Posts with the tag 'racism'
The general election race-baiting has begun. Obama is charging that Republicans will use his race to “scare voters.”
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
Perhaps Obama needs to understand that his race is obvious to anyone who sees him or a picture of him. Obama’s comments are not only ridiculous, but they’re insulting. But, I guess to Obama, the Republican Party is just full of “typical white people” like his grandmother. How can Obama make such a claim, which essentially says that he thinks the American people are racist?
I think it’s obvious from his comment that Barack Obama is trying to insulate himself from criticisms by making it appear as if any attack against him is an attack on his race. Obama should be ashamed himself. If there’s anything we learned from the Democratic Primary is that race, gender and class warfare are DNC territory. Another thing we can expect from the Obama campaign, as evidenced by this racist implication he made, is that there will be subtle hints from the Obama campaign that if you don’t vote for Obama then you’re a racist. See, Obama wants this election to be about his race. He’ll wants to guilt voters into voting for him in the same way he claims Republicans wants to scare voters into voting against him. It’ll be a repeat of Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts.
Obama is going to attack, attack, attack John McCain from all angles. Yet, should the McCain campaign release an ad that either (a) shows a picture or video of Barack Obama or (b) mentions his name, the Obama campaign will accuse McCain, or whatever organization puts out any such ads, of attacking his race.
Issues will decide this election… Not Obama’s desire to play the race card at every turn. Obama’s desire to raise taxes, have tea and toast with terrorists organizations, socialize healthcare. Issues alone will guide voters to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama in November.
UPDATE: A real example of using race to scare voters.
Tags: Barack Obama, race baiting, race card, race/gender politics, racism
June 22nd, 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
Interesting bit from Politico:
In the past, Obama has made racial issues, and his own precedent-shattering status, a minor note in his message. But Obama said Monday he recognizes that there is no way he is going to become the Democratic nominee without a forthright statement about the role of race in American life.
“I think it would have been naive for me to think I could run and end up with quasi-front-runner status in a presidential election as potentially the first African-American president, that issues [of] race wouldn’t come up, any more than Sen. Clinton could expect that gender issues might not come up,” Obama told interviewer Gwen Ifill on PBS’s “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.”
Well, Senator, it wouldn’t have come up had you not, for 20 years, blithely attended the sermons of a foaming-at-the-mouth race-baiter. This is being hoist upon your own petard - you, and the rest of the Democratic leadership, have played this nonsensical, hateful and dishonest race game for the past 30 years, and now you’re caught up in it. Here you are, Senator, with an even money shot (at this point) of becoming the next President of the United States, and yet you still don’t seem to understand that a preacher who claims that America is a racist nation which keeps the black man down is someone who is entirely divorced from reality - or is a nasty bigot using hate to keep a captive audience ponying up.
Have you no sense, Senator? Or, lacking that, at least a sense of shame? For crying out loud, look at yourself! You are the mixed-race son of a foreigner and this nation held nothing back from you. There was no door which failed to open, no opportunity which failed to present itself to you - you are vastly wealthier than the wildest dreams of your cousins in Africa, as well as your cousins in Kansas. You have the brass ring at your finger tips…and yet you listened to bilge about how America is a racist nation, and you made no objection - you never said, “how dare you, sir, slander this nation which has afforded me so much.”
No one expected you to say of your nation that it is the perfect monster that ne’er lived, but the very facts of your own life give lie to the notion that America is a racist nation, or that a black man is to be held down on account of his skin color, or that only black men who truckle to white America are permitted to get ahead. How could you, sir, take so much and then sit there while someone spit on your mother country?
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: So what did you think of Obama’s big speech today? I’ve heard clips, and read the speech in its entirety, and was unsatisfied. I found it interesting that while he previously denied being present during Wright’s anti-American sermons, today he admitted he had. He said we should look beyond race, but spent the majority of the speech playing up racial divides, and he still couldn’t bring himself to truly separate himself from Wright’s rhetoric. In attempting to distance himself from Wright’s rhetoric, Obama said that Wright’s word were “divisive at a time when we need unity.” Well, I found that Obama’s speech proved that Obama is not the person to bring about unity. In fact, Obama seemed to argue that Wright’s comments were somewhat justifiable when he said “The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.” No sale. This was a speech so clearly designed to save his candidacy from fallout, but did next to nothing to address the real issue, and won’t help him.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Linda Chavez correctly points out that afrocentrism is central to Obama’s problem.
