Emory Douglas
Black Panther Minister of Culture 1967–1980
You have high levels of corporate greed being exposed. People loosing their pensions. People who have invested over the years into these companies as workers being laid off, and finding that they don’t have any money because the company stole money from the pension. They have no retirement money. So you have all these dynamics. They thought they were good workers, good followers. They thought they would be taken care of. But they find they’re just kicking them out the door. These executives, they pay them $100 million, not to improve the company but to downsize, kick people out the door. So you have all these things that exist. You have this extremist movement in this country that the majority of people aren’t really into. But they control the country. Because by design over many, many years they’ve had these think tanks, they’ve been paying people off to create the situation that they have in this country and around the world.
Those dynamics play into the artists and their desire to want to see change, and to see Obama as an alternative. I don’t think there’s any illusion that he’s going to go in there and make any big changes. This stuff has been going on for eons. But they see that this is part of a process that hopefully can continue on. Hopefully if he were to get in there he can make change by putting more people in office that are not the same. Not recycling the same old folks from each administration. Going to the same pot of people who were there before and responsible for criminal activity, who should be charged with human rights violations. Of course that’s going to be a process too, because there are people connected to him [Obama] who are also part of this corrupt machine in these institution. So it runs deep within these institutions and the kind of people they use to run government. But artists are inspired. Plus the fact you have a lot of people who want to see change.
The United States is changing. You have a lot of people of colour right across the country. A whole other demographic of folks who would vote for a black candidate, just as you had a lot of those who would never vote for a black candidate. You have a lot of people of colour who want change, who think, “well if he can get in, I can get in” potentially. And now you’re seeing a strain of more tolerance that’s coming about.
Photo courtesy of Shaun Roberts
Even amidst all this bigotry that’s going on you do see a movement of more tolerance. People talking and communicating. Particularly young people. That’s a positive from the hip hop community. The hip hop community transcended all that racial stuff in many ways. So I think all those kind of things play into why all those musicians and artists are going to support Obama. He speaks a way to them that the other representatives, so called ‘want to be’ candidates don’t speak to them. But you have some who think he’s going to go in and make a big change. I’m clear that ain’t going to be the case. He can raise the issues, maybe start the dialogue, open up and start to deal with the contradictions of what needs to be done. But as far as going in there and making sweeping change I don’t see that happening. He can be an inspiration for that.