34 Replies to “It’s the Racism, Stupid”

  1. Pingback: The Moderate Voice

  2. Simple numbers make it clear what a dumb statement that was. If blacks make up around 12-15% of the population… you get the picture. Look at how Obama has been racking up the southern states from Louisiana to South Carolina — clearly, there’s a lot of white folks voting for him.

    I first heard Obama on the radio when he gave the speech at the Democratic Convention. I’d never heard the name before, and I thought hmmm, Obama, what’s that, Japanese, maybe? I mean, imagine, like, Takahiro Obama, or something like that, right? But, Barack? I had no idea where that was from. Moldova, maybe?

    My point is, of course, that what impressed me — immensely — wasn’t who he is, but what he had to say, and how he said it.

    I just hope that the Obama and Clinton campaigns figure out that they’re rivals, not opponents, and don’t totally shred each other in the process.

  3. Screaming racism isn’t useful. If you disagree with Ferraro’s position, then address her commentary accordingly. Calling someone a racist only serves to stifle speech, and to suppress dissent.

    Christine

  4. Who’s screaming here? GF’s comments completely discount Obama’s abilities and the campaign he’s run, not to mention the fact that he started out *losing* the black vote to Clinton when this all began. All to say he’s somehow a token, or a novelty.

    So, let’s see: judging someone on the basis of their ethnic background, attributing his success to that background, then, incredibly, saying her most recent comments that people are attacking *her* because she’s WHITE. hmm. Yup, that’s a racist set of comments. Stupid ones, too.

    Wait: YUP THAT’S A RACIST SET OF COMMENTS! STUPID ONES, TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    there, now we have some yelling.

  5. I’m intrigued: what has he accomplished so far in his career? What specifically makes him so attractive? Why do you think he will improve our country?

  6. Obama is a wonderful speaker, and has some great ideas. What he does not have is experience.
    I do not think Ms. Ferraro’s comments were intended to denegrate Mr. Obama, nor his blackness. I think she suggested that a young white man, or woman, with his qualifications would not be tapped to run for president untill they had a lot more experience under there belt. I would like to know more about Mr. Obama, about his actual concrete blueprint for ending the war, for medical reform, and his exact international relations policy, and what are his ideas on tax reform, how will his being president help DJ and I survive the constant raises in our taxes ?
    He seems a good person with high ideals, and is a great orator.
    I am totaly open to hear his policys that would convince me to vote for him vote for him, however I do think what Ms. Ferraro said is correct, she is not a racist, but a realist.
    He is in a position to do a lot of good things for the United States. I hope, for all our sakes he lives up to his speeches when in office.
    Lizzy

  10. Weird, I typed it twice and it didn’t show up. Ok, third time’s a charm:
    In response to comments above, I don’t think Hillary has any experience, other than being a president’s wife, and she’s a senator, same as Obama. I just think she’s OILY. If you want to know more about Obama, go to his website, it’s all there. People who just say he’s great at speaking and nothing more, I guess they aren’t really listening to what he’s saying and haven’t visited his website, where he details his plans and experience. I just happen to trust him when I hear him talk and see his interviews. He’s just very genuine. From HC, I feel the exact opposite. As far as Ferraro’s icky comments, wasn’t she just responding to a reporter’s question about what made his candidacy historic? Then her answer would be factual, it’s historic because he’s black, right? But there’s more ickiness is how defensive and bitter she got, and it just spiraled downward from there. ew.

  11. Also, read Camille Paglia’s opinion on HC and Obama in her latest column at Salon dot com. I agree with her scathing assessment! ok, I’ll shut up for now.

  12. Whew…. well the Oberman segment was just a little burning…

    This situation in the Democratic Party has, unfortunately, been a long time coming. It derives from, in my opinion, massive and significant mistakes in perceiving the drivers of human liberation and compassion.

    Essentially, when one “lives by identity politics, one dies by identity politics.”

    This is especially so when policy elites do not embrace or even believe in the ethos they declare to espouse. A vacuousness emerges, the reflection of their hidden perceptions manifests. There are many who declare themselves to be “politically correct” PC. They live their ethos…. and “bravo for them!!! They sincerely believe that assists humanity. But there are others that lip synch such ideas because they know spewing those ideas make them look good at cocktail parties…. that mentioning those ideas make them part of the “in group”…. the elite group. They give them “power”. Yet, in the innermost thinking, they are cognizant they are using are what they consider the sincere dupes that allow them to remain “elites”. I call them CPC, the “cocktail party correct”.

