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- 32 -Uncle Tom Goes to Washington:The Dark Underside of Barack Obama’s run for the American Presidency05.14.2008“It is no exaggeration to say that the majority of South Africans feel an almost physical revulsionagainst anything that puts a native or person of colour on their level…”R.P. Oswin, “L’homme de couleur”Barack Obama despite vociferous arguments to the contrary is a man of diminishing dimensions. Whatever “hope and promise” his presidential campaign offered in its early days have long since faded into thepredictable political abyss of enthusiastic double-talk, keyword-specific speeches and right-wing mediapundit arse-kissing. Mr. Obama, while highly guilty on all these counts is not out of pocket per se for being apolitician and acting as one. He is instead blameworthy for committing the greatest sin known to U.S. politicalprinciples as it applies to African representatives; he is allowing the Europocentric power structure to tearhim, his wife and the hard-earned self respect of his people to shreds without a single word of significantprotest in favour of American Empire.In a world where lynching nooses are again on display in the 21st century and young, innocent and unarmedAfrican men can be shot to death by municipal police troops to public and political approval, Mr. Obama is amainstream closeted White racist imperialist’s dream come true.[i] He visibly absolves White racist terrorpublicly, gleefully and unashamedly with a sheepishly becoming “Vote for Me” smile. Shuffling dutifully withall the grace of a three-legged elephant during a GOP minstrel show, America’s newest “Favourite Negro”Barack Obama is letting “America” and the global community know in no uncertain terms that he acceptstheir racism, their denials of their xenophobia and that he is more than willing to keep this White supremacistgravy train rolling at home and abroad.To deny this reality is foolish. And it is even more imprudent and more to the point embarrassing when theAmerican African intelligentsia commissars not only give him their earnest endorsements but defend him fromthose within the African community that have the temerity to question his lack of dignity and personal andpolitical integrity in the face of overwhelming racist and anti-Islamic attacks. It is proper that when forced bycircumstance to confront such a situation, the African must look towards him and herself for clarification. Ican find no better an analytical example than the Algerian psychiatrist Franz Fanon when he observed:“In every country of the world there are climbers, “The ones who forget who they are,” and incontrast to them, “the ones who remember where they came from.”[ii]