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The Big 'What If' (How will Black Americans react if Obama is defeated?)
WaPo ^ | 9/14/2008 | Randall Kennedy

Posted on 09/14/2008 10:00:22 PM PDT by mojito

....Never before have my emotions been so exercised by a political campaign. For one thing, never before has a candidate so fully challenged the many inhibitions that have prevented people of all races, including African Americans, from seriously envisioning presidential power in the hands of someone other than a white American. With intelligence, verve and elegance, Obama has opened the public mind to the idea of a black president and made that idea broadly attractive.

The senator's progressive politics, cosmopolitan ethos and pragmatic style have turned me into an enthusiastic supporter, and I savor the prospect of his triumph. But I'm watching this election very closely as I teach a course about it this semester. And I know that the conclusion to this electoral drama is far from determined. Yes, political gravity would seem to favor the Democratic candidate after two terms of Republican control of the White House. Yet the possibility is very real: Barack Obama could lose.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; blackamericans; blackvote; obama; obamabiden; randallkennddy
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If Obama loses, it will not be because of the color of his skin.

It will be because he's farther to the left than Michael Dukakis.

Does the Dukakis defeat mean that America is anti-Greek?

Of course not.

If Black Americans chooses to interpret an Obama defeat as a sign of latent racism, so be it.

Perhaps someday a conservative, patriotic African American candidate will come along and prove them wrong.

1 posted on 09/14/2008 10:00:22 PM PDT by mojito
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To: mojito

That’s a puzzle, and I think it depends on where you live.

In Chicago, I don’t know what’ll be worse: victory or defeat.
Either will be societal sonic booms.... and possibly MOABs.


2 posted on 09/14/2008 10:03:44 PM PDT by STARWISE (They (Dims) think of this WOT as Bush's war, not America's war-RichardMiniter, respected OBL author)
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To: mojito
How will Black Americans react if Obama is defeated?

Frankly Randall, I don't give a damn!

3 posted on 09/14/2008 10:05:07 PM PDT by DakotaGator
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To: mojito
When a sports team loses a championship, there are sometimes riots in the city of the losing team.

When a sports team wins a championship, there are sometimes riots in the city of the winning team.

The losing team itself usually fires the coach.
4 posted on 09/14/2008 10:05:20 PM PDT by Question Liberal Authority (Pontius Pilate voted "Present")
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To: mojito

I have always believed that the first black president and the first female president would be conservatives. Liberal ones may come later, but the first ones would be conservatives. Only conservative blacks and women can garner the trust of middle America, who would be appalled, threatened, and repelled by the politics of a liberal black, with all that baggage, or a liberal woman, with her hordes of screaming lesbian feminists in tow. No one in middle America wants to grant more power to these distasteful groups, much less put them in the White House.

I would honestly like to see a black or a woman in the Oval Office. So would most Americans, for varying reasons. But not Obama, and not Hillary. More temperate representatives of their gender and race must be found.


5 posted on 09/14/2008 10:06:08 PM PDT by ottbmare
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To: mojito
"have turned me into an enthusiastic supporter, and I savor the prospect of his triumph. But I'm watching this election very closely as I teach a course about it this semester."

And as is the custom among educators, I'm sure this author/teacher is far too professional to show his bias in the classroom as he teaches his course this semester. (sarc off)

6 posted on 09/14/2008 10:06:30 PM PDT by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
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To: mojito

If it is a close race and Obama loses I think there will be quite a bit of violence although not on the scale of LA. If McCain beats him by a wide margin I think we will have a lot of animosity and maybe a few scattered acts of violence. Any excuse to loot for some.


7 posted on 09/14/2008 10:06:48 PM PDT by rfreedom4u (My Freedom of speech trumps your feelings!)
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To: mojito

Some may riot, some will pout, but absolutely none will move out.


8 posted on 09/14/2008 10:08:03 PM PDT by dr_who
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To: mojito
I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., later that decade. Tales of racial oppression and racial resistance were staples of conversation in our household. My father often spoke of watching Thurgood Marshall argue the case ( Rice v. Elmore) that invalidated the rule permitting only whites to vote in South Carolina's Democratic primary.

Really, Randall? Did they show the proceedings on TV in 1946 or did your Dad drive from South Carolina to Washington, D.C.?

9 posted on 09/14/2008 10:08:30 PM PDT by Texas Eagle (What do Barack Obama and a bowl of chili have in common?)
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To: mojito
I hope that I'll take to heart the wisdom offered by two of my students. "Obama losing," one wrote, "would be hurtful, but it still spells substantial progress. . . . Change WILL come -- the wheels have been set in motion." Declared the second: "Sometimes you have to believe in the change before it comes (and in the face of its apparent defeat) for the change to be possible."

Would someone please define this "change" the Obamabots keep prattling on about? It seems like they define "change" differently than the dictionary defines it, or common vernacular usages. Is it a code word? One of the above comments sounds chillingly like Victor Hugo's description of the French Revolution: "An idea whose time had come." Burke and Carlyle, of course, dismissed this as nonsense.

10 posted on 09/14/2008 10:09:30 PM PDT by oblomov
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To: mojito
Vote for McCain he is not Hussein . However ,I have enough ammo for either a Detroit style celebration or a LA type protest .
11 posted on 09/14/2008 10:09:54 PM PDT by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it freedom has a flavor the protected will never know F/8 Cav)
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To: mojito

“How will Black Americans react if Obama is defeated?”


I don’t care how they react.


12 posted on 09/14/2008 10:11:08 PM PDT by boycott
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To: mojito

I will celebrate.


13 posted on 09/14/2008 10:13:12 PM PDT by South40
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To: kbennkc
"I have enough ammo for either a Detroit style celebration or a LA type protest."

I have enough for both.

14 posted on 09/14/2008 10:15:07 PM PDT by blam
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To: boycott

How will whites react if McCain is defeated?

How will women react if the McCain/Palin ticket is defeated?

Isn’t it an insult to the vast majority of African-American people to hint that there could be violence if Obama doesn’t win this election?


15 posted on 09/14/2008 10:15:12 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: mojito

If Barack Hussein loses.

Looting, Rioting, Raping, Robbing, Purse Snatching, Car Jacking, Drive by Shootings. Just another day in the Projects.

Not to mention the Muslims.


16 posted on 09/14/2008 10:15:40 PM PDT by cquiggy
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To: kbennkc

At best, the blacks have a chance of getting a half-black elected this year. We could just as well call him white.


17 posted on 09/14/2008 10:18:20 PM PDT by basil (Support the Second Amendment-buy another gun today!)
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To: mojito

I thought he was half-white? Why not ask how white Americans will react?


18 posted on 09/14/2008 10:18:30 PM PDT by stockstrader (CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN-- 2 northern liberal, Washington insider, lawyer career bureaucrats/s)
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To: blam

Hey Blam you know you see how we riot when Lakers win champtionship it going be worst than that here in SO CAL 10 times WORST


19 posted on 09/14/2008 10:18:32 PM PDT by SevenofNine ("We are Freepers, all your media belong to us, resistence is futile")
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To: mojito
The Big 'What If' (How will Black Americans react if Obama is defeated?)
The only way it seems they know how. The same way they do when their favorite team wins...Turn over cars, throw rocks etc. at police, burn buildings, steal anything and everything in sight, what they don't take, destroy. The list is endless and the history of their pathetic ways is proof.
20 posted on 09/14/2008 10:19:04 PM PDT by lewislynn (What does the global warming movement and the Fairtax movement have in common? Disinformation)
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