Barack Obama’s performance as Pretendident In Name Only has not disappointed me in the least. I never expected him to do jackshit in the first place. I never expected the American people to put up with his obvious bullshit and lack of “eptitude” for this long just because they’re scared of of all things black, especially people, though, either.
I can hear the chorus of mental denials, now. “We are not a-scared of no black people! Pish tosh!” you think loudly. “Big bags o’ bullshit,” I think, and write, back. Every black American is familiar with that unacknowledged fear. We wear it every day like a second skin as our second nature public mask. From the wide-eyed, furtive glances meant to be discrete from car-to-car in everyday traffic, to the stiffened backs of people in stores, banks, gas stations, lines of any sort for any reason, to the proximity within which kids are kept whenever the big, scary black person approaches to say, “hi!” we black people have become just as comfortable with keeping our distance without thinking about it, as non-black people are un-comfortable in our presence. We are used to being, perpetually, the Ultimate Stranger. “Hurry, give them what they want, maybe they’ll leave!”
Some white people, tired of the discomfort of constant fear, but too cowardly to admit it and confront it head-on, lash out at the problem as the cause. To them, the problem is racism against them, by exploitative shifty, clever black bullies. The theory goes, “you know you scare me witless, so you take advantage of me by calling me a racist and asking me to stop!” shouted most often from behind the metaphorical couch with bug-eyed terror by people trying to sound tough with their hair standing on end.
When you live on what is arguably the most well-endowed National Plantation of the coalition represented by the Global Boys’ Club of Powers That Be That Rules The World, simmering rage and frustration is simply a naturally integral part of your shared human condition, regardless of position in the pecking order, or place on the illusionary Ladder of Success. And, while the Mistuh Chollies that sit on the board would prefer that their minions join hands and sing gospelized versions of a Kumbayah/I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing mash-up medley 24/7, that’s only because the cacophony resulting from protracted intervals of caterwauling, kvetching, bitching, and moaning has a tendency to obscure the sound of ice tinkling in cut glass tumblers of single malt Scotch and birds chirping on their private golf course.
I’ve been thinking about the rage of oppression, where it comes from, and how it manifests itself in our society, a lot lately. From the decades-long, seemingly concerted assault on minority culture in the media, through the deliberate use of stereotypes as weapons against positive perception, (i.e., blaxploitation, minstrelcoms, gangsta rap, etc.) to the current political pretzel-twisting contortions and hoop-jumping divide-and-conquer race and gender maneuvers disguised as honest efforts to promote the common good that charlatans posing as public servants are executing as corporate marionettes, to the exploitation of working people at all income levels, legal and il-, the country, if not the world, seems to me, to be a veritable cauldron of simmering rage, deliberately assembled, stoked and stirred.
The scope of this issue, as well as my personal limitations, preclude me from composing a cohesive, comprehensive treatise on this subject, so, I’ll just present my disjointed thoughts, open the floor for discussion and debate, and offer myself up as whipping girl. But, it seems to me, given America’s unique melting gumbo pot/tossed salad composition, the peculiar experiment that she is positions her as potentially holding the key to our shared global futures. If people as diverse as those who make up our nation can find a way to peacefully co-exist and prosper equally, as a single human race, there is indeed hope for the world. If not, we get the powder keg we sit on now, times infinity. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was a small child, I used to try to get my mother’s attention at times when she didn’t feel like being bothered. Sometimes this would happen when she had company over, and she would often continue her conversations with her invited guests as if I wasn’t there, or worse, as if the Ranger scolding Yogi about the way he mistreated Boo-Boo just wasn’t all that important. Can you imagine? First of all, how dare she divine what I wanted without being told, assess the merits of my unspoken request for sympathy and understanding, and then dismiss me and my concerns out of hand – in advance! The nerve of that woman! I always loved the ladies and gents she called “her company,” though, because they would undoubtedly take my side with a smile, (smirk) and ask my unfeeling maternal parent why she insisted upon carrying on as if her earnest, darling oldest child was a mere figment of their collective imaginations. Mama would then invariably lean toward her obviously barren inquisitor(s) and utter the first line of the survival book, “Invaluable Sayings and Truisms of Motherhood; Official Handbook and Study Guide,” issued in hospitals and home delivery rooms worldwide since the dawn of time, “if you ignore them, maybe they’ll go away.”
Of course, the follow-up paragraph in that indispensable tome explains that such advice is only to be applied to those teeth-achingly annoying, yet essentially trivial situations like the one I described; the rest of the time we kids were to be treated as precious little joy bundles shining blinding light beacons upon our parents’ previously pitiful lives for them to bask in in front of their friends, enemies and acquaintances whenever we weren’t around to spoil the illusion. However, neither the trials and tribulations of Wilma and Fred, nor the earth-shattering news that once Chatty Cathy’s hair got pulled out because all the stinky plastic heifer would say when you pulled her string was, “runmmmnlwwerrugh” you just could not get it back in the little holes, were ever sufficient to grant us special audience with the Queen at such times. Read the rest of this entry »
Barack Obama bores me. But, then, he always has. The only remotely interesting thing about him is watching his fans slowly come around to the realization that pretending not to be as boring as he is, is pretty much the only thing he’s really good at. Yes, the befuddlement slowly dawning on their faces as they grapple with the fact that they’ve been majorly duped, is indeed a joy and wonder to behold. How they could ever have fallen for such rudimentary trickery never seems to cross their minds, however.
Let’s face it, the tactics used by the Obama Noise Machine (Come On, Shake Your Body, Baby, Do That Obie) were pretty simplistic. It wasn’t really a whisper campaign, it was more like a calculated Come To Obie series of moments. Instead of, “Pssst! Have you heard about the new guy?” the professional and amateur Obacolytes of Axelfraud proselytized from the street corners and rooftops and basements of their parent’s house, “Obama is coming! Prepare, ye sinners!” “Where will you be when the Obamessiah arrives?!”
Yea, how the unworthy quaked. Verily, they did onto him. And thus, the excitement about the rapture of excitement built. How could it not? Who could ignore the magical allure of a black man who, unlike his brethren, actually liked white people? Lived among them? Born of them? Had the people ever laid eyes upon such an extraordinary man before? A real, honest to Goodness black man, with a black wife and everything, who was One of Them? No wonder the masses found the idea of him irresistible.
No matter that in reality he was a pretty ordinary guy. Average in all things, at best. He was black, but, not quite black enough to frighten the children. After all, the blood of most of the people flowed through his veins. And so, like Sally Field at the Oscars, the people exalted him, crying, “He likes us! He really, really likes us!” “And he likes us, too, ya know?” Read the rest of this entry »
We be black. We was black befo’ Obama got elected, and we still black, nah. Summa y’all don’t like dat, an’ it piss y’all off. Y’all be trippin’. Y’all suck. Chill.
Don’t nobody care what y’all think, no way. Y’all the ones always be tryin’ to keep a brotha down. That’s whack. Fuck dat. Fuck y’all. – Black America
I often try to illustrate the not-so-hidden racism rampant in our society by comparing it to the similarly hidden-in-plain-sight sexism we live under, hoping that women will at least consider that many of the “race card” claims being pooh-poohed on a regular basis do actually have some basis in fact. Unfortunately, far too many women, themselves victimized by insidious institutionalized bigotry, obvious to them at every turn, no matter how small, slight, or insignificant such behavior might be considered by perpetrators of said sexism, simply cannot see the same sort of racial bias right in front of their eyes. Though they are not only adept at recognizing overt discrimination directed towards them, but quite skilled at ferreting out intended sexism no matter how cleverly couched, even correctly identifying incidences where deliberate bigotry is intentionally dressed in politically correct clothes in order to escape detection, no such leeway is accorded those who empathize with those of us who suffer racially. Read the rest of this entry »
I do not like Barack Obama. I never have. To me, he has always been overrated and unimpressive, much more hype than substance. I have never given him points for trying to “rise above” race by running away from all things black for the sake of protecting the sensibilities of the all-important whites. I believe his “hands-off-unless-critical-of-the-black-community-in-order-to-score-points-with-the-white” stance is much more damaging to the self-image of young black people than any possible benefit of the symbolism of electing a “black” man to the highest office in the land can ever possibly offset. Like Jesse Jackson, I agree that “talking down to black people” is an offense worthy of castration. If electing a black man president comes with such a high price tag, in my opinion, it’s simply not worth it for the sake of appearances.
That being said, Barack Obama is no more responsible for racism than Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin are for sexism. These individuals may have served as unwilling lightning rods that briefly illuminated ugly realities in flashes of blindingly harsh light, but none of them caused the ugly landscapes they inhabit to come to be. We were a nation awash with racism and sexism before anybody knew any of their names, and we continue to be after their unfair and unflattering treatment has been exposed.
