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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Benny B on January 18, 2009, 02:32:29 AM
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January 18, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
White Like Me
By FRANK RICH
I cannot testify to what black Americans feel as our nation celebrates the inauguration of our first African-American president. But I can speak for myself, as a white American who grew up in the segregated nation’s capital of the 1960s. Barack Obama’s day is one that I never thought would come, and one that I still can’t quite believe is here.
Last week I joined a group of journalists at an off-the-record conversation with the president-elect, a sort of preview of the administration’s coming attractions. But as I walked some desolate downtown blocks to the standard-issue federal office building serving as transition headquarters, ghosts of the past mingled with hopes for the future. The contrast between the unemployed men on Washington’s frigid streets and the buzzing executive-branch bees inside was, for me, as old as time.
My particular historical vantage point is a product of my upbringing as that odd duck, a native Washingtonian whose parents were not in government. The first presidential transition of my sentient lifetime, Kennedy’s, I remember vividly. Even an 11-year-old could see that the sleepy Southern town of the Eisenhower era was waking up, electrified by youth, glamour and the prospect of change.
But some of that change I didn’t then understand. J.F.K.’s arrival coincided with Washington’s emergence as the first American city with a black majority. Many whites responded by fleeing to the suburbs. My parents did the opposite, moving our family from the enclave of Montgomery County, Md., into the city as I was about to enter the fifth grade.
Our new neighborhood included the Sidwell Friends School. My mother, a public school teacher, decreed that her children would instead enroll in the public system that had been desegregated a half-dozen years earlier, after Brown v. Board of Education. In reality de facto segregation remained in place. Though a few African-Americans and embassy Africans provided the window dressing of “integration,” my mostly white elementary, junior high and high schools had roughly the same diversity as, say, today’s G.O.P.
I wish I could say we were all outraged at this apartheid. But we were kids — privileged kids at that — and out of sight was out of mind. Except as household help, black Washington was generally as invisible to us as it was to the tourists who were rigidly segregated from the real Washington while visiting its many ivory marble shrines to democratic ideals.
Gradually we would learn more — from our parents and teachers, from televised incidents of violent racial confrontations far away, and from odd cultural phenomena like the 1961 best seller “Black Like Me.” In that book, a white novelist darkened his skin for undercover travels through deepest Dixie, whose bigotry he then described in morbid firsthand detail to shocked adolescents like me.
Surely such horrific injustices could not occur in our nation’s capital.
But as an unintended consequence of Washington’s particular brand of Jim Crow, white public school students got a tiny taste of what racially mandated second-class citizenship could mean. In those days, the city didn’t even have the bastardized form of “self-government” it has now; it was run as a plantation by Congressional District panels led by racist white Southerners (then Democrats). These overseers didn’t want to lavish money on an overwhelmingly black school system, and they didn’t. By the early 1960s, per-student spending in Washington was less than that of any state, impoverished West Virginia and Mississippi included.
If Washington’s white schools received a larger share of that meager budget, as they no doubt did, it was still obvious that our teachers had far fewer resources than their suburban and private school counterparts. Extracurricular activities could be curtailed by the costs of light and heat. The curriculum was also abridged, lest anyone get too agitated by America’s racial inequities. In my history class, the Civil War was downsized to a passing speed bump. In English, we read “Tom Sawyer,” not “Huckleberry Finn.”
Now that we were teenagers, we had both the curiosity and mobility to investigate the strangely undemocratic city that dealt us this hand. In the words of Constance McLaughlin Green, a Pulitzer Prize-winning urban historian, the District’s black population had long occupied “a secret city all but unknown to the white world round about.” We wanted in on the secrets.
There was so much we didn’t know, so much Americans still don’t know. Take the Lincoln Memorial, to which the Obama family paid so poignant a nocturnal visit this month. If you look up coverage of the memorial’s 1922 dedication ceremonies in The Times, you can read of President Harding’s forceful oration commemorating the demise of slavery. You also learn that Dr. Robert R. Moton, the president of the Tuskegee Institute, was invited to pay tribute to Lincoln “in the name of 12,000,000 Negroes.”
Here’s what The Times did not report about Moton: “Instead of being placed on the speaker’s platform, he was relegated along with other distinguished colored people to an all-Negro section separated by a road from the rest of the audience.” So wrote Green in “The Secret City,” her landmark history of race relations in Washington. This was no anomaly. A local Ku Klux Klan had been formed months earlier, with no protests from either Congress or the white press, and the young Harding administration had toughened the exclusion of blacks from the city’s public recreation facilities.
The eye-opening “Secret City” recounting this secret history was not published until 1967, some four years after the Lincoln Memorial served as a backdrop for “I Have a Dream.” It was also in 1967 that I graduated from Woodrow Wilson High. As a valedictory, a bunch of us on the school paper voted to publish an editorial in favor of home rule for D.C. “Washingtonians have to beg, plead and cajole members of Congress for funds to renovate slums and slum schools,” it read. That was putting it mildly; we still had much to learn. But the editorial was enough of an irritant that our principal tried to censor it, which prompted a brief civic kerfuffle (“Student Editorial Banned at Wilson” read the headline in The Washington Post) and jump-started a few starry-eyed careers in journalism and political activism.
