Dr. King taught us to believe; President Obama can teach us to win.  In making that statement, I am not limiting Dr. King to a wishful dreamer but rather acknowledging that his legacy of belief is an important one.  Dr. King taught us to believe in a better world, to believe in ourselves, and most importantly, to believe that we could and would one day change the world.  However, Dr. King didn’t win.  His family suffered a difficult loss, and the establishment stole his legacy and limited this great man to one speech, that he made five years before his assignation.  I read two of Dr. King’s speeches to prepare for this article: (1)  “I Have a Dream”, August 28, 1963; (2) “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”, March 31 1968.  Dr. King died on April 4, 1968; his second to last speech is a serious policy critique of the US government that is more akin to a Malcolm X speech.   Dr. King was a visionary and his war on Poverty outlined in “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” is President Obama’s road map to greatness.
I am not trying to place President Obama in the class of Dr. Martin Luther King.  However, President Obama is a winner and that is important.  Far too often Black intellectuals focus on abstract political and moral ideals instead of just winning.  I don’t mean some meaningless sport, but winning in life;  having a happy family; earning enough money to keep your family in a comfortable lifestyle; working at a job that you choose and love to do, not trapped in some meaningless menial position.  Lost to the vast intellect of Dr. Cornell West and numerous other scholars is the importance of a man being able to walk around with pride.  That is what President Obama is giving to Black people—pride in winning, pride in family, pride in ourselves. 

Inspired by a Facebook discussion around Cornell West’s criticisms of President Obama on CNBC’s the ED show – I have decided to write this article to provide an analysis of the situation within the context of Malcolm X’s, “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech. I am also doing this to honor Malcolm X’s 86^th birthday and put forth a progressive Black Nationalist analysis of Barack Obama’s Presidency. 

Malcolm X was a pragmatic political analyst.  I don’t know how he would have reacted to the phenomenon of Barack Obama’s Presidency, but I do know that he would have provided an analysis of the President’s policies, and the political climate surrounding those policies.  Furthermore he would have not resorted to childish insults centered on political naiveté as Dr. Cornell West has; someone who I genuinely believe is an intellectual charlatan.  

Dr. West went on the record stating that President Obama is a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats and now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”  It is just a salacious comment that offers no political or intellectual insights.  The saddest thing is that my colleagues on Facebook who are supposed to be educated Black Nationalists agree with this Black church ministerial complaining to Jesus for salvation bull crap. 

On Tuesday, February 16^th 2010, the Justice Department announced that there was not enough evidence to prosecute the New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers involved in the slaughter of Sean Bell for violating his civil rights.  While many of my fellow African Americans are probably disappointed in Eric Holder, (America’s first Black Attorney General), I am not.  After reading the official statement given by the Justice Department, I must say that I was impressed by the way the situation was handled.  I was impressed that representatives of the Justice Department met with the family to explain why they could not move forward.  While I feel strongly that the death of Sean Bell was a heinous crime and violation of his human rights, it was not a violation of his civil rights.  The problem here is that people do not understand the difference and Al Sharpton is either incapable of or has no desire to articulate the difference. 

When doing research for my previous article on Governor Paterson’s  claims of racist media bias, I examined every front page from the New York Post from the Day he was appointed, on March 17^th 2008, to September 31^st 2009.  I was able to identify 33 cover stories that related to Governor Paterson.  Out of thirty-three stories, only two of them are semi-positive.  The reason I call them semi-positive is the way that they are told.