    Sans who anyone believes to be the best candidate, I wonder if we are now observing the implosion of our political elite? Perhaps we will be better off without them…. Perhaps we need to start “fresh”, really look in the mirror as a nation, metaphorically speaking, and again try to understand what really drives the need for “all this”….

    Catrina

  13. I think Olberman is just reflecting his disappointment and anger, this was a last straw and he can no longer deny what he see’s when he looks at Clinton. Ferraro’s comments reflect the generational thinking of a bygone era. She never will “get” it. She speaks in public as if she is speaking to her homogeneous friends at a cocktail party. (I like that CPC idea in the previous comment) Not only is what she is saying flat wrong, she is doing the “winky-winky” thing.(as in “don’t we all really know…”) This is the most insidious and patronizing unspoken way to pass judgment on people, passive-aggressive is not misused to describe this kind of talk. Hillary will probably never “get it” either, as she sits in her home in New York wondering how in the hell did McCain ever get elected!

  14. Wow, Geraldine. Pretty strong words. Didn’t you lose the ticket in 1984?

    I’m listening to Olbermann now. I praise him for standing up to this bullshit from Carpetbagging Hillary’s campaign.

  15. Let’s see:

    What has Obama done? Let’s see…Princeton undergrad; Harvard law; Editor of the Harvard Law Review; community organizer in Chicago (no mean feat); state senator; United States Senator

    Hillary…yeah, that First Lady job and then carpetbagging Moynihan’s seat in New York, not to mention her own law work…and sitting on the board of Wal-Mart.

    Let’s not discuss “lack of experience,” kthx.

  17. Why can’t we discuss lack of experience? Princeton, Harvard, Law Review, etc.? Too many reps and senators have achieved these kinds of things just like Barak – impressive, but not any better than the rest of the political establishment. In fact, thanks to liberal policies of affirmative action, it’s possible (some would say likely) that Obama was not held to the same standards as non-minority candidates, which makes him LESS qualified than the rest of the pack to reach this particular position. (If there was no affirmative action, you could easily assume that he met the same standards as non-minority candidates. This is not the case today).

    Yes he presents well, he’s pretty, and has perfected the ability to spew vague warm generalizations while mostly avoiding specifics. Still, what has he accomplished that’s unique among his peers? He injects the word “change” into every sentence. What change hath he wrought, considering he’s been a senator for a number of years? The reality is that he’s been no better or no worse than the rest a very average politician with a sugary coating of veneer. Worse, he refused to admit that his ability to change anything (in fact the ability of any member of Congress or the Senate), is next to nothing. One person cannot change a behemoth like the government in four years.

    So why is he the heir apparent for the Democratic party? Simple. Due to his skin color and his socialist drives, most black people will vote for him by default. He’ll also attract white liberals because an Obama vote will allow them to assuage their guilt for “racism”, while supporting a black skinned candidate who presents, acts and sounds like a educated white person. They’re not falling all over themselves to vote for Snoop Doggie Dog, Lil’ Kim, or Al Sharpton. They’re essentially voting for a white guy. It’s a no-lose proposition, except for the country that will bear the brunt of a socialist, idealist who won’t be criticized or opposed for fear of being branded a racist.

    McCain and Clinton aren’t much better, but at least they’ve been around the block a few times, and share a pragmatic understanding of how the country works. These two are likely to moderate the socialist rhetoric that they’re spreading during the campaign. An Obama win would offer no such moderation (after all, he’s an idealist), and would be a disaster for the future of a free America.

    BTW, what’s wrong with sitting on the board of Wal-Mart? They’re a legal corporation that delivers what their customer base desires. They pay taxes, hire people, and create wealth for our country. Would you prefer a Soviet System where the government runs the shops, and provides lines, shortages, shoddy goods, and limited selection?

    If you don’t like Wal-Mart, than start an alternative. Compete for customers, and put Wal-Mart out of business. That’s the American way.

