Posts filed under 'Racial Issues'
Perhaps the most forlorn of political efforts, but still well worth the attempt - John McCain at the NAACP:
Perhaps with more charity than was always deserved, it was Dr. King who often reminded us that there was moral badness, and there was moral blindness, and they were not the same. It was this spirit that turned hatred into forgiveness, anger into conviction, and a bitter life into a great one. He loved and honored his country even when the feeling was unreturned, and counseled others to do the same. He gave his countrymen the benefit of the doubt — believing, as he wrote, that “returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
I remember first learning what had happened in Memphis on the fourth of April, 1968, feeling just as everyone else did back home, only perhaps even more uncertain and alarmed for my country in the darkness that was then enclosed around me and my fellow captives. In our circumstances at the time, good news from America was hard to come by. But the bad news was a different matter, and each new report of violence, rioting, and other tribulations in America was delivered without delay. The enemy had correctly calculated that the news of Dr. King’s death would deeply wound morale, and leave us worried and afraid for our country. Doubtless it boosted our captors’ morale, confirming their belief that America was a lost cause, and that the future belonged to them.
Yet how differently it all turned out. And if they had been the more reflective kind, our enemies would have understood that the cause of Dr. King was bigger than any one man, and could not be stopped by force of violence. Struggle is rewarded in God’s own time. Wrongs are set right and evil is overcome. We know this to be true because it is the story of your cause, and the story of our country.
As much as any other group in America, the NAACP has been at the center of that great and honorable cause. I’m here today as an admirer and a fellow American, an association that means more to me than any other. I am a candidate for president who seeks your vote and hopes to earn it. But whether or not I win your support, I need your goodwill and counsel. And should I succeed, I’ll need it all the more. I have always believed in this country, in a good America, a great America. But I have always known we can build a better America, where no place or person is left without hope or opportunity by the sins of injustice or indifference. It would be among the great privileges of my life to work with you in that cause.
Earlier in the speech, McCain directly challenged Obama on his education and economic policies - pointing out that Obama is wedded to the worn out ideas of the past when the times call for new efforts and new ideas in dealing with our nation’s problems. For the most part, no doubt, this speech fell upon deaf ears - polite ears; ears willing to be respectful of a great American…but ears, none the less, which were not inclined to hear the message. The NAACP does have a long and honorable history but over the past 10-20 years, it has turned itself more and more into a mere adjunct of the Democratic National Committee…devoted to party above country and, indeed, above the real needs of black Americans. If Obama wins in November, this will probably just become more ingrained - but if McCain wins, it will hopefully be a time for black Americans to reconsider their views, and their loyalty to a party which gives much lip-service to the needs of black Americans, but little in the way of actual help.
There is one black lady I know who likens President Bush to the devil - an absurd position to hold, but there was no doubting her sincerity when she was first shocked to discover that I was a Republican and she then blurted out her heartfelt opinion about the man I supported in 2000 and 2004 and still think is one of the best Presidents we’ve ever had. And when I said “shocked”, I meant it - apparently, the concept that a Republican could be on her socio-economic level and, also, clearly non-racist was something outside her common experience. Not that I’m the only middle-aged white guy she knows, but I’m probably one of the few she’s had politics come up with. We’re still friends - and we are, also, brother and sister in Christ…and we share many of the exact same values, especially as regards basic morality. But that this intelligent, kind and knowledgable lady can have such a different view about President Bush - and Republicans - shows the very high mountain we GOPers must climb to gain the trust and support of black Americans.
It is a challenge which John McCain clearly accepts, and one in which I wish him the best of luck - even getting the normal GOP 10% or so of the black vote will count as some sort of triumph in 2008, and I think he might very well be able to do that. The certain thing about this is that for the sake of the United States, black Americans and our Republican party, we’d better do whatever we can to bring black Americans back to their original political home.
Tags: John McCain, NAACP
July 17th, 2008
For all the talk of how the black vote or Hispanic vote might go, not much talk is expended on the white vote - but it will be at least 70% of all voters, so its going to matter, as Peter Brown notes:
It is more than a little ironic that it has taken the first African-American to win a major party presidential nomination to make clear to everyone what has been the case for more than 40 years in presidential elections: Democrats have a problem with white voters.
Suddenly, the topic du jour on television and radio talk shows, at water coolers and the most exclusive cocktail parties is how well Sen. Barack Obama can do among whites, especially the demographic group pundits call the “white working class.”
