Obama

So I’m at an airport again, headed to Florida to give another talk and have dinner with Ethan Murburg’s dad.

And after reading a bunch of papers, and talking to a bunch of friends, I want to set out some quick thoughts about our having elected Obama. Depending on how sober I am this weekend, I may have time to do some more in-depth writing. But quickly:

This isn’t about Obama’s policies, which the staffing rumors hint suggest may make me much happier than Ezra Klein.

It’s about the notion that, first of all, America has overwhelmingly elected a black man to be President. And how unremarkable that seems, and how absolutely remarkable that unremarkability is.

And about the fact that a young, ambitious man – with no family assets, no inherited connections nothing except the relationships he chose and created himself – managed to rise up over a period of 15 years and make himself President.

47 thoughts on “Obama”

  1. AL,
    I agree up to a point. I certainly don’t want to underestimate the significance of electing a self-made black man to the WH. And I certainly don’t want to be dismissive of the joy many people feel about doing so. However, I don’t think you should downplay the extent to which this was a _political_ result, as well. This was a rejection of the ideologies that governed us for the last 8 years. I don’t think that should be lost in the celebration and the self-congratulations. It’s great that we voted for a black man as our leader, but I don’t think we did because he was a black man. I think we voted for him because he offered a reasonable alternative to our soon-to-be-former leaders, whose charm has worn a bit thin.

  2. bq. And about the fact that a young, ambitious man – with no family assets, no inherited connections nothing except the relationships he chose and created himself – managed to rise up over a period of 15 years and make himself President.

    I was 100% with you, up to the 15 years part. You can’t even get to be CEO of an established company that quickly, and (to abuse the analogy) certainly not when you didn’t lead a single department during that time.

    While it’s good to demonstrate someone can win the Presidency without being born into a certain elite class, Obama’s _particular_ journey–with the road through the swamp of the Chicago political system taking up most of its short trip–doesn’t exactly swell me with hope or confidence.

  3. I think that someone with modest beginnings, who was not part of a well-connected family, winning is the main story here, rather than race. It is true that one cannot become the CEO of a big corp in just 4 years, or even build a Google-sized company of your own, in just 4 years.

    That is the bigger story tha race.

    This is because :

    1) He is 50% black, and 50% white. To simply imply that he is ‘black’ is already a tacit admission that that is the more advantageous of two possible descriptions.
    2) We have already had two black Secretaries of State, and two black SCOTUS Justices.
    3) We already have two self-made black billionaires, the richer of whom is a woman.
    4) We already have many Asians and Hispanics in positions of power. An Indian-American became the governor of Louisiana, of all places, at the tender age of 36.

    So this is not the huge racial increment people think it is. It is a smaller increment than it would be to have a woman become President, particularly since women are over 50% of the population, and blacks are 11%.

    Black men earned the right to vote before women did. No other Western country would elect a non-white leader, but several have already elected women (even 25+ years ago, with Thatcher and Meir).

  4. “Obama’s particular journey–with the road through the swamp of the Chicago political system taking up most of its short trip–doesn’t exactly swell me with hope or confidence.”

    Indeed. Double indeed, in fact.

    If Barack Obama had a life story between the ages of 18-34 closer to that of Bill Clinton (a genuinely all-American story, with no fifth-column associates), that would be 10X better.

    Instead, a backgroud with Wright, Ayers, and Black Supremacists in it, unfortunately, also displays some of the worst of America. Obama being 50% black should not sugar-coat this ugly baggage of the black/leftist political condition.

  5. Before we get too carried away with staffing rumors, like RFK Jr. to head the EPA, I would predict that for every moderate Dem chosen, there will probably be someone to appease the progs. That’s usually how these things work.

  6. And yes, I think the stories of Schwarzenegger, Palin, and Jindal are just as inspiring, if not more so, than Obamas.

    1) Arnold suceeded in everything he has ever done, whether real-estate entrepreneurship, body-building, film, and politics. He has gotton to the very top of all 4 fields (politically, he has the biggest executive job that anyone born a non-citizen can theoretically get).
    2) Bobby Jindal is the son of non-white immigrants, who come from a country of greater poverty than any US blacks ever experience.
    3) Sarah Palin is a women with a career trajectory just as steep as Obama’s.

    Both Palin and Jindal could quite possibly become President in the future.

  7. GK,

    Aren’t you contradicting yourself here:
    _It is a smaller increment than it would be to have a woman become President_
    _No other Western country would elect a non-white leader, but several have already elected women_

    I mean, which is it? Are we behind or ahead of this curve by electing a black but not a woman?

  8. mark,

    We are behind the curve. Electing Obama is a smaller achievement than electing a woman.

    Obama’s race actually helped him, rather than act as a disadvantage to him.

  9. GK, so your statement that no other western country would elect a non-white leader means….what, exactly? That we were foolish to do so? I’m not following you here.