That’s not to say that certain behavior has never exacerbated the situation. Some have claimed that Hillary Clinton’s tears, and/or “perceived whining” have made bad matters worse, however, as far as I’m concerned, those are merely more blatant examples of the double standard imposed upon women, sometimes even by women. If she doesn’t cry or complain, she’s a cold heartless bitch who’s so wrapped up in herself she doesn’t care about anyone or anything else, or worse, it’s not sexism; if she does, she’s a manipulative and exploitative faker, because we all know that not-so deep down, and all the way through, she’s really a cold, heartless bitch who’s so wrapped up in herself she doesn’t care about anyone or anything else, and the sexism still didn’t happen. Read the rest of this entry »
Imagine, if you will, you’re a white person, recently promoted to a once-in-a-lifetime dream job, and transferred to a new, unfamiliar town. Once settling into your luxurious corporate digs, suppose you decide to take a stroll through town to kinda get the lay of the land, so to speak. As you leave the downtown area, you soon find yourself in a very pleasant, quiet neighborhood full of tree-lined streets and cul-de-sacs, well-maintained, stately upper middle class homes and trendy late-model cars. As you enjoy the beauty and serenity of your surroundings, say you begin to notice that passing cars often slow down imperceptibly as you walk by, that blinds and curtains behind large picture and bay windows often shift, and wooden doors seem to crack a notch in your wake.
Would it bother you when you finally noticed that passing pedestrians, all of whom smiled and or nodded in greeting, even when they didn’t verbally address you with a friendly “hi,” or wave at you from their now up to speed automobiles, were black? When you realized that even the service people you’d encountered since arriving in town, like the guy who drove you from the airport, and the person who carried your luggage to the car, and the doorman who greeted you at your new condo, were all black, too, would you begin to question your own perceptions and prejudices?
What if, feeling more than a bit conspicuous, you passed an incongruously located upscale Mom-and-Pop convenience store, tucked away in a small shady enclave of boutique small businesses? Would it unnerve you when the proprietor smiled in greeting and said you must be the new manager/executive officer/director at the big plant/company/corporate headquarters downtown, and welcomed you by name as he/she tracked you through the store? Would you be relieved, or a little creeped out by that sort of intimate greeting from a stranger and his patrons, all of whom are now offering welcomes and tidbits of personal information they know about you and people you know in common? Read the rest of this entry »
In a speech akin to that of a black slave driver addressing a congregation of his subjects about the injustice of their enslavement at a prayer meeting, while entreating them to overcome the inequities they face by simply being better slaves, Pretendident Barack Obama adopted his now-familiar Reverend Brother Daddy persona and verbally bitch-slapped his most loyal supporters for not rising above the similar backgrounds they share with him, as he did. Presenting the keynote speech at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s centennial anniversary dinner, and, once again reducing the major challenges confronting the African American community to bad parenting, he yet again exhorted black people to turn off their XBoxes and make their children do their homework, as if that alone will make their schools, circumstances, and lives better.
While admitting to systemic inequities, he nonetheless falsely equated the right-wing meme of “personal responsibility” with the justification for the abdication of government obligation to ensure equal access and opportunity to a segment of society to whom those basic rights have long been, and continue to be, denied. This is all too familiar territory for the man, who, like many of the children of his mythical, stereotypical Ray-Ray and Pookie, (who he exhorts to get up off the couch and stop watching Sports Center and feeding their kids Popeye’s fried chicken for breakfast) was raised in a “non-nuclear” family most of his life. However, instead of stressing that the family dynamic is far less important than the opportunities to provide that caregivers have to offer their charges, he insists upon promoting the “dysfunctional” black family as the root cause of the majority of black people’s ills. Let’s face it, he was primarily raised by grandparents, just like many African American, and other “disadvantaged” children “abandoned” by their fathers, yet, unlike those inner-city and impoverished youngsters, his family was able to give him access to world travel and private school education, options unavailable to the families he now so fondly assails. Additionally, though when living in two-parent households, the parents in question were never both his, he, for some inexplicable reason, continues to recite the fairy tale that two-parent families are the only, or best path to black success. Read the rest of this entry »
Where’s the outrage from the left? Gays? Women? Uninsured people? That’s the question being asked by Barack’s Bewildered and everybody else nowadays. That, and, “what the hell happened?” The Sheeple are finally starting to “wake up and get it,” and they don’t like it. Not one little bit.
Hahahahahahaha ha ha!!!!!
That’s what they get for electing a guy just because he’s brown.
The outrage is where it’s always been, right here in the PUMAsphere. Yep, us angry old bitter knitters have been righteously indignant for so long it’s almost starting to get old. The only thing that’s fresh is the wind-twisting of the Under The Bussers.” Those finger-pointing, childish, raspberry blowing Nyah Nanna Na Na Crowd are now experiencing the difficulty of trying to navigate their own self constructed labyrinth in shoes on the other foot. Now, the David Letterman jokes don’t seem as funny as they did when Bill Maher was telling them about Hillary Clinton. Where were these people when Jon Favreau was groping Hillary Clinton’s cardboard tit? Predictably defending Obie’s frat boy brain for just being a boy, that’s where. Boys will be what they are, after all. So, what’s the diff now that the “boy” has gray hair? Read the rest of this entry »
It’s after 3:00 a.m. and I’m sitting here trying to write the post I had been composing in my head all day. I had great little news bits to work with, too; Salon’s helpful refutation of anti-Obama right wingnut talking points through the use of interchangeable left wingnut pro-Obama-sanctioned talking points, the American press’ defense of Baracko Bama in the face of the European press’ slam against their visiting meal-ticket and love object ’s trademark rude aloofness, Hillary Clinton’s “I’m Secretary of State ‘cuz he begged me,” Obama rah-rah, and other tasty little juicy morsels upon which to chew. I was so looking forward to giving verbal raspberries to the Sheeple Mind controllers for theior hysterical, “He Went!” “He Came Back!” over-the-top non news reporting. And, man, I was really going to enjoy ripping PUMA-bashing AOL blogger Tommy Christopher for lying about being fired for his part in exposing the ugly Playboy invitation to rape article they put up and snatched down in just enough time for it to go viral, when in fact, according to his boss, Melinda Henneberger, Mr. Christopher was relieved of his duties along with his co-workers when the company decided to go in a new direction and hire real journalists.
However, after perusing the news and the PUMAsphere, one particular discussion about turmoil resulting from religious conflict really started to stick in my craw, wherever that is. They omitted craw location in the human anatomy in my high school biology classes, but then, I’m from Chicago. Anyway, the holier-than-thou, “my God can lick your God” attitude inherent in a lot of the posts and commentary available on the web, really started to piss me off. Read the rest of this entry »
I am a black, gay, woman. According to popular conventional wisdom, being black and gay means I should hate myself, and be extremely grateful that, as a woman, I’m powerless to do anything about it. There are so many things wrong with politicizing fairness and equality that it makes the one thing that’s right about it, using it as a tool to effect change, sometimes seem hardly worth the cost. “Fair is fair” should be a no brainer any oppressed, or formerly oppressed, person should be able to wrap their heads all the way around. Yet, as an “African American” who, like most of my gleefully downtrodden brothers and sisters, has never seen the Mother Land, I am expected to be far more politically motivated by my victimization a a black person than by the exact same sort of victimization I might have experienced as a woman. I say “might have experienced” because the reality of gender oppression is not a recognized “given,” no matter how high the mountain of evidence proving it might be. I’m not even technically allowed to even call myself gay, either, since “gay” is an appellation appropriated by male homosexuals, me being relegated to the “L” in “LGBT” or, “GLBT.” Even if I don’t want to be referred to as an African American Lesbian woman, and prefer to be called a black gay chick, a politically correct, clued in observer will insist upon recognizing me as the former. Sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass to keep things straight.
What’s up with the creepatoids employed in what passes for the journalism field nowadays, that they have their collective heads so far up the Creamy Chocolate Dream Date/Geek In A Spokesmodel’s Empty Suit’s ass that they couldn’t see the light of a sunny day after Lasik surgery with a Klieg light and a Guide Dog? Does David Axelrod slip them a nice piece of change from a Wall Street bankster-provided slush fund under the table on a regular basis to just run Favreau-penned fluff ‘n puff pieces under their byline? What? Maybe it’s just me, but when I see more than one, “The Pretendident’s Too Cool To Laugh At” piece online, I have to ask myself, “Self, what’s up with that shit?”
