Longform Links – Ta-Nehisi Coates Edition
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Blog) – Depressing
(Emphasis mine – LDP)
Feminists have expended whole barrels of ink wondering why the fuck they have virtually no following among black women. But over the past week all I’ve heard is this stupid-ass attempt to raise the profile of privileged white women at the expense of black boys and girls who I see out on Lennox Avenue scrapping in the belly of the beast. Nothing is more irritating than watching people who think they know what beef is because they watched Roots, and took an Af-Am Studies class at Wellesley, tell me that it’s now all good. Hillary, and people who support this sort of invective, are loathsome and disgusting. I don’t care if they’re racist–they clearly find racism useful. The only women who they care about, the only young girls who they truly are concerned about, are the ones from their side of the tracks.
Meanwhile, African-American voters have broken for Obama in margins that make Hillary Clinton look about as popular in the neighborhood as Rudy Giuliani. In this, the hamfisted and befuddled intellects of the world see the “advantages” of being black: chief among them a mindless mass of zombies willing to stumble into poll booths and press a button for the black guy. But what the African-American Obama voter sees is so much more than just the first black President. Indeed, she sees the blackest man to take the public stage ever. Forget about reparations, welfare and white guilt. Forget about 400 years, forty acres and a mule. Forget about the Confederate flag, marching through Jena and Duke lacrosse. Barack Obama is black in the Zen-like way in which white people are white–without explanation. Without self-consciousness. Without permission.
[...]
This is why so much of what’s been said about Barack Obama and African-Americans has been so shockingly wrong. Intellectuals examining Obama are trapped in an ancient dynamic–one that even in its heyday was overstated–in which white and black America are constantly at each other’s throats, and agree on nothing. The either/or fallacy is their default setting. (”Assimilation, not blackness, is the road to success,” writes Steele.) They were made for a world where affirmative action and welfare reform were campaign issues, not one where universal healthcare and the Iraq War have dominated the debate.
[...]
This is the blackness of Barack Obama. It is an identity that asserts itself without conscious thought. It has no need of marches and placards. It rejects an opportunistic ignorance of racism but understands that esoteric ramblings about white-skin privilege do not move the discussion further. It does not need to bluster, to scream, to hyperbolize. Obama’s blackness is like any other secure marker of identity, subtle and irreducible to a list of demands.
It also lines up perfectly with even those younger blacks who’ve never ventured beyond the veil but who, minus the shadow of segregation, have concluded that their skin is as worthy as the next man’s. This is why all the fuss over how much or how little Obama addresses racism misses the point. Obama mentions white racism about as often as black people actually think about white racism–which is to say rarely.
Ta Nehisi Coates (Blog) – About That Assassination Remark
(This is the whole post, because it is so short – LDP)
I’m gonna disagree with a lot Obama-ites and say that it was a mistake. I say that, not out of any love for Hillary Clinton, but because I can’t see how this remark helps her at all. It’s inconceivable to me that this would be a strategy. More likely she’s tired and said something stupid.
But this brings me to two points. 1.) Hillary Clinton is an overrated candidate. For all the talk about toughness, in the waning days of the campaign, she has become a gaffe-o-matic. Why should we believe she would be stronger in the general.
2.) This is why it’s foolish to compare racism and sexism. Hillary and some her blind-ass feminist supporters have asserted that there has been no racism in this campaign, or none when compared to racism. But Barack Obama had to get Secret Service protection before any candidate in history. I wonder if that has to do with racism. Part of this is our fault as we’ve allowed the definition of racism to devolve into the spectacular–the Rodney King tape or a Don Imus rant.
