Ah, nothing like the thesis of a liberal (PDF) for intersting items:
…My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my “Blackness” than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong…
Stokely Carmichael and Charlie Hamilton’s (1967) developed definitions of separationism in their discussion of Black Power which guided me in the forumlation and use this concept in this study:
The concept of Black Power rests of this fundamental premise: Before a group can enter the open society, it must close ranks. By this we mean that group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society.
Thus, Carmichael and Hamilton define separationism as a necessary stage for the development of the Black community before this group integrates into the “open society”.
All really good liberal mental gobblydegook – the sort of “thinking” which you get when you are just repeating back what a leftist told you. Trouble is, this lady might be the person who gets first and last crack at advising the President of the United States every day. I guess Michelle Obama doesn’t have as much pull in 2008 as Hillary had in 1992 in getting her thesis locked away. I wonder, however, what we might find in any thesis written by Barack? Would there be, for instance, anything like Michelle’s assertion that black (errr…I mean Black) politicians are to pretend to be working with Whites when they are actually advancing the Black community?
…They discuss the problems which face these Black officials who must persuade the White community that they are above issues of race and that they are representing all people and not just Black people…
Its going to be a very fun and interesting fall campaign…
Blogs For Victory 
Just an FYI. Mark has only posted a link to the first part of the thesis. It is broken up into four parts. For all four parts, go to:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642.html
For the record, I think Mrs. Obama should at least acknowledge and explain her current position on the thesis. Clearly, someone thought the thesis could raise issues for Senator Obama or it would not have been buried in the first place.
First LIE =
“You have consistently mentioned my race over and over again”.
FrmMarine,
You mentioned my race in 4 different threads.
Would you like me to post the links to them?
In each thread I never once mentioned my race..you were the one that brought it up.
Substitute David Duke and the word black with WHITE and have him be the leading candidate and see what your “community would be saying about that.
My community? Hmmm…My community is composed of whites, blacks, hispanics, asians and quite a large number of indians.
Actually, most black people do not have a problem with people being proud of their race. The issue is when those people say their race is superior to other races. That is what David Duke and his ilk claim.
You really don’t see the difference do you? Most bigots don’t.
Casper,
Thing is, those accusations against Prescott Bush are a slander and even if they were true bear no relation to George W. Bush – these are Michelle Obama’s own words…true, they are old words but when juxtaposed to her recent remarks about never being so proud of America until just now, when her husband is only a little ways from a possible stay in the White House, they raise the question about her real, current opinions on racial matters in the United States.
It is a bald-faced and rather stupid lie that white people are inherently racist, or that America is a racist nation – whatever the case might have been in the past, here in 2008 we are a very multi-ethnic society where the overwhelming majority holds that a person’s skin color must not be determinative in what they are able to accomplish – Michelle Obama’s writings are of a species of though, rising out of the 60’s, which held that America is a racist nation, that white people are inherently racist, and only by presenting a united and militant front to white America could black America claim its proper place in America.
We need to know – does she believe that sort of thing? Does Barack? If they don’t, will they denounce such views in public?
Casper,
As an aside, I dispute the characterisation of this as an attack – it is an observation and a question. An attack would be what the NY Times did to McCain.
Mrs. Obama’s thesis will only serve to highlight the relationship that Barak holds with the controversial minister of his church. Barry is going to have to explain both down the road, its just a matter of time.
Personally I am looking forward to his putting some substance behind all the rhetoric. Once the american public realize just how far left and expensive his positions are, the bloom will be off the flower.
If its just silly, why are you all here discussing it? You libs are all nutz and nasty.
Ricorun, Central Command? Space Station 3 come in please? Outer Galaxy Post, please fire One! Like I said, Mark, nutz and nasty. You can’t reason, explain, compare, or find common ground with libs and if Obuma thinks he can he is really dilusional.
“This isn’t about securing my support – this is about allaying the continuing doubts amongst swing voters who will actually decide the election.”
What a disingenuous statement. Your ‘doubts’ could never be allayed. Consider your demand of two days ago that Obama prove his debate statement about troop and equipment shortages in Afghanistan. You asked for definitive proof, ABC News provides evidence that, yes, the troop who told Obama the story does exist and backs up everything Obama said. Your response? You cite an anonymous fact-free post on some wingnut website as proof that ABC and Obama are wrong. You literally will believe ANYTHING that supports your pre-existing views.