The way I see it, if today’s “late night comics” can’t find anything about Mush Mouth Swivel Head to poke fun at, then they’re either, a) lousy comics, b) getting some of that Axelrove slush fund dosh, c) blind, or d) lousy comics. I vote for a) and d). He’s a comedian’s dream. Are you kidding me? “57 states?” “Above my pay grade?” “My Muslim faith?” “Uh, ummm, ya know, uhh, I, I, uh’ve been very clear…uhhh, uh, uh, uh?” “Here’s some old movies that won’t work on your system, anyway, blind guy?” “Oh, King Abdullah! It’s an honor to smell your crotch?” “I bowl like a retard?” Read the rest of this entry »
Good thing I’m not a Civil Rights activist, because, if I was, I’d probably be majorly pissed right now. I mean, if I had worked my ass off trying to get a guy elected who I thought would, and should, have my best interests at heart, and he turned around and dissed me, yet again, on TV, in front of God and everybody, I’d be pretty ticked off. The fact that my hopes would have been raised by the answer he gave to the question he got right before he gave the answer that broke my heart, would only make the “you’ll take what I give you, and like it” attitude he exuded toward me all the more intolerable. As a Civil Rights activist, knowing full well that when it comes to government redress, all resources are finite, any consideration given to any other marginalized, disenfranchised, under-represented, “special interest group” would be considered by me to be a threat of gargantuan dimensions. Therefore, hearing my Happy Hopey Homey Hero give a verbal smackdown to the Chicks of Choice would give me a huge hope boner, knowing that a chance for my issues to be addressed had been preserved undiluted. I’d also be pretty sure that any fallout resulting from the perception of favored treatment at their expense could be successfully “spun,” just like it always has been, with the old stand-by, “a victory for any of us is a victory for all…blah, blah, blah.” Read the rest of this entry »
So, I’m cruising the internet, got the top down, chillin’, no sweat, no worries, mon, right? And, I come across this interesting website. Cool beans, huh? Actually, what I just wrote is a bald faced lie. I was on another PUMA site, in the middle of yet another “what is racism since Obama fudged the lines to get elected?” mini-war, when I went surfing for perspective. Okay, not really. I was looking for backup, but, hey, I can cop out with the best of ‘em. I didn’t get very far in my perspective/backup search before I came across blackpeopleloveus.com, the website of Sally and Johnny. After reading the testimonials and letters, and just about everything else over there, I decided I’d share it with you guys and see what you think. In a while, I’ll tell you what I think. Deal?
President Black Obama, the man who only discusses the issue of race directly when it comes to distancing himself from criticism regarding his church attendance, or chastising black people for being irresponsible to curry favor with racially insecure whites, kicked his Attorney General, Eric Holder to the curb for calling America “a nation of cowards” when it comes to the subject. From the New York Times:
“I think it’s fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language,” Mr. Obama said in a mild rebuke from America’s first black president to its first black attorney general.
More diversionary, race-baiting, media hype, anyone? It bears mentioning that Obama did not disagree with the content of Holder’s statement, only the language.
“We’re oftentimes uncomfortable with talking about race until there’s some sort of racial flare-up or conflict,” he said, adding, “We could probably be more constructive in facing up to sort of the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination.”
Forget Dog Whisperer, according to Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson, when it comes to calling your dogs, Barack Obama is a master Dog Whistler. And, according to Nia-Malika Henderson, that’s a very good thing. Of course, when Nia-Malika Henderson refers to “dog whistles,” she’s talking about those code words politicians use to connect subliminally with certain core portions of their constituency, sending crucial, non-politically correct messages over the heads of their targeted enemies. Like, during the primaries, when Obama surrogate Jesse Jackson Jr. mocked Hillary Clinton’s tears in the wake of her New Hampshire victory that threatened to derail the O Train momentum that the O Team imagined was, until that moment, on track to to take him straight to the White House, express-style. Forget the fact that it was only the second contest between the two, making them relatively even at that point, oh, no, Clinton obviously didn’t get the “Obama inevitability” memo, and even worse, and just as obvious, neither did the people who actually voted for her. This had to be nipped in the bud, somehow, after all, Obama’s only victory at that point was a caucus, and some of us were already suspicious about his tactics regarding those. So, JJJr. was sent out to “let the dogs out.” Alex Koppleman, Salon:
“We saw something very clever in the last week of this campaign … We saw a sensitivity factor, something that Mrs. Clinton has not been able to do with voters that she tried in New Hampshire. Not in response to voters. Not in response to Katrina, not in response to other issues that have devastated the American people — the war in Iraq — we saw tears in response to her appearance. So her appearance brought her to tears, but not Hurricane Katrina.”
This was a very clever dog whistle, being designed, as it was, to get the attention of both racist and sexist Obama supporters. The intention could not have been more clear had JJJr. come out and said, “Hey y’all, this white bitch is trying to play us with that woman shit.” Of course, like Salon, Slate pooh-poohed the whole idea of sexist dog whistles, a form of dog whistling in reverse, when you think about it:
Barack Obama brought up Hillary Clinton’s period! “I understand that Senator Clinton periodically,” (See? He said it!) “when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.” Clearly, he was saying his rival ought to look into hormone replacement therapy.
What, this sexism is too subtle for you? Not for pro-Clinton blogger Taylor Marsh, who accused Obama of “demeaning women,” or even straight-down-the-middle Andrea Mitchell, who said on MSNBC, “When you start describing a female candidate as being ‘down’ and ’striking back,’ I don’t know, that’s a little edgy, don’t you think?” Karen Stabiner, the author of well-received books about single-sex education and breast cancer, wrote that when she heard what Obama had said, “That was the moment when I, and other women of a certain age, all over the country, winced. The change candidate had embraced one of the oldest clichés in the book—that women are held hostage by emotion, that we can’t be trusted with the big decisions because, depending on our age, we’re either on the rag or having a hot flash.”
Eric Holder, America’s first African American Attorney General under America’s first black President, said in a speech to Department of Justice employees celebrating Black History Month, that we are a “nation of cowards“ because we don’t like to talk candidly about race. This is wrong on so many levels.
Any time we still have to describe people and their accomplishments as “history making” based on skin color, we have a problem with race. It’s 2009, for Goodness sakes, and we still have cause to celebrate racial “firsts.” Not only that, we’ve barely scratched the surface; we have yet to have our “first black” lots of things, like, Senate Majority Leader; hell we’ve barely had any black Senators, given that the nation’s fifth is now president. We, as a nation, have never had a Native American much of anything politically significant, either; the same is true for many other racially diverse groups. And, as we all know, our history regarding women’s history, contributions, and employment issues, not to mention those of LGBT people living openly, and people living with disabilities, is woefully deficient.
But, does not talking about it make us cowards? What good does endless recriminatory discussion do? Does that really advance anybody’s cause, or does it merely inflame passions needlessly?
In this little community we’ve established here in this little corner of the blogosphere, nobody is required to declare their race, ethnicity, gender, or anything else, nor are they expected to check them at the door, unless they choose to, and we seem to get along pretty well. Our commonality is based on things other than physical characteristics, like opinion and ideology. How we think and feel is much more important than how we look, love or pee.
Barack Obama should not be president because he’s black, Eric Holder should not be attorney general for that reason, either. Because that issue was promoted as justification for their attaining their respective positions, many of us were offended, while, to be honest, many more felt vindicated. The disappointment was not limited to people of any particular group, though African Americans disproportionately embraced the counter opinion. Just as many men felt, and still feel, that Hillary Clinton was the better Democratic choice, and many white Republicans felt similarly about John McCain, many black Americans, like me, feel that Barack Obama was not. Race and gender most often had nothing to do with it.
I call our president Black Obama because his racial background played far too large a part in his election. When he secured the nomination of his party, fraudulently in my opinion, that fraud was validated by “the historic nature of his candidacy,” blah, blah, blah. His, and his campaign’s, deliberate, subtle, and blatant exploitation of his racial background was shameful to me. Race should never trump integrity. Just because we’ve never had a black president is no reason to embrace this one.
Yet, once he was elected, all sorts of racial baggage was either laid at his feet, or more often, exonerated, while the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement’s triumphs was awarded to him simply because of who his father happened to be. His own lack of accomplishment, experience, preparedness and qualification was magically rendered irrelevant because he’s a black man.
Seems to me, as long as all we’re expected to do is talk about what’s wrong, and what has been wrong in the past, those things will continue to happen, and continue to be wrong. Once we decide that these things don’t deserve discussion, contemplation, or consideration, there won’t be anything to talk about, anyway. When it comes to equality and diversity, let’s all just shut up and do the damned thing.
That being said, when racism, sexism and/or any other “-ism” rears its ugly head, it should be immediately, and uncategorically, rejected by all. The only caveat, and it’s a big one, is that “-isms” are like pornography, hard to define quantitatively. While we claim to know it when we see it, ultimately, offense is in the eye of the beholder. On those occasions, just like any other when one experiences hurt at the hands of another, protest is only to be expected. Yet that protest should be limited to that particular incident; revisiting old issues only opens old wounds and diverts attention from the problem at hand, greatly increasing the odds that nothing will be resolved. “You hurt my feelings,” will usually result in an immediate apology, “you always hurt my feelings,” will probably result in a fight.
…”we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
I think he’s half right; we, as average Americans, don’t talk to each other, period. If we did, race would probably never come up. And when, and if, it did, we’d probably be able to work it out.
For all those who say groping a cardboard cutout of the Secretary of State-designate is no big deal, consider this. Women have put up with so much shit this election cycle that we’re just sick of it. At least during the primaries and general election, a weak case could be made that what was at play was just warring camps using, and accusing each other of using, the dirty tricks of racism vs. sexism to some misguided idea of political advantage, but at this point in the game, there’s just no excuse. Favreau’s bad judgment, leading to his own bad luck, is that he got caught indulging in sexist behavior just for the fun of it. Well, enough is enough. This time, women should not “get over it.” And, nobody should ask us to.
Screw James Carville, and the “just havin’ a little fun wit’ cardboard” excuse. If the little word thief is so repentant and apologetic, why is the offensive photo still up on Favreau’s Facebook page?
We are a nation of schizophrenics. Not in the clinical sense; in the popular culture definition sense of happily holding dear diametrically opposed views at the same time. We are tolerant bigots who elect a black man president while the majority of black voters vote down a gay rights measure. We support equal rights for all, except when it’s inconvenient. All men are created equally superior to women. We champion religious freedom for those who believe as we do. Those who don’t, have no place at our table. That’s just who we, as a nation, are. Deal with it.
At the forum shown in the following video clip, whenever and wherever it was, a panel of men discuss sexism against women in this year’s presidential election. Seriously. One of them, outgoing DeaNC chairman Howard Dean, makes clear the case that racism trumped sexism in the Democratic primaries, unfairly marginilizing Hillary Clinton, and trvializing the concerns of women who supported her as fervently as black Americans embraced the historic nature of Barack Obama’s candidacy and ultimate election. Not that Dean admits personal culpability, no siree, Bob. Everybody hated his neutrality, according to him. Somehow, the fact that he has been actively involved with Barack Obama since his Democracy for America (formerly Dean for America) tapped him as one of Dean’s Dozen in 2004, and whose 50 state strategy, DFA grassroots mobilization, and internet fundraising model was used to help him get elected to the Senate and the presidency, just didn’t happen to come up.
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-electBarack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.
Yet, who can forget the Asheville, North Carolina grade school teacher, Diantha Harris, intimidating children for supporting John McCain?
Then there’s the Sarah Palin thing. Just like nobody but Hillary supporters cared about “Bro’s Before Ho’s” t-shirts, “Sarah Palin is a cunt” t-shirts were perfectly fine with most Democrats, it seems. And it’s okey-dokey to hang Palin in effigy, doing so might raise the ire of some neighbors and other rabid feminists, and eventually garner attention from the authorities, but hang Obama the same way and expect to get arrested, pronto. Everybody knows hanging a black man is worse than hanging a white woman. Sheesh, even the L.A.County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said so:
Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.
“That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country,” he said, adding he’s not sure whether it would be a hate crime. “It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that.”
Yep, we like our prejucices, and do not believe for a minute that whichever one we like the most is nearly as bad as the one you prefer. Let’s face it, the only use we have for “honest” discussions about various forms of “feel good about yourself by putting down others” hate, is when it comes to assigning blame for our problems to somebody else.
The day after the “historic election of America’s first black president” I wrote a post called, “The Struggle Is Over,” where I speculated that white Americans who voted for a black man for president, whatever their stated reasons, were partially motivated by a desire to free themselves and the nation from the burden of “white guilt,” and would no longer tolerate protestations of systemic disadvantage by black people. I wrote:
Now that America has elected Barack Obama, “the struggle” is officially over. We are all equal; if you’ve got problems, they’re your fault. The feel-good liberals who voted to disprove the validity of our shared racial history will have no further patience for complaint. “Whaddaya mean? Ya got a black president!” Expect to hear variations of that refrain a lot in the next four years.
Well, it seems that not only “feel-good liberals” who voted for Obama are “feeling good” for their liberalism, staunch conservatives are positively giddy. Tom Adkins, said to be the publisher of CommonConservative.com, writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Era of White Guilt is over.
This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn’t give a fluff about skin color and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively working with America-hating domestic terrorists. Yet white Americans made Barack Obama their leader. Therefore, as of Nov. 4, 2008, white guilt is dead.
So today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. For more than a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 1960s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution to the country’s problems. But if a black man can become president, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama destroys the validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.
Adkins gleefully dismisses all the black individuals and entities he can think of who have dedicated themselves to the fight for racial equality as being suddenly, yet emphatically, irrelevant:
Congressional Black Caucus? Irrelevant. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.)? Shut up. ACORN? Outlawed. Black Panthers? Go home and pet your kitty. Black separatists? Find another nation that offers better dreams. To those Eurosnots who forged careers hating America? I’m still waiting for the first black French president.
No more quotas. No more handouts. No more complaining that “the man” is keeping you down. “The man” is now black.
Even as they rail against the election of the nation’s first black president, some white supremacist leaders are claiming that people have flocked to their organizations since Barack Obama’s victory.
“The League of the South is reporting a surge in new members within hours of the results from yesterday’s elections,” proclaimed an E-mail that the neo-Confederate group sent to supporters the day after the election. “League president, Dr. Michael Hill, stated that it is from an awakening of many Southerners that the constitutional Republic is now dead and has been replaced with a national socialist empire.”
Don Black, who runs the leading white supremacist hate site Stormfront.org, boasted in an online post Wednesday afternoon that his website was seeing six times its usual traffic. “There are a lot of angry White people out there looking for answers,” he wrote. “Let’s show them. We will not be defeated.”
The same kinds of claims were made after Obama secured the Democratic nomination however, it didn’t seem to hurt him in the general election. There was that thwarted “top hat and white tuxedo” assassination attempt, though. And just the other day, CNN reported that most Americans thought Obama would heal our racial divide:
The public thinks it’s likely that Obama will improve race relations, improve economic conditions, bring stability to the financial markets, make the U.S. safer from terrorism, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce global warming, win the war in Afghanistan and remove U.S. troops from Iraq without causing a major upheaval in that country.
As many African Americans bask in the reflective glow of Obama’s so-called “monumental, historic achievement” on their (our) behalf, Reuters has a story today of young black people who say, “wait up, not so fast:”
The election of the first black president in U.S. history should send a powerful signal to young black Americans: If Barack Obama made it, so can you.
But some African Americans living in inner city Atlanta said that while Obama is a role model his life appeared so far removed from their own struggles that it was difficult to see how they could use it to spur their own success.
There are about a gazillion “what Obama means for racism” stories floating around on the internet, but the truth is, Obama’s election doesn’t amount to much in that regard at all. Race relationships in this country are just as complex today as they were the day before the election, as they were thirty years ago. While those who voted for Obama pat themselves on the back, and those who didn’t, pat themselves on the back for being part of a country that has progressed to the point that it can pat itself on the back, disproportionate numbers of black men still languish in jail, huge numbers of black families still live in poverty, and inner-city schools still suck. Nobody sitting in an overcrowded county hospital emergency room seeking substandard medical care they couldn’t pay for on November 3, can suddenly walk into a private hospital today and demand treatment.
If we’re completely honest with ourselves and each other, we would admit that a politician like say, Bobby Rush or Willie Brown probably wouldn’t make it past the primaries, even if they could marshal the forces necessary to get into them in the first place. They’re too black. For Democrats. If Barack Obama didn’t have an exotic background story to tell, he wouldn’t be…well, Barack Obama. He’s be just another Illinois state senator, since it’s doubtful an ordinary black guy gets the support and greasing through the system Obama enjoyed. If he had a mustache, or was a beefier, darker-skinned, “by his own bootstraps” kind of black man, he’d be toast. The truth is, racism wasn’t overcome with the election of Barack Obama, racism is what got him elected.
The race baiting of camp Barack Obama has pissed me off since the primaries. His “post-racial” both sides of his mouth, in your face, hands off, passive/aggressive, taunting/pleading has been both painful and frightening to watch. As I head off to the voting booth tomorrow, I will do the one thing in my power to stop such “race-rallying by proxy,” I will vote against it.
“Selma got me born” was a bald-faced lie. Selma, the violence associated with the historic march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and it’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement had nothing to do with Hawaiian teen hot pants for Kenyans, and to even have the gall to suggest such a thing is worthy of rebuke and scorn.
Lyndon Baines Johnson passed the Civil Rights Bill. Martin Luther King’s leadership created an environment where doing the right thing by the president became imperative, regardless of the political implications. Saying that one will take a Johnsonian approach to today’s black issues is a promise to pursue a results-driven agenda. To demean this sort of commitment, as Camp B.O. did of Hillary Clinton’s Martin Luther King Day speech, is shamelessly inexcusable. That he got away with his lame, yet now predictable “unfortunate” characterization, is worse. Clinton’s “it took a president to get the job done,” is historically accurate grade school civics. It takes a president to sign legislation. Obama’s comment makes no sense for a “constitutional lawyer:”
“She made an unfortunate remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson,” he said. “I haven’t remarked on it. And she offended some folks who thought she diminished the role about King and the civil rights movement. The notion that this is our doing is ludicrous.”
“I’d have to see him dance.“ This one did it for me. The Jim Crow buck-and-wing stereotype is so ingrained in our culture that Barack Obama was not only not called to task for invoking it, he was applauded by blacks and whites alike. How dare they? Yet, when some marginal Hillary Clinton surrogate used the phrase “shucking and jiving,” it, along with other, more dubious examples of “race-baiting,” was decried as “proof positive” that the Clinton campaign was wholly comprised of vicious, unscrupulous, race-baiters willing to engage in the worst sort of low politics in their brazen attempts to smear a black man to their advantage.