    I think it is highly unlikely that Obama’s race helped him, given that only 12% of the US is black, and that they overwhelmingly vote Democratic anyway. According to all available statistics, white people tend to vote overwhelmingly for other white people and there are a lot more of them than of any other category. 55% of whites voted for McCain. So Obama had to overcome the tendency of the largest ethnic group in the country to vote for its own members. I would say he overcame a huge disadvantage of race, rather than being helped by the advantage of race.

  10. “I would say he overcame a huge disadvantage of race, rather than being helped by the advantage of race.”

    Absolutely not. More whites voted for Obama than for Kerry in 2004.

    Also, the coolness/fashionable factor superceded any white racism. The ‘Obama effect’ can be defined as the exact opposite of the now-obsolete ‘Bradley effect’.

    If anything, blacks are far, far more race conscious than whites or Hispanics. No white candidate can ever attract 96% (or even 88%) of the white vote. No woman candidate will ever get 88% or 96% of the female vote.

    In general, I am saying that people are overrating the racial component of the hurdles Obama overcame, while ignoring the larger hurdle that is still not cleared : a woman becoming President or even VP.

  11. How could he have gone from Occidental with middling grades, to Columbia (again with middling grades in an easy major) and from there to Harvard Law, were it not for affirmative action? And surely it’s of some relevance that his presence at those universities after receiving the advantage of a HS education at Punahou, one of the top public high schools in the country, must have displaced someone who worked harder and was more deserving, at least empirically?

    Sorry if I’m not quite in the tank on this, but most universities now have a “Diversity Officer” whose job it is to advocate on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and ideology… and wouldn’t know diversity if it slapped them in the face. Their chief credentials are usually a stint in either Gender or Black Studies, where Islam usually doesn’t have to meet the same behavioral standards expected of Christianity or Judaism, when it comes to acceptance.

    I’m guessing that this situation discourages at least as many as it inspires.

    Now John McWhorter or Shelby Steele are another matter. And I’d point my niece in their direction long before I’d tell her to put Obama at the top of her list of idols.

  12. bq. _the coolness/fashionable factor superceded any white racism._ [#10]

    Do you have any idea how mind-boggling that statement is, to someone who lived through the 50s and 60s? It must be even more so, to people from older generations.

    Friends from other countries are astounded, and tell me that _this_ is the freedom and opportunity that got them to come to America. They had worried that America’s position in the world had been lost, over the past eight years. This election is a first step toward getting it back.

    Of course other people helped pave the way. Without Colin Powell and Condi Rice, not to mention Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfree, this probably wouldn’t have been possible. But Barack Obama is the first to cross that dramatically important symbolic finish line. So he gets the credit, and deserves it.

    bq. _I’m guessing that this situation discourages at least as many as it inspires._ [#11]

    I’d take that bet in a minute. However, I can’t imagine what sort of evidence you could possibly martial on your side of the argument.

  13. I’m guessing that this situation discourages at least as many as it inspires. [#11]

    I’d take that bet in a minute. However, I can’t imagine what sort of evidence you could possibly martial on your side of the argument.

    Again, Obama’s grades and academic performance were mediocre… certainly not enough to allow him entry into two of the top five schools in the country. He may have lacked family connections in the usual sense, but his activist connections were impressive enough to make up for that even if he eventually had to throw them under the bus. He was mentored by radical anti-Americans, which provides a sense of unity and confers “club goods” as impressive as anything a family connection might have provided.

    Still, I don’t think one needs to be a genius to be a successful President, and I certainly hope he advances the hard won cause of American Exceptionalism… but frankly I think it’s something of a vain hope. He just isn’t cut from that cloth. I doubt he even knows what the concept means, let alone respects it.

    Man, I really hope I’m wrong. It won’t take long to tell.

  14. Demosophist,

    _How could he have gone from Occidental with middling grades, to Columbia (again with middling grades in an easy major) and from there to Harvard Law, were it not for affirmative action? _

    It that’s true it’s about the best case I’ve heard in favor of affirmative action in a long time.

  15. Mark:

    How could he have gone from Occidental with middling grades, to Columbia (again with middling grades in an easy major) and from there to Harvard Law, were it not for affirmative action?

    It that’s true it’s about the best case I’ve heard in favor of affirmative action in a long time.

    Not in my book. He wasn’t disadvantaged because of race or pre-college training, but he was advantaged because of race. I don’t see how you justify this even if you think most black students of the time were disadvantaged by their circumstances or by race. He clearly took the place of someone better qualified.

    In the 1940s the Swedish intellectual, Gunnar Myrdal, conducted an analysis of the American public that led directly to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, called The American Dilemma. The crux if his finding was that Americans were aware that blacks were being excluded by systematic prejudice, and that they’d be willing to allow a fairly long period of favoritism to make up for the exclusion. But he also noted that the patience for preference wasn’t unlimited. Americans have been impatient with racial preference for a long time, and it now exists only under the guise of “diversity” in various job and academic settings.