Tags: anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, race baiting, racism
March 18th, 2008
Geraldine Ferarro had to resign from the Hillary campaign for saying “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” For this comment, she’s been called a racist. Was there really anything racist about it? No. Of course not. It all comes back to the ultimate truth that Barack Obama is a media star and has avoided a lot of scrutiny because of his race. Hillary has gone from presumed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to fighting for survival because while the media has treated her far more severely than Barack Obama.
I’ve watched the two of them debate a number of times, and it was ridiculously apparent that she was getting tougher treatment. She can’t even attack Obama without accusations of racial insensitivity being raised. To bring up Obama’s past cocaine use is apparently racist. To mention his middle name is xenophobic and racist. To show his picture in an attack is racist. Barack Obama has become virtually untouchable in this campaign because his race has been used as a shield to protect him scrutiny.
Ferraro may have not chosen the best words to make her point — certain in defending herself she seems to be digging herself further into an whole — but there was nothing racist about what she was saying. Keith Olbermann equating her words with that of David Duke actually quite proves Ferraro’s point.
I’m sorry, but Geraldine Ferraro’s comments are far less offensive than the rhetoric of Barack Obama’s pastor and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAYe7MT5BxM]
But, I’m sure I’ll be called a racist for daring to talk about this.
UPDATE: More from Michael Graham.
Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic Nomination, Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, race baiting, racism
March 13th, 2008
Ron Paul received a $500.00 donation from a racist named Don Black (he runs a website which shan’t be named here, nor linked - look it up if you are really determined about seeing it). Paul says he won’t return the money because by taking that $500.00, he gives Black that much less money to spend on hatred, and it gives Paul that much more money to spread the libertarian message. Frank James over at The Swamp has this to say about it:
… lot of money is given to candidates by supporters with views out of the mainstream, views many other Americans would find objectionable. That’s a given. The only difference is that Black doesn’t hide his views.
Still, the unwritten rule in politics is that when you find yourself getting money from someone controversial because of what they do or say, someone with views repugnant to most Americans, you give their cash back like it’s radioactive.
Paul’s approach is certainly unorthodox, like so much about the man. That doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. And because it’s so different a way of handling such a situation, it presents an opportunity for a discussion about what’s right and wrong in such situations. In short, it makes you think.
Does it? Perhaps. Certainly it makes me think that Paul - a Christian, like me - has a practical amorality in is public actions. This would be in keeping with libertarian thinking, and it why the only thing, in my view, worse than a libertarian is a totalitarian. We are to be neither sheep nor wolves in our dealings with others - neither cowards nor predators. Ron Paul may rationalise his refusal to return a racist’s donation all he wishes, but the real effect of his action is to legitimise evil. Evil there is in this world, and we humans beings are incapable of eliminating it - but wise men and women will shun evil whenever they see it.
Black is free to hold whatever views he wishes, but as his views are evil, I want nothing to do with them, or him - and I’d much prefer it if I never come within a country mile of him or his views except to call him to repentance and with a mind to teaching him that we are all children of God, and thus brothers and sisters. Were Black to ever give me $500, I wouldn’t return it (Paul is right about the good in lessening Black’s resources for speading evil), but I wouldn’t keep it, either - I’d send it along to, say, Missionaries of the Poor (which, being that it is Christmas, you might want to send a few bucks to, anyways) - and ask them to send a kind thank you to Black, along with a picture of the people his donation helped (they are headquartered in Jamaica, ya see?).
Life is a series of opportunties for us to do the right thing - it is not a zero sum game, and its primary purpose isn’t our selves. Each decision is a chance to make the world a better place, and it is a shame that Paul takes such a narrow view of his moral obligations to society as a whole.
Tags: political contributions, racism, Ron Paul
December 23rd, 2007
