Obama promises to heal our racial divisions in his latest speech. But, as evidenced by his long association with Jeremiah Wright, he is willing to tolerate gross expressions of race hatred from black associates. This strange tolerance for race hatred from blacks suggests that his promise of healing may be a chimera. But in his own mind, I think he can reconcile these contradictions: Americans must become more like Obama himself. Obama is mixed race, a mulatto. His description of the racial issues America faces are prefigured in his own identity and behavior. In the way of a solution, Obama has thoroughly subordinated his white identity in favor of the black.
For Obama, his white relations are always secondary, subordinate, cruel, and objects of occasional shame, while the black half of his life is superior, justified, vibrant, loyal, at worst mistaken, and always a victim.
He wrote his first book, Dreams of My Father, not about his kooky but loving hippy white mom, but rather his absentee black African dad. It is notable that in his speech, Obama specifically criticized his grandmother for her fear of black criminals, but never criticized his dad, who exemplifies the epidemic of black fathers who abandon their children. It’s hard to imagine him publicly criticizing a black person in the same way. For Obama, at worst, Wright’s words are ”divisive,” but his grandmother’s fear of a black panhandlers made him “cringe.”
Obama has essentially suppressed his whiteness. He chose one community over the other. Moreover, he’s got the zeal of a convert. This was a conscious choice for him; after all, his entire youth was spent around Indonesians and white people in Hawaii. Whites probably are not aware how frequently he is praised by blacks, particularly black women, for choosing a “dark skinned” woman to be his wife. Is there any doubt this was one of many self conscious choices he made, along with his church, to identify himself as fully black? Obama understands both communities, but he’s firmly planted himself in one of them. He condemns whites, including his own white family members, whose past and present racism he believes is the primary cause of black problems and black social pathologies. In his speech, he is asking the rest of us to do so as well, first by embracing his candidacy, but also by supporting government programs aimed at minorities, not letting “anger” compel us to criticize affirmative action, and tolerating black race hatred and paranoia. As he says, “the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people . . .”
This is the “synthesis” that is Obama’s life. Of course, it’s no synthesis at all. It’s the subordination of one group (in his individual case, his white ancestry) to the other in the name of meaning, authenticity, healing, and justice. This is the same program that he wants our country to embrace on a national scale.
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Obama is a victim of his White oppressor handlers. In his speech, Obama acknowledged that his racist hate-filled White grandmother raised him. Certainly some of this race-hatred must have rubbed off on the impressionable young child. I do not blame him for seeking some balance and joining the Trinity Church. I have yet to heard anyone refute Wright’s sermon points. Can you do so?
Brilliant. Just brilliant. Not a word wasted, every one on target. Bravo.
You know something? You convinced me. Obama should be the Dem. candidate. I want to see this issue out in the open.
Sunlight. Democracy.
There’s a reason Obama is getting the enthusiastic ‘hate Whitey’ vote: he implicitly, and often explicitly, indulges, even openly supports, their absurd ideas about the source of problems in the ‘black community’.
Someone should clue him in:
Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white children from families below the poverty line.
Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white children of parents with a high-school diploma or less.
Not to mention the behavior problems, e.g. the epidemic of black illegitimacy.
His grandmother wasn’t hateful; in fact, the incident in question invovled a specific and aggressive panhandler. Johnny, you follow Obama’s pattern of false equivalence: hate-filled paranoia about CIA plots to distribute AIDS are the equal of normal fears of criminal, young, black men.
Obama’s really messed up and his whole campaign seems to follow some dynamics of resentment against whites going back to his teenage years.
The problem is that I think Obama would like to address is that whites and blacks in the USA have two parallel and mutually exclusive dialogues going. How is this country going to persist with a cultural gulf that big? Not to mention the Latinos.
Obama is trying to bridge the gap in some way.
This black-white racial divide is literally the biggest issue facing the USA. Many great men have noticed this, white and black. It’s not enough to say, “Who cares about those blacks. They are stupid, they are poor, they are troublemakers.” Because they are Americans too. It is not good enough to delegitimize the black experience and point of view, no matter how incompatible it sounds with traditional white viewpoints.
