faboo mama

No, let me rephrase that: Can we get some Black leadership? Now??? I just popped over the Jack and Jill Politics and was greeted with a post regarding recent comments made by Andrew “I ? Wal-Mart” Young. Seems, Mr. Young isn’t ready to support Senator Obama for president until 2016 (which means that at 75 years old, Young seems pretty optimistic about being able support Sen. Obama when he’s 84). Why doesn’t Young support Obama?

“It is not a matter of being inexperienced,” Young told an Atlanta crowd this fall. “It is a matter of being young. There is a certain matter of maturity … You have to have a protective network around you… Leadership requires suffering. And I would like to see Barack’s children get a little older, see, because they’re going to pick on them.”

Awww…Uncle Andrew is concerned about the children! Well. That makes sense. I mean, clearly at 46 years old AND a US Senator, what Sen. Obama lacks is maturity. At the same age, Youmg had been mayor of a city, a US Congressman and was appointed UN Ambassador–that’s all ignoring his civil right’s work. It’s a shame he had to limit himself because of his immaturity. But this is Young we’re talking about, so let’s see what else he has to say:

“Barack Obama does not have the support network yet to get to be president…,” he said. He reflected on his days serving as one of many lieutenants to Martin Luther King Jr.

He also said that while Obama’s rival Sen. Hillary Clinton is surrounded by quite a few black advisors Obama has very few.

Ah. I see the problem here: Senator Obama has the audacity to actually get into politics without calling up the Godfathers of Soul. If he had kissed the ring of the Holy Trinity of Sharpton, Jackson and Young, then this would probably be a different story. What Young just said was, “Obama didn’t ask us for our opinion or help. Therefore, we Dinosaurs of Blackness are going to try to withhold ALL Black people from voting for the Senator.”

But the article actually gets even more offensive and Young, being Young naturally had to step in it and smear it on the walls. I’ll let rikyrah lay it out because I’ve already posted enough f-bombs today:

But, the icing on the cake for me was this:

“Bill is every bit as black as Barack,” he said. “He has probably gone out with more black women than Barack.”

For that alone, Andy Young needs to go stand in the Handkerchief Heads for Hillary bleachers.

Negro, Please.

I highly suggest you read rikyrah’s piece.

It’s a shame that Young doesn’t realize that’s he’s irrelevant right now. The young voters mobilized for any candidate probably won’t even know who Andrew Young is and if shown a picture, they’d comment on his ‘fro. People my age, this so-called Generation X who were force-fed a steady heaping of how great and wonderful Andrew Young was, are finally realizing that we can’t rely on these fossils any more. They don’t and never have lived in our world. They’re not going to have to live in this world in 20 years, in 30 years. I don’t know if Obama should be president, but we need someone in our age group to stand up and be counted and move us away from the self-appointed Kings of Blackness. We need “youthful” Black leaders who understand the way life works today. Just because Young says it, doesn’t mean that Black people will fall in line and agree. The media makes the mistakes that Black people are of one mind. It’s a shame that Young, seems to think the same way.

We need to let Andrew Young and his contemporaries that we thank them for their service and for everything they’ve done, but it’s time for a new generation to take over. It’s time for someone who understands that things aren’t so Black and White…but also Latino, Asian, Indian, Arab…

The Can we please get some new Black leadership? by faboo mama, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.