The truth is these voters have been around for decades. They’re “The Silent Majority,” “Jill and Joe Six-Pack” and “Reagan Democrats,” and whatever the name, they have given Democratic presidential candidates the back of their hands since 1964. That was the year Lyndon Johnson won in one of the biggest landslides in American history, and any demographic group he did not carry probably held its meetings in a telephone booth.
Neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton, the last Democrats to occupy the Oval Office since then, won a majority of white voters. Mr. Clinton came relatively close in 1996 and might have done so in 1992 had Ross Perot not been in the race. But focusing on those near misses overlooks the larger point: Sen. Obama, the son of a white mother and black father, could lose this election badly and still outdo the very pale — Sen. George McGovern in 1972, former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988 and possibly Sen. John Kerry in 2004 – among white voters.
Such discussion as there has been on the subject of white voters revolves around the tired argument of whether whites have gotten enough past their racism (something inherent to white people, according to one of the more ironic leftwing opinions) to vote for Obama - but as Brown points out, the fact that Obama is a liberal and weak on national security might be far more important to his weakness amongst white voters than the fact of his skin color.
Right now, the only reason Obama has a shot is because President Bush and the GOP are so very unpopular - if President Bush’s approval rating were even 45% right now, this election would be in the bag for McCain; but its not, so Obama is ahead and still has to be considered the inside favorite to win in November. But, in the end, will the American people - forget about race - vote for someone as unqualified as Obama when he is also on the extreme end of the American left? That is the question we’ll answer in November - and while liberals are convinced that President Bush’s unpopularity will carry Obama over the finish line no matter what, I am of the opinion that Obama is as high as he’s going to get in the polls based on his now-fading aura of change and President Bush’s unpopularity. To get to a majority of the vote, Obama is going to have to show - to voters who distrust the left intensely - that he will be there man, or at least enough of there man to convince working class whites to vote for the liberal egghead over the American war hero.
It can be done, but it won’t be easy - and thus I see the November election being excruciatingly close, all else being equal from this moment in time.
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatism, John McCain, liberalism
June 30th, 2008
‘Cept when your man is being crushed in middle America and thus wants to spin himself into the White House:
Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.
The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.
“This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama’s commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.”
This is not at all new - waaay back in the 60’s, when the anti-war demonstrations came around, the left and the MSM were very careful not to allow any of the commie flags are horrific commie propaganda to show up on TV. Back in the 80’s whenever they wanted to work up an anti-American demonstration, they always made sure that they had a mom or two with a baby carriage to lead the way, so that the MSM could get a nice shot of that, rather than the raving, leftwing lunatics bringing up the rear. Today, however, is the day of the internet, YouTube and the blogosphere - can’t pull this sort or nonsense and get away with it.
While the truth is out there and all the truth is eating away at the Obama fantasy like acid, I do still wonder if the basic, starry-eyed, half-educated liberal out there will ever star to realise that they’ve been taken for a ride by a corrupt, cynical party of power-mad cretins?
Tags: Barack Obama, multiculturalism
June 19th, 2008
Then you know the Democrat has told a pretty brazen lie:
Is Obama smearing Rush?
News item: Barack Obama campaign starts new Web site to fight smears from political opponents at www.fightthesmears.com.
The first smear mentioned:
“LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word ‘whitey’ from the pulpit of Trinity United.”
Well. No. This is what Limbaugh said:
“The rumor is — and we don’t like dealing with rumors here — but the rumor is that Michelle Obama from the pulpit of this church used the term ‘whitey.’ Some are saying be very careful with this because she might have said ‘why’d he,’ why did he, the contraction ‘why’d he’ instead of ‘whitey.’ ”
He added: “I can’t find anybody who’s seen it.”
So while Limbaugh was happy to wallow in the rumor, he was careful not to claim the tape exists.
More on this when someone gets around to creating www.clarifyfightthesmears.com.
I have to figure that Team Obama is going to be pretty ticked off at this - for 20 years now the left’s primary means of slamming Rush has been to misquote and/or take him out of context. Usually, whenever someone on the left makes an accusation like this against Rush, the MSM gleefully joins in…but someone at the Sun-Times (no doubt now at risk of being transferred to the obituaries page) caught the lie (well, “catch” is too strong a word when you’re speaking of figuring out that a Democrat has lied…usually it involves no more effort than noticing that their lips are moving) and then actually did the right thing and pointed it out.