But the ugliest aspects are the things you don’t see, or don’t care to see. There is no American tradition of assassination in the feminist community. The sort of violence that consistently hung over Civil Rights workers, and ultimately got Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, never hung over Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Again I think Hillary simply made a mistake. But I also think were she from my side of the tracks, a place where the assassination of black public figures has altered whole lives, she wouldn’t have said something that stupid. Ditto for Steinem, who if she’d ever spent any significant time around black folks, would know that there are forces which are just as restricting as gender. I still don’t think Clinton realizes what she said–she apologized to the Kennedy’s, but not to Obama. The blindness is strong in that one.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Dr. Dee wrote:
I agree with much that has been posted here. However, race is a social construction in the U.S. as it is everywhere in the world. Hair texture, skin color, and bone structure are used as “markers” and “badges” to identify people as members of a particular racial group, regardless of their personal beliefs, politics, attitudes, values, experiences, or even lineage. The purpose of racial categories is to determine how people will be treated and how they should behave, think, and speak. Barak Obama’s mother is identified as White and American, and his father is identified as Black and African. Clearly, at least to me, Obama is not an African-American, which is a term coined by a specific group of people identified as Black living in the United States who share a specific history, certain ethnic similarities, and various political worldviews. Obama’s skin color, features, and hair texture identify him as “Black” and because of that many African-Americans feel a connection to him. Granted, Obama also has a considerable amount of support from those identified as White who see themselves as liberal and/or progressive for supporting someone who looks like him. Though it is not my intention to suggest that everyone who supports Obama does so for the same reasons, it is my intention to ask, what does it mean to be Black or White in America? What makes Obama Black–aside from his physical appearance? All too often in this country people who are identified as “Black” are assumed to be African-American if they do not speak with foreign accents, do not wear non-western clothing, or do not appear “different” in significant other ways. I was born in England and my parents are Jamaicans, but I am constantly assumed to be an “African-American” as though no one in this country–Black or White–has ever heard of Black immigration or the Black diaspora or ethnic heterogeneity. To assume everyone who “looks” Black is an African-American or Black American is as ridiculous, at least to me, as assuming all people identified as White living in the United States are from England. However, this tendency to assume Black people are ethnically homogenous speaks directly to the all-American tendency to reduce Black people to an essentialist “Other” and to narrowly define who and what people who “look” Black can and should be.
Why is there so much emphasis on Obama’s “blackness” or even any discussion at all about his racial identity and its potential impact on his candidacy when it is clear that he was reared by his mother and her family in places where there were few people identified as Black, and to be more specific, as African-American? Other than his features, hair texture, and skin color, and perhaps certain experiences he may have had because of how he was perceived, what makes Obama a “Black man”? I support Obama, ironically, not because he’s Black and/or African-American. I support him because he’s not in favor of forcing an already beleagured working and middle class to purchase mandatory health insurance policies that are barely worth the paper they’re printed on, while letting the bloated, profit-driven medical-industrial-complex off the hook. I support him because I want to see if there will, finally, be any intelligent public discussions in the mainstream media about identity, the social consruction of race, and the racist assumptions about race that are part and parcel of living in America.
Posted 26 May 2008 at 12:24 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
Re: “Hillary made a mistake”
She has said this before, including once to Time magazine earlier this year. Hillary has repeatedly invoked the campaigns of her husband and RFK to justify her own continued participation in this race. Until last week she’d come close–but had always backed off of–invoking RFK’s assassination outright, although it is clear this has always been her subtext. The fact that there has been no media attention paid to this “talking point” of her campaign until now says something about the tone-deafness of the mainstream media to the way Hillary has continually exploited race in her campaign. Even now the attention paid to this “gaffe” is nothing compared to the drumbeat over Reverend Wright.
When Huckabee made his “assassination gaffe” I thought it was a mistake (and said so elsewhere on this site). I am not a fan of his but after watching the clip it seemed to me that he’d accidentally spoken something that was hanging in the air: the fear of an attack on Senator Obama. Huckabee isn’t running for anything (isn’t even being considered seriously for a VP spot at this point) and I didn’t see what agenda he’d further by saying such a thing “on purpose.”
Hillary is a different story.
I do not believe for second it was an accident that she said what she said. Her campaign is using race the way it always has–as a coded message to both lower-middle class white people and super-delegates. She just got caught doing it this time. In other words, Hillary Clinton is trying to make points (and stay in the press, who have largely moved on from her) by not-so-subtly suggesting that her opponent, a black man, will be assassinated.
If anyone is still unclear about her character this should settle the matter.