It was one year later that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and Washington’s secret city exploded. The fires and riotscame within a block of the building where the Obama transition set up shop.
One would like to say in the aftermath of the 2008 election that everyone lived happily ever after. But the American drama, especially when it involves race, is always more complicated than that.
Looking back at my high school years, I’m struck by how slowly history can move. The great civil rights legislation of the Johnson administration had been accomplished in 1964 and 1965, but by the time of my graduation the impact was minimal — even in the city where the laws were written and passed. Today the nation’s capital still has no voting representation in Congress and is still a ward of the federal government, reduced to begging, pleading and cajoling for basic needs. Some 19 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and that 19 percent remains a secret city to many who work within the Beltway.
Washington is its own special American case, but only up to a point. For all our huge progress, we are not “post-racial,” whatever that means. The world doesn’t change in a day, and the racial frictions that emerged in both the Democratic primary campaign and the general election didn’t end on Nov. 4. As Obama himself said in his great speech on race, liberals couldn’t “purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap” simply by voting for him. And conservatives? The so-called party of Lincoln has spent much of the past month in spirited debate about whether a white candidate for the party’s chairmanship did the right thing by sending out a “humorous” recording of “Barack the Magic Negro” as a holiday gift.
Next to much of our history, this is small stuff. And yet: Of all the coverage of Obama’s victory, the most accurate take may still be the piquant morning-after summation of the satirical newspaper The Onion. Under the headline “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job,” it reported that our new president will have “to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind.”
Those messes are enormous, bigger than Washington, bigger than race, bigger than anything most of us have ever seen. Nearly three months after Election Day, it remains astonishing that the American people have entrusted the job to a young black man who seemed to come out of nowhere looking for that kind of work just as we most needed him.
“In no other country on earth is my story even possible,” Obama is fond of saying. That is true, and that is what the country celebrates this week. But it is all the tragic American stories that came before him, some of them still playing out in chilly streets just blocks from the White House, that throw both his remarkable triumph and the huge challenge ahead of him into such heart-stopping relief.
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cliff notes,,, ::)
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cliff notes,,, ::)
Black man finally got his day in Office and everyone including whitey thinks he will save the day and rescue America. ::) Obama is bad news!
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cliff notes,,, ::)
You should have made a greater effort to get your GED, DUMMY. ::)
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Black man finally got his day in Office and everyone including whitey thinks he will save the day and rescue America. ::) Obama is bad news!
:'(
(http://cornerstork.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/crying_baby.jpg)
;)
(http://blogs.sj-r.com/politics/wp-content/uploads/thefour.jpg)
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:'(
(http://cornerstork.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/crying_baby.jpg)
;)
(http://blogs.sj-r.com/politics/wp-content/uploads/thefour.jpg)
Funny....I'm not whining bro. Black, white or red......Obama is a terrible choice. Another tax and spend democratic socialist.
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Funny....I'm not whining bro. Black, white or red......Obama is a terrible choice. Another tax and spend democratic socialist.
x2. He won't balance the budget, he's going to tax and borrow more than other presidents. He won't cut programs except for the military, just like Clinton.
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Funny....I'm not whining bro. Black, white or red......Obama is a terrible choice. Another tax and spend democratic socialist.
VS. what, the brilliant spend as much and borrow their asses off republicans? ::) It was going to be one of them. The one with the balanced budget even with higher taxes will leave us in a better spot.
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Honestly, i cant really say he possibly can be worse than W of the last 4 years.
If anything Obama will be forced to move to the right on money issues after Damien Thorn was far on the left as far as spending goes.
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I must say, Mrs. Biden isn't bad looking there.
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I must say, Mrs. Biden isn't bad looking there.
yesh yesh nice legs
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The stimulas packages under Obama will be much differnet than the stimulas packages of the BUsh admin. The shifting of troops while keeping numbers virtually the same will save us money too. Change is coming. ::)
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The stimulas packages under Obama will be much differnet than the stimulas packages of the BUsh admin. The shifting of troops while keeping numbers virtually the same will save us money too. Change is coming. ::)
Try not to cry yourself to sleep Tuesday night!
This man = ABJECT FAILURE :'(
(http://goatmilk.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/ron_paul_photo_4.jpg)
This man = TRIUMPHANT SUCCESS ;D
(http://www.aroundthewaybooks.com/images/obama.champion.jpg)
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Funny....I'm not whining bro. Black, white or red......Obama is a terrible choice. Another tax and spend democratic socialist.
Bullshit. You cry yourself to sleep every night now that this Black man is your president. :'(
Bush...the man you voted for in the last two elections...is a tax cut and spend, beficit-busting, irresponsible moron. Things can only get better with an intelligent man back in the White House!
x2. He won't balance the budget, he's going to tax and borrow more than other presidents. He won't cut programs except for the military, just like Clinton.