I get lots of rumors in my in-box, too - probably not as many as Rush as I’m just a little blogger, but in the attempt to smear an opponent, no stone - or little blog - is left unturned in the attempt to get the smear out there. So, someone started this rumor of Michelle Obama and “whitey” - is it true? Who the heck knows? But given that the Obama’s sat for 20 years in the pews of a racist, anti-American church, protestations from the Obama’s about accusations of “whitey” ring rather hollow…the Obama’s should have thought about this thing oh, the second or third time Wright went off on a racist rant…little late to clean that muck off themselves in time for November, 2008.
Tags: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, liberal lies, Michelle Obama
June 16th, 2008
Interesting 2004 interview - do read the whole thing, but this is striking:
GG:
Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA:
Yes.
GG:
What is sin?
OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.
Errrr…no. The definition of sin:
Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”
Being in alignment with your values can be as much a sin as being out of alignment with them - because values created by a human being are, well, worthless…any one of us can think up anything we can to justify whatever it is we wish to do…but in the adherence to God’s values - to truth, that is - we do the right thing, always…and any time we stray from God’s values, we sin.
This does explain a lot - especially how Obama, after accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord, could attend for 20 years a racist, anti-American church and think, apparantly, nothing of it…Obama was adhering to Obama’s values. Time for a bit of a radical change Senator - time to kneel down and ask God to guide you. It’ll work a lot better - and you’ll never been entangled in a place like Trinity again.
Tags: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, sin, Trinity United
June 3rd, 2008
Black Americans. Republicans. South Carolina - and a sign that we GOPers will no longer just write off the votes of oru fellow Americans who are black…we have the better program, and it is high time we helped them off the liberal plantation
Glenn McCall won a milestone intraparty election here during today’s state GOP convention to become South Carolina’s first black Republican National Committee member.
“It’s time for the Republican Party to get out of the foxhole. We need to go on the offense,” McCall said. “We need to come out and build bridges to new people. As a party, demographically, we’re hurting if we don’t.”
McCall, a retired Air Force officer who works for Bank of America in Charlotte and lives in Rock Hill, defeated interim RNC member Drew McKissick, a Columbia public affairs consultant with ties to the party’s Christian conservative wing. McCall is the York County GOP chairman, the state party’s only black county chairman.
Katon Dawson, the state Republican Party chairman, said McCall’s election was a “historic” one for South Carolina Republicans who have enjoyed only modest success in wooing blacks from the Democratic Party which usually gets 95 percent of their votes.
“There has been no leader in our party during my time as chairman who has been more passionate or authentic than Glenn McCall in living out the conservative ideals we hold dear,” Dawson said. “I couldn’t be prouder of his historic election as Republican National Committeeman from South Carolina. I look forward to serving with him.”
When the voting, alphabetically by counties, reached York County, McKissick made a motion that McCall be elected by acclamation and the voice vote followed.
Greenville Chairman Samuel Harms, who seconded McCall’s nomination, said, “It wasn’t even close” when York’s turn came.
In contrast to past outreach efforts that largely flopped, this year, five black Republicans are running in legislative primaries and two others are unopposed for legislative nominations, but face Democratic opposition in the general election.
Democrats have tagged us for years for an alleged “southern strategy” which claims we GOPers were just appealing to racist white Southerners…the reality, of course, is that white Southerners just don’t like pinkos, such as most Democratic leaders are. But we GOPers have failed miserably in our attempts to bring black voters back into the GOP (for 100 years, to be black meant to be Republican, after all), now we are starting to change that. Don’t expect it to happen over night - the left has very effective propaganda on this and they have successfully painted us as a party of racists…but as more and more black Americans rise to prominent positions in the GOP (and as black voters more and more understand they are taken for granted by the Democrats), we’ll have our opportunity to pitch the GOP message..and do a real “southern strategy”, where we take all the votes, black and white.
Tags: Glenn McCall, South Carolina
June 2nd, 2008
The news story:
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have resigned their membership at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, FOX News has confirmed, after controversies stemming from the congregation created a persistent distraction for Obama’s campaign.
The criticism started with the sermons of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., but Obama’s pastor problems were compounded this week by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose videotaped guest sermon at the church Sunday showed him taunting Hillary Clinton and saying she felt she was “entitled” to the presidency because she’s white.
Obama said he was deeply disappointed by the remarks and Pfleger apologized, but Clinton’s campaign still demanded Obama specifically reject the latest remarks.
By resigning his membership, Obama is taking the most definitive stand to date against the church.
