Feb 8

Written by: BMTT Staff
2/8/2009 1:15 PM 

Taking the moral high ground is a slippery slope as President Obama is beginning to find out. He has had to swallow his pride, admit some mistakes, and apologize for his selections of Treasury Secretary and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, and he has not been in office three weeks. Both his Treasury and HHS choices failed to report significant income and had to pay back taxes. Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination after his failure to report income. While a senator, Daschle failed to report charitable donations, mainly the use of a limousine service valued at more than $250,000. He had to pay over $140,000 in back taxes and accrued interest. Moreover, Daschle reportedly earned over $5 million while working outside of the government. Some reports say that Daschle may have lobbied the government for corporate interest including health industry groups. President Obama may have appointed an official that had worked as a lobbyist although he recently signed an executive order barring executive level appointees from serving in those positions if they had worked as lobbyist during the previous two years. He has signed waivers to his executive order already. Is the President keeping his promise of bringing change to Washington?

Taking the moral high ground is not unusual for Black leaders. As a matter of fact, it is probably normal given the type of leadership that makes up the Black community, namely preachers and politicians. I argue that American Blacks live in a political religious system versus a political economic system, which is the mainstream. Our system cannot compete with the latter and that may be the main source of our disempowerment. We need leadership in other areas especially in business. I’m talking about inventive leadership that creates living wage jobs, marketable brands, industry leadership, significant charitable contributions, large endowments, etc. The disadvantage of an over abundance of preacher-led, politician-led leadership is that it mainly makes appeals to personal responsibility and government help (e.g., affirmative action) as primary strategies. Its nature is not inventive. Blacks must continually adapt to our environments in order to maintain prosperity and survival.

President Obama is a product of his cultural community, so it is not uncommon that he would articulate its values and practices. One problem is that moralizing is an ideal construct; one that is seldom achieved. Washington is built not on the power of morality but on free market economics and the ‘power to determine marketable exchange values’. Morality is not the reason that America has achieved success. Invention, capitalism (the exploitation of humans) and self-serving group interest are its primary concerns. America only preaches morality once it has achieved power over others.

The President has also promised a diverse cabinet and promised to reach across the aisle to republicans. He was feeling the heat as some members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) were upset that he did not appoint more African Americans to cabinet level positions and republicans were trying to halt his stimulus package at every turn. Why was the CBC upset about diversity? That’s another problem with moralizing is that it is a relative term and depends on one’s perspective.

As far as African Americans are concerned, moralizing has done very little to propel us forward, neither has government programs. We remain stagnant or have moved backward in some areas especially in terms of removing disparities like income, wealth, mortality, morbidity, and the list goes on. Telling someone to take more responsibility has not helped us much. Demanding government intervention has not helped much either. The government has failed to meet any of its affirmative action benchmarks, yet Black leadership continues to appeal for its help. Again, the current leadership is doing what its nature dictates that it does; mainly depend on help from others (the Levite way). We need more balanced, creative leadership focused on equalizing the power differential of our political religious system against the mainstream’s political economic one.

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