    Also in the 1960s David Armor conducted a study of K-12 schools in south Boston attempting to verify the politically correct notion that interaction between races in an academic setting would improve race relations. He found the contrary, that only in cases were races were part of the same socioeconomic class did race relations improve. Otherwise relations got worse, as one might expect.

    So one of the primary politically correct assumptions about race relations in an academic setting was disproved. If it’s demonstrably the case that favoritism contributes to advantages for one race, other races feel left out (mainly because they are) and the result is a degradation in race relations rather than an improvement. But Obama didn’t suffer from any class discrimination, nor did he suffer from race discrimination. He simply got the advantage of well-intended favoritism, at someone else’s expense. We don’t know who that someone was, but the assumption that the favoritism was justified is an unjustifiable leap.

    Moveover, Obama’s rise was due not only to such favoritism but also to the “club goods” he received by playing the race/ideology card, which is a history we know fairly well even though it was downplayed by the media.

    With all of that he may end up being a good President. Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t justify the clear unfairness of affirmative action. There were two ballot initiatives during this election cycle, in Colorado and Nebraska, that specifically make affirmative action illegal. A similar measure was passed in Michigan in 2006. Much of the liberal professoriate is now opposed to affirmative action, though they dare not say so too loudly. The patience Americans have had for the principle of affirmative action has worn out, and Myrdal’s insight has run its course.

    Will Obama seek to perpetuate it? I don’t think so. He’d lose the support of a critical client base if he did. My guess is he won’t be foolish enough to use his political capital in that way.

  16. Let me add a thought. I think it’s demonstrably clear that age discrimination is much more pervasive than race discrimination in this society, but there’s not only no attempt to repair the problem, there’s a clear preference to ignore it. We wouldn’t dream of giving older workers a hiring advantage if they strike out on a second career no matter how much they’re under-represented. There is also a clear anti-conservative bias in academia, and there will be an anti-conservative bias in most policy professions as a result of the Obama election. You may think that’s justified, but it strikes me as foolish. Nature promotes genuine diversity out of a conservative principle that one might call a “strategy” even though it’s not consciously pursued. It presumes that stresses on a population may come from unexpected “black swans” (catastrophes) and that only if a population has a deep “diversity pool” will it survive such stresses. Past civilizations preserved and honored their elders out of some sort of respect for this principle. We do not. And what passes for diversity in the modern university is simply race and ideology preference. We are allowing that entire sector to exist on a razor’s edge of monoculture even though we call it “multiculturalism.” People in the academy may have different skin colors, but beyond that they’re extremely similar in outlook. This isn’t because the outlook is robust, but just the opposite. It can’t tolerate being challenged.

  17. I absolutely don’t care about Obama’s college grades. Reagan was an average student at Eureka college.

    However, I am still going to call BS on this whole ‘America has improved its image in the world BS.’ In who’s eyes? The eyes of countries that are not even democracies? That do not even have equal rights for women?

    Everyone asks the question “Are white people ready for a black President?” Frankly, they have proven that they are.

    The more challenging question is one that no one is asking : “Are BLACK people ready for a black President?”

    Are they ready to stop blaming everything on race? Are they willing to admit that white people are not actively obstructing them? Are they ready to denounce the Jeremiah Wright philosophy that pervades substantial parts of their community? Are black ‘leaders’ like Jackson and Sharpton willing to give up their lucrative shakedown rackets?

    Are black people ready for a black President?

  18. “People in the academy may have different skin colors, but beyond that they’re extremely similar in outlook. ”

    Demosophist,

    And this is why the market value of a college degree is dropping. Real wages for entry-level Bachelor-degree grads have fallen over the last 10 years. I think that this is not due to ‘outsourcing’ as much as that colleges have diluted the quality of eduction they provide, which private-sector employers have devalued accordingly.

    Meanwhile, college tuition has risen unabated.

    Market forces cannot be ignored forever, however. Colleges will have to either improve the quality of education provided (by jettisoning left-wing garbage), lower tuition, or see enrollment dwindle off..

  19. #17 from GK:

    bq. The more challenging question is one that no one is asking : “Are BLACK people ready for a black President?”

    96% of them are. Specifically they’re ready for a Black President who has worked hard to identify as Black, be recognized by Blacks as a fellow Black, marry Black, have himself spiritually mentored for decades in a Black Church with a Black Value System, see that his daughters are taught the same way, organize Blacks, and rush straight to the top.

    And guess what? Whites are ready to give it to them. They have. This is no longer a wild notion, it’s business as usual.

  20. ” nothing except the relationships he chose and created himself – managed to rise up over a period of 15 years and make himself President.”