Each day you seem to get more and more lost in your own hypocritical fantasy world. I truly feel sorry for you, when I’m not too busy laughing at you.
Brett you have to forgive people like Mark, Matt, Former Marine, Kahn, etc. Time and time again they make this claim that racism in America is of very little significance in the US. It is apparent that either 1) They probably live in a middle class or affluent white suburban neighborhood and have little interaction with Blacks or 2) Are just horribly ignorant. I am white but have lived most of my life in the very poor and very black neighborhood or East Oakland, California. As a result all of my friends then and mostly now (living in Kansas) were/are black. Any one of those friends (male and female) can name more accounts of experienced racism than they have fingers to count. Being the one of the only white kids in several square miles I also to experienced some racism. Here in Kansas I see acts of racism almost weekly whether it be (racial epithet deleted) scrolled on a bathroom stall or some white hick calling a group of black girls stupid (racial epithet deleted). The problem with Michelle’s thesis is that it shows that she is a strong, intelligent, and proud black woman and she believes that a strong black community is the only way that blacks can progress. That type of black community existed prior to the 1960s but US education and social services policies utterly destroyed that. This country may have progressed to the point where it may accept a black president but it is in no way shape or form ready for a proud black president and that is what this post shows.
Secondly, I hate to break it to Mark but MLK is not the end all spokesperson for the black race. MLK, Du Bois, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvery, etc. also speak just as loudly for the black community. Also, not once did MLK state that blacks should not be proud of their race. And for heavens sake stop using the “judged by the color of their skin” line. He was speaking directly to the exclusion and mistreatment of blacks solely on the color of their skin. He was NOT in favor of a color blind society which is what you are espousing by over using that line.
Casper, sooooo 20 year old legal opinions shouldn’t matter when we choose a appellate court judge or a Supreme Court Justice?
I mean, so long as your setting the rules…
Uncommon,
One of the most stupid comments I see on this blog is liberals claiming that I must live in a lilly-white (or nearly so) neighborhood and/or that I have little or no interaction with non-white people. My family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and fellow parishoners would be very interested to find out that I don’t interact with them.
…given that the people instructing me in my faith are, respectively, two Sri Lankans, one Vietnamese-American, a Native America and a guy originally from Jamaica I’ve just got say, uncommon, that you are…well, let’s just say that there’s a string of insults I could throw at you right now…
So sad, you don’t even know that the Obama campaign released the thesis to politico.com. Sure casts doubt on the rest of your writing–you’re just not too bright.
MarkforPres,
The statement is racist – there’s not a part of it racist or anyway to modify the statement to make it non-racist. Just switch around “black” and “white” and pretend its a KKKer’s thesis…
getthe,
What does that matter? Could be that Obama figures if he gets it out now it will be old news by the fall; could be that he feels he’s impervious to questions at this point; could be that he doesn’t understand just how bad this will look…the sentiments adhered to in the thesis will have to be cleared up; as to who released it, and why; that is immaterial.
Mark,
Have you ever been at a party or office function where everyone else was black and you were the only person that was white?
Have you ever stepped onto an elevator and have a woman move her purse so it faces away from you?
Have you ever came out of a restaurant with your friends and have people cross the street to avoid contact with you?
Or how about my favorite…have you ever driven thru Lynchburg, Va with a black recruiting officer and have two cars pass you on Route 29 with the occupants screaming “(expletive deleted) you (racial ephithet deleted)!!”
Racism is alive and well in this country.
If you genuinely do not believe that, then I suggest you ask any couple where the husband is black and the wife is white….racism is alive and well in this country….
Just an additional thought…
Racism goes both ways…there is racism from minorities directed at whites. I see it all the time.
Even I face racism from within my own race, …hatred from black females because my wife is white and because successful young black men are not common…envy from black males because my wife is white..
brett,
“Have you ever been at a party or office function where everyone else was black and you were the only person that was white?”
