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Given the idjits in the world, I'm sorry he needs this, but glad he has it.

QUIVER!!!!

What gets me is this idea that certain “leaders” are preordained with “the truth.” That somehow their word is “the truth.” That they're the one's “speaking truth to power.” And, for some reason, they're the ones with the authority to speak for all of black America. And that it's somehow our fault if we don't see things the way they do.

Some segments of the political left use “the truth” the same way elements of the right use “faith” as a battering ram to squelch all dissent and discussion.

Well, what they call “truth” I call an opinion. And Tavis' weekly rants of “holding Obama accountable” struck me as being nothing more than cover for a bruised ego.

To me, it seemed like Tavis wanted to get into a pissing match with Obama over who was the bigger HNIC and assumed black folk would follow his lead. And when a lot of us didn't go his way, he felt the need to educate us on “accountability.”

So it didn't come across as: I'm Tavis Smiley and I have a different point of view. Let's discuss.” No. Instead it came off as:“I'm the voice of reason, here to enlighten you kool aid-drinking negroes on why Obama really ain't sh*t” And when some disagreed, he took it upon himself to turn his entire SOTBU address into a lecture aimed at scolding black America for not seeing things the way he did.

No. We heard what he had to say. We were well informed. We thought for ourselves. And a lot of us disagreed with him. It's really that simple.

I don't want to hear lectures at this time. . . . I want to hear ideas. New voices and new ideas. New faces. Tavis has his ideas, but so do many other people. And it's hard for those other people to get heard when Tavis and his ilk are out there speaking for the entire black race.

You know what I'd like? I'd like to be able to take this moment in history and be allowed to think for myself. And I'd like to do that without having Tavis or any other black leader rush to tell me how I should think or feel as an African-American.

Is that too much to ask? Or should I just shut up while black pundits (left, right and center) speak on my behalf?

After all of his talk about “holding Obama accountable” I was ready to see Tavis get all up in Hillary's business at the SOTBU. I'm still waiting.

But I've never been impressed with cynicism for the sake of being cynical. To me, it takes little more effort to say “the world sucks” than it does to say “the world is perfect.” Sorry, the world. . . life . . . is not that simple.

Some black “leaders” never had a problem with a messianic complex becaue they were already accustomed to telling black people what to do anyways. The only differnce is that now a lot of black folk are paying attention to someone else. Keep it real . . . those black leaders don't care about the
'kool-aid” so much as they're just scared there might be a new flavor to choose from. It's nothing more than a turf war for some of these people.

And one more thing. I'm all for holding Obama accountable. But it's clear that some of his critics will try to use that meme as an excuse to hold Obama to an unreasonable standard that his predecessors never had to meet (see FoxNews).

For me, it's a balance between holding him accountable on the one hand, and giving him an equal opportunity to succeed on the other. But I'd hold Obama to the same standard I'd hold any other president to. I don't get why we should place extra scrutiny on Obama to overcompensate for a lack of scrutiny of past presidents (but that's another subject).

It's a delicate balance . . . but I'm confident that black folk are smart enough to figure it out for ourselves.