Clinton left a budget SURPLUS, you moron. And Obama is going to put MORE money in your pockets in the form of tax cuts, unless you are another one of getbig's millionaires. ::) Of course, I don't expect logic from a racist such as yourself.
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa170/almttr4/Obama_hope-nosis.gif)
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Black man finally got his day in Office and everyone including whitey thinks he will save the day and rescue America. ::) Obama is bad news!
Better hope he fixes this country. Why don't you give the guy some time to do something before all of you crybabies jump all over him. He wasn't my favorite candidate either but I think his actions up until this point have been fairly impressive. Helluva lot better than Bush's or McCain's would have been.
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Try not to cry yourself to sleep Tuesday night!
This man = ABJECT FAILURE :'(
This man = TRIUMPHANT SUCCESS ;D
Seriously... by what criteria do you measure failure vs. success? If Ron Paul speaks and lives by the truth, does that make him a failure? If he didn't speak enough flattering words to the American public to get elected because he stayed true to his ideals, does that make him a failure? If Obama was able to say whatever he thought he had to say to successfully pull the wool over the eyes of enough Americans to get elected, does that make him a success?
So far I'm cautiously optimistic about this Obama administration, but I have to say your criteria of failure vs. success might be a little skewed.
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Bullshit. You cry yourself to sleep every night now that this Black man is your president. :'(
Bush...the man you voted for in the last two elections...is a tax cut and spend, beficit-busting, irresponsible moron. Things can only get better with an intelligent man back in the White House!
Clinton left a budget SURPLUS, you moron. And Obama is going to put MORE money in your pockets in the form of tax cuts, unless you are another one of getbig's millionaires. ::) Of course, I don't expect logic from a racist such as yourself.
You forget the recession Bush inherited from Clinton at the end of Clinton's reign. Obama is going to tax the shit out of people and spend in social welfare programs; most of the spending will come from borrowing against the future. He won't do anything about troops except cut their funding and maybe deploy them to Darfur where they are not needed. Obama will NOT change anything. I didn't like Kerry either and it's because of his policies, not his race. Keep calling me a racist if it makes you feel better. The sad part about this is that not only will this election show how bad and inexperienced Obama is but also how stupid the American people are.
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Seriously... by what criteria do you measure failure vs. success? If Ron Paul speaks and lives by the truth, does that make him a failure? If he didn't speak enough flattering words to the American public to get elected because he stayed true to his ideals, does that make him a failure? If Obama was able to say whatever he thought he had to say to successfully pull the wool over the eyes of enough Americans to get elected, does that make him a success?
So far I'm cautiously optimistic about this Obama administration, but I have to say your criteria of failure vs. success might be a little skewed.
I don't even try spelling it out for Benny anymore.
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Honestly, i cant really say he possibly can be worse than W of the last 4 years.
If anything Obama will be forced to move to the right on money issues after Damien Thorn was far on the left as far as spending goes.
Good post!
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Bullshit. You cry yourself to sleep every night now that this Black man is your president. :'(
Bush...the man you voted for in the last two elections...is a tax cut and spend, beficit-busting, irresponsible moron. Things can only get better with an intelligent man back in the White House!
Clinton left a budget SURPLUS, you moron. And Obama is going to put MORE money in your pockets in the form of tax cuts, unless you are another one of getbig's millionaires. ::) Of course, I don't expect logic from a racist such as yourself.
He's mixed (not white or black), on top of that, he wouldn't have been elected without the white vote.
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He's mixed (not white or black), on top of that, he wouldn't have been elected without the white vote.
Good post! Seriously, people forget that he has and was raised by a white mom.
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So far I'm cautiously optimistic about this Obama administration, but I have to say your criteria of failure vs. success might be a little skewed.
Majorly skewed, calling one of the only honest men in Washington, who always votes with the American peoples interests in mind a failure.
Disgraceful
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Good post! Seriously, people forget that he has and was raised by a white mom.
From what I picked up watching his biography he wouldn't be where he is today if not for his white relatives. His dad did what so many Black American men do today, and pretty much left him fatherless.
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Majorly skewed, calling one of the only honest men in Washington, who always votes with the American peoples interests in mind a failure.
Disgraceful
Disgusting.
I never thought I'd see the day when people would piss on values and ideas that center around honesty, truth, integrity, freedom. Ron had the balls to stand up to the military industrial complex, the banksters, and special interest's and he's the failure? The world is going to hell. :-\
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Funny....I'm not whining bro. Black, white or red......Obama is a terrible choice. Another tax and spend democratic socialist.
I agree, he says by 2011 he will create 3 million jobs right, but from now untill then we will
lose 3 million jobs. So he breaks even.
And another thing he's not the first African/American president
He's the first half WHITE half black American president. GET IT ?
