Black Professors Author Memo Urging Blacks to Vote Black

Michelle Malkin (among others) is following the story about the memo (full text here) circulated through the Internet and Atlanta area which urges race-based voting.

From the memo: "The view that the times are too serious to stand on the sidelines is absolutely correct from the perspective of a black mayor at all cost. In fact, if a white candidate were to win the 2009 mayoral race, it would be just as significant in political terms as Maynard Jacksons [the first black mayor of Atlanta] victory in 1973.

[...]

"The changing demographics which show a more rapid growth in the citys white population (faster and a higher percentage than anywhere else in the country) requires that we critically evaluate all candidates;

[...]

"We need an overall governance strategy and a definition of who really governs in Atlanta. In other words, in 2009 we have arrived at a place in time where we can no longer afford to just look at race in the Mayors race or individual council races.

"At the end of the day, when the morning comes, a black agenda would better enable us to have our interests respected by and our influence realized in any administration."

Check out the video on WSBTV's website in which has three (Borders, Reed, and Norwood) of the mayoral candidates' reactions in soundbite format.

The authors of the memo, doctors William Boone and Keith Jennings both purportedly of Clark Atlanta University (I cannot find a listing for a Keith Jennings in the CAU website's faculty directory and a search of the site proved fruitless), plan to hold a press conference to clear up certain perceptions. I rather eagerly await their statements.

While reporting on the announced press conference the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: "Boone and Jennings shot back Monday calling claims of racism 'patently false' and a 'red herring,' because they were presenting, 'views that have been articulated in various parts of the community.'

"'We stand by our belief that "a black agenda would enable African American interests to be respected by any administration,"' they wrote. 'The interests of African American voters are just as legitimate as other Atlanta voters, and the notion that we must apologize for highlighting those interests is absurd.'"

As Michelle Malkin observes "And I’m so very sure they’d be the first to defend a pair of white professors who wrote up a memo about the 'white agenda' and strategized about how to rally voters behind the strongest white candidate to defeat non-white politicians."

Yet, what Boone (a professor of Political Science) and the elusive Jennings present is not terribly unusual in black politics. As distasteful as it is to rally around skin color, the black community has been doing this for almost a century-and-a-half. While historically borne of necessity, outside white oppression, and circumstance, this practice is now for keeping the status quo within the political structures of the black community.

Boone and Jennings' attitude is a throwback to the sort of separatist and reactionary thinking ("The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black") of people like Ron Everett (aka Maulana Karenga) the inventor of Kwanzaa.

It appears to me that the call for and efforts to create a "black agenda" to unify the splintering black communities in Atlanta is little more than an effort to reassert their own values and agendas. To legitimize their views, they label them as a "black agenda" and then urge black individuals to forsake or compromise their own values, beliefs, and, most importantly for them, their votes, for the sake of the "black community."

Is it any wonder that the seven principles of Kwanzaa are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith?