From Portside

An Open Letter to Ralph Nader About His Dis to Obama

By Davey D Davey
D's Hip Hop Corner
November 7, 2008

http://hiphopnews.yuku.com/topic/917

Oh, Mr. Nader, in your bittersweet resentment of Barack
Obama you have allowed your envy to dictate your action
and called our first Black President-elect an "Uncle
Tom", and allowed the enemy to call the kettle black.

I can understand that as a revolutionary you may simply
see just another Democrat taking the throne of an
American presidency. You may think that he is an
establishment leader and thus the change he brings is
nothing more than temporary reform.

You have chosen to focus on the tree instead of the
forest so that you can continue to promote your own
political agenda.

When southern Blacks forced integration, they did not
build black-only diners and then open them up to the
whites. They walked into already established whites-
only resturants and took a place at the table. The
only way to revolutionize the establishment was to
become a part of it and then redefine it with new
institutions both tangible and abstract. And even when
they played by the consitutional rules, they were still
killed, beaten and broken down.

You Mr. Nader may believe that your revolutionary
stance and inclusive policy proposals allow you the
right to critique this new Black president and his so-
called "change" platform in the manner that you did.
But you certainly never called any other president an
"Uncle Tom." And quite frankly you sounded like the
white boy who got invited to the house party and
thought he was cool enough now to use the "N" word.

And like the white boy at the house party, you were
sorely mistaken.

Your points were relevant when you questioned Obama's
economic policies and voting record. However, when you
decided to use a racial epithet to describe the type of
man Obama might be should he not hold the corporate
elite accountable, your ideas got lost in translation
and you became a "racist. "

You gave fodder to FOXNews, a white supremacist news
network, to use against our movement and highlight a
division that may or may not truly exist. Honestly, you
are from an older generation that sees race in terms
quite differently then my own generation. My
generation, my people, Hip Hop culture, gave rise to
this Black president because we understand that you
must free your mind first and the rest will follow.

Mr. Nader, come join our revolution. Let your fear go.
Your time has passed you need to embrace the future.

Krsta Keating of Revolutionize yo' Block