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Seriously... by what criteria do you measure failure vs. success? If Ron Paul speaks and lives by the truth, does that make him a failure? If he didn't speak enough flattering words to the American public to get elected because he stayed true to his ideals, does that make him a failure? If Obama was able to say whatever he thought he had to say to successfully pull the wool over the eyes of enough Americans to get elected, does that make him a success?
So far I'm cautiously optimistic about this Obama administration, but I have to say your criteria of failure vs. success might be a little skewed.
Don't waste your time. Benny's an Obama-Bot fool. If he sucked Obama's cock any harder his head would implode.
Now as far as Obama goes I voted for him and wish nothing but success for that man. Like it or not he's our President and were he goes so does our country.
Ron Paul is right on a lot of things. Unfortunately, Americans can't handle the simple hard truth.
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Don't waste your time. Benny's an Obama-Bot fool. If he sucked Obama's cock any harder his head would implode.
Gee, I wonder why your thoughts turned to a graphic display of a homosexual act? :-X The f@ggotry flowing through your veins spilled out onto your keyboard.
Ron Paul is right on a lot of things. Unfortunately, Americans can't handle the simple hard truth.
Ha! Dude is a loser and a nobody. Most Americans don't know who Paul Ron is. ::)
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He's mixed (not white or black), on top of that, he wouldn't have been elected without the white vote.
I think most are aware that he won a large share of the white vote, dummy. How else would he have gotten elected. ::) I hate to break it to you Slick, but in America you are black or white, there is no in between. You are defined by how you look.
Go back into your history books (that you probably never read) and show me where Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington were defined as anything other than BLACK leaders? Tell me why Halle Berry was called by everyone as the first BLACK woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress since Hattie McDaniel? Show me where Bob Marley is described as "not white or black"? Tell me why the white mothers of Barack Obama, Halle Berry, and Alicia Keys told their children to consider themselves Black? I'll tell you why, because that is how the world perceives them and they will face the same bigotry as any other black people.
If you can pass for white, that is one thing. But Obama is of a darker hue than some of my very light complexioned Black relatives. That makes him Black bro, and that's how chooses to define himself. ;)
Good post! Seriously, people forget that he has and was raised by a white mom.
Really? :o How come no one has been aware of this fact? I'm sure you read both of his books ::), so only you know his biography.
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Benny, I only read about people who have actually accomplished something; running for office doesn't count. Tell me though, does it cover all the radical teachings he received by racists and domestic terrorists?
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I agree, he says by 2011 he will create 3 million jobs right, but from now untill then we will
lose 3 million jobs. So he breaks even.
And another thing he's not the first African/American president
He's the first half WHITE half black American president. GET IT ?
No, jackass.
Top 10 Reasons Obama Is Black
By Casey Gane-McCalla December 2, 2008
In the Washington Post, writer Marie Arana said that Barack Obama is not black; he is biracial and bicultural. I say she’s wrong: he is the first black president, the first bicultural president AND the first biracial president. So here are the Top 10 Reasons Barack Obama is Black.
1. His Name.
Even names like Leroy Johnson or Tyrone Jenkins could possibly be white people’s names. But no way in hell there’s a white man named Barack Obama. Obama’s name could be that of a great African Warrior.
Tell Shaka Zulu that Barack Obama has come from the hills to aid him.
Or a radical sixties Black nationalist.
Mumia Abu Jamal and Barack Obama were captured by Co-Intelpro members.
Maybe even a black athlete…
With the 8th pick of the NBA draft the Warriors select, Barack Obama from Ohio State.
2. His Wife.
Being Black is like being Jewish; if you marry into the family you have to convert to Blackism. No one is debating Michelle’s ethnicity. She is from a traditional Good Times family that worked its way up like the Jefferson’s so they could become the Huxtables. Michelle Obama is Whitney Houston before the crack black, a dark skinned Clair Huxtable, a testament to black womanhood, motherhood, sisterhood, family and achievement. If Obama wasn’t black before he married her, he was damn sure black after.
3. He Considers Himself Black.
On 60 Minutes Steve Kroft asked Obama why he considers himself to be African American. He said that he never decided to be black but that, “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.” In college, Obama was in the Black Student’s Association at both Occidental and Columbia, where he first became politically active, campaigning against apartheid. At Harvard, he was on the board for the Black Law Students Association as well as earning the title of “the first Black Editor” for the Harvard Law Review.
4. His Voice
Barack Obama sounds like a mix of Denzel Washington and James Earl Jones. He could very well have voiced Mufasa in the Lion King. If Obama called your house, you wouldn’t say there’s some biracial guy on the phone. You’d say there’s a black guy on the phone.
5. History
Biracials have always been included in the greater group of African Americans. Frederick Douglass, Booker T, Washington and even reggae legend Bob Marley are all biracial. Unlike South Africa, where they developed a category for biracials, coloreds, in their caste system, none was ever made in the US. Therefore, biracials were treated like Blacks under the law. Biracials have traditionally been part of the same struggle for Black freedom, independence and dignity that all African Americans have.