    Yep and they sure were a prize set of connections.

    The Daley Machine
    Rev Wright
    Bill Ayers
    Tony Rezko and his Billionare Partner Nadhmi Auchi

    Now that is a prime list of associations, just the thing to launch a young unknown lawyer into his future.

  21. ” nothing except the relationships he chose and created himself – managed to rise up over a period of 15 years and make himself President.”

    Yep and they sure were a prize set of connections.

    The Daley Machine
    Rev Wright
    Bill Ayers
    Tony Rezko and his Billionare Partner Nadhmi Auchi

    Now that is a prime list of associations, just the thing to launch a young unknown lawyer into his future.

  22. GK: I’d point out that Thatcher and Meir both served at least 20 years in the parlaiment before becoming Prime Minister. What is most unthinkable on the global stage is that someone with only three years in national politics would become leader of their country.

  23. bq. And guess what? Whites are ready to give it to them. They have. This is no longer a wild notion, it’s business as usual

    Point of order–you need more than one outlier to establish a pattern of “business as usual”. Presidential elections are a notoriously thin data pool to be drawing trend lines on, especially given the amount of societal change that can happen during the period in between (4-8 years was a long time even before the Internet came around).

    Or to put it another way: 96% of blacks may be ready for a black President, but for many elections before ~90% were ready for a white President… so long as he had a (D) after his name. A 7% uptick within the demographic is nothing to sneeze at, but if I were in a facetious mood I could credibly point to any number of non-racial factors that explained it, given the state of the country this election cycle.

    Thought experiment: if Condoleeza Rice had run against Barak Obama this year, who would have won?

    (Not entirely a random question either. A coworker and I laughed for 2 minutes straight yesterday over the idea of a Rice/Palin 2012 ticket running against an Obama/Biden ticket with a 4 year un-ignorable record.)

  24. “96% of them are. ”

    David Blue,

    You didn’t understand the point. You missed it by a time zone.

    In fact, you have proved that it is blacks who cannot move beyond a racial obsession, while whites did so long ago.

    There are too many black vested interests that don’t want the illusion of ‘racism’ to go away. It is too profitable for them. From Jackson to Sharpton to Wright, the status quo of ‘whitey keeping blacks down’ is just too lucrative for them.

  25. GK,

    Blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, regardless of the race of the candidate (e.g., 88% for Kerry, 95% for Obama). Whites, on the other hand, tend to vote for other whites, regardless of the party. So I’m not sure how you reach your conclusion that blacks are more race conscious than whites. Whites are obviously deeply race conscious. I would wager that when most whites first encounter a black individual, the most distinguishing characteristic they see in assessing that individual is his or her blackness. The degree to which the individual conforms or fails to conform to expectations of blackness becomes the next step in the assessment. Whites tend to see blacks first of all as belonging to an ethnic group that thinks about and experiences the world in a distinct way rather than as individuals. Go back and read your pronouncements about blacks in this and other threads and you will see that you write about blacks in way that elevates their racial identity to such a high degree as to be their _only_ identity. They They They….all alike. You don’t distinguish, say, educated blacks, conservative blacks, religious blacks, poor blacks, middle class blacks, etc., the way you would the various groupings of whites. It seems you are the one who is obsessed with race.

  26. “GK: I’d point out that Thatcher and Meir both served at least 20 years in the parlaiment before becoming Prime Minister. What is most unthinkable on the global stage is that someone with only three years in national politics would become leader of their country.”

    PD Shaw :

    All true, but what is done is done. That is why it is a shame that all 3 out of Blackwell, Swann, and Steele lost in 2006. If just 1 out of those 3 had won, the ripple effects would have been huge.

    This is why Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal, are great GOP candidates for 2012 and especially 2016. Both will have had 8 years of Gov. experience by then.

  27. mark,

    “Whites, on the other hand, tend to vote for other whites, regardless of the party.”

    Dead wrong. Bobby Jindal won in LA, while blacks voted for Dem Kathleen Blanco.

    Also, Ken Blackwell and Lynn Swann, while losing the election, got more of the white vote than black vote.

    “The degree to which the individual conforms or fails to conform to expectations of blackness becomes the next step in the assessment. ”

    That is how white LEFTISTS evaluate people. Not how normal white people evaluate people.

    Keep in mind the horrendous record of racism that the Democratic Party has had through the 19th and 20th centuries.

    “Whites tend to see blacks first of all as belonging to an ethnic group that thinks about and experiences the world in a distinct way rather than as individuals. ”

    Again, this is how white LEFTISTS behave, not normal white people.

    “You don’t distinguish, say, educated blacks, conservative blacks, religious blacks, poor blacks, middle class blacks, etc.”

    Yet again, that is what white LEFTISTS do.

    My point stands, and you have merely made a freudian slip by projecting your own views of race onto others.

