Does Obama Need To "Man Up"?

Shaft could never be elected president.

And if you go down the list of all the activist firebrands who have championed our causes for decades, there are very, very few who would even come close to fitting the bill.

There is a reason why Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, the same reason why Sidney Poitier was the first moneymaking leading black man – because they were “safe” black men with almost superhuman levels of emotional self control. However much we might want to believe that America has learned to accept its diversity, refusing to see what is right before our eyes is foolhardy, to say the least.

But a lot of people out here, a lot of black people, in fact, see Obama’s appealing nature, his tendency to turn the other cheek when he is attacked, and his willingness to concede when he is wrong as weaknesses.

Does Ken Chenault kick ass and take names at American Express?

Hell no.

He does what every other chief executive officer does - he works through the proper channels. Which is what Obama will be doing if he gets elected.

Let’s face it - the "O-Man" is a professional waffler - from his level of expertise, it looks like he's been wavering between "almost" and "maybe "his whole life.

And he can have a tendency to overthink things, as if we are a captive audience like his students used to be.

But if you add up all the things that are wrong with him, they still pale in comparison to all that's right. I don't care all that much about his policies, because I know as well as everyone else does that Americans won't go for anything too far from the middle of the road, no matter how good a salesman the president is.

What I care about is our young black boys - my vote will be cast for Obama so they can get to see this brown faced man in his ever present blue suit behind that White House podium, or when he is crossing the East Lawn to get into the White House helicopter, or when he is huddled with the rest of the world leaders at a G-8 conference - because the reality is, too many of our young boys get the majority of their info from TV, where Shaq and Kobe and McNabb and T.O. dominate the airwaves. Where rappers posture, swagger, and stick out their chests at unseen enemies.

And where you can still see Shaft late at night on the classic movie channels.

Obama and Ludacris: Apples to Apples?

Do all black people have to stand at attention, smiling and clean shaven, our black suits crisply pressed, our bowties level, as if we are the Nation of Islam?

Nope, can’t do that – an army of silent, well organized, well trained black people mobilizing voters throughout the country might be the wrong image to have on the airwaves this fall. Might look too…too…militant.

All sarcasm aside, I will be the first to say black people in general need to step up their game to get what we want out of America. But if we don't, are we guilty of being race traitors? Of letting our people down? Of letting...gasp...Barack Obama down?

If Obama is going to have to apologize for everything an individual black American says or does that is unacceptable to mainstream America, then he needs to quit while he's ahead.

Black Americans are not the nation's Model Minority (see Asian immigrants). We are America's Most Favored Minority, but 99 percent of us couldn't get elected president if you spotted us 250 electoral votes, the same way 99 percent of white Americans have no chance of appealing to a large enough number of voters to be elected.

Ludacris, an Atlanta based rapper, has a new song out that contains a line that has ruffled the feathers of our ever-vigilant news pundits.

"Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant" is the line that has garnered so much attention from the otherwise innocuous rap song by Ludacris titled "Politics".

The "Hillary" in question is of course none other than Hillary Clinton, ex-presidential candidate. This is the same Hillary Clinton who was the subject of a Saturday Night Live skit by comedienne Tina Fey earlier this year that poked fun at Hillary's image as a tough as nails competitor. In her skit, Fey said it point blank -"Hillary is a bitch" - but asserted that "I'm one too", and that "bitch was the new black".

The ever vigilant, pursed lip, pained eye fraternity, their pale faces staring out from our TV's, jumped right on the lyrics of the Ludacris song last night. They will intone with great seriousness over and over during the next few days why Obama's associations are problematic and why the music he has on his iPod should be vetted, as if it contains one of those songs that says "Obama is the Anti-Christ" when it is played backwards.

These are the same pundits who have proclaimed that we are entering a "post-racial" society with the advent of Obama's candidacy, but the way they have responded to what should be a trivial non-event signals they don't really believe what they are saying.

Ludacris has never held himself out to be anything other than a young brother looking to have some fun and make some money. He made his name in Atlanta, first as a radio jock, then as a local rap act who sold tapes out of his trunk. The people who are buying what he's selling, who are mostly young and are mostly white, know what they are getting.

McCain's campaign was half right - we do need to compare apples to apples when it comes to understanding who Obama really is.

Instead of comparing Obama to Paris Hilton, or Brittany Spears, or even Ludacris, why not compare him to other "apples" like himself - people like Ken Chennault of American Express, or Dick Parsons, formerly of Time Warner, or John Thompson, currently at Symantec - chief executive officers of some of America's largest companies, companies that have prospered under competent leadership from the African American men at their helm.