The other, well documented instances of Obama and his minions crying foul at every reference to the color black, while at the same time claiming post-racial “above-it-all-ness,” while at the same time exploiting and demeaning black Americans for the sake of scoring Brownie points with “color-blind” white Americans, are too numerous to mention. Yet, guilt-ridden, smug-assed, supercilious white people of influence who have likey never been closer to an inner-city neighborhood than their morning commute will allow them to skirt, perpetuated the myth that there was something noble in supporting a “not-too-black” candidate, primarily for the symbolism involved.
Barack Obama and his merry band of assuagers have played the one-note racism song with virtuosity. They should not be allowed to exploit America’s troubled racial legacy this way. As we head into election day, the song sung black is getting louder and more discordant, yet, unfortunately there is no sign that it will be any less effective. The Christian Science Monitor is running one such piece online. In a story of an insular white man, coerced into canvassing for Obama by his wife, we are treated to his eye-opening epiphany that black people need something to believe in. Guess what Mister, they’re human. Buy a freaking clue. This sappy, drippy essay proves only that the author needs to get out more.
A New York Times article headlined, “McCain Finds Some Hope In Philadelphia,” assures us that the large number of bigots in the area gives McCain a shot. We have been told over and over again that being black is a disadvantage that could cost Obama up to six points due the “Bradley effect,” or the cowardliness of white voters determined not to vote for a black man, but too chicken to admit it. Or, maybe, a “reverse Bradley effect” will net him six points. What about the “novice effect,” or the “empty suit effect,” or do no other factors come into play when a candidate is black? What about the hoped-for increase in African American voter turnout? Where’s the cute, comfy, feelgood name for that effect?
As a black woman, I’m tired of watching my “positive image-starved” sisters and brothers be played by this overconfident “cock-of-the-walk” con man whose only accomplishment is running for office, and whose only known attribute is a willingness to win using any means neccessary. While la-di-da liberals and all other manner of starry-eyed white Americans vote for their own need to reinforce a mythical image of an America that never was, and is unlikely to be, as long as rubber-stamping Hollywood script-written “reality” is the extent of committment to real social change, I’ll cast my vote elsewhere. A lie of this magnitude should not be rewarded.
Susan Estrich once again puts forth the notion that the only reason Barack Obama might lose this election is because of racism. She cannot for the life of herself, understand how anyone could be troubled by Senator Obama’s dubious funding, or his campaign’s race-baiting, or his system gaming thuggery during the primaries. Nope, it’s racist alright, to be even a teensy bit uncomfortable with Obama’s lack of experience and accomplishment, or to question the character of a man who would lie about how often he went to church. He made the “Greatest Speech On Race In The History Of America, Nay The World” to explain it, didn’t he? Doesn’t bother Ms. Estrich at all that said senator withdrew from said church on the same day his party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee violated their own rules to award him delegates he didn’t even bother to compete for. Uh-uh, it’s race.
Golly, gosh, gee whiz, Susan, give it a rest, will ya? It’s not now, nor has it ever been, about race. To think so, is just stupid.
I know, I know. It’s a provocative headline. But I couldn’t bring myself to use the title of the article to which I refer, which, in my opinion, is much worse:
White people shouldn’t be allowed to vote
It’s for the good of the country and for those who’re bitter for a reason and armed because they’re scared.
For the good of the country? If the author, Jonathan Valania, chief editor of the blog, Phawker.com, really cared about the “good of the country” he would stop blogging. What is it with these “chief editors,” anyway? At any rate, here’s why Valania thinks white people shouldn’t vote, in his own words, ‘cuz I’m not that good:
As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don’t think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.
I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.
In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)
Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin rally.
Exhibit C would be Ed Rendell and John Murtha, who in separate moments of on-the-record candor they would come to regret, pointing out that there are plenty of people in Pennsylvania who just cannot bring themselves to pull the lever for a black man – no matter what they tell pollsters.
These people are ruining things for the rest of us white people who are ready to move on. Sure, they have their reasons, chimerical though they may be: He’s a Muslim. He’s a terrorist. He’s a Muslim terrorist. He’s going to fire all the white people and give their jobs to blacks.
But those are just the little white lies these people allow themselves to be told, a self-induced cognitive dissonance that lets them avoid saying the unsayable: I cannot pull the lever for a black man.
Uh, Jonny, white people should be scared, even though, “black” and “Muslim” have nothing to do with it. “Inexperienced” and “liar” are much more compelling, fear-inducing reasons to oppose Barack Obama. And before you “move on” to the “she must be racist” rigmarole, for your information, I’m a life-long African American. Maybe if you did “move on,” you might get to the place where you lost your freaking mind and pick it up and use it, if it’s not too damaged.
Racism is alive and well in America, a truth that has manifested itself repeatedly in this year’s election cycle. While small fires of bigotry have popped up repeatedly in the last year or so, the flames have mainly been fanned by those sympathetic to (say it with me) “the historic nature of the first viable African American candidate, blah, blah, blah,” obsessively pointing fingers and calling out all incidents of perceived racism, real or (mainly) imagined, while the candidate himself stereotypes Popeye’s chicken-eating people named “Pookie” and equates presidential blackness with minstrel-esque dancing ability.
In this news story that I was lead to via the comments section of Sugar N Spice, a California women’s organization (like the creators of Obama Waffles) feigns innocence regarding their blatantly racist email.
The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women’s group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.
The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” — a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.”
The group’s president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club’s meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”
The article quoted is from an Inland California newsletter, Press-Enterprise.com and was picked up by the LA Times, which links to an anti-Sarah Palin site for equal time. These examples of racism and misogyny are without a doubt deplorable, and should have no place in any civil discourse. Period. However, the fact they they do exist does not justify support for or against anything but the fact that they exist. For anyone to make the leap that because some bigot is indeed a bigot, means that they should vote for whoever the bigot hates, is just stupid.
While I’m happy for Politico, I’m delighted that somebody is finally looking at the issue of race and racism realistically, and not through the distorted lens of the Obama campaign. For Camp O, America’s racial legacy is a well to be drawn from for their advantage. Obama has not explored race, he has exploited it. CNN, sadly, is still in enabling Obama mode:
“When it gets real bad, and they never — with this one — look you in the eye, ‘Well, I can’t vote for him,’ ” McEntee told the diverse union audience. “This doesn’t even come out in code — it comes out like this: ‘I can’t vote for him because he is a black man. He’s not one of us.’ Well, sisters and brothers, when you hear that, you know what you ought to say? This is what I say: ‘That is bull—-! That is total, absolute bull—-!’ “
While I’m sure whoever the union guy is who quoted these unknown racists has heard this kind of garbage before, Politico explains the reality:
First, many pundits disregard, or at least undervalue, the share of voters who will vote for Obama because of his race. This group includes not only moderate and conservative blacks who otherwise might have voted for McCain but also (and more significantly) blacks who otherwise would not have voted at all. It also includes whites across the political spectrum who will vote for Obama at least in part because they wish to place the legacy of slavery and racism behind us. Indeed, six percent of white voters indicated as much in a recent AP-Yahoo! Poll.
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Never mind that Obama has a tissue-thin resume, that he repeatedly voted against laws to protect babies born alive after botched abortions or that he has ties to unrepentant terrorists and radical pastors. And never mind that Obama compiled the most liberal voting record in the Senate last year and is running one of the most liberal campaigns in modern American history. The media elites seem unable to imagine that Obama’s extreme liberalism might trouble voters in a country that remains fundamentally conservative. This is the same party that has lost five of the last seven elections by serially nominating liberal presidential candidates.
Look, the truth is, both articles contain a kernel of truth. There are certainly people who will vote for Obama because he’s black and there are also people who will not vote for him for the same reason. Some would even like to point to all kinds of charts and graphs and polls that show that it’s a wash. It’s not. Black people, if we indeed turn up in record numbers at the polls, which is by no means guaranteed, see Ohio early vote totals, will all be voting for Obama because he’s black. If asked, most will lie and try to make up justifications where none exist. White people who vote for him will do so for precisely the same reasons, primarily because there aren’t any others. Those Americans who, regardless of color, refuse to be guilt-tripped into sacrificing their vote for appearances sake, will not only not vote for him, they will cast their votes, in protest, where they will be most effective.
James Brown once famously sang, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” He’s somewhat less famous for singing, “Talkin’, Loud, Sayin’ Nothin’.” One of those song titles describes Barack Obama.
Politico, in their now-customary cautiously critical style, when it comes to Obama, tiptoes around the Democratic presidential candidate’s tendency to fence-sit and talk out of both sides of his mouth about everything. Regarding the current economic crisis, the article calls him “cautious” and “vague,” but does so in a way that makes the writer seem reluctant to hurt widdle Barwy’s feelings.
The result is that while virtually all observers agree that he has benefited from the crisis, his allies and critics alike remain a bit hazy on what exactly he would do if he takes office Jan. 20, 2009.