    Again :

    Are black people ready for a black President?

  28. “Thought experiment: if Condoleeza Rice had run against Barak Obama this year, who would have won? ”

    When a black Republican runs against a white Democrat, the Black Republican still gets just 20-25% of the black vote.

    Study the 2006 results for Kenneth Blackwell, Lynn Swann, and Michael Steele for the data.

    My point is, that white-black relations in the US, from 1968 to 2008, transformed from white racists (usually Democrats like George Wallace and Robert Byrd) harming innocent blacks, and seeking to segragate them, to today where blacks can say horrendous things about whites that whites could never say about blacks.

    Look at the Jackson/Sharpton/Wright triangle. There is a lucrative racket if there ever was one. And yes, a substantial portion of blacks share Rev. Wrights opinions, as shown by his audience.

    Blacks went from having it very hard to having it rather easy in America today (given how many programs exist to help them, and how easily they get away with accusations of ‘racism’, even if against the Clintons).

    The Bill Cosby school of thought is the correct vision for blacks in America. However, too few have any interest in adopting it, because playing the victim is easy.

    But guess what, now that is harder. The scrutiny of all non-whites, and the world beyond the US, is on them (US blacks have a very poor reputation in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, BTW).

    They will now be held to a higher standard, whether they are ready or not.

    So, hence the question, are Blacks ready for a Black President?

  29. “So, hence the question, are Blacks ready for a Black President?”
    -GK

    That certainly didn’t take long. Long anticipated following an Obama victory, the Post Racial America meme has arrived. Thanks GK for hitting all the high notes… Bill Cosby, foreign perceptions informed by stereotypes, black ingratitude for white benevolence…

    

First a minor quibble, most voters black or white were voting _against_ the Team Bush legacy as much as for Barack Obama. So it’s important to look at Tuesday’s results in their proper context because what we witnessed was the total repudiation of neoliberalism. Thus the answer to the question of an election between Condi and Barockstar is rather obvious. Condi would be forced to run on her record–inalterably wedded to GWB–which would sink her chances with a public fed up with the most disastrous collection of buffoons to ever run (and ruin) the nation. The very same dynamic that doomed Johnny Drama and Bible Spice.



    As far as the issue of race as a factor in this election is concerned I stand by earlier comments I’ve made here. It’s mighty tempting to substitute symbolism for substance. Obama was embraced because he offered many whites a guilt-free choice that never called them to address the privileges afforded them solely due to the color of their skin in a highly race-conscious society. Institutional racism is a _systemic_ feature of the US and is contiguous with the slave and Jim Crow eras. The election of Ivy League trained, coordinator-class Barack Obama, a man with no slave ancestry, doesn’t even begin to address this reality. For those who have no intention of ever seriously addressing the glaring racial inequalities that remain an entrenched feature of the United States, Barack Obama is like calorie-free candy from the Big Candy Rock Mountain. He’s literally the best thing closet racists could have ever asked for.

  30. “Bill Cosby, foreign perceptions informed by stereotypes, black ingratitude for white benevolence… ”

    I stand by those points. Bill Cosby has been trying to provide positive influence to black youths for decades. Foreign perceptions might certainly be wrong, but they are what they are. I can tell you that in India and in China, African-Americans have a wholly negative (and mostly unfair) reputation.

    “..So it’s important to look at Tuesday’s results in their proper context because what we witnessed was the total repudiation of neoliberalism. ”

    How so? Isn’t Bush a practicioner of ‘neo-conservatism’?

    “Institutional racism is a systemic feature of the US and is contiguous with the slave and Jim Crow eras. ”

    I’ll agree if you mean that Affirmative Action is the most destructive example of racism in America today. A policy stating that one group needs lower standards than another is exactly a ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’.

    ” glaring racial inequalities that remain an entrenched feature of the United States”

    There, I strongly disagree. The wealthiest group in America are Asians, not whites. And the very wealthiest subset of Asians (and hence the wealthiest ethnic group of them all) is dark-skinned. Indian-Americans were under British rule far more recently than when the last black slave was freed in the US. Yet, they are more successful than whites in America, and no whites are trying to keep Indians, Chinese, Koreans, etc. down either.

    If whites are to be blamed for black poverty, then whites should also get credit for creating a system where Asian immigrants from extremely poor nations can come here and outperform their hosts. Hell, black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa also do rather well.

    Fair is fair. If black poverty is due to whites, Asian success must also be due to whites.

  31. GK I believe these are perhaps the most threadbare arguments in favor of the status quo that I’ve yet encountered at WoC. Very impressive.

    Your flawed comparative examples are what undermine your case here. Simply put, Asians and Indians do not share the same experience that African-Americans have endured in the United States. 300+ years of slavery plus an _additional_ 100 years of Jim Crow is an experience unique to black Americans here and has never been atoned for.

