Posted on 03/22/2008 6:51:51 AM PDT by moneyrunner
Barack Obama says his grandmother is a typical white person, which in his words, means that if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, she gets scared. He then explains that is the nature of race in our society.
Virginian Pilot Editors: To Paraphrase Obama = "Typical White Liberals"
Barack Obama was asked about his use of his white grandmother as an example of white racism. He replied
"The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction that's been been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society."
Obama shamelessly uses his grandmother and compares her to the racist rants of J. Wright.
During his speech on race Obama said his grandmother was "a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world," but he then qualified that description by noting she was also "a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
Charles Krauthammer critiques Obamas speech HERE and the reaction to it.
White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then proceeds to do precisely that. And what lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.
This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. .
The group who loved it?
That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt, while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.
What was delicious was that the Virginian Pilot's editors then printed an exact illustration of the sort of Liberal mash note that, when analyzed is fully as satisfying and designed to rot your intellectual teeth as cotton candy for the mind.
Detailing the racial make-up of the Tidewater Virginia area, the Pilot's cracked editors bleat again for a "dialog" on race. Well, J. Wright certainly revived the talk of race. Is that what they want? Well, no.
That conversation isnt just about finding a way to get past our own bigotries, small and large. Its about finding our way in a smaller world.
What? What does that mean?
Embracing differences and leveraging them to compete is already a key characteristic of successful corporations across the world; as that globe shrinks, it will also be the defining characteristic of its most successful nations.
So the racism and hatred of America expressed by Reverend Wright should be leveraged (how?) to make us a more successful nation? Wright's diatribes should be used to appeal to America's haters throughout the world to show that they are not alone in their hatred of America, we have our very own America haters right here in the United States? I'm confused, will that make them hate us more or hate us less?
As Americans, we may not like Wrights bombast, but that neither makes it disappear nor leaves it without a significant audience. Such views are as much a part of our world as religious leaders blaming homosexuals for 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, or dismissing the Mormon and Catholic churches as cults.
Ah, yes, Wright is simply bombastic when he accuses Americans of inventing aids to wipe out blacks. When he accuses (FDR's) America of knowing in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor. If I may paraphrase J. Wright "NO! NO! NO!" That's not bombast, those are racially charged lies. That is blood libel.
Newt Gingrich has it right when he says:
For 20 years, he was a member of a church where he now says his pastor, a public figure, was saying things ... forget that they were hateful, forget that they were divisive: They were wrong. They were fundamentally, factually wrong."
And let me point out to the Pilot's cracked editors that when certain preachers blamed homosexuals for 9/11 and Katrina they were not invited in for a dialog, they were denounced! Would the Pilot like to call for a dialog those who call Mormons a cult? Regarding Catholics I have never heard anyone call them a cult, although I could imagine certain members of the looney atheist Left do so.
The Pilot then pauses to accuse those who question J. Wright's racial hatred and Obama's cynical opportunism of wishing to divide us:
Some churches and ethnic groups, universities and politicians are trying to take up Obamas invitation to a larger conversation on race in America. Obamas opponents refuse to hear his message because they choose not to, because a dialogue rooted in common hopes unwinds their hopes of dividing the nation for political gain.
Tell me, Pilot, what common hopes do I have with J. Wright and his cheering parishioners as he asks God to damn America? What common hopes do I have with the man who supported that hate speech for twenty years with his attendance and his money? I know he hopes to be president; I fervently hope he does not.
Right now, this nation is undergoing an enormous demographic earthquake. In a few years, whites will no longer make up the majority. In a few decades, they may no longer be the largest ethnic group.
It seems as if the Pilot's editors are looking to make their peace with race baiters whose skins are not white. The Pilot's staff wants to be on the side of the coming majority and if that majority wants to have God damn America, the Pilot will find a way of being there for them.
Well folks, that was the windup, here's the pitch:
Were on that road. We got there, in part, by knowing this isnt entirely about race and racism. Its about citizenship. At its core, the contention over Obamas pastor is about something deeper to our experience, our history, to our health as a nation now and to come: Who is an American? And what does that have to do with the color of our skin?
The poor Pilot; the poor, poor, pitiful Pilot. You may not like them, but there is something pitiful about people whose analytical skills arrive at this piece of intellectual detritus.
And he’s a typical clueless lieburrall.
New tagline recently adopted; a variation of Obama’s racial stereotyping.
And I still may buy a “Typical White Person” t-shirt.
I would expect better grammar from a presidential candidate. The world is going to pot.
I saw this and Obama is not very fast in his thinking when being questioned. This isn’t going to be the last time he will “misspeak”. He is really a very boring interview.
Since I've never met his Granny, I wish Osama/Obama would define what he means by "typical white person". Otherwise, how am I supposed to know if I fit his definition? I might be abnormal and not even know it......
Ah, the glories of free market capitalism. It was probably not more than 2 or 3 hours before Obambi O’Baloney “misspoke” that the first “Typical White Person” T shirt hit the internet.
With this statement, Obama is exhibiting the same racial stereotyping he claims whites suffer from.
I would expect better grammar from a presidential candidate. The world is going to pot.
Haaaarvaaard Ebonics???
Obama is a racist...even against his own grandmother.
Question I would like to have Obama answer: did your typical white grandma have the same response to Asians, and if not, why not?
Bwahahahahahahaha
Sorta like when Andrew Young used the term "Smart Assed White Boys" some time back. I still have my SAWB hat......I suppose I need to get one of those T-shirt to go with my hat.....