“A bit hazy?” The entire flickin’ world is going broke because of our financial practices, and “a bit hazy” is the best description these guys could come up with for “he doesn’t have a freaking clue?” The article ends with this ridiculous quote from some Obama suckophant, totally dismissing the voter’s right to a realistic basis of consideration:
“He’s being cautious, and he’s doing everything he can to leave his options open at this point,” said Baker. “I don’t think he sees any money in getting out there and saying, ‘Here’s my 47-point plan.’”
Didn’t Baker just say Obama doesn’t want to commit to anything so nobody can accuse him of reneging, or changing his mind? How could a “responsible journalist” let that go unchallenged? Never mind, we are talking Politico, here. Wouldn’t want to piss off the black guy’s peeps, would we guys?
To be fair, it’s not just Politico’s writers who seem intimidated by Obama’s blackness. The Boston Globe, in an article dated January 28, 2007, euphemistically refers to Obama’s characteristic equivocating as “even-handed.”
While other students were determined to prove the merits of their beliefs through logic and determination, Obama preferred to listen, seek others’ views, and find a middle way.
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Obama was so evenhanded and solicitous in his interactions that fellow students would do impressions of his Socratic chin-stroking approach to everything, even seeking a consensus on popcorn preferences at the movies. “Do you want salt on your popcorn?” one classmate, Nancy L. McCullough, recalled, mimicking his sensitive bass voice. “Do you even want popcorn?”
The fact that Obama never takes a difinitive stand he can’t wiggle out of is a symptom of a severe character flaw, not a virtue. The fact that the media is so reluctant to call him on it, or anything else, is a symptom that Obama’s intimidation by blackness tactics have been effective. Fearful of being called “racists” everybody grants this confidence man far more leeway than he deserves. The truth is, when he’s not fudging and dodging, he’s flat-out lying. The press should man up and call him on it. That’s not racist; racist is accepting that Barack’s black friends are scary enough to prevent you from doing your job.
Talk about a “silly season.” Barack Obama’s favorite line for characterizing political attacks against him by his opponents appears to apply especially well to him. Angered by Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” comments, the Obama campaign is threatening once again, to take off the gloves and attack back. This time, they’re focusing their now famous laser-like offensive intensity on John Mccain’s decades old involvement with the “Keating 5,” a group of politicians accused of influence peddling. Camp O will be making the case in a 13 minute internet video scheduled to air at noon, that McCain’s behavior in that instance is not only indicative of his inability to handle the current economic crisis, it laid the groundwork for it.
“I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.”
Meanwhile, AP-Yahoo News, in it’s “rapidly-becoming-famous” ridiculously illogical defense of Obama’s associations with radical William Ayers, quotes an Obama surrogate calling Palin a “fluffy bunny.” Way to get tough, guys:
“It’s a giant changing of the subject,” said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist. “The problem is the messenger. If you want to start throwing fire bombs, you don’t send out the fluffy bunny to do it. I think people don’t take Sarah Palin seriously.”
“Fluffy bunny?” Okaaaay. Maybe you shouldn’t send a “fluffy bunny” to throw firebombs, but you certainly shouldn’t use the phrase “fire bomb” in a defense of a guy who’s proud of setting them. And, you might not want to bring up a case implicating your own party in economic shenanigans as an indictment against your opponent. Ya think?
But AP’s Douglass K. Daniel goes one (or 20) step further by accusing Palin of what the New York Times calls “racism without racists,” or subliminal racism, in bringing to mind post 9/11 images of “dark skinned radical Muslims”. According to Daniel, any mention of terrorism is an attempt to smear Obama with racially based xenophobia. But, the terrorist in Palin’s comments was Ayers, not Obama, and that terrorism association is more likely to bring to mind Timothy McVeigh than Mohammed Atta. Unless Dougie knows something the rest of us don’t about Obama’s religion and extra-curricular activities, the racism charge is more than a stretch, it’s a trip down the rabbit hole.
And that “fluffy bunny” thing is just weird.
But then, the whole Obamanon (Obama phenomenon) is getting weird. In Virginia, a state Obama won handily in the primaries, his supporters are pulling out all the stops to head off potential racist voting by “getting it out in the open:”
When Cecil E. Roberts, president of the coal miners union that shapes politics in much of this mountain region, talks to voters, he tells them that their choice is to have “a black friend in the White House or a white enemy.” When Charlie Cox, an Obama supporter, hears friends fretting about Obama’s race, he reminds them that they pull for the nearby University of Tennessee football team, “and they’re black.”
Union organizer Jerry Stallard asks fellow coal workers what’s more important: improving their work conditions or holding onto their skepticism of Obama’s race, culture or religion. “We’re all black in the mines,” he tells them.
That oughta put those racists’ minds at ease. And, Lord knows, that “subliminal racism” is not always so “subliminal,” so you gotta fight it wherever you see it. Because if you get enough of it, and you let it go by, it might offset the 90+ percent of black people voting for Obama.
Maybe it’s just the fact that according to The Washington Post, the Republican National Committee is planning to call for an investigation into Obi-WanNaBePresident’s fundraising is what’s gotten Team O so discombobulated. Or maybe the Rasmussen Report that almost 60% of Americans polled are fed up with Congress, with almost half convinced that people picked randomly from the phone book could do a better job, that’s just got all politicians spooked.
Personally, I think we all walked through the looking glass and fell down the rabbit hole on our way to The Twilight Zone. Hope there are no “fluffy bunnies” down there; if there are, somebody might make a porno movie about them. And I imagine that could ruin Peeps for me forever.
That’s not really the premise of the Newsweek article I’m quoting, but it’s the gist. The article starts with talk-radio host, Michael Baisden asking the question:
‘How do we change our futures now that we have someone who might actually care about us in the race?’
Might? There’s a black man running for president and black people still aren’t sure he’s down with our program? This is a good thing? Anyway, the article quickly devolves into the now tiresomely predictable question supposedly keeping black people up at night, “what if he loses?” (Cue scary horror movie music with offstage scream, here.) Of course, the first person asked is…Snoop Dogg:
“People that I know that have never cared about politics are registering to vote this time: gang members, ex-cons, you name it,” says rapper Snoop Dogg. “I hate to see a lot of that hope go down the drain, and if he loses, it will.”
I’m sure Camp O will be encouraged to know their “gang member, ex-con get out the vote” efforts are working. We are then introduced to various reasons black people are supporting Obama, like, he’s married to a black woman:
“I’ve never forgotten that he is a smart, articulate black man with a smart, articulate black wife,” says Linda Wright, 34, a nurse’s assistant from Houston.
Our kids like him:
“My kids love Obama and they think it’s so obvious he should be the president,” says actor D. L. Hughley.
And, if he loses, we’ll be pissed:
“I’m going to be mad, real mad, if he doesn’t win,” says Daetwon Fisher, 21, a construction worker from Long Beach, Calif. “Because for him to come this far and lose will be just shady and a slap in black people’s faces.
Daetwon is also down for whatever if that happens:
I know there is already talk about protests and stuff if he loses, and I’m down for that.”
Baisden’s pleas for people to chill show that his heart is in the right place, even though his logic is faulty:
“Look, if he loses we have no one to blame but ourselves because that meant we all didn’t go out and vote in the numbers we should have,” says Baisden. “Yes, people will be upset, but it will be in a productive way. There will be a rational reaction if things are fair.”
Uh, Mike, every black person in America could vote for Obama twice and he’d still lose if that’s the only support he gets. Good to know that as long as things are not perceived to be “shady” we won’t riot, like the racists keep saying we will. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who pushes that garbage, black or white, for whatever reason, is racist. And you know what, it’s even good to know that people like Jacon Richmond, who served time for marijuana possession and once thought voting was pointless, is now feeling empowered, even though it’s kind of sad that he’s still not sure exactly how to feel:
“I know it’s crazy to go from not thinking a black man counts to thinking one should win the president of the United States for sure, but I’m not sure how I’ll handle that if it doesn’t happen.”
While I certainly understand the expressed sentiments, I can’t get past the word “might” in the first statement. That black Americans are being exploited to vote for a man they’re not 100% convinced is on their side after damned near 2 years of campaigning, pisses me off. And you can add that to the laundry list of reasons why this black woman won’t vote for him; right under number one, his race-baiting sucks.
Given the recent spate of articles in the press about America’s pervasive undercurrent of latent racism, like this, and this, as well as this, this, this, and this, and it’s potential to derail the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama, it’s time to revisit Geraldine Ferraro’s controversial comments about the role such racism plays. On March 11, 2008, ABC News’ Jake tapper reported:
Clinton campaign finance committee member, former vice presidential candidate, and former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-NY, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Ca., that, “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.”
Of Clinton, Ferraro said that the press “has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.”
“I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship. Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship – that’s the way our country is.”
Let’s see, right off the bat, it’s pretty obvious that if Obama was white, Ferraro never would have had a reason to make that statement and would still be considered a grande dame of the Democratic party. It’s just as obvious that Barack Obama would also not have thrown his hat in the ring this year and would not now be said party’s nominee. Even he knows that much.
It’s hard to imagine that the Democrats would have supported the presidential run of the 99th ranked, brash young senator from Illinois under any other circumstances. He has no breakout legislation to his credit, he does not come from a political family, he is not a veteran and he has some rather “eyebrow raising” associations.