    _Fair is fair. If black poverty is due to whites, Asian success must also be due to whites_
    -GK

    No GK, stupid is stupid. Blacks and Asians have had completely different experiences in the US. The 13th, 14th, & 15 Amendments, Brown v. Board of Ed, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were not inspired by the mistreatment of Asians or Indians by whites. Sorry brown bro, but no dice. Do try again though, this is fun.

  32. Coldtype,

    “Simply put, Asians and Indians do not share the same experience that African-Americans have endured in the United States.”

    Indeed, they have endured worse. Indians were under British rule until 1947. The Chinese suffered genocide from the Japanese, a civil war, and tremendous string of famines after that.

    As recently as the 1980s, India and China had poverty far greater than any African Americans had experienced at any point in the 20th century.

    And yes, the success of Asians proves that America is not racist. If black poverty is due to whites, Asian success is also due to whites. Hell, the success of immigrant black Dominicans, Jamaicans, Ghanaians, Nigerians, etc. is also due to whites. Fair is fair.

    an experience unique to black Americans here and has never been atoned for.

    Yes, no other group, anywhere in the world, suffered in any way between 1600 and 1968 AD. See how far that claim gets you in a ‘flat world’.

    Using the events of 1968, 1964, or earlier as a crutch in 2008 is fooling no-one anymore, particularly in a global economy. It was a lucrative racket that Jackson/Sharpton/Wright have enjoyed, but it has expired.

    You are talking about ‘experiences in the US’ while I am talking about the more relevant ‘experiences in the world’. I again point out your very US-centric worldview.

    Odd that the pro-US person is not US centric, while the anti-US person is UC-centric.

    Another point of proof is that if America mistreats blacks so heavily, why is there absolutely no evidence of blacks leaving to go to some other country in the whole wide world? Sweden? Canada? Britain? Jamaica? Liberia? Surely, there must be some country in the world where blacks can have a better life than in America?

    Except that there isn’t. If there was, they would be voting with their feet, much like they did to migrate northwards after the civil war.

    I have thoroughly trounced you in this debate, and it shows.

    Now, my 1 question has become two :

    1) Are blacks ready for a black President, and the scrutiny of the black community and lucrative ‘victim-celebrity’ rackets that it will bring?

    2) Are blacks ready for globalization, and the fact that many people in the world have much greater obstacles ahead of them than African Americans of 2008? African Americans will find that the opinions of Vicente Fox, the Chinese Media, Indian TV shows, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg, and that African Americans will have to work hard to overturn the negative reputation that they have in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

    Remember, the world is watching….

  33. _Simply put, Asians and Indians do not share the same experience that African-Americans have endured in the United States_
    -Coldtype

    … which prompted these odd _unrelated_ responses from GK:

    _Indeed, they have endured worse. Indians were under British rule until 1947. The Chinese suffered genocide from the Japanese, a civil war, and tremendous string of famines after that_
    -GK

    _As recently as the 1980s, India and China had poverty far greater than any African Americans had experienced at any point in the 20th century_
    -GK

    WTF are you TALKING ABOUT!!!

    GK as much as you amuse me I’m unlikely to continue our “dialogue” if your obtuseness persists. Our discussion is about the African-American experience in the *United States* as compared to that of other minorities *in the United States* –no other place. My position is that while other minorities suffered greatly in the US and to their credit have made admirable gains, African-American’s were the only ones to suffer through the crucible of slavery and Jim Crow over a span of four centuries _in addition to_ the significant institutional racism that still persists.

    _Another point of proof is that if America mistreats blacks so heavily, why is there absolutely no evidence of blacks leaving to go to some other country in the whole wide world? Sweden? Canada? Britain? Jamaica? Liberia? Surely, there must be some country in the world where blacks can have a better life than in America?_
    -GK

    Leave America? Fool get a grip! The sun rose for three centuries on the scarred backs of our ancestors as their uncompensated labor built this nation into a colossus. The full rights of citizenship–denied us for the vast majority of our time on this continent–is our birthright. Leave and turn our backs on the blood and sacrifice of what 10 million of our ancestors built while in chains? Leave after 50,000+ of our own were lynched _after_ Emancipation for the “crime” of exercising the rights of citizenship? Try to be serious.

  34. GK: Are [black Americans] ready to stop blaming everything on race? Are they willing to admit that white people are not actively obstructing them? Are they ready to denounce the Jeremiah Wright philosophy that pervades substantial parts of their community? Are black ‘leaders’ like Jackson and Sharpton willing to give up their lucrative shakedown rackets?

    And if – nay, I daresay when – a rift develops between this particular cohort and the Obama administration when the latter breaks out of lockstep with the former – whose side will they choose, and who will they throw under the bus? The answer to this question will speak volumes about whether Obama’s election as President really sounds the death knell for racial grievance-mongering in U.S. politics.

