Is Barack Obama Channeling Bob Marley?

Happy Birthday Bob Marley (February 6th)!

Bob Marley died of melanoma in 1981 (he'd be 64 today). He still lives with me, though. I have a poster of Bob laughing as he smokes a zucchini-sized spliff on my bathroom wall opposite the throne. Today, as he looked down on me, I was thinking that if Marley were still with us, it would be interesting to hear what he would have to say to Barack Obama.

The two superstars would have a lot in common. Both are big on sports: Obama is down with basketball; Marley was totally into football (soccer). Both of them are mixed race, with older absent fathers who died while the sons were still young - although Marley’s father was white. That contributed to his refusal, while identifying as Black and as African, to go all “identity-politics.” He said:

I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

Obama also knows that racism is a dead-end for the racists, too. As Marley said:

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally discredited and abandoned... WAR!

Both of these men smoked dope as young guys (see left for Marley pre-dreads), but Obama cut it out as his ambitions grew, while for Marley weed was intimately tied into his musical genius and sense of self:

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

Marley considered marijuana a gift from god, but he opposed alcohol, perhaps because the latter is addictive:

Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.

Obama continues to build his reputation as someone who listens. Perhaps he is familiar with Marley’s belief that:

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

However, Marley found the political world a snake-pit and would be unlikely to admire Obama’s desire to hold high office:

Politics no interest me. Dem devil business.... Dem a play with peoples minds. Never play with peoples minds.

Obama asked people to get involved in changing the country and drew massive crowds – both actual and virtual. Bob Marley, in the language of his time, called also called on us to:

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.

February is Black History Month and last February I wrote about three important artists with birthdays in February: Nina Simone, Bob Marley and Langston Hughes. You can read that piece and see some fab clips by clicking here.

Comments

[Ruth Deming]

Immensely enjoyed your Bob Marley tribute, Sue. Clever comparison between Obama and Marley.

When I visited the Caribbean in 2000 I learned for the first time of the vast influence of Marley on the culture. He was revered as a god and his music - the music of the oppressed - freed his people with its lofty soaring beauty. Like the Negro spiritual and gospel, the soul refuses to submit.

[Sue Katz]

Thanks Ruth. I super-duper enjoyed writing this and have been a fan for a long time. Marley's last live concert was in my home-town Pittsburgh, by the way.