Obama’s resume would not be nearly as compelling if he were white. He probably would never have been invited to speak at the 2004 convention. He surely would not have been assured of 90 percent of the black vote in the primaries if Hillary and Bill Clinton had not been characterized as an out-of-touch, racially insensitive, white couple, making black America’s identification with Obama’s ethnicity more sympathetic.
John Kerry’s assessment of his protege’s foreign affairs potential would have had even less basis, and Obama’s articulate, eloquence might not have been considered quite as noteworthy, either, if he ever did have occasion to display it. How many rock concert-sized crowds does the average US Senator ranked 99th in seniority get to address?
I came to Washington with a celebrity that, to be honest, was a bit inflated, and a bit undeserved. What many people don’t realize is that in the Senate, it’s seniority, not celebrity, that’s important. Right now, I’m 99th in seniority in the minority party, so when I got here they handed me a toothbrush and said, hey Obama, go clean the bathrooms.
If Obama was a white man, it’s almost a certainty that he would never have joined Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church, even if he embraced the United Church of Christ. Videos of Wright’s sermons could have been sold on the internet forever without creating enough of an uproar to cause Obama to give a history making speech “worthy of Abraham Lincoln, in an ultimately futile attempt to cover his ass.
If Obama was white, his life story wouldn’t be very interesting, either. For one thing, he wouldn’t be Obama. At least his name wouldn’t be. There’d be no “Kenyan father, white mother from Kansas,” or “skinny kid with a funny name,” or “Selma got me born” stories to exploit. The fact that he went to Harvard would be no big deal, since 7 other white alumni have already broken that well trod ground. Jr. Harvard Grad, son of Mr. and Mrs. Average America is, well, pretty ordinary in politics.
The question is not only “what role will racism play in Obama’s potential defeat?” but also, “how many ways did racism help him secure the nomination?” Because, the most striking, yet always unspoken, truth is that if Barack Obama was an urban black man, he probably wouldn’t even be a senator. On the other hand, if Obama was a white man, Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee.
Bottom line?
If Barack Obama was not a mixed-race black man, he would not be where he is.
And the country wouldn’t owe Geraldine Ferraro half an apology.
*UPDATE: Today’s obligatory Politico article about race and Obama gives us some insight into the candidate’s long-held feelings on the subject. Quoting Obama after the NH primary, (the one where Jesse Jackson, Jr. invoked the image of O. J. Simpson “attacking a white woman” to contextualize the scope of his challenge against Hillary Clinton) Obama said at the time:
“I’m less interested in a conversation about race in the abstract,” he said. “All the self-flagellation, it’s not useful. African-Americans get all riled up, and whites get defensive.”
Wonder what the cross-bred offspring of Munchkins and Keebler elves do.
It seems that everybody else has. Most of the people bringing up the race of the Democratic nominee do so in an attempt to explain away his potential loss. Some of those mentioning Obama’s blackness are clearly in need of supervision. Dick Meyer, writing for NPR, seems to fit into both categories. It is his theory that the subconscious racism of undecided voters will be the determining factor in their ultimate decision to vote against him.
This polling indicates something else astonishing to the politically plugged in: Many undecideds haven’t really connected their negative feelings about race to Obama yet. Their view of Obama is unformed, and their negative feelings toward African-Americans could be easily triggered when they finally tune in.
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But some who have been doing recent research on race believe there is a current of racism that has not been triggered and that is likely to be — perhaps triggered intentionally by Republicans, but also as a natural consequence of the undecided voters finally focusing. And plenty of pundits and advice-givers think Obama is not doing enough to minimize or counter the racial impulses of undecided voters. (I am not convinced there is any way to spin this: What is, is.)
That someone who would suppose something might happen if something undocumented and unproven happens to happen, would then claim that his suppositions amount to the reality of “is,” obviously indicates a cerebral malfunction of some sort, resulting in seriously flawed thinking. Yet, Mr. Meyer is not alone. Time’s Karen Tumulty says John McCain is already trying to capitalize on America’s pervasive undercurrent of subliminal racism. She says the following ad is racist.
While Tumulty believes the attack on Obama’s record to be fair game, the fact that Franklin Raines is featured is a problem:
This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.
Let me stipulate: Obama’s Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn’t even mention a far more significant tie–that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama’s vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama’s principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black.
The idea that two black men being accused of unethical activity is racist, is in itself racist. Washington Post linked Obama/Raines on more than one occasion, here, and, in an article on the candidates and the economy called “Tough Decision Coming,” on August 28:
McCain also released a second ad feturing Jim Johnson the following day. The monumentally devastating impact on women, blacks and other minority victims of the sub prime mortgage crisis has been examined by The Nation, USA Today, The New York Times and The Boston Globe, to name but a few. The role of racism inherent in the exploitation of minorities by the sub prime lending industry and its effects in the current crisis is the real story. Since the referenced racism is so hard to see in the above examples, being mainly implied and inferred, one can only conclude that these are cases of personal projections, or, of the pot calling the kettle white. And, yet, the attacks about imaginary racism against Barack Obama, just keep on coming. From Ohio’s WYTV:
Monday afternoon, state Representatives Bob Hagan of Youngstown and Tom Letson of Warren met with reporters.
They argue many voters who call themselves “Democrats” or “Independents”, but won’t vote for Obama, have only one excuse, with Letson saying, “I would say that a lot of it is they’re not going to vote for ‘the black guy’”.
According to Politico, when asked what happens if Obama fails to win, Donna Brazile also got into the act:
“If he doesn’t, then Obama didn’t lose,” she said. “The country just wasn’t ready.”
Yet, none of these race card plays are as inexcusable as the one made by “comedienne” Sandra Bernhard in her re-vamped “Without You, I’m Nothing” show. The New York Daily News comments on one of many intentionally provocative and controversial lines in the show:
The Republican V.P. nom would be “gang-raped by my big black brothers” if she enters Manhattan, Bernhard said. Palin is said to be making a campaign stop in New York next week.
Forgive me if gang-rape jokes don’t greet my ears as oddly and subtly positive, as the Examiner suggests, and forgive me if gang-rape jokes aren’t “a rotating sprinkler that a spectator washes in most happily,” like the Washington Post insists.
First of all, Sandra doesn’t have any “big, black brothers,” and anyone who equates black maleness with gang rape does not deserve any. The invocation of D. W. Griffith-esque imagery of lust-crazed black savages hell-bent on ravaging a white woman, at the behest of another white woman, no less, is too irresponsible to justify the energy and creativity it would take to channel the generated vitriol required to denounce it properly.
The sudden increase in the number of baseless cries of racism on Barack Obama’s behalf are more than troubling, they are as scary as they are creepy and wrong. If, and when, Obama loses, it will be because he is the lousiest candidate imaginable and the American people will have woken up to the fact that they have become the victims of the world’s largest scale practical joke. Racism will have nothing to do with it. Racial manipulation by ill-intentioned political pranksters with no regard for the potentially devastating consequences of their misguided and irresponsible actions will be behind the door of the house upon whose steps blame should be placed.
Every time Hillary Clinton makes an appearance on behalf of Barack Obama, she makes him look bad. She doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s not even her fault; she says and does all the right things, with much more sincerity evident in her demeanor than one might imagine possible. The problem for Barack is, she just looks so damned impressively presidential doing it.
Every time she offers a suggestion about how a Democratic presidential candidate should handle an issue, it highlights another Obama deficiency. Those rabidly suffering wretches infected with virulent cases of Clinton Derangement Syndrome will, of course, suggest that she’s doing it on purpose, just to make Obama look bad. Once again, the Obama Delusionally Faithful give their Messiah way too much credit.
Hillary Clinton is the superior candidate. To Barack Obama. To John McCain. To Bill Clinton. That’s what her supporters saw, and what made us vote for her. That’s what made the sexism and downright mysogyny directed at her so infuriating. That’s what made the bogus racial exploitation by her opponent, with the blessings of the greedy, misguided Democratic leadership, so egregious.
While Obama flounders in the waters of his own political undoing, further fouling his prospects for rescue by pissing in the pool, he might want to consider that deploying Hillary Clinton to do his dirty work is like asking someone to throw you a cement lifeline. Even a sincere desire to fulfill your request puts you down.
Hillary’s GMA interview this morning was bittersweet. She looked relaxed and comfortable, sounded poised and composed, and, as always, had a firm grasp of the issues. She handled the questions easily, even the attempted “gotcha” ones about Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. She expressed her disappointment with the outcome of the primaries while imploring her supporters to vote Democratic. She said she was excited to work for an Obama/Biden ticket, and in the process of doing her very best to make them both look good, made them both look pitiful.
The DeaNC, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, et al, should have remembered something I’m sure Donna Brazile’s mama taught her:
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get stuck with it.
Those who love New Orleans say Hurricane Gustav is proof that the billions of dollars spent to protect the city and bring it back to life after the devastating 2005 storm season was worth it.
