conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Order, Polish, San with the genre: Arts & Photography, Music?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Beyond Black And White'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond Black And White
  The cases of Bradley and Wilder were in many ways mirrored by the 1989 mayoral election in New York City, which was won by an African-American Democrat, Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins. As noted by Andrew Kohul, the president of the Pew Research Center, the Gallup organization's polling research on New York City's voters in 1989 had indicated that Dinkins would defeat his Republican opponent, Rudolph Giuliani, by 15 per cent. Instead, Dinkins only narrowly won by 2 per cent. Kohul, who worked as a Gallup pollster in that election, concluded that "poorer, less well-educated [white] voters were less likely to answer our questions," so the poll didn't have the opportunity to factor in their views. As Kohul observed: "Here's the problem – these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable view of blacks than respondents who do the interviews."
  In the multicultural nineties, as hip-hop began to define urban youth culture, and as President Bill Clinton proudly jogged around the White House after donning a Malcolm X cap, this racial barrier began to erode. A new generation of young African-American politicians – many of whom were lawyers, corporate executives, city administrators, educators, community organizers, and foundation officers – began seeking public office, first in municipal politics and then at statewide levels. With few exceptions, they rhetorically offered a race-neutral language to advocate the interests of their constituencies – who happened to be white and Latino as well as African-American, middle class as well as working class, unemployed and poor, those without high school diplomas as well as those with professional and graduate degrees. Michael White, the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1990s, was in many ways the model for post-black mayoral politics. Although ethnically black and a nominal Democrat, White was far more comfortable discussing tax abatements and incentives to attract corporate investment to inner city Cleveland, than leading a public protest march through the city's black neighborhood.
  By the twenty-first century, hundreds of race-neutral, pragmatic black officials had emerged, winning positions on city councils, state legislatures and in the House of Representatives. Frequently they distanced themselves from traditional liberal constituencies such as unions, promoted gentrification and corporate investment in poor urban neighborhoods, and favored funding charter schools as an alternative to the failures of public school systems. A growing share of these new leaders were elected from predominantly white districts. In 2001, for example, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, roughly 16 per cent of the nation's African-American state legislators had won election in predominantly white districts. By 2008, out of 622 black state legislators nationally, 30 per cent represented predominantly white constituencies. Between 1998 and 2008, about two hundred African-Americans defeated whites for municipal and state legislative races, even in some states, such as Iowa, Minnesota and New Hampshire, where black populations are small. In November 2006, civil rights attorney Duval Patrick, employing campaign strategies drawn from Barack Obama's successful 2004 Senate bid, easily won the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts, a state with a 79 per cent white population.
  Ideologically, this new leadership group reflected a range of divergent views on social policy. The most prominent moderates within this cohort included: former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, who is currently leader of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council; and Newark, New Jersey Mayor Corey Booker. More ideologically liberal leaders in this group are: Barack Obama; New York Governor David Patterson; and Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick. This is not to suggest that these politicians possess no strong ethnic roots or identity. All of these individuals are proudly self-identified as African-Americans. But strategically, none of them pursue what could be called race-based politics. None favor or would support a Black Agenda similar to that espoused by the March 1972 Gary, Indiana Black Political Convention. Most probably would perceive even Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition campaigns of the 1980s as too narrowly race- and ethnically-based, and too far to the left on economic policy.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: As the Democratic caucuses and primaries began, however, Obama quickly established the ability to win a surprisingly large share of whites' votes. He consistently won majorities among all voters under 30, voters earning over $50,000 annually and college-educated voters. After the South Carolina Democratic primary, where Bill Clinton's racially insensitive remarks alienated thousands of voters, the African-American electorate swung decisively behind Obama.
  The most damaging controversy involving race to erupt during Obama's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination involved the politics of faith: the media's re-broadcasting of provocative statements by the candidate's former minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. A major center for social justice ministry in Chicago, Trinity's activist program was not unlike that of other progressive African-American churches involved in the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, or the anti-apartheid campaign against white South Africa during the 1980s. Yet even before the controversial videos of the Reverend Wright's speeches surfaced, some white conservatives had attempted to equate Trinity Church's theological teachings with the black separatism of the Nation of Islam.
  Obama's response to the Reverend Wright politics of faith controversy was a masterful address, "A More Perfect Union," delivered in Philadelphia's Constitution Center on 15 March 2008. Obama began by reminding his audience that American democracy was "unfinished" at its founding in 1787, due to "this nation's original sin of slavery." Obama declared that despite his rather unusual personal history and mixed ethnic background, "seared into my genetic makeup [is] the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one."
  Obama's great strength is his ability to discuss controversial and complex issues in a manner that conveys the seeking of consensus, or common ground. His Philadelphia address reminded white Americans that "so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery" and Jim Crow segregation. But he also acknowledged the anger and alienation of poor and working-class whites, people who do not live especially privileged lives, who feel unfairly victimized by policies like affirmative action. Obama criticized Reverend Wright's statements as "not only wrong but divisive, at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems... that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."
