By: Winston Barnes
DAVIE – A caller to our mid day talk show (Open Mic – WAVS 1170AM) so clearly demonstrates how a little bit of information and total delusion can be a most toxic mixture. The caller seeks to describe Barack Obama as an outsider, not one of us. Apparently because Obama’s father was straight out of Africa.
What makes this argument as toxic as it can ever be, is that for this caller, who claims to be Jamaican, is that it is an argument that was once used by both white and black folk in this country, to separate black folk from different backgrounds.
This is not only a most ignorant position to take it is also self-destructive, especially so in this the twenty first century.
After all, is this not similar to the claim by white Americans to Caribbean Blacks, for example that ‘no, you’re not black, you’re Jamaican’? If that was embraced it is easy to see how someone can so easily embrace the claim that Barack Obama is not one of us.
This position not only rejects Malcolm X’s explanation decades ago, that we are all one people. Even more, it demonstrates a clear mis-understanding of peter tosh’s song about truly being African, regardless of where you were born.
Then again, callers like the one yesterday, might be capable of understanding but refuse to. That is the most toxic of all.
Winston Barnes
Host – “Open Mic” WAVS 1170AM
Voice your opinion on “Open Mic” with Winston Barnes daily on WAVS 1170AM or listen on-line www.wavs1170am.com
