How the Funk Can Help You (while you're taking out the trash)

In the contemporary American political episode, the Democratic party reminds me of a group of kids bad-mouthing each other on a playground: immature, unprepared, naive, purile, disconsolate due to a lack of immediate gratification. And now that it appears Senator Obama will be leading the Democrats against the party of Raygun/Bush 1/Bush 2/Cheney and Brown and Root and Blackwater, I believe this is an appropriate time to give the Democrats a piece of my mind.

Taking in the scene-with-a-gangster-lean from the Other side of the Pond, even I can see that the Democratic strategy to win this November won’t rest on Mr. Obama’s shoulders alone, but on the backsides of all who say they are tired of the current despotate and claim to crave change. My advice is simple: take out your own garbage people.

In a so-called participative democracy, every interest group involved – blacks and whites, jews and gentiles, protestants and catholics, women and straights and gays and latinos and hispanics and asians and unions and environmentalists and police and spies and oligarchs – generates garbage of its own.

And here’s some news for ya’ll: unfortunately, Bruva Obama is not the garbage man. He can’t take out your garbage for you, nor should he be expected to, because getting rid of your own garbage is your own responsibility.

Sorry to be the one to say this to you but in a democracy, you are responsible for taking out the garbage you make. Xenophobia and racist attitudes. Sexism and homophobia. Status anxiety and social ostracism as a method of systemic social control. Corruption. Cronyism. Collusion. Caste. Blind aggression in place of reason and debate. All that trash. Its yours and the longer you keep it in your house the more it will stink up where you live.

In other words, civic engagement means much more than seeing who can holler the loudest at the mic in a crowded room. Sometimes it means volunteering to work in your community to create a cleaner, safer, welcoming place for everybody to live in – not just you. Sometimes it means working for free and expecting nothing in return when helping a neighbor who can’t help themselves - or do anything for you. And of course it can mean picking up that piece of trash on the ground in front of your door and throwing it in the garbage can, even if you didn’t drop it, because you live there.

Since I lean towards the cynical, I’m not convinced that `Merica is ready to take leadership from the most famous black man-on-Earth  right now because he is a real-life lawyer and not an actor or athlete or rapper or preacher; to the vast majority he’s still pretty much like a brother from another planet.

However, I’m relieved that Bruva O will finally be able to step into the ring like Mohammed Ali and go toe-to-toe in debates with Mr. McCain, mano y mano, and get his chance to shine on TV. Since I correctly predicted the outcomes of all three Ali-Frazier fights, I predict with confidence that he will knock the taste out of McCain’s mouth before the proverbial eighth round. Cause like me and Ali, he’s pretty and overstands Aikido.

To bring the bacon all-the-way home, Senator Obama will have to do two things: 1) stop censoring himself, and 2) let the funk carry him all the way. The first one is easy but the second one will be hard to do. But like Bundini Brown, that’s why I’m here.

(Bruva O, if you’re reading this, let me say that I ain’t got nothing but love and respect for you. Damn if I would want your job. But since you’ve applied yourself and you’re qualified for it, I can tell you that personally, since 1964, I have known it is possible for black men to provide competent, responsible leadership on The Hill. Know that this was the year that me and my boys spent the day with Mr. Nix in his office on the cleanest, dark blue, wall-to-wall carpet I had ever seen, drinking free, ice-cold Pepsi. We even got free lunch at the Congressional Commissary. He was my best friend Adam’s uncle and Adam went down to the House Floor to hang with him while he got sworn in. We knew we was free and gave each other dap all day.)

By funk, I do mean cultural hybridity. Bruva O must give himself over to the force of fu-luki 3 times-a-week and let the Africa come all-the-way out of him now. Its time for him to use Funk Organizational Principles like good crypto: change that pattern/posture/motif/theme/rhythm/tempo/rhyme/style so that evil influences can’t attach themselves to it.

(For those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m even talking about, perhaps you can gain a better understanding of this if you think in terms of music or dance performance: the process of letting go and giving yourself over to a rhythm, a beat, a tempo and letting it take you along, instead of trying to control it.)

Iona could explain this to you. So could Stew. Or Ivo.

DJ Spooky could break it down for you.

And Jero could take you to school.

Because at the end of the day, the real question answered this November will not be whether `Merica is willing to take leadership from a blackman but whether she is grown-up-enough to deal with genuine cultural hybridity.

We shall see what the end will be.