  18. you know what i just don’t get? the thinking behind ferraro’s statement. i mean, what, it’s so easy to be a black man in this country? i think obama’s response was right on: “Obama said that being an ‘African American man named Barack Obama’ was not the quickest path to becoming U.S. president.”

    it’s just really…twisted. obama is the first black person, as far as i know, to get this close to being nominated for president. he’s won a ton of delegates and a ton of states. to suggest that he is where he is due to some bizarre notion of affirmative action completely denigrates his achievements and the opinions of the people who think that he’s qualified. it ignores just how big a freakin’ deal it is that he’s as close to being nominated for the presidency as he is.

    it suggests that he as an individual isn’t important, that just any ol’ black man could be running for president and they’d get to where he is. that’s why this is racist, imo. because geraldine ferraro’s comments erase obama the person and focus solely on obama’s race.

    the more i think about this, the angrier i get. seriously, fuck those comments. fuck that type of thinking.

  19. and also. AND ALSO…””If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.” ? Really? Um, haven’t most Democratic Party candidates for the past oh..say…200 years…been white men? And most Republican candidates? And have we EVER had a president who wasn’t a white man?

    No.

    So what the hell is she talking about?

  20. As someone who personally encouraged the Senator to run, and knows Ken Bennett, Obama’s Chief of Staff in Chicago, most people at his level do recognize that his credentials are “thin”. He knows it too. He is only 48-49.

    When most people look at his credentials, they say “wow”. But there are elite communities, especially in the political class where “everybody” has a Harvard degree(or name an Ivy League School). Or they graduated from Northwestern or University of Chicago, etc. who are not so impressed with his credentials. They are good but not great. Everybody in that class also has political action activist credentials as well. Or they have emerged from the elite think tanks, etc.. and have written extensively. It is a pretty caustic group. Many have an attitude that can be summarized as, “I looked at his resume, so what? Doesn’t he have more experience as a “State” Senator?”. State Senators are not too respected by this class.

    Why? Because some of them are even higher achievers than he is in their political fields, or in business, etc. To much of the old money, he is an “upstart”. He and Michelle are “neveau riche”. Many of these people do support him though, but not because he has good credentials.

    In one respect, Senator “C’s” criticism, although very elitist in perspective, is quite correct. (Not about the race issue, but about his credentials) As an opinion, I personally do not like Hillary’s credentials either. The highest performers we have are “not” entering the public arena.

    Many Democrats, including Mayor Daley, an important Democrat, do not want to give the Party and the Government to the Clintons again. Objectively ponder, lets remember the scandals, the corruption, and politically, the loss of of both Houses of Congress for twelve years. The honest “pols” know that Clinton’s fault. They really don’t have a great track record for Democrats.

    Does this neutralize his candidacy? Of course not. However, there are quite a few people in his own camp and organization who are amazed at the Senator’s strength. The original plan was to run this year for national name recognition then run again in eight years when Barak is more seasoned. His age and seasoning would be perfect at 57 years etc.

    “Blago” a Democrat, our present Governor, is hated by “everybody”, including most Democrats. His handlers were pondering Barak run for the governorship to get exec experience after another senate seat win because they assumed he would lose the nomination to Hillary. He would be automatically elected and still might become governor if Hillary wins, or if he is nominated and loses the election in November. The original plan was to take the White House from the Illinois Governor’s house.

    Don’t get me wrong, Barak has solid credentials for the Senate and for an Illinois Governorship (as a seasoning ground). But when one puts up his credentials in comparison to say Bill Richardson’s credentials, Governor New Mexico, where he has Cabinet level exec experience, etc. in Barak’s class of people, his credentials are considered “thin” for the highest executive position in government.

    It is unique that this election has only Senators running. Most of the time, Senators (any party, any location) have a difficult time getting elected to the Presidency because that office takes massive executive skills. Usually governors win over senators.

    The last President that took the Senate track to the Presidency was JFK. Johnson VP and was never really capable to be President. Here is the list, Nixon, VP and Governor of CA; Carter, Governor GA; Reagan, Governor CA; Bush I, massive Cabinet Level experience and VP; Bill Clinton, Gov of AR, Bush II, Gov TX & major business career.

    BTW: I am not mentioning or validating policy in this post. Only offering some balance on job credentials and how the exec people perceive this issue, etc.

