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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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I often hear many in the black community do not like Pastor Reginald Flynn because thay think he is focused only on the goals for one neighborhood. Some don't approve of the Concerned pastors for Social Action while others discredit the FACt group of pastors.
That leaves the question of whether or not there is any one black leader that can unite or whether the community will remain divided. Andrew Heller was absolutely correct in his opinion piece that Flint keeps electing and re-electing public officials that are ineffective and unable to make sound decisions. Voting for someone because they are black does not make an effective leader.
I enjoy listening to Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC. She is bright, articulate and almost always right on no matter what she is discussing. Last year the Courier newspaper reprinted one of her pieces on defining black leadership. She and Cornell West got into a heated battle.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Thu May 03, 2012 8:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:21 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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From MLK to Obama: How we define black leadership
By Melissa Harris-Perry
1:46 AM on 01/17/2011
The American political stage onto which Barack Obama entered 40 years later was very different. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley was a fierce opponent of King. His son, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, became one of Obama's greatest allies. Dr. King battled for full voting rights for black Americans. Barack Obama relied on mobilizing an existing black voting base within the Democratic Party. Unlike King, Obama did not face an America where acts of racial violence are routine, but he did seek to lead in a toxic political environment that pitted Americans against one another based on identity and ideology. President Obama, like Dr. King, has been severely criticized fo consistently refusing to engage his opponents on the same terms of "verbal violence."
As early as the Democratic primaries, many Obama supporters desperately wanted him to fight back, to defend himself against what seemed to be racially motivated attacks, and to treat his political opponents as though they were personal enemies. Even as a candidate President Obama's strategies were much like those of King. He, like King asked Americans to believe that only by absorbing blows and not reciprocating with viciousness can people reveal their attackers for what they are and create a more just world. In doing so he both inspired and frustrated his supporters.
As president, Barack Obama continues to both inspire and frustrate as he develops a form of "nonviolent" political leadership that, at times, feels incapable of achieving victory in a bruising, no-holds barred partisan environment.
Click here to view a slideshow of the 25 most influential black American leaders of all time
I believe that it is this crucial similarity that propels both men to the top of our experts' list of black leaders. Dr. King was not victorious in every organizing effort. He often made choices to accommodate opponents. He sometimes cut deals when he thought the best outcome was not possible. He infuriated ideological purists who felt that he too frequently compromised. Certainly, President Obama has not achieved all of his policy goals. He too has anger many who felt that he is too frequently conciliatory. But despite their failures, our experts perceive both King and Obama as worthy of the highest ratings as leaders.
Perhaps this is because both men are leaders who ask us to look beyond the momentary struggle over a particular policy. No matter how critical that policy is to achieving justice, both Dr. King and President Obama remind us that we can only be victorious to the extent that we protect democracy, civility, and ethical engagement with our fellow human beings even as we pursue our goals.
In the last year of his life King faced a conservative backlash that rested on a white majority who claimed to be weary of the civil rights struggle and concerned that the country was making changes too quickly. King faced a mounting and vocal discontent from young black leaders eager to replace the civil rights movement with a more
aggressive Black Power ideology. He faced a media environment that cast him as simultaneously ineffectively weak and dangerously threatening. He was disheartened by a war that robbed the national coffers of the necessary funds to fight domestic poverty. The current political environment has important parallels for President Obama.
Dr. King recognized the mounting disillusionment of his fellow activists and the danger that it represented to the movement itself. In 1967, he wrote:
The minute hopes were blasted, the minute people realized that in spite of all these gains their conditions were still terrible, then violence became a part of the terminology of the movement in some segments. It is in this context that we must see what is happening now. |
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:23 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Despite these challenges Dr. King's final speech, delivered in Memphis, Tennessee in support of a sanitation workers strike, refused to cede ground on the issue of non-violence. In that speech King called for Americans to develop a "kind of dangerous unselfishness" that put the good of the collective above individuals concerns.