Well, the next time you see someone on the street that you don’t know, you need to react in the way that’s been bred into your experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way.
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For months and months now the Laimstream media has been telling us what a great orator the Prophet Obama is. Are you saying that he misspoke when he used the term "typical white person" when describing his Granny? I mean, the dude does have a Harvard education and all.....he chooses his words about as carefully as he chooses his mentors.....
Typical White Persons will show Obama how they feel on election day!
I have been noticing his poor grammar. And he has been through Harvard and Yale? Who wrote his papers? Who graded his papers?
Spin! Spin those wheels, Barack! Hahahahaha!!!
This “Typical White Person” has suffered three nasty incidents at the hands of brothers. In high school in Ithaca, NY, I was punched in the face for asking a guy’s sister to be quiet during a movie. He wheeled me around in the aisle when we were exiting the theater and landed a haymaker right on my face. A couple decades later, my wife and I were shook down in a parking lot in Palo Alto side street by four extremely aggressive thugs but luckily we weren’t mugged. And in Columbus, OH a colleague and I were intentionally rammed really hard while walking on a downtown city sidewalk after dinner. Again, we were lucky once again to not get mugged. I’ve tried to keep an open mind throughout my life, but the one common thread in these nasty incidents unfortunately does reinforce some ugly stereotypes.
“Oh,.. Grandma got runover by her grandson,... Grandma ......”
How long before he tries to correct this and digs himself deeper?
I want him to explain what “come out in the wrong way” means.
Does his grandmother carry mace, or does she just run away screaming?
Obama & wife = Typical black racists.
All the King’s men and money won’t satisfy.
He attended Columbia University as an undergrad and Harvard Law.
> if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, she gets scared.<
Sounds reasonable to me. I’m wary of anyone I don’t know. Race has nothing to do with it.
Obama ia typical black racist who thinks it is typical of a white person to be afraid of black people.
She’s just like Whitey.
That’s what I was going to point out.
I think that is to what Obama is referring. But even he says it has nothing to do with racial animosity. It is called rational discrimination and even Jesse Jackson has expressed fearing a certain type of gentleman in a deserted alley. There is a particular demographic that all Americans, not just the typical white ones, have developed a certain level of prejudice toward. It is not "bred". It is gotten through experience and observation. It is rational, but it is rarely applied to an entire race of people, so Obama gets most of it, but doesn't express it as accurately as he could have.
“Obama is typical black racist who thinks it is typical of a white person to be afraid of black people.”
Agreed.
Living in the 4th largest city in the country, this “typical white person” is prudent enough to be cautious of “typical black people”!
I guess I am not the typical white person, since I don’t have a fear of black people when I see them. Though after listening to how many of them seem to feel about whites, and this country maybe I should be afraid.
Divorce is an option.
Hussein is a typical black marxist.
And who the F is he to discredit his grandmother who was on the verge of getting mugged by a black junkie?
White people KNOW what its liked to get set up with that “Got any spare change?” BS
Obama is a typical black person........Oh, excuse me. Was that a racist statement?
Barack Obama poses at Columbia University in New York City during a visit by his grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. Full emergence in Hawaii
Is Grandma still alive or is he stomping on her grave for political convenience?
Do they care about grammar if you're a "typical" angry liberal or "typical" angry black, much less both?
the 'experience' that his gramma had, according to what he wrote in his first book, was being accosted at a bus stop by a panhandler asking for a dollar.
She gave him a dollar but instead of going away, he continued badgering her for more money, getting more agressive by the minute...the bus came and she was able to get out of the situation.
When she got home, she was visably upset and upon questioning, she related the story. Upon further questioning to describe the panhandler, she said he was black.
How racist of her!
For Obama to now skip these details as he labels her a 'Typical White Person" is a total misrepresentation of facts.
And even absent all this - what about what Jesse Jackson said back in the 90's?
""There is nothing more painful to me ... than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." "
Hang around FR a while. There are plenty of right-wing fundamentalists who consider Catholicism a cult and the Pope a cult leader likely to whip out the Koolaid at a moment's notice.
Looney atheist Leftists consider all religions to be dangerous cults, with the most dangerous being fundamentalist Protestantism.
Thanks for the extra information, especially since Obama failed to expound on his grandmother’s actual experience. He seems to only include certain tidbits of events to point out the racism in whites, then complains when he perceives the media is doing the same thing to him or his mentor, Rev. Wright. This guy is scary, in that he doesn’t even realize when he’s contradicting himself, or can’t see his own inconsistencies.
She's still alive, but we'll never see or hear from her. She's obviously an embarrassment to him. Can't let the constituency see that he has any white relatives out there.
Like no black woman or man has ever been concerned about the possibility of being a victim when walking down the street, or in a dark parking lot at night.
If you poll Hispanics whether they consider themselves white or persons of color the majority of Hispanics self identify with white. In a few decades blacks will be an even smaller minority. Notice that even Democrat Hispanics mostly support the white woman over the black man.
Since he likes to steal exact statements from Deval Patrick and use them as his own, maybe Patrick helped write his papers for him. Afterall, they're both from Chicago, and both went to Harvard Law School.
Notice how we've never heard anything about his grades or school averages in school? Yet, the press continually brought up Dubya's grades, even trying to make Gore and Kerry appear brighter, even though both had lower grades in school than Bush.
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