Posted 26 May 2008 at 12:50 pm ¶
Black Canseco wrote:
What bothered me about Huckabee’s so-called gaffe is that it took so long for him to complete the thought. He went from “Obama fell out of a chair…” to “Someone’s shooting at him and he’s ducking.”
That’s not a gaffe; that’s a piss-poor attempt at humor and a deliberate one.
Race-based? Who knows. Stupid and ignorant and cruel? Yes.
As for Hilary being an overrated candidate? To a certain degree, they’re both overrated, but for different reasons.
Barack’s appeal is his perceived “newness”. new isn’t always better. Another part of his appeal is his “post-racial” vibe. It allows people who think race is some sort of practical joke played by nature or a crutch to dismiss “typical” black people by elevating him.
You can’t be racist fif you vote for Obama anymore more than you can be racist if you cheered Michael Jordan or you-go-girl’d Oprah.
Hillary’s hustle has always been her last name, her whiteness and when convenient, her gender. She’s competent, strong-willed, eloquent, deliberate, focused…
but qualified? Take away her marraige to Clinton and her so-called experience goes up in smoke. No male candidate of any race could run on their spouse’s accomplishments unchallenged.
No male candidate could claim to have brought peace to Northern Ireland, dodged sniper fire in Bosnia or stared down the communist China regime on human rights–all lies, by the way–without being run out of an election a rail.
No male candidate could agree to election rules and pre-requisites for winning going in, then repeatedly demand that they be changed every step of the way when they’re losing and get away with it.
Clinton has done all these things and more. And any criticism of her on these issues is dismissed as woman-hating.
She’s just a sad candidate.
By the way, would the 30 year old son of any candidate for national office be allowed to publicly stump for their parents without scrutiny, interviews or even casually questioned by the media?
Chelsea Clinton has. She’s too good, too innocent for questions. But she can do a 100-stop campaign tour and refuse questions from reporters at every step because she’s someone’s “daughter” and “shouldn’t be “picked on”.
If these are abuses of gender status and white female privilege then i don’t know what are.
Posted 26 May 2008 at 3:40 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
There are women who have faced great amounts of violence for very political struggles but HILLARY ISN’T ONE OF THEM and that’s what she and her *second-wave* feminists [there are feminist activists who disagree but don't have Steinem's star power] fail to notice. Her race and class have shielded her from the worst of gendered violence which leaves me asking if she is even capable of relating to more than an extremely small minority of women.
Posted 26 May 2008 at 11:54 pm ¶
eric daniels wrote:
HRC ran a bad campaign from the start, like in sports just because you are the front -runner does not mean anything until you clinch 2025 delegates. She should have never taken the black vote for granted and also she should have muzzled her surrogates, When Gloria Steinem wrote that article about “its white women time” and discredited black males along with Clinton’s black surrogates like Robert Johnson who only second to Rupert Murdock has turned American Popular Culture into a cesspool of violence, hate, and idiocay in the last 25 years, called Obama “a drug user” and tried to discredit his chances.
I would have respected Steinem, Johnson, and others if they said that “a black man in this era does not stand a chance of winning the office of President” and the best chance is a white women like Hillary Clinton because of the Clinton name. It would have been racist and defeatist and would have started another generation war between the Civil Rights crew and Hip- Hop generation but when they smeared Obama as the “typical black male” HRC lost her nomination and the rest of her black support. She just ran a bad campaign in general and was not prepared for Obama or how to deal with his brandof politics.
Carmen, Latoya, and the Black Women and Other Ladies or folks I have offended a few days ago. “I am so sorry ” I realized I went too far and it got personal.
Posted 27 May 2008 at 7:30 am ¶
macon d wrote:
TN Coates wrote, “There is no American tradition of assassination in the feminist community. ”
True, but TNC could’ve at least acknowledged that there is a tradition of violence and abuse against women. It doesn’t always result and death, and death isn’t usually the intended result, but women in general are targeted for violence as much or more than black politicians are for assassination (and black women and impoverished women even more).
I like the way Black Canesco put this point: “but qualified? Take away her marraige to Clinton and her so-called experience goes up in smoke. No male candidate of any race could run on their spouse’s accomplishments unchallenged.”