President Obama similarly understands the political and electoral consequences inherent in the disillusionment his base is suffering because, despite the hope-filled election of 2008, the country still faces economic and international challenges that seem insurmountable. But when faced with the attempted assassination of a Democratic
congresswoman and the collateral death of a half-dozen innocent bystanders, President Obama called the nation to unify and to proceed with greater civility and mutual understanding.
Leaders do not always win, but leaders always call us to believe that we are capable of making something better than what we currently believe is possible. For this ability both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama are distinguished as the best among the best |
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:26 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The American political stage onto which Barack Obama entered 40 years later was very different. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley was a fierce opponent of King. His son, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, became one of Obama's greatest allies. Dr. King battled for full voting rights for black Americans. Barack Obama relied on mobilizing an existing black voting base within the Democratic Party. Unlike King, Obama did not face an America where acts of racial violence are routine, but he did seek to lead in a toxic political environment that pitted Americans against one another based on identity and ideology. President Obama, like Dr. King, has been severely criticized fo consistently refusing to engage his opponents on the same terms of "verbal violence."
As early as the Democratic primaries, many Obama supporters desperately wanted him to fight back, to defend himself against what seemed to be racially motivated attacks, and to treat his political opponents as though they were personal enemies. Even as a candidate President Obama's strategies were much like those of King. He, like King asked Americans to believe that only by absorbing blows and not reciprocating with viciousness can people reveal their attackers for what they are and create a more just world. In doing so he both inspired and frustrated his supporters. As President, Barack Obama continues to both inspire and frustrate as he develops a form of "nonviolent" political leadership that, at times, feels incapable of achieving victory in a bruising, no-holds barred partisan environment.
I believe that it is this crucial similarity that propels both men to the top of our experts' list of black leaders. Dr. King was not victorious in every organizing effort. He often made choices to accommodate opponents. He sometimes cut deals when he thought the best outcome was not possible. He infuriated ideological purists who felt that he too frequently compromised. Certainly, President Obama has not achieved all of his policy goals. He too has anger many who felt that he is too frequently conciliatory. But despite their failures, our experts perceive both King and Obama as worthy of the highest ratings as leaders.
Perhaps this is because both men are leaders who ask us to look beyond the momentary struggle over a particular policy. No matter how critical that policy is to achieving justice, both Dr. King and President Obama remind us that we can only be victorious to the extent that we protect democracy, civility, and ethical engagement with our fellow human beings even as we pursue our goals.
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:31 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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In the last year of his life King faced a conservative backlash that rested on a white majority who claimed to be weary of the civil rights struggle and concerned that the country was making changes too quickly. King faced a mounting and vocal discontent from young black leaders eager to replace the civil rights movement with a more
aggressive Black Power ideology. He faced a media environment that cast him as simultaneously ineffectively weak and dangerously threatening. He was disheartened by a war that robbed the national coffers of the necessary funds to fight domestic poverty. The current political environment has important parallels for President Obama.
Dr. King recognized the mounting disillusionment of his fellow activists and the danger that it represented to the movement itself. In 1967, he wrote:
The minute hopes were blasted, the minute people realized that in spite of all these gains their conditions were still terrible, then violence became a part of the terminology of the movement in some segments. It is in this context that we must see what is happening now.
Despite these challenges Dr. King's final speech, delivered in Memphis, Tennessee in support of a sanitation workers strike, refused to cede ground on the issue of non-violence. In that speech King called for Americans to develop a "kind of dangerous unselfishness" that put the good of the collective above individuals concerns.
President Obama similarly understands the political and electoral consequences inherent in the disillusionment his base is suffering because, despite the hope-filled election of 2008, the country still faces economic and international challenges that seem insurmountable. But when faced with the attempted assassination of a Democratic
congresswoman and the collateral death of a half-dozen innocent bystanders, President Obama called the nation to unify and to proceed with greater civility and mutual understanding.
