is the Slave master’s version of that blue eyed Jesus in Christianity. Everywhere Christianity has gone the indigenous people lost their land and said “thank you Jesus.”

  3. Richard Coleman says:

    @ Robert Please grow up, ZIMMERMAN really? The law is what it is, try reading next time. Good Grief since you were not there in the fight.

    Now to more sensible people @ reasonable mind you are correct that is what I was saying that it takes people to change not just one person wave his or her hand in office. It takes effort from all involved so I agree. Also they are all politicians, so there will be always be a level of distrust as well is should be but at the same time options have to way in as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I think many of you think I have some blind support for Obama and I assure you I have many issues with him. My issue comes from statements “OBAMA supporters I know don’t even read the funny paper’s they couldn’t find SYRIA or LIBYA on a map”. That is stupid and general.

  4. ewill says:

    I understand what Dcarter910 is saying. There are some people that are stupid. You can’t fix stupid and, although it may be fun, you can’t argue with stupid. I think most blacks are just uneducated and blinded by, as Terrance Amen has mentioned to me in the past, negative programming.
    I generally agree with lewis orr but, I’m sure we would disagree with how it became to be.

    You all can believe the twisted words of your leaders, rewrite history the way you want it to be, point your finger at some one else, ignore your own problems, march, protest, become more violent, and trust the government to save you. You followed the socialist’s play book.
    This is just America fundamentally transforming to a socialist country.
    The “End Game.”
    You voted for it 2008 and reconfirmed it in 2012. Fine! You got it.
    Believe what you want; Do what you want. Enjoy!

    Look on the horizon. There is a bad moon rising.
    When the sun rises and shines on socialism,
    it will not be shining on the Blacks.

    But I don’t care. I’m White.
    Also, I’m like lewis orr. I have land and a house in another country. I lived there for over 2 years, I just came back. I’ll spend about 2 more years here, and then Good Bye.
    One of the best things about the other country, almost no Blacks!

  5. ROBERT says:

    @ RICHARD COLEMAN

    IT seems you have a attraction for liar’s first ZIMMERMAN now OBAMA.

    HEY DICK some of us don’t appreciate being lied to.

    YOUR president knowingly lied for 3 1/2 years because he knew that if he told the truth about OBAMACARE we wouldn’t want it.

    IN the real world that’s called fraud and if we truly had a opposing party they would be filing article’s of impeachment.

  6. reasonable mind says:

    Richard Coleman,

    That’s were you went wrong. Only individuals can Change their own course. If you and others had bothered to research Obama then you would have known that he is nothing more than a seasoned politician which is the root of the problem not the solution in the black community.

  7. Richard Coleman says:

    Terrance, Thanks for your post. The rest of them have lost their minds. I am glad most of you referred to drugs, because you most be using them. Blaming one man, it seems like you are the ones that worship or believe one man can change 400 years. Better yet thinking Obama could, I voted for to if you will “CHANGE THE COURSE” do I like the current course “NO” does he have part of the blame of course, but to resort to calling all the black people, stupid, dumb or whatever just shows your lack of sense. We are all in this sinking ship together and it will take all to pump it out.

  8. James Davis says:

    The most important take away of this piece in my opinion are:

    “Angela articulately made the point that faith isn’t always enough. Instead, you must honestly assess your condition and engage in constructive action in order to make it better.”

    Sometimes God through His Son Jesus Christ will show us the path down which we should proceed in an orderly fashion with all dilberate speed, but we resist his calling. Based on every economic indicator from the Federal Reserve Bank to the negative unemployment numbers, the economic condition of the black race will worsen, if we donot coalesce around a plan of action. http://www.sslumpsum.com

  9. There probably are people out there that love President Obama for all the wrong reasons, but I think he has done some things that helped Black people. Could he do more, absolutely. I voted for him because he was the lesser of the evils, although Brother Orr makes a good point, they’re not that much different. Eight years of bush caused part of the reason we are in the situation we’re in. In my opinion we’re in a depression, maybe not as bad as the great one, but still in one.

    As far as the plight of our people, which is the other part, we have very little unity and don’t use it in our best interest to solve our problems. We’d rather wait for others to solve them, then come together and do it ourselves. If we really acted as a community, we could solve our own problems. What I see is a lack of leadership within our community, that only focuses on what the government needs to do for us, rather than what we need to do for ourselves. To me that’s our problem and will continue to be until we focus on economics within our community.

    Black Unity means financial independence and happiness

  10. lewis orr says:

    What your statistics and faith based observations don’t show is that it does not matter who the president of the United States is, the plight of the Blacks in the Black community will never change, there are many reasons for this. After President Obama someone just like him will take his place. Lets start with the Republican and Democratic parties they are the same, a two headed snake. They all go to the same elite schools and belong to the same secret organizations, so they get the same indoctrination. Lets go deeper, this is suppose to be a democracy, but it’s more like a monarchy with the exception Van Buren, and Kennedy all the U.S. presidents are all blood relations including President Obama. If this is true and it is, why wasn’t it mention to me in civic class? Next America is a gangster and gun culture, that’s why Billy the Kid and John Dillinger are famous not infamous. Every successful group has a military arm, the Jews have the Masada The U.S. have the CIA and Black Operations, the mafia had the purple gang, Saddam had the Republican Guard, Poppa Doc had the Tom Toms. When Blacks received some civil rights they had Huey P. Newton and the military arm of the Black Panthers. Huey knew how to protect and purge the Black community and make their enemies respect the community. Today what do you have? A bunch of “go along to get along” talking heads who think well said is better than well done. These weak-knee posers go to the Man’s table with their hat in their hands and their pants on the ground and get nothing but laughs. There can be no justice on stolen land from criminals. A large part of America was stolen from the Mexicans now they’re back thriving and multiplying. It looks like karma trumps statistic and America’s karma with genocide and slavery will be hell to pay. I wouldn’t want to live at the bottom of the social order when the hammer is soon to fall on America. I moved out of America years ago and the Expats I know all say they never knew freedom till they left the States. This might not be for everyone, but you make your bed, you sleep in it. Peace

  11. Dcarter910 says:

    Black people are stupid. The whole 10 in 1000 expression has some truth when you look at those who think vice those who want others to think for them. The type of blacks that praise obama are the same blacks that (in their hearts) always believe the white house represented s onome grand house on a national plantation where the white master lived to provide them the scraps of welfare and other social benefits. Blacks that never believed that have no problem with the fools in the white house no matter the race because they are the masters of their own destiny. The way blacks are acting now reminds me of what the racists whites complained about in the follow-on tv series of Roots, “niggers are too stupid to vote”. Oh and I love how this most beloved president is push immigration reform in such a way that would eliminate completely the power of the black vote. Cheers to the 1000, as the 10 look on in disbelief as your willful ignorance has doom blacks in this country for the next…forever.

  12. ROBERT says:

    I have said from the beginning that the support for OBAMA in the black community was not political but emotional.

    POLITICAL people read and most OBAMA supporters I know don’t even read the funny paper’s they couldn’t find SYRIA or LIBYA on a map.

    THIS would be a joke if it wasn’t so deadly.

    AS the OBAMACARE is being rolled out we find that the enrollment website failure is the least of our problems because it turns out that nothing OBAMA promised us about OBAMACARE is true.

    BUT that won’t deter the OBAMA support’s because he has a magical/spiritual hold on them; this has to be the largest case of mass psychosis in human history!

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