Right! Is this a rare instance of something like Female Spouse Privilege?
Posted 27 May 2008 at 8:54 am ¶
lowercase tasha wrote:
@Dr. Dee
Whoa, that was all over the place.
You know, based on how you were able to brake down how race is used to identify how people are treated, I don’t think you’re completely unaware of the answers to some of the questions you posed. There are multiple reasons why there’s such an emphasis on Obama’s “blackness” in this campaign. One of which happens to be because the majority of blacks in this country are descendants of slaves, a history that, as you pointed out, Obama does not share. However arrogant it is, people just sort of assumed, I guess by virtue of seniority, that the first serious, black, POTUS candidate would share that history, considering that the “special group of people” you allude to bore the brunt of that history when building this country and spearheaded the reforms in social-political progress that immigrants like you, who probably do not share that history, currently enjoy.
There are African Americans that believe as you do that Obama is not African American in the traditional sense(See Stanley Crouch’s “Black Like Me” op-ed), and there are those who feel that, in the interest of progress, blacks need to stop using slavery as the defining characteristic of being African American (See Deborah Dickerson’s “The End of Blackness”).
Now, why is it that you take offense at being mistaken for African American, again? See, I ask that because I know some recent immigrants of European descent, and they don’t get bent out of shape when people mistake them for white Americans that have been here for generations. You see where I’m going with this? Just like the European immigrants I just mentioned, being lumped together in a single category is not exclusive to blacks. Obviously Latino is a broad umbrella category used to describe descendants of people from South American and certain Caribbean countries, regardless of the distinct histories of their countries of origin. Same goes for Asian-Americans being labeled Asian be they Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, what have you or blacks being considered African American be they from Jamaica or Nigeria or otherwise, which is why Obama would be labeled African-American. The US is an immigrant country, a fact which most Americans are well aware. However, the idea of assimilation is strong here, and you’re only supposed to retain your foreignness to a certain extent. I mean, isn’t that the point of moving to a different country? You like it there so much that you want to move and adapt to the country’s way of life? And I wouldn’t be so quick to pick on the States, if I were you, because I don’t think that the concept of assimilation is all that different in Western Europe where you were born. Remember the controversy in England over banning the niqab in the classroom, or the head scarf ban for school girls in France?
“I support him because he’s not in favor of forcing an already beleagured working and middle class to purchase mandatory health insurance policies that are barely worth the paper they’re printed on, while letting the bloated, profit-driven medical-industrial-complex off the hook.”
Hmm . . . interesting, but at least you’re talking about an actual issue. What are you saying exactly? Are you saying that you like Obama’s plan because you think his subsidy mechanisms are going to keep the insurance companies from seeing profits? I don’t understand how you think he would let medical insurance companies off the hook as opposed to Hillary. If you’re saying to yourself, I don’t like the idea of a mandate, and stopping there, then you’re overlooking the fact that there’s more to it than that. In theory, if everyone is forced to buy insurance, then doesn’t that mean that the insurance companies will be forced to cover everyone? And Hillary does take affordability into account. Fees would be based on income. Look, I have serious doubts about either plan actually becoming law, but then again, I never thought Bush would get the Prescription Drug plan for seniors passed either, and low and behold, it happened. So, if you’re looking at both plans from a hypothetical perspective, then what it is about Obama’s plan that you find so appealing, because I don’t think Obama is contributing anything new to the debate?
I’m not in the mood to play oppresion olympics today, or else I would address Black Conseco, whose comments I always respect because he’s always so sensible and substanative in his bias (yes, it is possible), but I will say this. Hillary should’ve known that the same people that ran with Bill’s SC primary/Jesse Jackson remarks would have done the same with her RFK allusion, regardless of whether or not it was true (which BTW it is). So, if you know that if you’re under surveillance for what’s perceived as “coded speech,” then you need to take that into account and watch what you say. While I can’t think of one offhand, there’s got to be another historical allusion out there that suits the occasion, one that doesn’t reference Bobby Kennedy’s assasination. Obama doesn’t need anymore help in the oppression olympics than he already has.
