Black Like Me

While being of mixed race should make him color blind, he campaigns as a black politician. Were I were a liberal, I wouldn't trust him.

Now if we can just get BrianR going again.

I do have a question for you, though. Given Obama's mixed heritage, I would assume that he has a choice in how he identifies himself and has chosen Black. He is in the running for a chance to be President and is currently a media darling and on that basis alone is a serious contender.

Does this not in and of itself represent a danger to Al and Jessie and their message of doom and gloom for Blacks in a White man's world? After all, they can't paint him as an Uncle Tom as easily as they've been able to dismiss the significant achievements of a number of successful Black Republicans like Condi, Clarence Thomas, Powell, etc.

Doesn't it also make it harder for Obama himself to play the race card, I'm so repressed I'm running for President so please vote for me?

Mr. Obama on the grounds that he has no substance and am prepared to leave it at that. His race has no bearing on the decision, nor does Hillary's gender. Hillary is the antithesis of what I believe and Obama has no deeply held beliefs, at least none he cares to openly share with us.

While obviously heartfelt, your take sounds more like a separatist gang position. "He's not black enough to be in my gang." Isn't that essentially a racist position? I haven't heard anyone, ANYONE, dismiss him because he was black. It is only the black community that feels free to openly display the racist position that he isn't black enough.

I'd be interested in hearing you explain how what appears to be blatant racism here, isn't? Truly no white person could say this or it's antonym, that he's too black, without properly receiving the same charge.

BTW, it's good to see you back up and blogging again.

I do not see what I said as racist in the least, and it was not I that injected race into the equation here; that was done long before I ever commented.

As much as we may like for race not to be a factor, it is and must be addressed. The media has made a huge deal of Obama being Black, and Sen. Biden's remarks added fuel to that fire, so I have decided to simply give my take on the challenges that Obama is facing in the Black community.

I do not contend that Obama is not Black or Black enough, I am simply saying that he does not have the same experiences that Blacks born and raised in America have encountered their whole lives. It would be tha same as me trying to pretend that because I am of African extraction that I understand the challenges of growing up Black in say South Africa. I may know of it, or understand intellectually but I can never know it because I have not lived it! That may seem racist to you, but it is a reality...harsh but true.

Now, don't get it twisted...I am not trying to be the czar of Blackness or anything here, nor am I trying to claim the power to speak for every Black person in the country. I'm just saying that among many Blacks the fact that Obama's father is African, his mother is white, and that he spent a great deal of his formative years outside of the United States makes him different from the rest of us. He just doesn't have the same cultural background that we have, or the shared sense of struggle that is common to Blacks in America. It doesn't mean he's not Black, it just means that he isn't like all the rest of us here...not better, not worse, just different!

Nice hearing from you, and glad to be back! As I settle into my routine for this semester, it makes it easier for me to get back into blogging.

As for the rest of your post, I think you hit it on the head about the danger posed to Jessie and Al by Obama. He is everything they are not, he is young, handsmome, articulate and is not seen as a race-baiting fire breather. He also has chosen...so far...not to play the race card in his Presidential ambitions. I don't know if he would if he got desperate enough, but so far he has tried to avoid his race as any type of issue. He also is the very antithesis of the message that Jessie and Al have spent years preaching to Blacks...Obama is showing the world that the American Dream is right there for all to grasp. However, he is just the same as Jessie and Al in his belief that the G is supposed to provide you opportunity and outcome...he has just been a bit more slick in his presentation of that line. He has proven to be a much better politician than Al and Jessie ever were!

The one thing that Obama is going to have to be careful of is that he is not seen as denying his Blackness to the Black community. If he continues to avoid coming to the community to meet with and talk to Black voters, then he runs the risk of further alienating them from his camp. He has to realize that just being Black is not going to get you Black votes, you need to go talk to the voters, meet them, greet them, let them see you and hear you for themselves before they are going to be willing to totally embrace you.

But hey, i could be wrong about all of this. I just don't think I am ;-)

about Obama playing having to play the race card himself, since it's my impression that the media is already doing that for him in spades, just like it's playing the gender card for Hillary.

The way I interpret the admittedly limited amount of coverage I have allowed myself to be exposed to (my stomach isn't as strong as it used to be) is that essentially if Obama is the nominee and you don't vote for him then you're a racist (Is America Ready for the First Black President, a headline I seem to recall) and if it's Hillary and you don't vote for her you're a chauvinist (for some reason I seem to recall another headline: Is America Ready for the First Female President, or was that just a commercial for the Geena Davis show?).