  35. The answer to this question will speak volumes about whether Obama’s election as President really sounds the death knell for racial grievance-mongering in U.S. politics.

    I think it will be. The lucrative industry of victimology will implode, and in fact will itself be a source of mockery. Just look at Coldtype.

    In a globalized world, everyone has to compete with everyone else. Blacks have to compete with Mexicans who come here by the millions to work much harder for less pay. Manufacturing that once employed blacks is now done in China.

    The election of Barack Obama has put the entire African American community in the global spotlight. How they act now will shape their reputation for decades to come.

    The world is watching……

  36. Coldtype,

    WTF are you TALKING ABOUT!!!

    I think you know exactly what I am talking about.

    African Americans in 2008 have it much better than most of the people in the world. This does matter, because in the modern world, everyone is visible to everyone else. Blacks will have to compete with people in other countries who work much harder, for less money. They also have to compete with millions of illegal Mexicans who are out-competing black labor.

    The people of Asia, Latin America, etc. have a poor opinion of US blacks as people who squander the tremendous opportunities they have. Your words merely reinforce this.

    BTW, only 5% of black slaves from Africa to the New World came to what is now the US. The other 95% went to the Caribbean, and to Brazil.

    GK as much as you amuse me I’m unlikely to continue our “dialogue” if your obtuseness persists.

    Translation : Coldtype is stumped, and has no answer to my very polite points.

    in addition to the significant institutional racism that still persists.

    Examples? Apparently, blacks can beconme President, Sec. of State, Senators, Governors, SC Justices, atheletes, movie stars, and self-made billionaires.

    Fool get a grip!

    Namecalling is not in compliance with the comments policy on WoC. However, losing your temper is a sign of being utterly stumped in the debate.

    The full rights of citizenship–denied us for the vast majority of our time on this continent–is our birthright.

    er….you do have US citizenship, you know. Many highly-educated professionals form other countries have to go through a 6-10 year process to obtain what you got easily. Be grateful.

    Leave and turn our backs on the blood and sacrifice…

    Again, this is 2008. If America is so bad, it would be logical to seek a better place (note that you didn’t name a better country for black people to live in). If you refuse to leave, then it is unseemly to still complain.

    Go read Dinesh D’Souza’s book ‘What’s so Great about America’, in which there is a chapter ‘What Blacks Owe America’.

    My two questions from #33 still hold (not necessarily addressed to Coldtype).

    1) Are blacks ready for a black President?

    2) Are blacks ready for globalization? Have they even thought about globalization?

    If Coldtype is typical, then the answer to both questions is no.

  37. Coldtype,

    So, the brief summary of my points is :

    1) Yes, your ancestors suffered from slavery, and from Jim Crow. But YOU have not suffered from these things. They do not limit you today, except for the fact that you like the convenient excuse of thinking that they do.

    2) My grandparents endured greater poverty and hardship than yours. That I can say without hesitation. This is not to downplay our GP’s experiences under Jim Crow, but I don’t like how you seem to suggest that no other group anywhere in the world suffered between 1600 and 1968 AD.

    3) You are greatly trying to avoid the fact that Barack Obama as President shines the spotlight onto the entire African American community. This is a GLOBAL spotlight, that blacks have not considered the implications of (particularly since the rest of the world is vastly more racist than the US).

    4) If America treats blacks so badly, it would be logical for them to seek a better place (as millions across the world do when they come TO America). That we see no voting with their feet is an admission that no other country is better for blacks. Your point of ‘not turning your back on the country built on your ancestors labor’ is fine. But then it seems hypocritical to complain about how bad the US is.

  38. _1) Are blacks ready for a black President, and the scrutiny of the black community and lucrative ‘victim-celebrity’ rackets that it will bring?_
    -GK

    No one, black or otherwise, is ready for a “black” president who supports the war of imperial aggression in Iraq, escalation of the war of terror against the Afghan population, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Patriot Acts, FISA, and a 2.5 trillion dollar bailout/giveaway to the same reckless bastards who destroyed our economy. This is what Barockstar has supported in both word and deed. This is what an Obama administration will support in the future as evidenced by his selection of brass-knuckle Zionist partisan and DLC hack Rahm Emanuel as his gatekeeper. Do you think The One will repudiate the unitary executive powers that malevolent moron George W. Bush has wrested for the office of President? I don’t think so either.

    Here’s what many blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Haitians, and Venezuelans among a host of others _are_ ready for: a US “defense” budget that’s been slashed by 90% and the closing of nine tenths of our 750+ military bases straddling the entire globe. Do you think our new prince of hope and change will deliver? I don’t either.

    In short GK, here’s what no one is ready for: Pax Americana with a smiley face.