Yes. Well, strictly speaking, one of the other guests was of Japanese ethnicity – though one of the black guests was gay and hit on me, so that’s gotta count for something.
“Have you ever stepped onto an elevator and have a woman move her purse so it faces away from you?”
Unknown – I’m usually not paying that close attention to people on the elevator with me.
“Have you ever came out of a restaurant with your friends and have people cross the street to avoid contact with you?”
Unknown – when I’m with my friends, I’m concentrating my attentions on them, not people crossing the street.
“Or how about my favorite…have you ever driven thru Lynchburg, Va with a black recruiting officer and have two cars pass you on Route 29 with the occupants screaming ‘(expletive deleted) you (racial ephithet deleted)!!'”
No, but I was walking thru Denver, CO and for some unknown reason some guys in a truck decided to throw a beer bottle at me.
As for inter-racial familes – I’m almost in one of them (putative daughter-in-law); two close friends are parents of a white daughter married to a black man; former white female boss of mine was married to a black man until recently (wasn’t racism caused the breakup – he decided to play the field a little bit); another former white female boss is married to a hispanic man; black female friend of mine has a son married to a white woman…
There are, of course, racists in America – but America isn’t racist, white people aren’t inherently racist, and racism does not and cannot keep a black man down.
Damn, I tried to ween myself off this blog but Mark has dragged me back in with his wackiness.
Mark,
You missed the point of Michael’s last post. He is constantly aware of his race because society at large compels him to do so. No white person can understand or have this feeling because we have held power in this country since we arrived on its shores.
This sense of outsiderness, some would argue, is in a black person’s head. This is true but only because real present day prejudice and inequality has placed it there (not to mention two centuries of slavery and one century of government enforced segregation.)
Michael’s examples are the personal ones that cannot be measured. But statistics illustrate the prejudice and inequality at large. Blacks, statistically, are poorer than whites. Blacks are more likely to be stopped by cops. Blacks are less likely to attain a college education. Children of black middle class parents are less likely to stay in the middle class than white children. Blacks are less likely to own their own business. I could go on, but you get the picture.
White people know these statistics. Black people know these statistics. To say they don’t affect a black person’s sense of himself and his place in society or a white person’s interactions with blacks is naive.
A possible answer to this outsiderness, inequality, and prejudice is what Michelle Obama described in her thesis as black power. Unifying the black community allows blacks to become a political force and also helps alleviate the prejudice against them by creating a shared sense of pride. Thus, the goal of Black Power is to contribute to ending the prejudice and inequality blacks expereince.
White Pride is a not the same because whites don’t face the same prejudice and inequality as minorities. The goal of White Pride, at least those who practice it in this country, is to see that the prejudice and inequality continues. White Pride followers seek to keep whites on top. Black Power, as Michelle Obama defines it, seeks to fulfill MLK’s dream of a society of equals.
For a more eloquent version of what I am saying read Native Son.
Much of what passes for racism is merely a way of identifying someone. Not to say there is no racism, because there certainly is, but I think a lot of unnecessary attention is paid to comments that are not indicative of a a negative reaction to a person BECAUSE of her or her race, gender, or whatever.
Example: If I tell someone that some redheaded bitch cut me off in traffic, that does not mean that I am prejudiced either against women or redheads. Both terms are identifiers, and although one has a negative connotation, it’s not proof that I hate women.
So one can become irritated at someone at work, for example, and say “that black SOB took my parking space” and it is no more meaningful than saying “that Canadian SOB” or “that bossy SOB”.
We all experience unfair prejudice directed at us in some way or ahother, over and over again. I was once told by my new boss that I was the “token c__t” in the company.
Some women react to things like this by becoming radical feminists, developing extreme dislike for and distrust of men, and so on. Some, like me, consider the source and don’t let it define me or limit me or dictate to me how I should act. Just as I am an individual woman, he was an individual man, and therefore neither of us could be defined or identified by some amorphous collective identity. So he, as an individual, was a jerk.
The primary difference is one of basic viewpoints of the world. Conservatives see the world through the prism of individualism, while liberals tend to view it in terms of groups.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the minorities who have really succeeded in this country have done so from the position of individuality—not as part of some great mass of people but as individuals with certain skills and ambitions. And these people also tend to be the ones who say “Don’t include ME in your “black community” or your “Latino community”—I am a person who happens to be black or Latino, but am defined by who I am and what I have accomplished and not by my skin color”.