6. Basketball
Despite the fact that he grew up partially in Indonesia and went to private school he didn’t play soccer, squash or crew: he played basketball. It’s not a stereotype. Basketball has become an African-American athletic tradition that Obama is a part of. No one has referred to Jason Kidd as the first great biracial basketball player; to most he’s just another Black basketball player.
7. His Religion
In the USA, the Irish and Italians go to Catholic Church; WASPs go to the Episcopalian church; Koreans go to the Korean church. Obama went to the Black church: gospel music and a long history of spiritual resistance against racism. People praising the Lord and speaking in tongues. Obama’s religion is deeply rooted in the tradition of African-Americans in the USA.
8. Black People Love Him
No one was talking about the biracial demographic helping Obama win; it was the Black vote. Go to any black neighborhood and all the 50 Cent and Scarface shirts have been replaced by Obama T-Shirts. There are Obama watches, key chains and hats on every street corner. The black community has taken a special sense of pride in Obama, similar to that of Bob Marley, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela. He has united the Civil Rights generation and the Hip Hop generation and has given black people a sense of pride. Although you may have a few detractors of Obama’s blackness in the black community, the overwhelming majority consider him Black.
9. Biracial Isn’t A Good Term
Biracial could mean you’re Latino and Asian, African and South Asian; there are a lot of mixes. Someone who’s South Asian and White might not be able to relate to someone who is Hispanic and Black. If one wanted to get technical, Obama is Euro American/African American. Being biracial is a technical term, not a term of heritage or cultural identity like Black, White, Latino or Asian. Bill Richardson wasn’t seen as the biracial governor although he was half Latino and half White; he was seen as a Latino governor. There is no culture or history for being biracial. There’s no biracial history month, no biracial music, no biracial slang, no biracial food. Unlike being Black, Jewish, Hispanic, White, or Asian, which are larger cultural identities, there is no culture necessarily attributed to the biracial community.
10. The Police
If Barack Obama robbed someone the police would not say be on the look out for a number 1.5 male; they’d look out for a number 1 male. Police wouldn’t say, “Never mind don’t pull over that black guy, he looks biracial.” If Obama was a rapper or an athlete and he got arrested, there wouldn’t be an outcry against biracial athletes or entertainers; there would be yet another outcry against Black rappers and entertainers.
All that considered, I’m sorry Marie Arana: Barack Obama is STILL Black. You won’t disappoint the millions of people who are proud to see the first Black president. Being Black is a very complicated racial, cultural, definition that encompasses many people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. So yes, you can be Black and biracial at the same time. Black people have always been mixed, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many black people have White, Native American, or Latino blood in them. Black people from the Caribbean have Asian and South Asian blood in them. While being white has been defined by purity, being Black has been inclusive of any mix of African blood. The term Black has been used to describe people from Africa, the Caribbean and people with mixed race.
Obama is Black in his own eyes, in the eyes of history and in the eyes of the law. He is also biracial; he is also American and he is also a human being. Everybody can take pride in Barack Obama, for there is is some of him in all of us. Still, we cannot forget that he comes from a tradition of Black leaders, Black culture and a Black identity. The significance of his victory is part of American history and more specifically Black American History and is a turning point in the struggle of Black people in this country.
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Benny, I only read about people who have actually accomplished something; running for office doesn't count. Tell me though, does it cover all the radical teachings he received by racists and domestic terrorists?
*yawn*
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I agree, he says by 2011 he will create 3 million jobs right, but from now untill then we will
lose 3 million jobs. So he breaks even.
And another thing he's not the first African/American president
He's the first half WHITE half black American president. GET IT ?
Barack Obama Is Black If He Says He's Black
"Ever since he announced he was running for president, Barack Obama's blackness has been questioned. Now that he's about to be president, some people won't let it go. It started with the silly question of whether Obama was black enough. Back in early 2007, Hillary Clinton was winning the majority of the black vote in opinion polls, and some pundits pushed the ridiculous idea that Obama couldn't compete with the Clintons in the black community. … While technically Obama is biracial, his racial identity is really whatever race with which he chooses to identify. He identifies as black and, for all intents and purposes, that makes him black.
"The idea that blacks with white blood in them must only be called multiracial instead of black is just as silly as the idea that whites with one drop of black blood in them are black. This is especially true in a culture where most African Americans also have white blood in their ancestry. If the whole conversation about race is based on socially constructed fiction, why shouldn't Obama be able to identify with whatever aspect of his identity he chooses?" [Keith Boykin, The Daily Voice]
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No matter how we argue, Barack is mixed race and I wish him well.
He did exactly what he needed to in order to get elected. Repeating simple mantras, appearing to be something attractive to many different people, changing positions when it is popular, becoming a celebrity, having the best organized campaign for president we have ever seen and a fierce grassroots based campaign using multi-media.
