posted September 18, 2009 08:27 AM         

Here we go again. Some people raise the issue of race (this time about the ways others are talking about or treating the first black U.S. president) and the media goes crazy. “What racism?” many of the pundits cry. “Didn’t we just elect this black guy president?” (Implying “Doesn’t that prove that racism is over in America?”)

So let’s all just take a breath here, as we always need to do when talking about race in the U.S.

A few simple points:

First, on Nov. 4, 2008, the U.S. did what only one other country I know of ever has ever done -- elect a president from a minority race in a country with a different majority race. (Peru is the only other country I can think of to have done that, electing as their president Alberto Fujimori, who is of Asian descent, in a predominantly Hispanic country.) That a still majority white U.S. would elect a black man as head of state was stunning to many -- and, I must admit, to me. Frankly, it made me think that the country was better than I thought it was. That historic accomplishment is a sign of great progress and a hope of better things to come for racial equality and justice in the United States.

Second, the majority of Americans, and even of white Americans -- whether they voted for Obama or not -- seemed to feel proud and positive that the nation had finally reached this amazing milestone. Having elected Barack Obama made most Americans feel good about themselves and about their country on that Jan. 20 Inauguration Day. The new president’s approval rating climbed up to 70% in the week after the inauguration, which obviously meant that even some of those who voted against him were impressed by how he was handling his job at the outset.

Third, there are many people, most of whom voted against Obama, who have basic disagreements with the president on substantive political issues. To disagree with a black president on policy questions does not mean that you are racist. The 20% fewer people who now approve of his job performance did not suddenly turn into racists. And my conservative friends who admire Obama personally but disagree with him politically can hardly be called racists.

But fourth -- and importantly -- there was, and is still, a hard core of racially-motivated white people in this nation who did vote against Obama because he is black, and who virulently oppose him as president because he is black. And that racist core of angry white Americans resides on the extreme political right of U.S. politics. The Far Right in America have never supported racial equality. Their political representatives voted against both the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, and most have never repented for it. And, let’s be honest, the loudest voices of right-wing talk radio and cable television appeal directly to that core with subtle and not-so-subtle racial messages, as has the right wing of the Republican Party for many years.

If you were paying attention, you could see signs of that underlying racism at the most heated town meetings this summer. Of course, not everybody who attended, or even was mad about health care or the government at those meetings, is a racist -- most of those people weren’t, but some of them clearly are. There were blatant signs of racism at some of the town meetings and, indeed, many signs that carried overtly racial messages.

I see those racial subtexts in the intensity of the attacks on Obama -- not in the disagreements per se, but in the viciousness of the rhetoric. Racism is often about disrespect, and many African-American citizens are now feeling that the black president in the White House is being disrespected. I also see it in supporters of the new “birthers” movement, who try to stir up doubts about Obama’s citizenship. I see it in the furor over the president speaking to the nation’s schoolchildren about studying and working hard. And, agree with me or not, I saw it in the disrespect shown toward a black president by a white Congressman from the South, whose less than enthusiastic apologies have now turned him into a fund-raising martyr, cheered on by a defiant rebel yell against the man (or is it “boy”?) in the White House.

We have all witnessed or experienced situations where someone has “played the race card” in inappropriate or unfair ways. And racism is not the cause or explanation of every social problem. Nor are legitimately different points of view obvious signs of racism. President Obama has not played the race card, expecting only to be treated as a man -- not a “black man”-- and to be judged as a president and not as an “African-American president.”

posted September 18, 2009 01:14 PM         

technically, Obama is not black. His father was black,and his mom was white. He's the son of a black man and white woman.

so am I.

if Obama is black, then I am black too.

I really can't stand the so-called one drop rule. The rule was created to keep blacks and whites from being in relationships. Ever since all interracial relationship bans were struck down in 1967, the one drop rule is no longer official. In my humble opinion, it should be dropped completely. It ignores the multiracial ancestry of many people here in USA. It gives the impression that you can't be of more than one race and that being mixed is a bad thing. A lot of multiracial people do make a stink of it. It was multiracial people that spoke and advocated for multiple choices for race on forms. That's what made the multiracial identification possible in the 2000 Census. I was one of the 2.6 percent of the U.S. population that identified myself as multiracial. My mother raised me to embrace and acknowledge all my races. When she registered me for high school, she said that the racial category stuff was stupid because it didn't allow her to pick more than one race for me. That was a constant thing for me growing up and even in adulthood.

electing a half black,half white man with no ancestral slave roots in USA is a lot different from electing a black man that has 2 black parents and has ancestral slave roots. I don't see why people don't seem to get that.
Barack Obama was definitely a much different candidate from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in those ways.

in history, lighter skinned "blacks" tended to be favored over darker skinned "blacks". My white mother and I discussed about this too. My mom even pointed the times that darker skinned "blacks" gave me a hard time because of being a lightskinned "black". It's very common. Spike Lee made a movie expressing those issues too. The movie was called "School Daze"

The First black Miss America was a lightskinned "black woman" with very light brown/tan skin and green eyes and straight brown hair. That was Vanessa Williams.
Her runner up was Suzette Charles. She is the daughter of a black parent and white parent. She succeeded Vanessa after Vanessa was stripped of her title because of the Penthouse stuff.

