I am a C-SPAN junkie. C-SPAN was created in 1979 by U.S. cable companies as a public service. And since then it has provided almost exhaustive live coverage of national politics and public-affairs events in the United States. Admittedly, the less initiated can be forgiven the impression that all C-SPAN does is train its cameras on bloviating members of Congress. But I can attest to the fact that it also provides unprecedented coverage of far more interesting events – from the goings on in the book world to Tavis Smiley’s annual summit on The State of black America.
Imagine my shock and dismay therefore when I tuned in yesterday to watch C-SPAN’s coverage of the heavily-hyped political maneuvering between Bill & Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the 42nd Annual Commemoration of the 1965 Selma-Montgomery Voting Rights March in Alabama, only to find instead rebroadcasts of last week’s Congressional hearings and other public affairs events.
Of course, it may be that C-SPAN’s eminently-sensible and unfailingly-principled program directors simply decided that there was no redeeming value in covering the Clintons and Obama as they pander for black votes on this erstwhile solemn occasion. After all, the day is supposed to commemorate the “blood Sunday” when so many blacks were sprayed with tear gas, battered with police batons, trampled by police on horseback and bitten by police dogs all because they dared to march for their civil right to vote.
Despite the sacrifice of their forefathers, however, today less than 50 percent of eligible black voters even bother to vote; ; which makes a mockery of this commemoration and compels one to wonder about the political utility of courting the black vote so aggressively.
Nevertheless, I think it was an egregious s oversight for C-SPAN to air repeat programs instead of covering this live and historically-significant event.
That said, based on AP reports and snippets shown on CNN, I gathered that each of this year’s celebrity guest marchers embraced this opportunity to preach as gospel that she or he is just as much a child of the Civil Rights Movement as any black American:
Don’t tell me I don’t have a claim to Selma, Alabama….I am the offspring of the movement. When people ask me if I’ve been to Selma before, I tell them I’m coming home….I’m here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulder of giants.
Thus intoned Obama; rising to the ironic challenge of convincing black Americans that he – as opposed to Hillary or any of the other white presidential candidates – is indeed black enough to represent their interests.
I don’t feel no ways tired. I done come too far from where I started from….Nobody told me the road would be easy….We all know we have to finish the march.
This was vintage Hillary. Indeed, giving that she went to a black Church in Harlem last year to whine about the Republican Congress treating her and other Democrats like slaves, I suppose the it’s not at all surprising that she would now compare her lofty ambition to ride her husband’s coattails from the Arkansas governor’s mansion to the White House with the difficult road blacks are still marching along in their fight against institutional racism in America.
Although, given that Obama has now overtaken her in popularity polls amongst black Americans, it may be that at long last they’ve become justifiably indignant at her insulting attempts to identify with them – as she did on this occasion complete with a condescending and patronizing fake Southern-chitlin drawl…
If it hadn’t been for the Voting Rights Act, the South would never have recovered and two white southerners – Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – never could have become president.
There he goes again…that incurable flatterer and pathological liar Bill Clinton. But try as he did to blend into the crowd, when he finally spoke (upon accepting the dubious award of being inducted into the National Voting Rights Hall of Fame), Clinton summarily demonstrated why he appeals so much to black folks and why he’ll be such a hard act for Democratic wannabe presidents to follow – even for a “fresh and articulate…rock star” like Obama, to say nothing of his dour wife.
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Selma bloody Sunday
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