Posted on 06/04/2008 8:29:57 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
When Barack Obama speaks at the Democratic Convention on August 28, it will be the 45th anniversary of the day Martin Luther King told America that he 'had a dream' of a more equal country.
King, of course, paid for his dream with an assassin's bullet.
The question now lurking behind every discussion of Obama's campaign is: Will America elect a black man as its President?
It is an uncomfortable question for a country with a particularly troubled history of race relations.
Has America changed enough since King made that epoch-changing speech? Or will the electorate, or more terrifyingly, another assassin, block his path?
The facts are not propitious. Obama received secret service protection earlier than any other presidential candidate in history, because of threats to his life.
For almost a year, he has been protected 24 hours a day. Organisations which track white supremacist websites and communications reported a surge in activity as Obama's candidacy took flight.
A magazine in Macon, Georgia, recently printed a cover showing Obama in the crosshairs of a rifle sight.
The accompanying article quoted one white supremacist saying 'some idiot out there's going to put a bullet in that silver-tongued devil and then there'll be a race war.
'There are some in our movement who are preparing for a war, praying for it.'
Hillary Clinton even stoked these fears about Obama just last month.
Asked why she was staying in the campaign, she said: 'We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.'
If Obama fell, was the implication, she would be there to pick up the nomination.
However tasteless Clinton's calculation, Americans agree with her about the risk to Obama.
Recent polls show that 59 per cent of the American public feared an attempt on Obama's life if he became the Democrats' presidential nominee.
Then there are stealthier forms of prejudice. During the Democratic primary elections, 14 per cent of white voters said that race was important to them in choosing their candidate and 6 per cent said they would not vote for him against Republican John McCain because he is black and that is only those who would admit to such prejudice.
Pollsters know that many people express more liberal beliefs in public than they do in the privacy of the voting booth.
A poll taken in March showed that 13 per cent of American voters believe Obama is Muslim, a misconception fostered by his opponents' frequent referrals to him by his full name: Barack Hussein Obama.
To the greatest extent possible, Obama has tried to skirt the issue of race by taking the 'Tiger Woods approach'.
The world's number one golfer has always refused to be defined as a black athlete, preferring to create a term he felt more properly reflected his mixed racial origins: 'Cablinasian' Caucasian, black, American- Indian and Asian.
Obama has similarly sought to emphasise the post-racial dimension to his candidacy.
In a country where so many people are of mixed race, he suggests, it is absurd to label people as black, white, Hispanic or Asian.
He is the son of a white, American mother, and a black, Kenyan father.
He is not descended from the Africans brought to America as slaves, yet he grew up a black in an America deeply conscious of what that implied.
'If you look African-American in our society, you're treated as an African-American,' he said in a television interview.
'And when you're a child that is how you begin to identify yourself.'
But still, he has no wish to be seen as a black candidate, in the way the Reverends Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did in their presidential campaigns, bemoaning the fate of a poor and minority set against a white majority.
'Will there by some folks who probably won't vote for me because I am black? Of course,' Obama said during the campaign.
'Just like there may be someone who won't vote for Hillary because she's a woman but the question is, "Can we get a majority of the American people to give us a fair hearing?"'
The only moment he was drawn directly into a debate about race was when the former pastor at his church in Chicago, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was caught on video calling on God to condemn America for its racism and blaming U.S. policies for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Wright also accused the U.S. government of 'planting' Aids in the black community. Obama responded with a powerful speech about the lingering presence of racism in America.
'Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white,' he said, 'I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy, particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.'
Eventually, under enormous pressure and after another embarrassing, anti-white speech by another pastor, Obama left his church.
Wright's speeches, however, are played incessantly on conservative websites and television programmes by Obama's critics.
Obama's wife, Michelle, did not help matters with her own remarks that her husband's campaign was the first time in her life that she felt proud of her country.
This sparked enormous criticism as Obama's opponents wondered why a woman who rose from humble roots to attend the universities of Princeton and Harvard should feel so hard done by.
The Republicans had found their attack theme: Obama and his wife were classic guilt-ridden liberals, unpatriotic and ungrateful for the opportunities afforded them by America.
Obama's refusal to wear an American flag pin on his jacket, standard for most politicians, compounded the problem. Only recently did he capitulate.
He is also yet to recover from his remarks to supporters in California that poor white voters 'cling to guns and religion' because they are 'bitter'.
It will be tough in the next few months for Obama to shake the strong whiff of elitism and entitlement which clings to his well-cut suits.
Republican campaigners have rarely missed an opportunity to stoke the racist fears of voters.
In 1988, George Bush Snr's campaign ran advertisements against the Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis showing a black murderer whom Dukakis had allowed out on parole, during which he committed armed robbery and rape.
The advertisement was credited with helping Bush overturn Dukakis's huge poll lead and win the White House.
Obama makes a juicy target for the spin machine of the Republican party. Even within his own party, Obama must fend off attacks by those who feel he that exploited his race to defeat a woman candidate.
Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrats' first and only woman vice-presidential nominee, wrote a scathing piece last week saying that Obama's candidacy had left many white voters worried that they would suffer under his presidency for being white.