Why on earth would it not be “worth it?” Can you measure a person’s home strictly in a “dollars and cents” sense? Why depict a suffering black family in conjunction with such a question, as this article does? Where does this fit into the current American narrative of Barack Obama being the realization of “The Dream?”
The Nation says white folks are using Hurricane Katrina to push black people out of their neighborhoods.
“It’s been like a wildfire,” said Lucia Blacksher, general counsel for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, an advocacy group that has been leading the fight against post-Katrina housing discrimination. “Local governments have been creating legal barriers–legal, in the sense they created laws–to prevent people who are African-American from returning. And I’m saying that because we all know what we’re talking about here. Affordable housing or multifamily housing is where African-Americans lived. And if you don’t let that kind of housing back, you’re not going to give people who are African-American or Latino an opportunity to live [here].”
I’ve said publicly that I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially-based. The ineptitude was colorblind.
Senator Obama tends to run away from questions of a positive agenda regarding race. On February 9, 2007 he said:
“If I’m talking about the issues that matter to people, if we do a good job in letting people know who I am and what I stand for … they’ll make their judgment not based on my race but based on how well they think I can lead this country,” Obama told USA TODAY.
Yet when one enjoys almost unilateral support from any group of people, shouldn’t those people be able to expect something in return? Can the fear of an imagined backlash from white voters justify a black heir to a dream of racial equality avoiding putting black issues of any sort on the table? An aspect of this question was discussed by Dr. Julianne Malveaux and Dr. Cornell West on the Tavis Smiley Show, regarding Obama’s acceptance of his historic nomination as Democratic Party candidate for president on the forty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. When asked if she thought Obama’s speech lived up to the hype, Dr. Malveaux replied:
Not at all. My heart’s broken, actually. I hoped to hear more about Dr. King. As we’ve talked about before we came on, I hoped to hear more about the poverty numbers, about the third anniversary of Katrina, but also hoped to have this brother hit one out of the park…
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…But beyond stumbling, that he could not mention the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that Dr. King was reduced to some preacher from Georgia, is just a disappointment.
Senator Obama wants to have his cake and eat it too, and black voters, by giving unconditional support, are allowing him to get away with it. But to whose ultimate benefit? The Huffington Post is putting out the “Ward Connerly wants to end Affirmative Action” stuff again.
With Barack Obama officially nominated as the Democrats’ Presidential nominee, is it time to re-think affirmative action? Ward Connerly, a long-time affirmative action opponent , thinks so.
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“I think that in some quarters, many parts of the country, a white male is really disadvantaged,” Connerly, who considers himself multi-racial, tells NOW. “Because we have developed this notion of women and minorities being so disadvantaged and we have to help them, that we have, in many cases, twisted the thing so that it’s no longer a case of equal opportunity. It’s a case of putting a fist on the scale.”
Barack Obama’s performance as Pretendident In Name Only has not disappointed me in the least. I never expected him to do jackshit in the first place. I never expected the American people to put up with his obvious bullshit and lack of “eptitude” for this long just because they’re scared of of all things black, especially people, though, either.
fear. We wear it every day like a second skin as our second nature public mask. From the wide-eyed, furtive glances meant to be discrete from car-to-car in everyday traffic, to the stiffened backs of people in stores, banks, gas stations, lines of any sort for any reason, to the proximity within which kids are kept whenever the big, scary black person approaches to say, “hi!” we black people have become just as comfortable with keeping our distance without thinking about it, as non-black people are un-comfortable in our presence. We are used to being, perpetually, the Ultimate Stranger. “Hurry, give them what they want, maybe they’ll leave!”
When you live on what is arguably the most well-endowed National 
When I was a small child, I used to try to get my mother’s attention at times when she didn’t feel like being bothered. Sometimes this would happen when she had company over, and she would often continue her conversations with her invited guests as if I wasn’t there, or worse, as if the Ranger scolding 
Barack Obama bores me. But, then, he always has. The only remotely interesting thing about him is watching his fans slowly come around to the realization that pretending not to be as boring as he is, is pretty much the only thing he’s really good at. Yes, the befuddlement slowly dawning on their faces as they grapple with the fact that they’ve been majorly duped, is indeed a joy and wonder to behold. How they could ever have fallen for such rudimentary trickery never seems to cross their minds, however.
We be black. We was black befo’ Obama got elected, and we still black, nah. Summa y’all don’t like dat, an’ it piss y’all off. Y’all be trippin’. Y’all suck. Chill.
cannot see the same sort of racial bias right in front of their eyes. Though they are not only adept at recognizing overt discrimination directed towards them, but quite skilled at ferreting out intended sexism no matter how cleverly couched, even correctly identifying incidences where deliberate bigotry is intentionally dressed in politically correct clothes in order to escape detection, no such leeway is accorded those who empathize with those of us who suffer racially. 
I do not like Barack Obama. I never have. To me, he has always been overrated and unimpressive, much more hype than substance. I have never given him points for trying to “rise above” race by running away from all things black for the sake of protecting the sensibilities of the all-important whites. I believe his “hands-off-unless-critical-of-the-black-community-in-order-to-score-points-with-the-white” stance is much more damaging to the self-image of young black people than any possible benefit of the symbolism of electing a “black” man to the highest office in the land can ever possibly offset. Like Jesse Jackson, I agree that “talking down to black people” is an offense worthy of castration. If electing a black man president comes with such a high price tag, in my opinion, it’s simply not worth it for the sake of appearances.
Imagine, if you will, you’re a white person, recently promoted to a once-in-a-lifetime dream job, and transferred to a new, unfamiliar town. Once settling into your luxurious corporate digs, suppose you decide to take a stroll through town to kinda get the lay of the land, so to speak. As you leave the downtown area, you soon find yourself in a very pleasant, quiet neighborhood full of tree-lined streets and cul-de-sacs, well-maintained, stately upper middle class homes and trendy late-model cars. As you enjoy the beauty and serenity of your surroundings, say you begin to notice that passing cars often slow down imperceptibly as you walk by, that blinds and curtains behind large picture and bay windows often shift, and wooden doors seem to crack a notch in your wake.
In a speech akin to that of a 
Where’s the outrage from the left? 
It’s after 3:00 a.m. and I’m sitting here trying to write the post I had been composing in my head all day. I had great little news bits to work with, too; 
I am a black, gay, woman. According to popular conventional wisdom, being black and gay means I should hate myself, and be extremely grateful that, as a woman, I’m powerless to do anything about it. There are so many things wrong with politicizing fairness and equality that it makes the one thing that’s right about it, using it as a tool to effect change, sometimes seem hardly worth the cost. “Fair is fair” should be a no brainer any oppressed, or formerly oppressed, person should be able to wrap their heads all the way around. Yet, as an “African American” who, like most of my gleefully downtrodden brothers and sisters, has never seen the Mother Land, I am expected to be far more politically motivated by my victimization a a black person than by the exact same sort of victimization I might have experienced as a woman. I say “might have experienced” because the reality of gender oppression is not a recognized “given,” no matter how high the mountain of evidence proving it might be. I’m not even technically allowed to even call myself gay, either, since “gay” is an appellation appropriated by male homosexuals, me being relegated to the “L” in “
What’s up with the creepatoids employed in what passes for the journalism field nowadays, that they have their collective heads so far up the Creamy Chocolate Dream Date/Geek In A Spokesmodel’s Empty Suit’s ass that they couldn’t see the light of a sunny day after Lasik surgery with a Klieg light and a Guide Dog? Does David Axelrod slip them a nice piece of change from a Wall Street bankster-provided slush fund under the table on a regular basis to just run Favreau-penned fluff ‘n puff pieces under their byline? What? Maybe it’s just me, but when I see more than one, “The Pretendident’s Too Cool To Laugh At” piece online, I have to ask myself, “Self, what’s up with that shit?”
Good thing I’m not a 
So, I’m cruising the internet, got the top down, chillin’, no sweat, no worries, mon, right? And, I come across this interesting website. Cool beans, huh? Actually, what I just wrote is a bald faced lie. I was on another PUMA site, in the middle of yet another “what is racism since Obama fudged the lines to get elected?” mini-war, when I went surfing for perspective. Okay, not really. I was looking for backup, but, hey, I can cop out with the best of ‘em. I didn’t get very far in my perspective/backup search before I came across 
President Black Obama, the man who only discusses the issue of race directly when it comes to distancing himself from criticism regarding his 
Forget 
Eric Holder, America’s first African American Attorney General under America’s first black President, said in a speech to Department of Justice employees celebrating Black History Month, that we are a “
For all those who say groping a cardboard cutout of the Secretary of State-designate is no big deal, consider this. Women have put up with so much shit this election cycle that we’re just sick of it. At least during the primaries and general election, a weak case could be made that what was at play was just warring camps using, and accusing each other of using, the dirty tricks of racism vs. sexism to some misguided idea of political advantage, but at this point in the game, there’s just no excuse. Favreau’s bad judgment, leading to his own bad luck, is that he got caught indulging in sexist behavior just for the fun of it. Well, enough is enough. This time, women should not “get over it.” And, nobody should ask us to.
The day after the “historic election of America’s first black president” I wrote a post called, “