All that aside, now we see what he can do as president. I think Barack is incredibly smart and takes advantage of opportunities. I am hoping he used some of the left wingers to help get elected and he governs from the middle as a mediator/man of compromise. That could make him an excellent president.
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No, jackass.
Top 10 Reasons Obama Is Black
By Casey Gane-McCalla December 2, 2008
In the Washington Post, writer Marie Arana said that Barack Obama is not black; he is biracial and bicultural. I say she’s wrong: he is the first black president, the first bicultural president AND the first biracial president. So here are the Top 10 Reasons Barack Obama is Black.
1. His Name.
Even names like Leroy Johnson or Tyrone Jenkins could possibly be white people’s names. But no way in hell there’s a white man named Barack Obama. Obama’s name could be that of a great African Warrior.
Tell Shaka Zulu that Barack Obama has come from the hills to aid him.
Or a radical sixties Black nationalist.
Mumia Abu Jamal and Barack Obama were captured by Co-Intelpro members.
Maybe even a black athlete…
With the 8th pick of the NBA draft the Warriors select, Barack Obama from Ohio State.
2. His Wife.
Being Black is like being Jewish; if you marry into the family you have to convert to Blackism. No one is debating Michelle’s ethnicity. She is from a traditional Good Times family that worked its way up like the Jefferson’s so they could become the Huxtables. Michelle Obama is Whitney Houston before the crack black, a dark skinned Clair Huxtable, a testament to black womanhood, motherhood, sisterhood, family and achievement. If Obama wasn’t black before he married her, he was damn sure black after.
3. He Considers Himself Black.
On 60 Minutes Steve Kroft asked Obama why he considers himself to be African American. He said that he never decided to be black but that, “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.” In college, Obama was in the Black Student’s Association at both Occidental and Columbia, where he first became politically active, campaigning against apartheid. At Harvard, he was on the board for the Black Law Students Association as well as earning the title of “the first Black Editor” for the Harvard Law Review.
4. His Voice
Barack Obama sounds like a mix of Denzel Washington and James Earl Jones. He could very well have voiced Mufasa in the Lion King. If Obama called your house, you wouldn’t say there’s some biracial guy on the phone. You’d say there’s a black guy on the phone.
5. History
Biracials have always been included in the greater group of African Americans. Frederick Douglass, Booker T, Washington and even reggae legend Bob Marley are all biracial. Unlike South Africa, where they developed a category for biracials, coloreds, in their caste system, none was ever made in the US. Therefore, biracials were treated like Blacks under the law. Biracials have traditionally been part of the same struggle for Black freedom, independence and dignity that all African Americans have.
6. Basketball
Despite the fact that he grew up partially in Indonesia and went to private school he didn’t play soccer, squash or crew: he played basketball. It’s not a stereotype. Basketball has become an African-American athletic tradition that Obama is a part of. No one has referred to Jason Kidd as the first great biracial basketball player; to most he’s just another Black basketball player.
7. His Religion
In the USA, the Irish and Italians go to Catholic Church; WASPs go to the Episcopalian church; Koreans go to the Korean church. Obama went to the Black church: gospel music and a long history of spiritual resistance against racism. People praising the Lord and speaking in tongues. Obama’s religion is deeply rooted in the tradition of African-Americans in the USA.
8. Black People Love Him
No one was talking about the biracial demographic helping Obama win; it was the Black vote. Go to any black neighborhood and all the 50 Cent and Scarface shirts have been replaced by Obama T-Shirts. There are Obama watches, key chains and hats on every street corner. The black community has taken a special sense of pride in Obama, similar to that of Bob Marley, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela. He has united the Civil Rights generation and the Hip Hop generation and has given black people a sense of pride. Although you may have a few detractors of Obama’s blackness in the black community, the overwhelming majority consider him Black.
9. Biracial Isn’t A Good Term
Biracial could mean you’re Latino and Asian, African and South Asian; there are a lot of mixes. Someone who’s South Asian and White might not be able to relate to someone who is Hispanic and Black. If one wanted to get technical, Obama is Euro American/African American. Being biracial is a technical term, not a term of heritage or cultural identity like Black, White, Latino or Asian. Bill Richardson wasn’t seen as the biracial governor although he was half Latino and half White; he was seen as a Latino governor. There is no culture or history for being biracial. There’s no biracial history month, no biracial music, no biracial slang, no biracial food. Unlike being Black, Jewish, Hispanic, White, or Asian, which are larger cultural identities, there is no culture necessarily attributed to the biracial community.
10. The Police
If Barack Obama robbed someone the police would not say be on the look out for a number 1.5 male; they’d look out for a number 1 male. Police wouldn’t say, “Never mind don’t pull over that black guy, he looks biracial.” If Obama was a rapper or an athlete and he got arrested, there wouldn’t be an outcry against biracial athletes or entertainers; there would be yet another outcry against Black rappers and entertainers.