Michelle seems to be echoing the Liberal viewpoint, which is that everyone must be part of some collective. She has chosen to be part of a “black community” celebrating her blackness, etc etc etc. which is totally consistent with the Left’s view of the world—it’s groups and not people.
LiberalT says “GROUP SOLIDARITY IS NECESSARY BEFORE A GROUP CAN OPERATE EFFECTIVELY”—but fails to show why it is necessary, or desirable, to operate as a group at all.
Why, and how, is the Black Value System different from other value systems?
Is it better?
Why?
Why, and how, is the Black Work Ethic different from other work ethics?
Is it better?
How?
What is “middleclassness” and why is it to be avoided?
How can a man truly and honestly claim to be the one to “unite” this country, when his very religion is so divisive?
I wonder, when Michelle was attending Princeton and Barack was in the Harvard Law School, if they sat down and planned a strategy to just skip right over the “middle class” on their way to wealth and fame. Hmmm. Sounds awfully elitist to me.
And I wonder how other black people feel when these two flagrantly successful black people, one constantly talking about his disadvantaged childhood, explain that success is simply not accessible to black people in this horrible country. How did THEY do it?
Are they just so inherently superior to plain old black folk that the rules didn’t apply to them?
Wouldn’t it be more honest, as well as more accurate, to have a message of REAL hope, which is to say “In this great and wonderful country, where slavery was the law barely more than a hundred years ago, black people can now aspire to the levels of success we have achieved—it is there, it is available, to all who are willing to work for it. We’re not special—we are just examples of the opportunities available to all in the United States.”
But no, his is a message of true divisiveness, and even more so is Michelle’s.
Just have to point out this example of what evidently passes for intellectual political discourse on the far Left:
“….will you passing out pickaninny dolls at the GOP convention with Michelle Obama’s face on it?”
But this is the kind of spiteful malicious garbage that is routinely tossed out by the pompous radical Left.
Diane Tomlinson is such a great example of the Victim vs Villain mentality of the rabid Left, she should be their poster child. Get this: “..to all conservatives a united front against their ideas is always a scary proposition isn’t it?”
What a great example of Groupthink, coupled with a perfect example of projection, or assuming that EVERYONE uses it.
Wrong, Diane. Conservatives don’t see people in terms of groups, or collectives. We see people as individuals, and therein lies the major conflict between the Left and the Right. We fight for the rights, and believe in the strengths, of the individual, while the Left cannot conceive of any good coming from anything but the collective.
So you organize your groups, and identify yourselves by your “communities”, and make sweeping statements which are only marginally coherent and then only in the context of groupthink.
Oh, and continue showing us how your allegiance to the collective makes you so special and so superior that you are not bound by the simple rules of either truth or civility, as the stodgy old individuals are.
Pickaninnies!! If you are capable of shame, this would be a good place to practice it.
Yes. Well, strictly speaking, one of the other guests was of Japanese ethnicity – though one of the black guests was gay and hit on me, so that’s gotta count for something.
I am fascinated by this…what was the setting and how large was the party?
Unknown – I’m usually not paying that close attention to people on the elevator with me.
Unknown – when I’m with my friends, I’m concentrating my attentions on them, not people crossing the street.
Ah, you obviously have never been to a less than desirable part of a town and you grew up in a much nicer neighborhood than I did.
So you really have no idea how the lesser in this country lives do you?
Its quite amazing since you profess to know so much about how people like me grew up.
🙂
Brett,
Oh, I don’t know – about 40 people; it was a going away party for me and another guy as we were being transferred off of our ship when I was in the Navy. As it turned out, I was the only white guy who attended due to various duty requirements.
As for the neighborhood I grew up in – very nice; very middle class. But I’ve been on the mean streets, as well – including getting a first hand look at what an armed robbery is like in Portsmouth, VA. Essentially, Brett, you have only the haziest notion of what sort of person I am and what sort of life experiences I have, and yet you are making hard and fast judgements of where I’m coming from. You might want to try a little humility as you approach others.