Posted on 02/27/2008 3:50:08 AM PST by Jet Jaguar
The halo above Barack Obama's head is dangerous. It is causing a lot of trouble for a lot of people, forcing them into silence. But that halo will tarnish if the young senator is elected president.
There are those who suggest, only half-jokingly, that Obamamania has become something of a cult. Of course it is a cult, manifesting what writer James Wolcott refers to as "salvational fervor" and "pure euphoria."
Listen to what the Anointed One said in South Carolina, which he alludes to as tent revivals: "At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you'll say, 'I have to vote for Barack!'" Something insidious is happening beneath this rapture. Because of the halo effect, too many people are afraid to criticize Obama for fear of being attacked and otherwise humiliated.
Many white Democrats who do not support Obama are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. They do not want to be denounced as racists for preferring Hillary Rodham Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with race.
Most of our acerbic political cartoonists who have no trouble portraying Clinton as a gargoyle have sheathed their rapiers for Obama, opting to handle the Anointed One with kid gloves or not draw him at all. Even the networks' late-night talk-show hosts and MSNBC's prime-time troika of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams are swooning for Obama.
Predictably, the people most negatively affected by Obamamania are blacks who have resisted the new, emerging black monolith by supporting Clinton. These poor souls are being excoriated by other blacks and sometimes labeled as self-loathing Uncle Toms.
The irony is that at the beginning of the campaign, conventional wisdom held Obama was "not black enough." He had to prove his black bona fides. After all, his mother was a white Kansan, his father a Kenyan. He was born too late for the civil-rights movement. He did not get his head bloodied on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, and never went to jail for staring down one of Bull Connor's storm troopers.
Now the tables have turned. Obama is on top, with the overwhelming majority of blacks zealously supporting him. That support is the new litmus test for being "authentically black."
One young man, clad in hip-hop duds, offered this insight to a black magazine: "Backing or not backing Barack shows how developed your racial consciousness is. You ain't black if you don't support Barack." During the 1960s, blacks used the expression "blacker than thou" to refer to the chosen few who set the standard for blackness. Those who did not measure up were dissed for not thinking "black enough."
The attacks against ordinary blacks who do not support the Haloed One are nasty enough, but they pale in comparison to the abuse being absorbed by famous blacks, especially members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Many decent, hardworking blacks who have done exemplary public work for a generation are portrayed as villains.
A young Chicago blogger said this of New York Rep. Charles Rangel and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young for supporting Clinton: "Support who you wish in this election, but why resort to the very politics that you fought against decades ago in an effort to please Ol' Massa and da Mistress, Bill and Hillary Clinton. Someone please tell Rangel and our dear brother Andrew Young that the Civil War ended slavery and they are free to leave the plantation."
During a recent interview with National Public Radio's Melissa Block, Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said he and some other members are being pressured and threatened by their constituents to vote for Obama. He said Georgia Rep. John Lewis, an early Clinton supporter who has worked tirelessly for black causes since assuming office in 1987, had become the victim of "robo-calls" and that some of the callers said "very, very derogatory things about him." Besides marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was a Freedom Rider and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He withstood vicious beatings in Selma and elsewhere to achieve rights for blacks.
Cleaver said: "I had a person in my district send out a newsletter, for which he didn't pay, distributed primarily in the African-American community, in which he suggested that I had been paid by Sen. Clinton to support her. I don't know if there's anyone who (is African-American) who hasn't taken some grief for supporting Sen. Clinton." Television host/radio personality/author Tavis Smiley told The Washington Post he has received death threats for his criticism of Obama. Smiley uses his wealth to improve black life. In just one example of his altruism, he gave historically black Texas Southern University $1 million in 2004 to help establish a center for media studies. This was the largest-ever donation to the university from an individual.
Here is why I said Obama's halo will tarnish if the Illinois senator is elected president: It will give him an indefinite honeymoon. We will be reluctant to challenge him, fearing that the albatross of racism and its attendant pathology, the blame and counterblame and old hatreds, will come crashing down on us. I fear we are about to elect an untouchable president.
Bill Maxwell is a columnist for the St. Petersburg, Fla., Times.
I’m voting for (climate) change in November.
LOL...all these old race hustlers are quaking in their boots, fearing that they are no longer going to be in charge. In most cases, they are only in their positions because they are Black. The younger generation, united behind Obama, is threatening their gravy train, and they don’t like it.
If so many pro Hillary, anti Obama Dems are out there and just afraid to speak out, what stops them from making their preference known in the privacy of the voting booth?
Go right ahead! And be sure to care for your own safety from Muslim extremist, etc. because no one from that admin is gonna look out for you. What we do not need in the White House is another 40 something that is all caught up with himself. They are ultimately not responsible enough to take on the task.
It’s not the voters the author is talking about.
“Most of our acerbic political cartoonists who have no trouble portraying Clinton as a gargoyle have sheathed their rapiers for Obama, opting to handle the Anointed One with kid gloves or not draw him at all. Even the networks’ late-night talk-show hosts and MSNBC’s prime-time troika of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams are swooning for Obama.”
The author should have included McCain in this list for yesterdays apology, by McCain, for another person calling Obama by his full given name.
You know the end of times is near when David Duke and Louis Farrakhan don’t mind the same guy running for Potus.
*Googlesearches for fallout shelter prices*
The ‘attacks against ordinary blacks’ wasn’t talking about voters? I thought the author was saying that Obama will be off limits to criticism by anybody. My mistake if I read it wrong.
I re-read it and saw the paragraph. Thanks for the correction.
That would be an actual dictator.
Nodding.
Stopping a bad thing (like an Obama presidency) is often most important thing we can do. by Freeper WOSG
Well if it is racist to criticize him because he is half black, well then just criticize his half white side. No problem! I have a black ancestor, Rufus Hargrove, freed slave. People still criticize me! LOL
Now THAT sums up everything. Change = code for socialism.
Remember, only white people can be racists. Political Correctness coming home to roost.
Oh isn’t it ironic?
The Clintons who helped engineer the diviseness surrounding race are now impacted by those rules of engagement.
If a black can be President, does that mean all the special rules goes away. Unfortunately not.
To vote for someone BECAUSE they are black is just as bad as NOT voting for someone because they are black.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.