Heaven help us if they wind up on the ticket together, fail to vote for them and you're a bigoted chauvinist and if you smoke as well I'll bet there's a gas chamber being prepared for you at the next Kos convention.

I'll accept your response for the time being, but I really think one of these days when we both have the time, we could have a very substantive discussion about race. What is attributable to it, and what is not. I'm sure you've read my article "Some Thoughts on Diversity" and may have come away thinking it was somewhat naive. Given the disparity of our views and the obvious goodwill we share, I'm sure we could each learn from the other in the process.

While I believe you are absolutely correct when you say you don't speak for all black people, I'm sure your views reflect a pretty substantial minority or perhaps even the majority in some cases.

I continue hold you in the highest esteem and wish God's blessings upon you and yours.

"The way I interpret the admittedly limited amount of coverage I have allowed myself to be exposed to (my stomach isn't as strong as it used to be) is that essentially if Obama is the nominee and you don't vote for him then you're a racist (Is America Ready for the First Black President, a headline I seem to recall)"

If you don't vote for a liberal of the black race you're labeled a racist, if you vote for a conservative of the black race, you're labeled a bigot. When Alan Keyes was running, didn't the MSM run him into the dirt (much like they did Clarence Thomas)? Also didn't the MSM play the "Uncle Tom" card with Keyes being a conservative?

I definitely remember him getting stuck with the carpetbagger label since he was from out-of-state and only moved there to run. Funny, I also seem to recall when Hillary did the same in NY the stories were more about how much she shared NY values, how lucky they were to have a woman of such ability, etc., etc.

Your bringing up Keyes does raise a question in my mind about your original post: who do you consider more 'black like you', Keyes or Obama,and to what extent do you think you could generalize this regarding the black community? Also, do you happen to recall how Keyes did with respect to the black vote when he ran?

In my second paragraph I forgot I was replying to anti-socialist, that question was supposed to be directed to Flag.

I should have included in my previous post that my mother pointed out something about Keyes - that his articulate skills intimidated most people of all races. Unlike liberals, he completely understands the words he uses.

(Were Thomas Sowell to run for president with Walt Williams running as vice president, they'd get my vote without a second thought.)

I've never thought of it that way, but it would be kind of like a guy who was born in Alabama but moved to New York City when he was a week portraying himself as a Southerner. Or letting the media do it for him. Nothing wrong with him being someone born Southern but raised in the North, but people from the South aren't going to embrace him. Not automatically. Not right away. He'll have to earn it. Interesting take.

I personally consider Keyes to be more like me than Obama. Keyes seems to me to be what blacks should strive to be like, regardless of hi politics. He has worked hard and has made a success of himself with no hand outs from anyone; as for what other blacks think of him, it seems that not a lot really know about him. Sine he is not the angry black male stereotype, or the nonthreatening type he gets very little national media exposure.

are you saying the media has stereotypes for blacks? Can't be. Could it? Couldn't possibly have influenced their coverage of things like, oh I don't know, Katrina, could it? Seems to me I remember a movie I was shown a movie in school once where they talked about stereotypes, and that they were bad because they lead to, hmmm, what was it now, oh I remember, prejudice. Gee do you suppose that means that the media is prejudiced with respect to blacks? But they love them, just ask them! But just blacks, right, certainly not anyone else?

(Boy, what stunning sarcasm, too bad no media types will ever be exposed to it, I'm sure they'd be emotionally scarred for life.)

On a lighter note, I actually did see a movie about prejudice in school starring Bill Cosby. It was a monologue on why he didn't like various groups of people. The closing line was a killer for me: There's only one guy who dislikes as many people as me, and I don't care for him much. I don't know if I was supposed to laugh that hard at a film about prejudice. Hmmm, maybe I should check my permanent record...

The moral of Bill's story was that by disliking entire groups of people you are likely to find yourself alone, and oddly enough this does seem to apply to a media whose audiences and subscriber numbers are continuously dwindling. Interesting, the uncaring invisible hand of the market punishes liberal prejudice. There's a PhD thesis in there somewhere, I think.

a column about Charlize Theoren has generated some discussion about South Africa, apartheid and race, including a rather typically lengthy posting by myself. I'd be interested in your point of view if you have the time.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=actress_charlize_theron_says_cuba_and_america_are_both_un-free&ns=LarryElder&dt=02/15/2007&page=full&comments=true#362ebeb6-09e4-4dd1-acd8-41e0f722b368