Leaders do not always win, but leaders always call us to believe that we are capable of making something better than what we currently believe is possible. For this ability both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama are distinguished as the best among the best. |
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:34 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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I hear despair and fear when i speak to certain indiuviduals in my community. There is the belief that the citizens of flint are unable to change the circumstances in Flint.
There is a common theme and fear that the government is in the midst of a purge- an elimination of those who the government believes are undesirables as a means of speeding up gentrification.
Mike Brown, the Mott Foundation and the Snyder administration, Tim herman and his Greater Flint regional chamber of Commerce are the names most often thrown out as the culprit.
Flint needs a new kind of leadership -one that seeks to unite the community and not divide and pit one group against another. Is there any one out there that fills that need? |
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Thu May 03, 2012 8:42 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Harris-Perry was called a "treacherous black woman" by West and his friends because of this article
Pirate Smile (1000+ posts)
Tue May-17-11 02:39 PM
Original message
Melissa Harris-Perry on Cornel West:"self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in.."
Edited on Tue May-17-11 02:49 PM by Pirate Smile
Cornel West v. Barack Obama
Melissa Harris-Perry
Professor Cornel West is President Obama’s silenced, disregarded, disrespected moral conscience, according to Chris Hedge’s recent column, “The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West went Ballistic.” In an self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in the discourse of prophetic witness, Professor West offers thin criticism of President Obama and stunning insight into the delicate ego of the self-appointed black leadership class that has been largely supplanted in recent years.
West begins with a bit of historical revision. West suggests that the President discarded him without provocation after he offered the Obama for America campaign his loyal service and prayers. But anyone with a casual knowledge of this rift knows it began during the Democratic primary not after the election. It began, not with a puffed up President, but when Cornel West’s “dear brother” Tavis Smiley threw a public tantrum because Senator Obama refused to attend Smiley's annual State of Black America. Smiley repeatedly suggested that his forum was the necessary black vetting space for the Democratic nominees. He needed to ask Obama and Clinton tough questions so that black America could get the answers it needed. But black America was doing a fine job making up its own mind in the primaries and didn’t need Smiley’s blessing to determine their own electoral preferences. Indeed, when Smiley got a chance to hold candidate Clinton “accountable” he spent more time fawning over her than probing about her symbolic or substantive policy stances that impacted black communities. Fiercely loyal to his friend, Professor West chose sides and began to undermine candidate Obama is small and large ways. Candidate Obama ceased calling West back because he was in the middle of a fierce campaign and West’s loyalties were, at best, divided. I suspect candidate Obama did not trust his “dear brother” to keep the campaign secrets and strategies. I also suspect he was not inaccurate in his hesitancy.
-snip-
Furthermore, West’s sense of betrayal is clearly more personal than ideological. In Hedges' article West claims that a true progressive would always put love of the people above concern with the elite and privileged. Then he complains, “I couldn’t get a ticket to the inauguration with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration... We had to watch the thing in the hotel.”Let me get this straight--the tenured, Princeton professor who collects five figures for public lectures was relegated to a hotel television while an anonymous hotel worker got tickets to the inauguration! What kind of crazy, mixed up class politics are these? Wait a minute…
-snip-
As tenured professors Cornel West and I are not meaningfully accountable, no matter what our love, commitment, or self-delusions tell us. President Obama, as an elected official, can, in fact, be voted out of his job. We can’t. That is a difference that matters. As West derides the President’s economic policies he remains silent on his friend Tavis Smiley’s relationship with Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, and McDonald's--all corporations whose invasive and predatory actions in poor and black communities have been the target of progressive organizing for decades. I have never heard him take Tavis Smiley to task for helping convince black Americans to enter into predatory mortgages. I’ve never heard him ask whether Tavis' decision to publish R. Kelley’s memoirs might be a less than progressive decision. He doesn’t hold Tavis accountable because Tavis is his friend and he is loyal. I respect that, but I also know that if he were in elected office the could not get off so easily. Opposition research would point out the hypocrisy in his public positions in a way that would make him vulnerable come election time. As a media personality and professor he is safely ensconced in a system that can never vote him off the island. I think an honest critique of Obama has to begin by acknowledging his own privileges.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/160725/cornel-west-v-bara...
edit to add a couple more because...why not:
Moore Award Nominee
"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. ... He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” - Cornell West.