    “2) Are blacks ready for globalization… ”
    -GK

    Read much? *No one* is ready for “globalization” i.e investor rights agreements and unregulated capital that all but invalidates the sovereignty of nations. Not only has this destructive obscenity been repudiated by most of the world’s population, but so called free market capitalism is deader than Dillinger. Wall Street has been sucking on the public tit for the past year and what remains of America’s industrial base has been reduced to runt status and may not survive. Since the US consumer (we’re no longer producers) is maxed out on his plastic and upside down on his house he can’t do a damn thing for the balance sheets of foreign exporters–so they are also fucked.

    _My grandparents endured greater poverty and hardship than yours_
    -GK

    Please stop embarrassing yourself. These are the kinds of statements that disqualify you from reasoned debate. Since I am a complete stranger to you there is no possible way for you to make this assertion. Think… then type.

  39. Oh, and I thought the long knives were out on the Right:

    Here’s what many blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Haitians, and Venezuelans among a host of others are ready for: a US “defense” budget that’s been slashed by 90% and the closing of nine tenths of our 750+ military bases straddling the entire globe. Do you think our new prince of hope and change will deliver? I don’t either.

    Godspeed, Barack. You’ve planted yourself amongst a wealth of rocks and hard places.

  40. Coldtype,

    You avoided answering points 1, 3, and 4 in post #38, only commenting on point 2,

    You have lost this debate in shabolic humiliation. All you can say is :

    Please stop embarrassing yourself.

    Translation into Coldtypeese : Please stop inflicting logic onto me.

    You actually think that no other group besides African Americans actually suffered hardship between the years of 1600 and 1968 AD. Your entire worldview is built upon propping up that illusion. In the period between 1930 and 1968 alone, I can name 7 groups that suffered far more than African Americans during that period : European Jews, Tibetans, Kurds, Vietnamese, Indians during partition, Russians under Stalin, and Chinese under Japan and then Mao.

    Go tell any of these groups that the treatment of your ancestors decades ago means YOU are owed something today.

    You also failed to acknowledge that you do have US citizenship, which you should be grateful for. You further failed to admit that 95% of slaves from Africa went to the Caribbean and Brazil, and only 5% went to what is now the US.

    For the rest, you meandered into memorized anti-US screeds, without answering the question (typical left-wing psuedo-intellectual cowardice, when confronted with logic).

    So address points 1, 3, and 4 out of #38.

  41. I daresay that the total defeat that Coldtype is experiencing in this debate with me (an Asian-Indian-American) is quite symbolic of the situation that African Americans are about to find themselves in, with BHO as President, and globalization increasing.

    African Americans are so programmed to ‘blame whitey’ and whites are so programmed to accept this blame and extend sympathies, that African Americans are not prepared to interact with groups that will not extend the same sympathies, mainly because they have suffered just as much, if not more, in the world.

    Globalization means wage competition. Illegals form Mexico compete with black labor (as Vicente Fox likes to point out). Factories that once employed blacks are now in China. Low-end service jobs that employed black women are now in India.

    White American per capita GDP : $50,000
    Black American per capita GDP : $33,000
    Mexico per capita GDP : $8000
    China per capita GDP : $3000
    India per capita GDP : $1000

    While white Americans have further to fall, they seem far more prepared for this competition than US blacks are.

    And BHO as President puts the spotlight on the entire black community.

    The world is watching…….

  42. bq. _Please stop embarrassing yourself._ [Coldtype to GK, #39]

    bq. _the total defeat that Coldtype is experiencing in this debate with me_ [GK to Coldtype, #42]

    At the risk of belaboring the obvious, when you are in the middle of an argument or debate, it is not the role of either debater to declare their own victory. Attempting to do so just undercuts any credibility you might have had to start with.

    Make your case, as clearly and persuasively as you can to whatever audience might be paying attention, and hope for the best. But you’re not going to get a trophy to take home, declaring you The Winner. And certainly not if you declare your own victory.

  43. “when you are in the middle of an argument or debate, ”

    I don’t think we are in the middle. It is virtually the last stand for Coldtype.

    When he refuses to address 75% or more of the points/questions I pose, changing the subject repeatedly, it is telling.

    At a minimum, one should answer the other’s points.

  44. Why do we have bases around the world? Because WWW2 taught us a lesson.

    Withdrawing from the world after WW1 led to WW2. So American policy since then has been: it is cheaper to keep the peace than to fight a World War.

    If cold type gets his way we will have another world war in due course.

    Of course WW2 is now 60+ years behind us and the lessons are being forgotten and the policy makers who set our course after that war are long dead and the population no longer remembers why we did what we did.

    American presence in Europe has prevented the Europeans from going at each other as they once regularly did. But history is no longer taught much and for the general populace history is no substitute for direct experience.

  45. [Catherine, all those bare URLs were cause for deletion of your post content. The recommended format for posting links is presented in text above the comment-entry fields here. If you’d care to try again, please follow that format. –NM]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.