Obama's Candidacy and the Green Party's People Agenda

Obama's win in the Democratic Party increases the pressure on members of the black power movement to consider how to use this period to grow awareness of radical politics amongst not just blacks, but people of all colors. Several speakers, including Jared Ball, a former Green Party Presidential Candidate, spoke at "The Ballot or the Bullet Revisited" conference held on May 28 to discuss the candidacy of Barak Obama in the context of African liberation struggles and history.

With former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney holding a firm lead for the Green Party Presidential candidacy, the challenges facing her as she speaks to various black communities may be quite a bit of push-back. However, she has the endorsements of the Black Agenda Report and others as well as a growing international reputation to buoy her. During his conference speech, Ball described why he was behind McKinney and how the Green Party, despite its overwhelmingly pale complextion, could fit into an overall plan to move a people of colors agenda forward.

"Not that electoral politics is the answer," Ball said, "but to say for those who feel that that is part of what they need to do for their own expression of so-called freedom, that you can express it in this way that is not antithetical to your core values and beliefs."

Ball, who threw his support to former Democratic Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney in mid-January, said that while Obama has been described as a symbol of the black power movement, the Democratic Presidential Candidate is a response to the black power movement. Obama's rejection of Reverand Wright demonstrated his vulnerability to political influence in the conversation of being Black in America, according to other speakers present.

Ball recounted, "When Obama said 'There is no white American. There is no Black America. There is no Latino America. There’s only America,' I said that he was the most dangerous man in our political world... To suggest that there is no difference is to destroy the movement. "

Jared Ball is still considered to be in the running for the Vice-Presidential tap. For more of his thoughts on politics in America and his means for communicating it, go to the VoxUnion Website.

Organizations sponsoring and represented at the discussion included the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, the African People’s Socialist Party, N’COBRA, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Black Agenda Report.