  Another astute dimension of Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech was his repeated referencing of US racial history, while simultaneously refusing to be defined or restricted by that history. For blacks, Obama asserted, the path forward "means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past... it means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans." In the context of electoral politics and public policy, Obama's argument makes perfect sense. In America's major cities, for example, there's no explicitly "Latino strategy" for improving public transportation, or a purely "African-American strategy" to improve public health care. Obama did not deny that racial disparities in health care, education, employment and other areas existed. But by emphasizing a "politics of hope," he implied that any real solutions must depend on building multiracial, multiclass coalitions that could fight to achieve change.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He consistently won majorities among all voters under 30, voters earning over $50,000 annually and college-educated voters. After the South Carolina Democratic primary, where Bill Clinton's racially insensitive remarks alienated thousands of voters, the African-American electorate swung decisively behind Obama.
  The most damaging controversy involving race to erupt during Obama's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination involved the politics of faith: the media's re-broadcasting of provocative statements by the candidate's former minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. A major center for social justice ministry in Chicago, Trinity's activist program was not unlike that of other progressive African-American churches involved in the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, or the anti-apartheid campaign against white South Africa during the 1980s. Yet even before the controversial videos of the Reverend Wright's speeches surfaced, some white conservatives had attempted to equate Trinity Church's theological teachings with the black separatism of the Nation of Islam.
  Obama's response to the Reverend Wright politics of faith controversy was a masterful address, "A More Perfect Union," delivered in Philadelphia's Constitution Center on 15 March 2008. Obama began by reminding his audience that American democracy was "unfinished" at its founding in 1787, due to "this nation's original sin of slavery." Obama declared that despite his rather unusual personal history and mixed ethnic background, "seared into my genetic makeup [is] the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one."
  Obama's great strength is his ability to discuss controversial and complex issues in a manner that conveys the seeking of consensus, or common ground. His Philadelphia address reminded white Americans that "so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery" and Jim Crow segregation. But he also acknowledged the anger and alienation of poor and working-class whites, people who do not live especially privileged lives, who feel unfairly victimized by policies like affirmative action. Obama criticized Reverend Wright's statements as "not only wrong but divisive, at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems... that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."
  Another astute dimension of Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech was his repeated referencing of US racial history, while simultaneously refusing to be defined or restricted by that history. For blacks, Obama asserted, the path forward "means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past... it means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans." In the context of electoral politics and public policy, Obama's argument makes perfect sense. In America's major cities, for example, there's no explicitly "Latino strategy" for improving public transportation, or a purely "African-American strategy" to improve public health care. Obama did not deny that racial disparities in health care, education, employment and other areas existed. But by emphasizing a "politics of hope," he implied that any real solutions must depend on building multiracial, multiclass coalitions that could fight to achieve change.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: What can be anticipated from an Obama administration, especially as it relates to the Middle East, and more broadly the Islamic world? From his major speeches on international policy, Obama deeply believes in the nationalistic, world supremacist mission of the United States. In his speech, "The American Moment," delivered at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs on 23 April 2007, Obama declared that "the magical place called America" was still "the last, best hope on Earth." He "reject[ed] the notion that the American moment had passed." The most disturbing line of Obama's address was his assertion that the US had the right to launch unilateral and preemptive attacks on foreign countries, a position not unlike that of Bush and Cheney. "No president should ever hesitate to use force – unilaterally if necessary to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened," Obama stated. "We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense," Obama also argued, "in order to provide for the common security that underpins global security..." This is a geopolitical worldview that directly challenges the interests of both the Third World and most Islamic nations.
  In fairness, Obama never claimed to be an ideologue of the left. He promised a post-partisan government and a leadership style that incorporated the views of conservatives and liberals alike. This political pragmatism – which is also reflected in the new, post-racial black leadership Obama represents – is a rejection of radical change, in favor of incremental reform. As Obama explained in 2006: "Since founding the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary. What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she should ideally be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead." Malcolm X at the end of his life sought to overturn capitalism, not to reform it; Obama apparently seeks to achieve Keynesian changes but within our existing, market-dominated political economy.
  Such criticisms in no way are intended to minimize the significance of Obama's victory, and the continuing importance of electoral politics, voting, and using all the tools of electoralism for oppressed people in the United States. The Obama victory will be of great assistance in waging the struggle for racial justice. But electoral politics is not a substitute for social protest organizing in neighborhoods and in the streets.
  A new, anti-racist leadership must be constructed to the left of the Obama government, that draws upon representatives of the most oppressed and marginalized social groups within our communities: former prisoners, women activists in community-based, civic organizations, youth groups, from homeless coalitions, and the like. Change must occur not from the top down, as some Obama proponents would have it, but from the bottom up. The growing class stratification within African-American and Latino communities has produced an opportunistic, middle-class leadership elite that in many important ways is out of touch with dire problems generated by poverty, unemployment and mass incarceration. We must reconnect the construction of leadership by addressing and solving real-world problems of racialization that challenge everyday people's daily lives. The Obama victory has the potential for creating a positive environment for achieving dramatic reforms within public policy, improving the conditions for the truly disadvantaged – but only if it is pressured to do so. Obama may be successful in standing outside of the processes of racialization, but for millions of minorities, race and class inequality continue to define their lives, and only collective resistance will lead to their empowerment.