Comments on: Postracial?

By: learnlotsbetty

learnlotsbetty — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:43:46 +0000

Felix has a great point about the ruling class, here. Both Dem candidates of of marginalized groups, even if one of those candidates is far more mainstreamed than the other. And both have had stories of arguable importance stick around in the news for inordinate amounts of time while McCain barbecues and calls his wife a trollopy cunt. Or threatens people.

OK, so the trollopy cunt thing was years ago, but still.

/derail

By: The Constructivist

The Constructivist — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:00:27 +0000

Nick Bromell’s fantastic essay on Douglass’s late 19th C liberalism and its relevance for 21st C liberals approaches the Obama/Douglass angle from a different direction, by the way.

By: The Constructivist

The Constructivist — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:52:53 +0000

One caveat on Douglass: in his speech as a whole, he actually does make the patriotic move, jeremiad style, with the cool twist that the Constitution does not support slavery. He was going against Garrisonian secessionism, in other words. Which is how I read Obama’s critique of Wright.

By: ari

ari — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:19:41 +0000

I think you can probably place him in the Washingtonian (as in Booker T’s brand of self help) strain of black leadership in some ways, Cala. But Wright’s views on American foreign policy surely are what passes for radical in this country. And I think that’s largely what Ezra was talking about. Also, I suppose, Wright’s perspective on social justice and the redistribution of wealth. He’s certainly no Washingtonian on the economy, I don’t think, because he doesn’t think that his congregants should all go out and learn a trade and then integrate themselves into the mainstream of the American workforce.

By: Cala

Cala — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:31:18 +0000

I agree with the premise of the post, except that I wouldn’t describe Wright as terribly left wing (which ends up only supporting the premise of the post more.) Isn’t he working out of a strain of black conservatism (tenets: forget about whitey and let’s take care of ourselves?)

By: drip

drip — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:04:08 +0000

You’re right. The dems will think that way. That’s surely the history. What is amazing is that black Americans serve in the military in extraordinary numbers and remain patriotic in spite of holding such “anti-American” views. Wright served in the Marine Corps and then reenlisted as a Navy corpsman, to continue his service, and he’s denied, denounced, rejected, renounced and ejected by the dems who are trying to rush to the right to see who can pick up the Reagan dems and the independents. This can’t go on forever and in states like Missouri, Virginia, Florida, and Ohio, the real battlegrounds, the votes of the most loyal constituency are important.

By: Ben Alpers

Ben Alpers — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:09:08 +0000

This all leads to the democrats’ problem of what to do about their most loyal constituency.

You’ve answered your own question….

The GOP holds no hope for black voters and they are boxed out by the black candidate.

The Democrats will do what they do to many of their core constituencies: take them for granted and hope that the awfulness of the Republican Party will be enough to bring them to the polls.

This almost worked in 2004, but of course close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.

By: drip

drip — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:20:29 +0000

I was a little surprised that not one democrat gave Obama any cover on this, but that says more about me than the dems. Ezra is more right than I because he appears to have seen that the positions were too far off the front pages of newspapers and headline news crawlers to make sense to most voters. Ari takes this one step further and correctly sees that what interests the press in what this out of the mainstream preacher is saying is that he is a black man and so is Obama. Otherwise you’d see clips of Chomsky on FOX news. And I agree with bitchphd that it’s an expression of white suspicion that blacks in general are probably critical of simple truisms that we take for granted but its not very far under the surface, in my judgment.

This all leads to the democrats’ problem of what to do about their most loyal constituency. Because many of the controversial points Wright made are the simple truisms blacks take for granted, I am not sure they can be successfully rejected and I am damn sure will be asked about these points at least once every day until November. Obama looks lost as to what to do after rejection, repudiation and denunciation have failed. The GOP holds no hope for black voters and they are boxed out by the black candidate. What a mess.

By: bitchphd

bitchphd — Sat, 03 May 2008 06:35:10 +0000

Ezra’s correct, as far as he goes–but he fails to acknowledge what I believe to be true, which is that any black man running for president is going to have close connections to someone “Chomskeyesque”, for the simple fact that, well, African Americans have good reason to be suspicious of patriotic nostrums.

Which I think makes the criticism of the underlying racism all the more complicated. Both because it’s roughly true, I think, that blacks as a group have reason to be “angry” (read: critical) of America (TM)–and thus many are–and because middle-class and upper-middle class whites would generally prefer not to have to acknowledge that. So the “white” reaction to the thing becomes an attempt to pin it on Wright, specifically (and Obama by extension), while at the same time and beneath the surface it’s an expression of white suspicion that blacks in general are probably critical of simple truisms that we take for granted (and an associated fear that If They Get Power OMG What Will They Do To Us?).

Nothing like guilt and defensiveness to make people act like assholes.

By: Barack Obama News » Blog Archive » Postracial?

Barack Obama News » Blog Archive » Postracial? — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:26:00 +0000

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