Posted 27 May 2008 at 11:34 am ¶
Black Canseco wrote:
No OO here, Lowercase tasha.
No one, I don’t like hilary clinton and her gender has nothing to do with it. She’s proven herself to be a stunningly bad liar who only apologizes when backed into a corner with proof of her lies and even then gives the worst most condescending of apologies. Secondly, she’s not all that qualified– based on her own standards. She wasn’t touting her “35 years of experience” when Joseph Biden, Bill Richardson and candidates with 20-30 years of legit, non-spouse-based “experience” were still in the race
She pulls her gender out only when she’s losing or being challenged and assumes like so many that being a white woman makes her “all woman”.
She changes the metrix for winning when it suits her. First its most delegates, then it’s most swing states, then it’s most electable, then it’s most popular votes… it’s whatever standard she thinks gives her the nom.
Lastly, as she stated, RFK being shot in June can’t be interpreted any other way than a candidate hoping for anything to happen just to keep their candidacy alive.
Now, if that makes me biased, then fine, biased I’ll be.
Posted 27 May 2008 at 2:02 pm ¶
lowercase tasha wrote:
@Black Conseco
That wasn’t a swipe at you. I do respect your analysis, because even though you seem to have a pro-Obama slant, it’s always sensible and substantive. Look, everyone, I know I’m snide, but when I dole out compliments, I mean it.
So, if Obama adjusts his rhetoric to challenge McCain will you be just as critical, or will it just be considered politics as usual?
And I beg to differ. It is OO. It’s all types of OO! Your “No male candidate this, and if she were a man, that,” and all your implying that Obama has had it rougher than Hillary because she’s a white woman married to a powerful man would be the same as me saying that Hillary has it worse because she’s not a novelty negro with a nice barritone, or my saying that racism trumps sexism. For the umpteenth millionth time, why can’t we all just agree that both of these candidates have exploited their status as non-white male others to get where they are today?
Hat tip to Dr. Dee for bringing up an actual issue that had to do with policy and not OO.
I’m out.
Posted 27 May 2008 at 3:05 pm ¶
G.K. wrote:
To Dr. Dee:
Obama is considered a black American because he was born and raised here in the United States, plain & simple–also as a black man, he’s had to deal with the same kinds of predjudice the average black person (to some extent,not all of us) has had to deal with at some point in their lives–in fact, the same type of prejudice that’s being thrown at him in this campaign—folks saying flat-out that they won’t vote for because he’s black, instead of seeing what he could possibly offer as our next President, to saying that he can’t relate to white working-class voters—which I find funny seeing as that the only thing Hilary has in common with these white working-class voters is that she’s white, and frankly,not too much else. Also, you’re assumed to be an African-American until you tell people otherwise because we’re the largest minority here—that’s just the way is it here–nothing ridiculous about it at all–I don’t know why you have a problem with that. If you’re heard abut the history of the racist “one-drop rule” applied to black folks,you’ll understand American mores a little bit more and why black folks are claiming him.
What irks me is that people who posts on lots of other political blogs I’ve read act if white people can’t possibly relate to Obama because he’s black—he always seems to positioned as this strange “Other” and I’m sick and tired of reading about people claiming that he’s not a “real black person” (that just sounds like so much BS to me) because he’s mixed—I mean he’s a BLACK man—why do so many white folks in the media act as if his blackness is some kind of stumbling block they have to get around? As if he can’t possibly be all of that because he’s quote unquote half-black! OOOH, how shocking! Folks (primarily white) are constantly splitting hairs over his heritage, as if his being biracial makes him some kind of weird freak or something, as if they’re never seen of heard a biracial person before in their lives. I could give less than a damn about all of that—I’d like to vote for him because of the 2 candidates, he seems way more in touch with the problems affecting average everyday folk like myself—massive home foreclosures, lack of employment, daily major layoffs, you name it—and that’s all that matters to me,period!
Posted 27 May 2008 at 7:59 pm ¶
Black Canseco wrote:
lowercase tasha,
i don’t take offense at your take on my comments or the post in general. i just don’t agree with them. I simply haven’t seen male candidates in major elections given a pass on some of the nonsense that HRC—not her surrogates or campaign staffers, but her, specifically—has pulled.