Blacks, in essence, would have their revenge and reverse the racism they have suffered for centuries.
When Obama says 'our time has come', she wrote, these whites feel 'he is telling them that their time has passed'.
Evidence from the campaign trail certainly points to deep racial hostility to the front runner.
In Marietta, Georgia, a bar owner has been doing a brisk trade selling Tshirts showing Obama as a monkey eating a banana.
Obama campaign workers in many states have complained of having doors slammed in their faces along with streams of racial slurs.
In Indiana, a local Obama campaign office was broken into at night and spray-painted with messages such as 'Hamas votes BHO [Barack Hussein Obama]' and 'We don't cling to guns or religion'.
It is not just Obama's race which may trouble voters, but also his inexperience. He arrived on the national scene only in 2004 when he was elected to the Senate. Just three years later, he was running for president.
Despite having written two autobiographical books, there is still much about him that America wants to know.
His legislative record is desperately thin compared to that of his rival John McCain.
And there is also anxiety that he simply lacks the experience to be president an accusation, his supporters like to say, once levelled at John F Kennedy.
Are there more Reverend Wright issues in Obama's past? Are there any more dubious friends, along the lines of the shady Chicago businessman, Tony Rezko, who helped him with the purchase of his house?
How deep does Michelle Obama's sense of chippiness run? And what kind of First Lady will she make?
After eight years of the demure Laura Bush, is the country ready for another firebrand lawyer in the Hillary Clinton mould sitting by her husband's side?
As the champagne corks were swept away at Obama headquarters yesterday morning, these questioned lingered.
And as the security cordon around Obama was intensified, it was both a validation of his new, historic status, and a stark reminder of the lethal risks his candidacy now faces.
geraldine ferraro’s a work of art,
isn’t she?
How deep does Michelle Obama’s sense of chippiness run? And what kind of First Lady will she make?
Sure! I think America is willing to elect a “black” man. A qualified black man.
America is nowhere near ready to elect a radical, Marxist, closet-Islamist man of any color.
I've never heard McCain say "Barack Hussein Obama".
Brougham is an idiot. And we're in for six more months of this pious babbling.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t Barrack Obama a Muslim name without the “Hussein”
Our current decade will redeem the 60s: the Iraq War a success (not a Vietnam); a return to chastity (not the sexual revolution); and a black leader will live to see his grandchildren. That is my prediction.
Make that Broughton. He’s still an idiot, speaking in stereotypes.
I've seen Bush portrayed the same way.
On a "lighter" note, I went to the source to read this article and found this. ROTFLMAO!!!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1024243/First-polar-bear-swim-Iceland-15-years-shot-dead-police-sightseers.html
Ya gotta love those enviroment-loving Icelanders. LOL!
As usual, another moonbat foreign article.
See how ignorant and idiotic these “elitist Euros” are? They still think we’re living in the 1950’s with a lynch mob at every corner.
Boy, cant wait til’ McCain pulls an upset and sends these Euros in a mass suicide.
I stopped reading right here. This is total BS. We in the United States have a better "history" of race relations than just about any other place on the planet. Different races live in relative harmony in the US that would be at each other's throats in many other countries in the world. What a steaming load this article is!
Is this rhetorical? You have to be kidding me!
A magazine in Macon, Georgia, recently printed a cover showing Obama in the crosshairs of a rifle sight.
And Bush has movies about his assassination. What review did this paper give that movie?
The accompanying article quoted one white supremacist saying 'some idiot out there's going to put a bullet in that silver-tongued devil and then there'll be a race war.
So we are going to quote every idiot out there as the norm?
A poll taken in March showed that 13 per cent of American voters believe Obama is Muslim, a misconception fostered by his opponents' frequent referrals to him by his full name: Barack Hussein Obama.
And some polls show 25% of the people believe Bush orchestrated 9/11. No problem with that though, eh?
And as the security cordon around Obama was intensified, it was both a validation of his new, historic status, and a stark reminder of the lethal risks his candidacy now faces.
All presidential candidates have a lethal risk. Ever checked any history?
He has NEVER said it.
He’s gone out of his way not to say it.
Whaaaa! Barack is picked upon! Whaaa!
Me thinks they protest to much.
Someone remind me when the black prime minister served in Britain. Or has one ever run for the major parties? I swear, I really despise the hypocritical self-righteous Europeans, and the right’s as bad as the left when it comes to anti-American hypocrisy. They love whatever weakens us to their level, and takes away our freedoms as they’ve lost theirs. They’d love to see us lose our guns.
Much of America doesn’t have any Americans left in the pride in this country sense. Just people who happen to live here.
Never proud of America, the military is a last resort for losers, church is for bitter hicks, god damn whitey for keeping you down etc. These aren’t slips, this is exactly how they all feel and he’s talking to them.
And there are more of these people every day. The third world sympathizer party has already turned into the genuine third world candidate party. And they own 2/3 of Washington already.
The pile of crap at the bottom of the well is nigh upon us.
Hey, Britain! Pot, kettle, black.
She's more angry than the first mother in "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air."