All that considered, I’m sorry Marie Arana: Barack Obama is STILL Black. You won’t disappoint the millions of people who are proud to see the first Black president. Being Black is a very complicated racial, cultural, definition that encompasses many people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. So yes, you can be Black and biracial at the same time. Black people have always been mixed, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many black people have White, Native American, or Latino blood in them. Black people from the Caribbean have Asian and South Asian blood in them. While being white has been defined by purity, being Black has been inclusive of any mix of African blood. The term Black has been used to describe people from Africa, the Caribbean and people with mixed race.
Obama is Black in his own eyes, in the eyes of history and in the eyes of the law. He is also biracial; he is also American and he is also a human being. Everybody can take pride in Barack Obama, for there is is some of him in all of us. Still, we cannot forget that he comes from a tradition of Black leaders, Black culture and a Black identity. The significance of his victory is part of American history and more specifically Black American History and is a turning point in the struggle of Black people in this country.
Meltdown.
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Meltdown.
Impressive response! ::) I'd expect nothing less from you.
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Impressive response! ::) I'd expect nothing less from you.
Hey , he plays basketball a sport that was created in Canada, I guess he's Canadian too.
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Ooops, wrong thread. I thought this was about the 2009 Boston Red Sox.
(http://nomaas.org/images/mlk_day.jpg)
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LOL ya that list is about as ignorant as it gets...simple fact of the matter is he is just as much white as he is black and he plays whatever side will advance him the most at that moment just like he has on the issues and with the ppl.
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LOL ya that list is about as ignorant as it gets...simple fact of the matter is he is just as much white as he is black and he plays whatever side will advance him the most at that moment just like he has on the issues and with the ppl.
No, it's not stupid because Benny posted a link to the story, which therefore makes is correct.
Obama's bi-racial. Unless it doesn't suit his agenda, then he's black.
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*yawn*
So I take it you can't argue that point. He's done nothing majorly noteworthy except duping the American people big time. No major accolades, lazy Senator, and tied to multiple radical people; great pick. ::)
He's the colored version of Jimmy Carter. "Hi, I'm Jimmy Carter Barry Obama and I want to run for President."
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Barack Obama Is Black If He Says He's Black
"Ever since he announced he was running for president, Barack Obama's blackness has been questioned. Now that he's about to be president, some people won't let it go. It started with the silly question of whether Obama was black enough. Back in early 2007, Hillary Clinton was winning the majority of the black vote in opinion polls, and some pundits pushed the ridiculous idea that Obama couldn't compete with the Clintons in the black community. … While technically Obama is biracial, his racial identity is really whatever race with which he chooses to identify. He identifies as black and, for all intents and purposes, that makes him black.
"The idea that blacks with white blood in them must only be called multiracial instead of black is just as silly as the idea that whites with one drop of black blood in them are black. This is especially true in a culture where most African Americans also have white blood in their ancestry. If the whole conversation about race is based on socially constructed fiction, why shouldn't Obama be able to identify with whatever aspect of his identity he chooses?" [Keith Boykin, The Daily Voice]
[/quote
What's the matter you can't deal with that he's half WHITE, and that's where the brains come from lol.
Don't care what you or he says, MOTHER WAS WHITE... can't stand it can you...
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What's the matter you can't deal with that he's half WHITE, and that's where the brains come from lol. Just messing with you
Don't care what you or he says, MOTHER WAS WHITE... can't stand it can you... His father did a good job
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Obama's father failed. Luckily his mother's family did their parental duties. Barack is in a unique position to speak to fathers, particularly minority fathers, about their responsibility. I hope he does, and makes no appologies for it.
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What difference does it make if he's "black" or not?
What difference does if make if people celebrate the "first black president" if he is only half black?
Who gives flying fuk?
Oh yeah, we all need something to bitch about.
Good point then. ::)
I'll bitch about the 170 million spent on the celebration. Shouldn't that go towards the socialist BUSH's bail out plan?
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Really i hope he does a good job and fixes the economy.
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Really i hope he does a good job and fixes the economy.
Many people do, we'll see. I doubt who ever had won will fully meet expectations. He's been handed a real mess.
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Really i hope he does a good job and fixes the economy.
After the mess we have been through, i have to wish him luck.
I voted for Bush twice, and am not hesitant to say he has been a complete disaster his second term.
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True...
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Obama's father failed. Luckily his mother's family did their parental duties. Barack is in a unique position to speak to fathers, particularly minority fathers, about their responsibility. I hope he does, and makes no appologies for it.
I agree
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What difference does it make if he's "black" or not?
What difference does if make if people celebrate the "first black president" if he is only half black?
Who gives flying fuk?
Oh yeah, we all need something to bitch about.
Good point then. ::)
I'll bitch about the 170 million spent on the celebration. Shouldn't that go towards the socialist BUSH's bail out plan?
you mean the one that obama who heartedly supported and helped draft? or the one that he intends to implement when he gets in office? LOL i love how ppl sit on here and bitch about it but believe barry would have done anything else except make it a bigger bail out. ::)
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you mean the one that obama who heartedly supported and helped draft? or the one that he intends to implement when he gets in office? LOL i love how ppl sit on here and bitch about it but believe barry would have done anything else except make it a bigger bail out. ::)
I'm not sure what you are talking about.