My issues with HRC aren’t gender but character, competence, privilege and integrity. Or in her case, clear lacks thereof.
I’m equally critical of her husband, and all politicians who try to scam, sidestep, cry foul and conflate facts, myth and falsehoods in the name of furthering their agendas.
As for my Obama stance, I’m from Chicago–moved to Cali 12 months ago. I’m very familiar with Obama’s career. He’s about as overrated as anyone who runs for national office. I just see him as the lesser of two evils, at this point.
Posted 27 May 2008 at 9:54 pm ¶
Dr. Dee wrote:
I should have been more concise and clear. My point, looking back on my initial post, I muddied. There is nothing inherently wrong with being mistaken for an African-American. However, in being so idenfitied everyone is tacitly classified as the SAME. This is an issue that all black-identified people–all people–need to confront because it is simply another form of racism, another way to segregate and isolate a group of people based on what they look like. And no, in this country, all white-identified people are not assumed to share the same political, ethnic, social, and cultural affinities. They are not assumed to share a monolithic set of beliefs, values, and attitudes. When white-identified people come to the U.S., they become Americans; when black-identified people come to the U.S. they become African-Americans. America still has a Jim Crow system and this is just one more manifestation. One of the regular contributors (Latoya Peterson?) wrote a very provocative article “What is Blackness?” (though I may have gotten the title wrong) which raises the question of what it means to be black. It’s an interesting, provocative, and necessary discussion.
Posted 08 Jun 2008 at 1:32 pm ¶
Dr. Dee wrote:
As for the health insurance issue, which, I admit, is the one I’m following most closely in the presidential race, I live in Massachusetts, a state that has become the first in the nation to mandate health insurance. Mandates punish the working and middle class (regardless of race or gender) because they are literally forced to do business with the insurance industry, which determines the types of coverage and the costs of that coverage. The high cost of profit-driven medical services and insurance industry profiteering are what make health care in America expensive, but this issue is not being addressed–at least not in the commonwealth. In Massachusetts, those the government says can pay must pay or face the loss of their personal income tax exemption, and then the government levies fines. This, to me and others who have examined the law, is unconstitutional.
Obama said he is against mandates. Since I live in a state that forces the uninsured “who can afford it” to buy insurance, that is enough to make Obama an attractive candidate. There are countless stories of people with insurance who couldn’t afford the co-pays and deductibles and went bankrupt. There are just as many stories of people who were turned down for certain treatments at the sole discretion of their private insurance companies. And from a radical perspective, there are people who want nothing to do with the medical establishment and who seek alternative methods for preventing and treating illness. I’m not in favor of health insurance; I’m in favor of universal health care and socialized medicine–for those who want it. I’d be willing to support anyone who sees the problems with mandated private health insurance. If elected, will Obama confront the profit-driven medical industrial complex and the insurance industry? I doubt it. But, I would like to hear him speak more about why he does not favor mandates. Unfortunately, this conversation (among others!) has been sorely lacking in the media in favor of what I consider non-issues, such as Obama’s race or Rodham-Clinton’s gender. To be president of the U.S. in a neo-liberal, late capitalist world one needs to be carefully aligned with corporate interests.
And the color of a candidate’s skin or his or her gender, from where I’m standing, has nothing to do with that fact. For example, Deval Patrick, the black-identified governor of Massachusetts, supports mandates and the insurance industry. When he visited my city during his campaign, I questioned him about the mandate and he said he supported it and penalizing those who did not comply. I don’t support anyone who could be this callous, who could disregard the high level of personal debt, high cost of living, and many other reasons a person with a “decent” income may not be able to afford health insurance.
Posted 08 Jun 2008 at 1:43 pm ¶
T-Bone wrote:
On Obama’s blackness:
It depends on how black , black is for you. And what does black mean to you.
Facts are:
Barack Hussein Obama is not half ‘black’. If elected, (going by largest percentage of non-white) he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother’s side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father’s side. While Barack Hussein Obama’s father was from Kenya, his father’s family was mainly Arabs.. Barack Hussein Obama’s father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father’s birth certificate even states he’s Arab, not African Negro).