When will these threats ever end?
Whoops! My mistake. The target was George W. Bush. Never mind.
I enjoy reading the UK media articles on our political process.

We have just received word that Buckwheat has been shot.
So who do they think the anti white anti American racist Obama is going to assassinate?
That's not his full name. His full name is Barack Hussein Mohammed Obama.
And it was the truth then, as now.
It’s too hard to keep all the Democrats’ real names straight. I reckon it’s easier to stick with the way P. J. O’Rourke’s Grandma Loy handled it. As he tells it, she wouldn’t even use the word “Democrat” if there were children in the room. She’d call them “bastards” instead.
so who is threatening assasination? kind of premature and also just darn wrong.
don’t like the guy, just don’t vote for him. these people are such emotional handicapped individuals.
When is this racism going to stop?!
Whoops! Again, my mistake. This just ain't my day. Sorry. It's okay they were blacks voting for Obama.
Our British 'cousins' envision us living a sort of 'Deadwood' existence with everyone carrying a pair of 6-shooters to settle any scores.
Yeah, but the author left out that Kennedy was a "war hero," and also a Representative, and a Senator for many years. Years and years of national exposure. Barack Obama hasn't completed anything at the national level. The guy hasn't done anything except flap his gums since he was 21.
That's why you need a 6SJ7M, tougher :)
Europeons love to think that all of America is as racists as 1960s democrats were.
I think it makes them feel superior.
The accompanying article quoted one white supremacist saying 'some idiot out there's going to put a bullet in that silver-tongued devil and then there'll be a race war.
'There are some in our movement who are preparing for a war, praying for it.'
That's exactly what's going to cause it to happen. There are deep rooted resentments and racism that exists all over the country. The fact that Obama and his bwitch of a wife are so arrogant, unpatriotic, and racist sure hasn't helped their cause any.
its whitey that has to be afraid...not Barry....its whitey that's been told he doesn't deserve his 401K or his pension...its whitey that has to lock the doors and avoid large tracts of our cities because blacks are violent and aggressive...
I remember seeing a bumper sticker back in 1967. It was a caricature of a pregnant black woman with the motto...”I went all the way with LBJ!”
A few years later I saw the same bumper sticker with the words...”NIXON’s the One!”
I spent a good deal of time in Europe and whenever someone would lecture me on how horribly racist we are, I'd ask if they'd let a gypsy marry their daughter. "Of course not!" they'd gasp. When asked why that isn't racist they'll typically just say it's totally different because gypsies are all thieves and liars.
Oh yeah, we never tried to eradicate all the jews here either. Seems to happen every couple hundred years or so in Europe.
Ever see his bowling video? His non-verbal behavior is very telling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtBBgn0I34E
Does anyone really think the Germans or British would ever nominate or elect a black muslim to rule their government?
What a bunch of hypocrites the Eurotrash are.
Many American cities are in decay because they are being run by the third-world mentality types. Los Angeles, Detroit and New Orleans stand as premier examples of what I speak.
As for Washington DC, I agree. It's a dirty and dangerous town, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to live there.
And you cut and pasters who post links to tabloid journalists and bathrobe brigadiers can forget trying to ping me to your "evidence."
If they are so comfortable with that concept, then why haven't they pushed one of their very own black muslims from Africa into their government systems?
After all, why expect someone to do something if you won't do it yourself?
The Euros remind me of New York liberals from the 1950s who were all for condemning the south for racism, while putting their house up for sale as soon as a black person bought a house on their block.
LOL...you complain about Euros misrepresenting Americans as Racists etc, and then do exactly the same in misrepresenting Euros!
OK we havent had a black muslim prime minister (prime ministers dont “rule” our governments) but we have plenty of muslim MP’s, and black MP’s, and a woman Prime minister once (as has Germany incidentally).
You Yanks dont do so bad in the hypocricy stakes yourself.
My wife and I took her sister and bro-in-law from England on a trip through the southwest last October. We stopped in Tombstone during our very long journey. Practically every shopowner in Tombstone carried a revolver on his hip. I never did ask my Brit in-laws what they thought about that.
Ok its moonbat, and its ignorant. But it is ignorance, as in “people dont know”. This is a typical reflection of the image the US presents to the rest of the world. It isn’t true, I know, but that is how you are perceived.
Look, just imagine what your peception of the US would be if you lived in Europe. The intricacies of American domestic politics would be a mystery, you judge the US mostly on foreign policy, because obviously, that is the aspect that touches you most. $4 a gallon would seem incredibly low. Most of what you know about the US is based on the junk hollywood churns out, mixed with episodes of Seinfeld, Star Trek, Friends, Cheers and (God help us all) Jerry Springer. Now, faced with that, do you wonder their opinion of you is so skewed? How could it be any other way?
Many Europeons will have some first hand experience, it is true. But the vast majority of those who have been to America will have gone to Florida or California, possibly New York. Now do you think those three States, (and actually it will only be small parts of even those three), are in any way a true representation of US culture? I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Mississipi, Maine, Utah, Nevada, Virginia and Texas too, and even I can tell that isn’t so.
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