All he needs to do now is to specifically condemn the actual teaching, by name, of Trinity United - once he does that, then the matter is closed. I doubt that he will, though; too much of his leftwing base is 100% in agreement with the preaching of Trinity United. Right now, he’s just in major damage control - we’ll have to see if he’s (a) learned how wrong he was to be a member for 20 years and (b) is willing to make amends for being a member of such a group.
Tags: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Pfleger, racism, Trinity United
May 31st, 2008
Sherman Frederick in the Las Vegas Review-Journal figures it cuts both ways for the Democratics:
Democrats bristle at talking about this in plainer terms. They say Sen. Hillary Clinton has found her base — the “working class.” That’s why she won in the Rust Belt primaries. That’s her great hope in Kentucky and West Virginia.
But calling Clinton’s strategy one of kowtowing to the “working class” doesn’t quite say it, does it? Isn’t this just old-fashioned racism within the Democratic Party?
When Hillary strategists say they are winning the “working class,” they don’t mean they are winning working people with a household income of, say, less than $50,000. All the exit polls show quite clearly that lower middle-class people who work split between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Clinton. The difference is generally skin color. Hillary wins the lion’s share of the “working-class” white Democrats. And, sadly, as Hillary’s campaign has become meaner and more to the point, that margin has become bigger.
The Clinton racism strategy first became apparent in Nevada, when her struggling campaign began to publicly talk about her “Hispanic firewall” against Obama among the rank-and-file in the Culinary union. It hit the national consciousness soon thereafter when former President Bill Clinton, after Hillary lost the South Carolina primary, dismissed Obama’s big win as a race-inspired victory akin to Jesse Jackson’s success in that state years ago.
The record clearly shows that Hillary’s campaign was the first to use Obama’s race against him. The strategy gained an unexpected boost when Sen. Obama’s former pastor, the egomaniacal Rev. Jeremiah Wright, cribbed the Obama spotlight only to show the world that racism could be a black thing, too. The opportunistic Clinton campaign shamelessly took full advantage of the tension. They not only raised questions about what the Wright debacle meant for an Obama presidency, they slyly positioned Hillary, like a latter-day George Wallace (the Alabama governor, not the very funny Las Vegas comedian), as the “working-class” candidate…
…The “superdelegate” whisper campaign goes something like this: Hillary is better built to win in November. Obama is soft and elitist. He’s a dangerous unknown quantity. But most importantly, Mr. and Mrs. Democratic Insider Superdelegate, look at the voter numbers in key states. Forget about pledged delegates, wins and losses and overall popular vote. Look deep into the numbers of the key states Democrats must win in November.
Do you see those “working-class” numbers? Those are Hillary people. Those are the people who will win the White House for Democrats this fall. Those are the people who count because, faced with a choice between Obama and Sen. John McCain, “working-class” Democrats will vote for McCain.
It’s a disgusting display for which Democrats ought to be alarmed and ashamed. The remedy is this: Stop calling Hillary’s base the “working class” and start calling it what it is.
I’m not so sure about this - about the concept that Hillary’s appeal to working class white voters is evidence of lingering racism, or Hillary’s playing up to it. I believe that Obama would be one of the very worst Presidents we’ve ever had - he might even redeem Jimmy Carter from the basement of Presidential legacies…but I don’t go telling black friends that they are fools for voting Obama. I understand it - its akin to the way Catholics went nuts for JFK in 1960, even though JFK (a) wasn’t much of a Catholic and (b) even though he wasn’t a very good candidate as far as actual qualifications for office go. But white support for Obama amongst black Americans can be traced in large measure to pride over one of their own doing well, opposition to Obama doesn’t necessarily stem from racial animosity, overt or covert. Opposition to Obama stems from, in my view, his elitism and his arrogant condescension to average Americans - Wright was damaging to Obama, but “bitter” was far more so…what Wright said was what Wright said, and thus Obama could distance himself, at least to a degree, form it…but Obama’s comment about bitter Americans clinging to God and guns, that was out of his own mouth, and let all of us know what he really thinks about us.
Sherman’s view - that Hillary has played an ugly, race-based political calculation - may be true in the narrow sense; for all we know, Hillary did decide to make a covert play to race, but even if Hillary hadn’t done so, I think that working class white people - who are a lot smarter than most political elites - especially liberal elites - give them credit for - would have been turned off to Obama by Obama’s own words.