On who I’ll vote for:
I spent 30 years as a laborer. My hands cut, calloused and scared. My face, arms and back kissed by the sun for many years. I do have the very first stages of skin cancer because of it. My back has been sore every morning getting out of bed for most of those 30 years. Had a job since I was 16. Never been out of work to this day. Never collected welfare. When times were thin, I worked 2 jobs, 7 days a week, for 10 years. (Did have vacation time though).
Never had much need for Government Social Programs, but contributed greatly towards them.
I am now a business owner. I do benefit from the tax breaks small business receive. I am able to hire someone to do the labor I once did. I am able to employ an American worker and keep my business in this country. I would not be able to do this if government over regulated me. I need to run my business the way I see fit, not some politician. I need less government, not more.
On mandatory health care:
It may curb the cost of health care but when it goes into full swing, should you break a leg, you may have to wait 3-5 days to see a doctor that your insurance company will pick out for you. This is why the Canadians come to the States for their more major medical care.
On what am I:
I consider my self third generation American-Pole. I don’t mind being grouped together as being ‘white’. I also don’t mind being referred to as a ‘Slav’ or ‘Anglo Saxon’. However, if someone mistakes me for German, Italian, Dutch, Swede, I correct them. It has nothing to do with me feeling slighted by being mistaken for any of the other ethnic groups, it has to do with feeling pride for being an American-Pole.
Posted 08 Jun 2008 at 11:19 pm ¶
Sewere wrote:
Whoa! Latoya you missed this concerned troll’s bullshit. Not that there is anything wrong with being Arab, but get your facts straight. Obama senior is Luo, from the Eastern side of Kenya (the least Arab influenced part of the country). They are descendants of Nilotic folk and actually waged a war against Arabs to reclaim some of their land way back when.
And how in God’s good earth did you come up with the percentage breakdown of Barack and Obama Sr’s racial background? And please don’t give me the birth certificate bullshit, that’s been a talking point of racist jackasses from Stormfront to Fox News.
Mod Note – Thanks for the catch, Sewere. I slack a bit on the weekends.
Posted 09 Jun 2008 at 10:44 am ¶
T-Bone wrote:
sewere- What I listed, I found on Snoops. I have no animosity towards any of Obama’s ethnic background. He can be or list himself as anything he wants.
Had he been listed as 43.75% black would you have felt better?
None of these percentages should make a difference as to how you feel about the man or what he stands for. He could be 100% Arab, but if he supported ideals that I believed would help me as a US citizen and US business owner, I’d vote for him
I don’t see how his descendants waging “a war against Arabs to reclaim some of their land way back when” can be used as a positive accomplish of Obama’s today. The only reason you would mention this is to illustrate that Obama is trying distance himself from his own heritage or perception of it. That’s insane.
My descendants were tortured, enslaved, and killed on the plains of Mongol China back in the day. That doesn’t make me any better of a man because I won’t buy a pair of sneakers made in Hong Kong.
Just my 2 cents
Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 1:09 pm ¶
T-Bone wrote:
I had to re-reread the latest comment by Sewere.
That, somehow posting a non threating list of ethnic percentages makes me a “Troll”.
Obama’s ethnic background should not be a consideration in voting for him.
If you are voting for Mr. Obama because he is black, then fine, you have your own intellectual reasons for that. But if that is the case, then you must have an idea of what is an acceptable percentage of blackness. (I find this ridiculous but let me continue)
If you think Obama being 5% black is black enough for YOU, and that’s the sole reason you’re voting for him, then that’s how you’re going to vote.
The percentage list I found is only that, a list.
It is in no way an attack on Mr. Obama.
To me Mr. Obama is biracial, as am I.
Sewere, if you have a different list of ethnic percentages, please, I beg you, post them.
There are those who will vote strictly on race. We should all be allowed to muddle through the mounds of information available to make our own decisions.
Actually I’m the one who should be upset with this thread. As a 75% Caucasian, I should pro-claim that, 50% Caucasian Mr. Obama as being white.
HOW DARE anyone think otherwise!! (sarcasm is hard to put in print)
Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