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 18, 2009 01:56 PM         

it would be over the top naive to say there is no racism in america (and most places) - ON BOTH SIDES of the fence: but i think overplaying the point is missing a lot of the other factors involved here.

one we are in harsh economic times, and whoever is in charge will catch a lot of flak, some relevant and some not.

two some people are eager for change and some are scared to death of it.

posted September 18, 2009 02:26 PM         

WOW! I didn't know that about President Eisenhower.

so technically, Barack Obama is not the first person with Black ancestry to be elected president.

very interesting!

I did read something that President Harding was part Black.

I just came across this:

Obama Won't Be First Black President
By Aysha Hussain

You've seen the headlines: "Are Americans Ready for a Black President?" "Is Obama Black Enough?" "Obama: America's First Black President?"

Ever since the nation first met Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2004, his race has been called into question more times than Michael Jackson's. Obama is clearly a black man, but is this really a breakthrough? Some blacks say Obama isn't "black enough," which seems ironic because for many blacks, former President Bill Clinton was "black enough." In 2001, Clinton was honored as the nation's "first black president" at the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Annual Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C.

Were there other "black" presidents? Some historians have reason to believe people don't really understand the genealogy of past U.S. Presidents. Research shows at least five U.S. presidents had black ancestors and Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, was considered the first black president, according to historian Leroy Vaughn, author of Black People and Their Place in World History.

Vaughn's research shows Jefferson was not the only former black U.S. president. Who were the others? Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. But why was this unknown? How were they elected president? All five of these presidents never acknowledged their black ancestry.

Jefferson, who served two terms between 1801 and 1809, was described as the "son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father," as stated in Vaughn's findings. Jefferson also was said to have destroyed all documentation attached to his mother, even going to extremes to seize letters written by his mother to other people.

President Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president, was in office between 1829 and 1837. Vaughn cites an article written in The Virginia Magazine of History that Jackson was the son of an Irish woman who married a black man. The magazine also stated that Jackson's oldest brother had been sold as a slave.

Lincoln, the nation's 16th president, served between 1861 and 1865. Lincoln was said to have been the illegitimate son of an African man, according to Leroy's findings. Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and his mother allegedly came from an Ethiopian tribe. His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed "Abraham Africanus the First" by his opponents.

President Warren Harding, the 29th president, in office between 1921 and 1923, apparently never denied his ancestry. According to Vaughn, William Chancellor, a professor of economics and politics at Wooster College in Ohio, wrote a book on the Harding family genealogy. Evidently, Harding had black ancestors between both sets of parents. Chancellor also said that Harding attended Iberia College, a school founded to educate fugitive slaves.

Coolidge, the nation's 30th president, served between 1923 and 1929 and supposedly was proud of his heritage. He claimed his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. Coolidge's mother's maiden name was "Moor" and in Europe the name "Moor" was given to all blacks just as "Negro" was used in America. It later was concluded that Coolidge was part black.

The only difference between Obama and these former presidents is that none of their family histories were fully acknowledged by others. Even though Obama is half-white, he strongly resembles his Kenyan father. And not only is Obama open about his ancestry, most people acknowledge him as a black man, which is why people identify Obama as the first black president of the United States.
http://www.diversityinc.com/public/1461.cfm

I think Obama strongly remembles his mother too and not just his father. I think people have to look beyond the color of his skin to see that. I talked to a cousin of his that goes to and works at my church,and he even agreed with me about Barack looking a lot like his mother. It's something about the way his eyes are set and the way he looks when he puts his head straight up that makes me thinks that he looks like his mother. He looks a lot like his maternal grandfather. He even has his ears.

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 18, 2009 02:36 PM         

i am aware that a number of black people consider obama "not even black" or "using his black face" to play the white man's game, an illustration of the OTHER side of racism...

posted September 21, 2009 07:53 AM         

But, these leftist Socialists are not in any way PROGRESSIVE. In fact leftist Socialists are REGRESSIVE; still taking their marching orders from the collected scribblings of the 5th rate non thinking 19th Century madman, Karl Marx.

Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein O'Bomber fit that Marxist mold perfectly.

September 20, 2009
Reactionary Liberalism and the Peanut Narcissist
Ralph Alter

Reactionary: adjective

Vehemently, often fanatically opposing progress or reform die-hard, mossbacked See politics.
Clinging to obsolete ideas: backward, unprogressive.
The term reactionary is most often used to describe conservative politicians. I have purposely omitted the terms "conservative" and "ultra-conservative" from the choice of synonyms provided above. It seems that the modern liberal movement in American politics is the one "opposing progress or reform," especially regarding race relations. The reactionary inclinaton is most visible in the fulminations of the legacy television network news divisions and the editorial policies of the New York Times, the Washington Post and their acolytes.

Despite the metamorphosis of American culture in the 20th century provided by civil rights law, integration, and Affirmative Action policies in business, education and government, reactionary liberals continue to pretend that the United States remains locked in a quasi-Jim Crow embrace.

To their detriment, the reactionary liberal media has elevated former (one is tempted to use the word disgraced or at least disgraceful) President Jimmy Carter as their figurehead. The peanut narcissist's remarks reflect the refusal by reactionary liberals to accept that criticisms leveled against the policies of Barack Obama are substantive in nature:

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter said in an NBC interview. "Racism ... still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country." l

The refusal to accept objective criticism is just one of many traits shared by Carter and Obama. An unfounded faith in one's own moral superiority based on intellectual vanity and narcissism are shared by both Democrats as well. The circumstances leading to their unlikely elevation to the office of POTUS are quite similar too. Like Barack Obama, Carter was elected in a flurry of reactionary liberalism whipped up by a complicit media. While Obama floated in on a wave of Bush Derangement Syndrome, Jimmy Carter squeaked into office riding the lingering media feeding frenzy provided by the bloated corpse of the Watergated Nixon administration. The woeful legacy of Carter's Presidency is beginning to look like a template for the abject failure of the Obama Presidency:

"The former President is not content having left office with high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. Nor is he content with having signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act -- strengthened by President Bill Clinton -- which played a major roll in the eventual housing market meltdown. Nor is he content with having cut the legs from under the Shah of Iran, which led to the establishment of the Islamic theocracy in Iran -- a state that pursues a nuclear weapon, funds the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and continues to undermine the fledgling democracy of Iraq. Nor is he content -- as ex-President -- with writing a book in which he likened the state of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa under apartheid." (ibid)

No, Mr. Carter extends his moral opprobrium of criticisms of the Obama administration as a sort of smoke-screen to deflect fully legitimate questions about the honesty, integrity and ability of the sitting President and his assembled staff. Is it racism to criticize the identical failings in Obama that we abhorred in the Carter administration? The sitting President certainly has even higher unemployment than the Carter administration, while his monetary policies suggest that high inflation and higher interest rates are coming soon. Obama's policies toward Iran and the elimination of the missile shield for Eastern Europe couldn't be more simpatico with Carter's approach if Zbigniew Brzezinski were National Security Advisor again.

Carter and the reactionary liberal media that supports him clearly long for the days when the race card was trump. Prior to the development of the blogosphere and the creation of Fox News, media cries of racism or its doppelganger, McCarthyism, went unchallenged, or at least the challenges were unheard by most Americans. The rise of the alternative media assures that those who attempt to end debate with the charge of racism may just be dealt out of the next hand. Any chance of history casting a kinder, perhaps forgiving eye upon the miserable failure of the Jimmy Carter Presidency is gone. The peanut narcissist should have "gone gently into the night" of history without the preening self-importance and smug moralizing demonstrated every time he sees a microphone or picks up a pen.

With his strident assumption of moral superiority and defective judgment hogging national headlines, Mr. Carter has assured that he will be able to contemplate the derision he has earned before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Once again the reactionary liberal movement has over-played its hand and thereby rendered itself and its useful idiot, Jimmy Carter, into laughing stocks.

posted September 21, 2009 11:50 AM         

used to be legal for it to be the other way around...oh wait, i forgot, in the old days they wouldn't have been on the same bus!!

and it wasn't considered racist to CENSOR the president's talk to schoolchildren, or pretend no other president ever suggested they write themselves a letter, or do good for their country...

posted September 21, 2009 04:25 PM         

Yet, that's exactly what O'Bomber's Education Dept suggested in the lesson plan which was forwarded before O'Bomber's speech.

The story you cite was hardly picked up by the Irrelevant Press. Had it been white boys beating up a black boy, it would have been front page news across the spectrum of the Irrelevant Press.