Tags: black vote, blue collar vote, Democratic Nomination, HillBama, race card
May 12th, 2008
Richard Kim in the ultra-left Nation wonders how Hillary feels about her “white racist” supporters:
…in the name of another personal quality–honesty–I’d like Hillary Clinton to make the following statement: “Though my opponent has run a terrific campaign, in primary after primary, I have proven that I am the more electable candidate. I am more electable because I am white. Barack Obama–Wow!–he’s certainly inspired a lot of hope, but as voters in Indiana and North Carolina make up their minds, as the superdelegates make up their minds, they should remember that Barack Obama is black. They should also remember that a whole lot of white working-class Americans are racists. White racists are an important part of the Democratic Party, and time and time again, they’ve supported me because I am white. I am ready on day one to govern as your white American president.”
If this sounds–excuse the pun–beyond the pale, it’s because it is. Or at least, it should be. But the alleged racism of white working-class voters has become, through her campaign’s own actions, the last remaining rationale for Clinton’s candidacy.
Are white working-class voters really racist? How many and where? If a significant number of them are, should Democrats really court them on the terms of their racism? These are questions worth asking since, apparently, a lot of Democrats think they’re valid. But as long as the Clinton campaign continues to code the fact that it is counting on a base of white racist support, we’ll never have this conversation.
Sounds to me like some on the left are starting to pre-spin the reason for an Obama defeat (today and/or in November) as because of racist, white Americans. But is this really likely to be the case? I don’t believe so - what the left ignores or pretends doesn’t matter is that Obama egregiously insulted all Americans who aren’t black voters and/or upper class white voters. Obama and Co can spin it until the cows come home, but he really did call average Americans bitter, gun-carrying, fearful, religious bigots - and when coupled with his pastor’s obscenly racist and anti-American rhetoric (which rhetoric, of course, is believed 110% by people at the Nation, for instance), it is a natural that the insulted constituency would gravitate towards the only other Democratic alternative - Hillary Clinton; had there been a more moderate black candidate instead of or in addition to Hillary, then these middle and lower class white voters might well have gone for that candidate.
Are there racists in America? Of course. Are they, on the whole, likely to be either GOP or Democratic voters? No. Your basic racist - and I mean the real “I think black people are inferior” sort of KKKer racism - thinks that our government is the Zionist Occupation Government and that the votes are all just a sham anyway. These really are the bitter people who wallow in hatred - and not just of black people, but of Jews, Catholics, hispanics, Asians…everyone who isn’t of the Anglo-Saxon extraction and committed to the white supremacy movement. In 2004, these people weren’t pondering - in the Democratic race - as to whether or not they should back Kerry or Edwards. Race isn’t a factor in this - except on the left, which is desperate for an explanation other than Obama’s leftist extremism for Obama’s electoral troubles, and possible defeat.
I still think that Obama will be the Democratic nominee - the Democratic powers that be are desperately afraid of what will happen if the first credible black candidate is denied the Democratic nomination; but if Obama loses, it won’t be because white racists pushed ultra-liberal Hillary over the top, but because Hillary has proven herself the more dogged campaigner who both took nothing for granted nor despaired when things went wrong. And if Obama does still get the nomination and goes down to a McGovern-like defeat in November, it still won’t be racism as the cause but the continued and strong rejection of ultra-leftist ideology by the majority of the American electorate.
Tags: HillBama, liberal lies, race/gender politics
May 6th, 2008
And on and on and on goes the story of a race hustler who makes his living off of keeping hate alive…
Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.
“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”
Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.
The rally at Sharpton’s office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem’s main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out “Kill the police!”
Please note the name of the street they marched down - Malcolm X Boulevard…a street named in honor of a racial con artist, just like Al Sharpton. We can either keep going - and eventually have the corner of Malcolm X Blvd and Al Sharpton Way, or we can stop playing these games. Whatever happened in the Bell case - and it does seem, to an outsider who doesn’t know all the details (ie, I wasn’t on the jury), that something has gone wrong with our legal system - the facts of the case do not warrant punishing all of the citizens of the New York City. And when we see some people shouting “kill the police”, we know we’ve got a poisonous, incendiary situation which requires the authorities to remain vigilant and immediately arrest anyone who appears to be inciting violence in any way, shape or form.
We must cease this paying court to the rabble rouser who shouts the loudest - order a re-investigation of the case; see if there is a federal civil rights case in regards to the death of Bell…but arrest Al Sharpton if he even looks like he’s going to start something.
Tags: Al Sharpton, Sean Bell
April 27th, 2008
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