Posted on 09/15/2008 4:59:45 AM PDT by pabianice
The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air.
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. Memories of that story played a large part in producing the tears I shed on the evening Barack Obama won this year's primary in the Palmetto State.
Related memories -- the most haunting being our visit to a D.C. funeral home to pay last respects to Medgar Evers, the courageous head of the Mississipppi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was murdered by a segregationist -- helped reduce me to tears, again, on the night the senator from Illinois accepted his party's nomination as its candidate for president.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Brings back memories of all of the Jewish riots after Lieberman was defeated by all of those anti-Semites in his bid to become President Kerry’s (shudder) Vice President, doesn’t it... Um, well, no actually it doesn’t...
I don’t even have to read the rest of this to know what crap will continue coming down the pike in the rest of the article.
I have gotta laugh and yet another re-statement of “This is your last chance, America, to prove you’re not racist”,
as if Obama’s candidacy serves as nothing but a “referendum” on American racism (in the same way that 8 years of Clinton was a referendum on The HepCats vs. The Squares).
Even more laughable are these “commentators” whose only experience in life seems to be measured and determined SOLELY by political/judicial milestones , as per the opening sentences about the year of his birth,as if these clunky timeline markers are all that determines the substance of anyone’s life.
All the more reason NOT to vote for the OsamabinBiden ticket, and to mock it.
A small related problem is that many Americans don't realize that since the early 90's, the ghetto has moved to them, through the use of Section 8 housing vouchers, which allowed people to move from housing projects to apartment buildings in more middle-class areas. This was done to help get poor families out of crime-ridden areas, but, not surprisingly, the crime came right along with them.
People may be surprised to see exactly where rioting occurs this time.
Bill Clinton: Ya’ll should put some ice on that. And you should have nominated Hillary, at least her heart is black.
“I anticipate that most black Americans will believe that an Obama defeat will have stemmed in substantial part from a prejudice that robbed 40 million Americans of the chance to become president on the day they were born black.”
Right, the answer is always racism, there is no other possible answer. (rolling eyes)
What about this particular black man makes him a plausible President of the United States?
Apart from affirmative action academic credentials (A law review President who has never written an article? C'mon!) and unopposed political contests, what has he ever done?
He's NOT a generic black man. He's a real, and pathetically undistinguished, black man.
If you want to carry the banner of race so proudly, you should be embarrassed that this guy is a major party nominee.
Try pointing out that character is the measure of leadership and you don’t approve of Obama’s character.
Skin color tells us nothing of the man.
Yeah, you'll be a racist even if you think that you're not. You may think that you're rejecting him based on his policies and views, but no - you're really just a racist.
Also, no matter how much they want to make Obama out to be the new JFK, I don't think the comparison here is valid. Firstly, JFK's Catholisism was put in question quite explicitly and openly, by many people. No one serious has said anything that even resembles a suggestion that Obama's skin-color is an issue here. It's assumed, like in articles like this one, that it IS an issue, even if it's never even mentioned.
Secondly, hesitation towards Catholics in central roles of the government and the military was abundant way before JFK, and in many other countries as well. Even if we might consider it paranoid today, it was based on quite real concerns at the time, namely that Catholics by their own dogmatic belief are subjects to the Pope and the Vatican above anything else. It was not a matter of catholics being "bad people", it was a question of dual allegiances and propriety. Or so was the sentiments at the time, I've been given to understand.
It is like some huge competitive sports contest where many blacks put their skin color over the good of Team America or team humanity. It is a real shame.
I first started seeing it when black collegues would pick football teams to cheer for because they had black coaches or black quarterbacks. At first I was shocked. Now, I openly call them what they are beign. RACIST.
I have to focus on treating people as individuals - because I believe there are non-racist blacks, albeit very hard to find - or, my anger toward their attitude will spoil me and my hear the way it has theirs.
I think I am going to move to Alaska or Montana.
Herman Cain is awesome! I listen to him every night and he makes so much sense. I have gotten alot of traditional “rednecks” in my area to listen to him and most have commented “Why can’t we get him to run?”. I only wish.
.......I’m watching this election very closely as I teach a course about it......
I hope he teaches that Affirmative Action puffs up a plastic balloon in a suit to appear substantive. The reality when punctured is a heap of plastic film on the floor. To succeed there must be substantive reality, not just unbridled hopenhype.
It seems however, that he will teach the man takes away your chance to prosper.
I spent many years learning that skin color doesn’t matter only to wake up last year and realize apparently it does.
If Obama weren’t black he would not be the current candidate.
I suppose it’s their choice if they want a self-induced ethnic cleansing.
Is it the “white” part of Barak thats going to save Black America?
“Let them burn down Detroit, maybe they can start over.. “
If they burned down Detroit, would anyone be able to tell the difference?
“The senator’s progressive politics, cosmopolitan ethos and pragmatic style have turned me into an enthusiastic supporter.”
Progressive politics: the leftist agenda that got him the nomination that he’s currently trying to run away from (at least until after Election Day.)
Cosmopolitan ethos: The senator knows what the price of Arugula is in five time zones!
Pragmatic style: He doesn’t really mean anything he says, and if you give him any crap he’ll throw you under the bus.
Enthusiastic supporter: I have monogrammed 0bama kneepads!
What a toadying doofus.
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