There is a Liberal answer that dates back to the ideas of the abolitionists and even some of the Founders. What is the Paleocon answer, especially if you do consider that underachievement cannot be fixed by pouring money into urban schools?
Someday we have to build some kind of bridge where we all can meet.
Obama’s mask has slipped in the past week. Reverend Wrong’s antics have blown Obama’s cover as America’s racial epoxy that will glue a divided society together. Suddenly there is a fact that he can’t gloss over with sweet talk.
For all that, I’m surprised that he allowed himself as much candor as he did. He didn’t need to bang on for 5,000 words about his Vision; he didn’t need to make strained moral equivalences; he didn’t have to reveal his full membership in Americans for a Nanny State. The only thing anyone listening to his speech was tuned into was what he would have to say about God’s Angry Man.
Obama could have simply said, “My wife and I have a strong emotional bond with The Reverend Wrong, and that has kept me in his congregation despite my strong political disagreement with him. I can understand why many find his statements distasteful, and I share that distaste for his words. But the man means a lot to me.”
That wouldn’t have totally silence criticism, but it would have been a pretty good defense, putting his critics in the apparent position of attacking a man for his friendship. (And maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think it would have driven his black supporters away. Or if very large numbers of American blacks think along the lines of The Reverend Wrong, then we are in even more serious trouble than I imagine, and I imagine we’re in a lot.)
But he didn’t — apparently couldn’t — leave it at that. He had to show his true, uh, color: he is first, last, and always going to put black interests first, while tossing out the odd bone of condescension for unfortunate whites.
He is one cool cat, no doubt about it. But this time, he tried the usual soft-soap routine and couldn’t quite pull it off. Under the strain, he let too much come out.
The mainstream media will do their best to smooth it over for him, calling attention to his well-attested oratorical skills, his likeable demeanor, distracting us from his first substantial revelations of his true belief system. But the public’s infatuation with him may have ended yesterday, and for the first time he’s given his opponents a target.
Michael Medved’s column on this was pretty solid. Basically, his original premise was we’re all more alike than different, vote for me and we’ll quit bitching about what a racist country this is. Now it’s vote for me, I’ll attach the white race, but it’s good for you and it’s the right thing to do, and I won’t be too mean about it because I understand you as shown by my rearticulation of white attitudes and views. He went from being the post-racial candidate to the “national dialogue” about race candidate, and the latter exercise is utterly useless and discouraging to most people. It will be one-sided, there will be false equivalences, and the sacred truth that white racism is the chief cause of black problems will not be allowed to be questioned.
An interesting perspective. Most who know him best mention how he has carefully laid all of his plans, just as Clinton and many other politicians do – hungry for power. It would make sense that each step has been carefully chosen in terms of the church, his wife, the allignment with where he stands racially. He was very strategic with the speech.
After years of personal experience and careful study, I have come to the conclusion that Codependency, the subject brought to our attention by Family Systems Psychology, should be re-opened and examined more closely. Only this time minus the ignorant sarcasm.
For me Obama is THE canidate of Codependency. Codependency is an habitual living outside of oneself. Ortega y Gasset’s name for this was “Otheration” but the idea is the same. There was plenty of evidence of Codependent thinking in Obama’s speech. For example in his excuses – someone else is to blame (Whites); and his solutions – someone else has to fix it (Big Government). It is most unfortunate that both the Left and the Right were so quick to either dismiss or distort what the Family Systems people offered. But there’s no use in crying over spilt milk. So, if one is interested in really getting to the bottom of what makes Obama and his supporters tick (though in fairness, not just them), then their purposes would be better served making an in-depth study of the nature and history of Codependency and apply it to him and his candidacy.
[...] among the majority. Obama’s words and life until becoming president suggest that he offers the healing of surrender, which is bad enough, though his true agenda is shifting, unclear, and wrapped up with his [...]