    Catrina

  21. I think it so often, I’m creating an internet abbreviation for it:

    WRS (What Red Said)

  22. Barack Obama has more legislative experience than Abraham Lincoln had when he ran for President.

    I think we can all agree that Lincoln turned out to pretty damn okay.

    James Buchanan is regarded as the most experienced candidate to ever run and win the Presidency. He’s also regarded as one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had.

    Just saying.

  23. Yes, fully agree… great historical perspective
    Please understand the point in some of the posts though more applies to the difference between legislative experience and executive experience. It is different. Executive jobs better expose and hone candidate’s leadership and judgment capabilities because much of those job’s decision – authority components are individually based. The President or a Governor retains massive individual discretionary powers.

    Harry S Truman’s quote embodies that executive focus, “The buck stops here.”

    A legislator usually hones another skill set, usually the art of negotiation, consensus building, converging polar opposites and leadership “by herding cats”. In politics they are similar but slightly dissonant capabilities to a degree. Legislators are like great marketers while executive skills really come down to “yes” or “no” skills (to simplify for the boards).

    Everyone of the candidates, McCain, Clinton and Obama are legislators by heart, “especially” Barak. Please note how he emphasizes “negotiation” and global consensus building as a premise to his foreign policy. So does McCain for that matter. That is their paradigm lens because they have solid legislative experience.

    Yet, as Senators, their “individual” decisions or beliefs are always tempered by 99 other opinions.

    To Betty’s very incisive point implication, needless to say and fully agree, policy formation and execution are really the key success drivers that manifest success not the executive skills that operationally execute the policy. Lincoln’s policies certainly made him a great president. Buchanan’s were literally catastrophic.

    Please understand these posts do not concern “policy”, but the potential “hands on” skills to execute them, especially financial. These comments do not “exclude” Barak from emerging as a great President, only that he has no track record as an exec. Instead he has extended legislator experience. (Which he and his pol handlers are fully cognizant.) Such a lens can be a basis for policy formation in itself and create drivers to determine what type of Cabinet level execs he will need if he gets elected. (Lincoln hired Chase as Sec of the Treasury as an example. Finances were not Lincoln’s forte. He needed Chase even though they were strong rivals.)

    Barak will need help in a similar way if he gets to the White House. My guess? It will be Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt Hotels fortune for Sec Treasury….

    🙂

    Catrina

  24. Any commentary on Obama’s friend, the Reverend Wright, and Obama’s essential support of his organization?

  26. Barak’s church is not a main stream church. It is a cause for concern inside the campaign by some advisors. It is a “tight rope” probelm.

  27. i have thoughts on it.

    many black people don’t have the same experiences in this country as many white people do. because of this little social, cultural, political called racism. so am i surprised that some folks in the black community are angry at the way they and their ancestors have been treated for the past several hundred years?

    no.

    am i surprised that anytime something like this comes up, some white people lose their minds? i shouldn’t be, but i am.

    remember ray nagin talking about new orleans as a chocolate city? statement of fact, imo. remember the uproar around that? stupid, imo.

    also: as we’ve discussed here, folks don’t always agree with their pastors. but if they agree on enough, and if they have a solid community, they’ll stay. we shouldn’t assume that obama shares every opinion that his pastor has.

  29. Rev Wright’s protracted commentary is disconcerting, not necessarily because of racism, but because of its disassociation with well researched rational thought. The grounds for such espousal derive (again!!!) from the distortions of some intellectual threads created in the sixties. Nationalist theology is one of them.

    Let us pose it as a question, “How can the African American community transcend and move forward from the discriminative past when individuals that are entrusted with the community’s spiritual well being constantly spew conspiracy theories that focus on oppression and remind them the discriminative past continues to exist with examples so radical they are impossible to prove or disprove?”

    Few blacks are lynched now (thank God!) Jim Crow and the KKK are affectively dead. The perpetrators of these vile acts are excoriated. Yet the Reverend attempts to reinforce the cultural perspective and beliefs in his congregation that such discrimination still persists by preaching that even more insidious conspiracies against black people exist. Those conspiracies are totally unfounded on reality.

    This church is not main steam. There are many African American churches in Chicago that do not espouse conspiracy theories, hatred for whites etc. Their doors are open to all. They emphasize a brighter future for all humanity.