The classic West bullshit: "my dear brother". I am sorry to say I put West in the same category as Gingrich as intellectuals whose reputation as such I could never find any serious evidence for. And I have really tried hard to understand West, charming and eccentric as he is.
No save get, as the computers used to say.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/moore-a...
Cornel West Uncovers The Disturbing Truth
You are familiar with the hypothesis that Barack Obama genetically inherited a disposition toward radical Kenyan anti-colonial thinking through his absent father. Now comes Cornel West, inevitably expressing his bitter disappointment with Obama's corporate sellout ways, explicating the opposite hypothesis:
“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.
“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. |
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Thu May 03, 2012 9:03 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| Black leadership, hmmm lets see sharpton, jackson. farrakhan. jeremiah wright and of course obama. |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Fri May 04, 2012 7:21 am |
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Adam
F L I N T O I D
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| I think before you define race-based leadership you should define leaderhsip. |
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Fri May 04, 2012 11:22 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Flint emergency manager says 'verbal tirade' led to arrest of Flint pastor inside city hall
Published: Friday, May 04, 2012, 3:30 PM Updated: Friday, May 04, 2012, 5:12 PM
By Cathy Shafran | cshafran@mlive.com
View full sizeRyan Garza | The Flint JournalPastor Reginald Flynn (center) walks out of Flint Police Department after being arrested for disorderly conduct during a protest inside Flint City Hall. Flint's Emergency Manager says the arrest came after Flynn's half hour "verbal tirade".
FLINT, MI -- The arrest of Pastor Reginald Flynn of Foss Avenue Baptist Church Thursday came after more than a half hour of "erratic and frightening behavior" inside Flint City Hall, according to Flint Emergency Manager Mike Brown.
In a statement that Brown issued today, the emergency manager describes a scene in which Flynn entered the mayor's office lobby with a bullhorn and made accusations against the emergency manager and his staff.
"After a verbal tirade of more than a half hour," Brown's statement said, "Pastor Flynn then began to turn over furniture and knock phones and computer equipment onto the floor."
Brown said when Flynn exited the mayor's area, a building and grounds person locked the door so he could not re-enter. At that point, the statement said, Flynn continued "his tirade verbally in other areas of City Hall."
While Flynn was on the second floor of City Hall, Brown's statement said, Flynn was approached by Flint Police Capt. T.P. Johnson.
"Capt. Johnson identified himself as a police officer and asked Pastor Flynn if he wanted to talk," said Brown's statement. "Pastor Flynn then stuck the bullhorn in the captain's face and began screaming."
At that point, Brown said, two officers who had been called by Police Chief Alvern Lock to quell the disturbance arrived
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"They observed Pastor Flynn raising the bullhorn in an aggressive manner," Brown said. "Therefore, they took physical control of the Pastor and confiscated the bullhorn. The officers then proceeded to place Pastor Flynn under arrest."
Brown says the matter is now under police investigation.
Flynn's attorney, Glenn Cotton, disputes accounts that portray the pastor's actions as threatening.
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This is a man dressed in a suit with a bullhorn who was sitting on the ground, Indian-style, conducting a demonstration of civil disobedience in accordance with Dr. King's principles," said Cotton. "I don't know how that is threatening."
Cotton maintains there was a mischaracterization of Flynn's actions while in the mayor's lobby.
"There was no computer property broken. There were some pencils and a chair was tipped over and some papers were scattered about," said Cotton. "And he wasn't yelling, he was reading off a list of his concerns about severe budget cuts."