I'm talking about the 170 million wasted on a party when at the same time we are bailing out our companies.
I don't know that Barry would have made a bigger bail out or not. We are already in the trillion figures. I think the belief he would have goes along with party line bias and beliefs.
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I'm not sure what you are talking about.
I'm talking about the 170 million wasted on a party when at the same time we are bailing out our companies.
I don't know that Barry would have made a bigger bail out or not. We are already in the trillion figures. I think the belief he would have goes along with party line bias and beliefs.
so you are under the impression that he had nothing to do with the bail outs then? Maybe he wouldnt have made it larger but her certainly is in agreeance with every bailout that has gone through. He helped out with the drafting and passing of the bail out or dont you remember? yet like most bush haters you put it soley on bush right? LOL
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so you are under the impression that he had nothing to do with the bail outs then? Maybe he wouldnt have made it larger but her certainly is in agreeance with every bailout that has gone through. He helped out with the drafting and passing of the bail out or dont you remember? yet like most bush haters you put it soley on bush right? LOL
Am i writing that bad today?
I'm NOT under the impression he wasn't involved and i know he supported them.
FACT: Bush penned & pushed them. Isn't BUSH supposed to represent the conservatives?
I expect as much from Obama, but from BUSH? Bush who is spawned from the birth canal of conservatives?
That's what I'm saying. And who knows if it happened on Obama's watch that he'd have asked for more as you said. We are already in the trillions.
One thing's for sure, all the conservatives would be running around saying crap like "a republican president" would have never done that. Well guess what? That glass house just shattered and it only proved that this repub vs dem ideology crap is a BIG fat pile of Bull CHIT. It's all Bohica
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Am i writing that bad today?
I'm NOT under the impression he wasn't involved and i know he supported them.
FACT: Bush penned & pushed them. Isn't BUSH supposed to represent the conservatives?
I expect as much from Obama, but from BUSH? Bush who is spawned from the birth canal of conservatives?
That's what I'm saying. And who knows if it happened on Obama's watch that he'd have asked for more as you said. We are already in the trillions.
One thing's for sure, all the conservatives would be running around saying crap like "a republican president" would have never done that. Well guess what? That glass house just shattered and it only proved that this repub vs dem ideology crap is a BIG fat pile of Bull CHIT. It's all Bohica
I agree that most of it is bullshit however obama is already pushing a 800 billion dollar stimulus package he has said all along he has supported the bailouts even the auto industry. You said and I quote
I'll bitch about the 170 million spent on the celebration. Shouldn't that go towards the socialist BUSH's bail out plan?
again it was just as much obama and mccains as it was bush's so dont put it on bush bro.
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You said and I quoteagain it was just as much obama and mccains as it was bush's so dont put it on bush bro.
Fair enough, but shouldn't he have been saying: "no"
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Fair enough, but shouldn't he have been saying: "no"
totally agree in principle, now would that have been the right move iono so many factors that one cant predict whether the bail outs where right or letting them fail was right. Personally i dont think they should have been bailed out but I understand why they did bail them out.
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totally agree in principle, now would that have been the right move iono so many factors that one cant predict whether the bail outs where right or letting them fail was right. Personally i dont think they should have been bailed out but I understand why they did bail them out.
Exactly the way i feel.
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Am i writing that bad today?
I'm NOT under the impression he wasn't involved and i know he supported them.
FACT: Bush penned & pushed them. Isn't BUSH supposed to represent the conservatives?
I expect as much from Obama, but from BUSH? Bush who is spawned from the birth canal of conservatives?
That's what I'm saying. And who knows if it happened on Obama's watch that he'd have asked for more as you said. We are already in the trillions.
One thing's for sure, all the conservatives would be running around saying crap like "a republican president" would have never done that. Well guess what? That glass house just shattered and it only proved that this repub vs dem ideology crap is a BIG fat pile of Bull CHIT. It's all Bohica
Both guys are suck because neither of them address the real problem and until they do, they can pump all the "credit" they want into this failure of a system.
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Gee, I wonder why your thoughts turned to a graphic display of a homosexual act? :-X The f@ggotry flowing through your veins spilled out onto your keyboard.
Just because I call you out as an obvious meat gazer doesn't make me one too. Sorry to burst your bubble, knob gobbler.
Ha! Dude is a loser and a nobody. Most Americans don't know who Paul Ron is. ::)
That doesn't make what he says less true, knob gobbler.
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I'm not sure what you are talking about.
I'm talking about the 170 million wasted on a party when at the same time we are bailing out our companies.
I don't know that Barry would have made a bigger bail out or not. We are already in the trillion figures. I think the belief he would have goes along with party line bias and beliefs.
The 170 million came from private funds not public ones.