    Such unfounded thinking and the pursuit to a separate nationalism for African Americans drives in the opposite direction of the transcendent unity which is the positive aspects of the liberation movements for all humanity. That nationalism isolates A-Americans even “more”, a result no one seeks.

    This is going to be a big problem for Barak because the grounds for such commentary indicate a deep cultural psychosis and a separatist cultural paradigm that is not harmonic with the vast majority of Americans including traditional Democratic liberals. They see it for what it is, racism and hatred… the very thing so many have dedicated their lives to eradicate.

    It is not correct to mention the hatreds and racism of the past, and equate it with racism of the present. Barak’s grandmother came from two generations ago. That discriminative prejudice is long gone as an accepted way of thinking in mainstream culture. However, Rev Wright spoke of God Damn America, white oppression, and HIV as a government conspiracy to kill blacks, “yesterday”. We can not allow those thoughts to have validity.

    Such thoughts also need to be placed in the trash bin of history for African American’s sake.

    Barak did “not” follow some of his advisor’s thoughts in his speech. He had to completely divorce himself in that speech, not just of the Reverend, but of the cultural underpinnings that intellectually drive “conspiracy nationalism” and the resulting general hatreds it manifests.

    He did not do this in his speech. Thats bad politics. Lets watch how those poll numbers now sink….

  30. here’s some of obama’s speech/response:

    “As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

    Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

    Legalized discrimination – where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

    A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

    This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

    But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

    And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews.”

    I encourage everyone to read the rest of it.

  31. The object of a political campaign is to “get elected”. That’s the Chicago way…

    Barak’s speech borders on catastrophic when it is related to that goal. He did NOT listen to many advisors that warned him about turning the attention to “race”. He is now becoming the “black” candidate instead of a candidate that happens to be African American.

    The speech should have focused strictly on disavowing the conspiratorial commentary of his Minister. Instead he moved into legacy issues that occurred two generations ago and shit on his own “white” Grandmother! That is not a way to win an election in 2008. It also neutralizes the core success driver of his campaign… that Barak’s cultural paradigm is past Jim Crow and the sixties!

    He even made the error of politicizing race. His speech directly stated that if a voter believes in limited government, that that voter is a racist. He directly attacked Ronald Reagan branding him a racist reactionary because he believed in strict construction!

    Has he not heard of “Reagan Democrats”? They are the swing voters.

    Barak needs blue collar and lower middle class “whites” (demographically speaking) to win this election…. and he just “pissed” on them… That is bad, bad, bad, bad politics.

    The polls in one day already show his negatives up 7.00% with undecided voters in that demographic. It is going to get worse as they pick the speech apart. If negatives go high, candidates are dead meat no matter how “pro” the core supporters are. A voter who perceives a candidate “negative” can never be convinced to vote for that person. Someone who is “pro” another candidate can be convinced to shift their allegiance. Thats politics and human nature.

    That speech is “great” for progressive people. The speech would have got standing ovations if he made it in front of the “University Tenured Faculty Association” if there was such a thing. But, “It ain’t going to play in Peoria.”

    A quick fact, more than 40% of blue collar “union households” repeat “Union Households” (private industry unions) vote Republican and that is after being bombarded by union influence. There is no way a Democrat can win an election without those votes.

    Barak just caused himself more problems than he could ever envision.

  32. i can’t disagree with you more, catrina.

    i think Obama just managed to show americans – especially those blue collar ones – what it’s like when we’re not condescended to or bullshitted.

    & i think people may hugely underestimate how important that may be in the long run.

  34. Helen dear…

    Can you elaborate on your comment?…

    “….especially those blue collar ones – what it’s like when we’re not condescended to or bullshitted.”

    I am sure we are all very interested in perceiving more of your insights, if you have the time. (I know undergrads = aligators. So time might be a factor.) I am especially interested.

    Best,
    Catrina

    P.S. I know your background is “BC” (as you say in your books). So is mine, “raised in a BC railroad town”. Yet, isn’t it true that roots create primary cultural perspective; yet intellectual capability, refinement through education, evolving sociological association, etc. can alter primary cultural paradigms? Personal beliefs sometimes don’t align with an overall effective national strategy. Don’t you think?

Comments are closed.