Cotton also disputes accounts of police trying to talk to the pastor about disturbing the peace before his arrest.
"That's just not the case," said Cotton. "The captain attempted to take the bullhorn from Pastor Flynn. When he (Flynn) resisted them taking the bullhorn, that's when he was arrested."
"This was a nonviolent act of civil disobedience," said Cotton. "At no time did they direct him to stop his civil disobedience. I defy them to show proof that they did," said Cotton.
Flynn has complained of excessive force during his arrest. Cotton has the pastor is awaiting results of medical treatment he sought for pain in his knees, his wrists and shortness of breath following his release.
Cotton says he has still received no charging documents in the case, He has yet to see any official charges being filed.
Flynn, who also serves as CEO of the North Flint Neighborhood Reinvestment group, said he was at City Hall protesting budget cuts that severely impact those who live on Flint's north side. He said his protest was to demand equality of financial justice for those residents.
"He was sticking up for the poor and for those who didn't have a voice," said Cotton, referring to the pastor's protest inside City Hall. "He is firm in his belief he was doing what Christ would have done." |
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Fri May 04, 2012 5:03 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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quote:
Adam schreef:
I think before you define race-based leadership you should define leaderhsip.
Whether you chose to acknowledge it or not, this man leads a church of over 800 members and is in a leadership role in several community and faith based groups.
Now what kind of leadership and how that leadership is defined is another matter. That is the point Melissa Harris-Perry was making. |
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Fri May 04, 2012 5:07 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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WHEN YOU LOOKAT THE HISTORY OF THE NATION AND THE HISTORY OF FLINT, MOST BLACK LEADERS COULD HAVE BEEN CALLED DISSIDENTS.
TODAY SOME RESIDENTS IN THE PREDOMINENTLY WHITE NEIGHBORHOODS AROUND THE ZIMMERMAN CENTER EXPRESSED THE SAME VIEWS I HEAR IN THE NORTH END. THEY FEAR THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP AND MIKE BROWN ARE TRYING TO REBUILD FLINT AT THEIR EXPENSE AND THEY THEY ARE BEING FORCED TO MOVE BECAUSE THEY CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO LIVE IN THE CITY. MANY OF THESE INDIVIDUALS ARE OLDER AND ON FIXED INCOMES.
THE FLINT LEADERS HAVE DECLINED TO SHRINK FLINT AND MAINTAINING SERVICES TO AREAS THAT HAVE BEEN DECIMATED BY POPPULATION LOSS, VANDALISM AND ARSONS IT A WASTE OF PRECIOUS RESOURCES.
TO THE RESIDENTS, THE PRESENT POLICIES REPRESENT DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. RESIDENTS TELL ME THEY ANTICIPATE A GENTRIFICATION PROCESS ONCE THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION HAS ELIMINATED THE UNDESIREABLES. |
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Fri May 04, 2012 8:58 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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The reason most people move or have moved from Flint is well known by most thinking people. By the way Jeremiah Wright also had a huge congregation including the POTUS so I would say my mentioning of him as a leader is most certainly correct. Hopefully this Reginald Flynn is not an American hating race baiter like Wright?
Also if you think Republicans had anything to do with where Flint is today you are certainly delusional. Democrats have run the Flint show for the last 40 years at least. |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Sat May 05, 2012 8:08 am |
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Adam
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
Whether you chose to acknowledge it or not, this man leads a church of over 800 members and is in a leadership role in several community and faith based groups.
Now what kind of leadership and how that leadership is defined is another matter. That is the point Melissa Harris-Perry was making.
I'm not sure what your point is. So he's in a position of leadership. Heck maybe he's even a worse leader than Bush and Obama. If his church likes him than so be it. Some churches have bad leaders just like some countires/states/counties/cities have bad leaders. |
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Tue May 08, 2012 11:54 am |
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