Tapsearch Com EditorMedia converges on past Obama comments
January 30th 2007 15:29
Back in October I posted a comment from Shelby Steele on Barack Obama, quoted in Time magazine:
"White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn't rub their noses in racial guilt."
Shortly thereafter, I wrote in the Weekly Standard about Obama's comment that the Republican Party had "discovered black people." For the new Obama, this was a slip-up inconsistent with his normally even-toned demeanor.
Back in the Weekly Standard article, I argued that this demeanor is itself inconsistent with his far-left voting record. But Obama has only been in Congress for a few years, and presidential races aren't based only on recent activity. Media research covers one's whole life. Steele's comment doesn't ring as true anymore -- not only in terms of Obama's voting record, but in his older comments as well.
This article, and other recent ones, have made it clear Obama has had some real racial hang-ups. That may be understandable for someone who grew up mixed, but if these hang-ups still lurk under the surface, they're not acceptable in a leader who has to make decisions on race-based domestic policies.
A lengthy excerpt from the article:
"Although Obama was raised by his mother, he identified more closely with the race of his father, who left the family when Obama was 2.
"'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,' he wrote...
"Although Obama spent various portions of his youth living with his white maternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather, he vowed that he would 'never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'
"Obama wrote that in high school, he and a black friend would sometimes speak disparagingly 'about white folks this or white folks that, and I would suddenly remember my mother's smile, and the words that I spoke would seem awkward and false.'
"As a result, he concluded that 'certain whites could be excluded from the general category of our distrust.'"
Excellent -- I wonder which whites in American politics, or even in America at large, are today excluded? Also, family-values Americans won't be too thrilled that he identified with a father who left when Obama was 2, had multiple wives at once and sired eight children with several different women.
Again, this is not a personal attack on Obama. With this kind of family history, it's understandable he would have troubles dealing with everything. Sociological research has revealed that mixed-race Americans often end up identifying with one race or another. But Americans need a president without such issues. At the very least, he'll have to convince America he's past it by explicitly contradicting his published work.
Also, I hope people can focus not on Obama's father's behavior, but on Obama's reactions to it. I don't think it's fair to punish the candidate -- who so far seems a decent if extremely liberal man -- for others' sins.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com.
"White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn't rub their noses in racial guilt."
Shortly thereafter, I wrote in the Weekly Standard about Obama's comment that the Republican Party had "discovered black people." For the new Obama, this was a slip-up inconsistent with his normally even-toned demeanor.
Back in the Weekly Standard article, I argued that this demeanor is itself inconsistent with his far-left voting record. But Obama has only been in Congress for a few years, and presidential races aren't based only on recent activity. Media research covers one's whole life. Steele's comment doesn't ring as true anymore -- not only in terms of Obama's voting record, but in his older comments as well.
This article, and other recent ones, have made it clear Obama has had some real racial hang-ups. That may be understandable for someone who grew up mixed, but if these hang-ups still lurk under the surface, they're not acceptable in a leader who has to make decisions on race-based domestic policies.
A lengthy excerpt from the article:
"Although Obama was raised by his mother, he identified more closely with the race of his father, who left the family when Obama was 2.
"'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,' he wrote...
"Although Obama spent various portions of his youth living with his white maternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather, he vowed that he would 'never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'
"Obama wrote that in high school, he and a black friend would sometimes speak disparagingly 'about white folks this or white folks that, and I would suddenly remember my mother's smile, and the words that I spoke would seem awkward and false.'
"As a result, he concluded that 'certain whites could be excluded from the general category of our distrust.'"
Excellent -- I wonder which whites in American politics, or even in America at large, are today excluded? Also, family-values Americans won't be too thrilled that he identified with a father who left when Obama was 2, had multiple wives at once and sired eight children with several different women.
Again, this is not a personal attack on Obama. With this kind of family history, it's understandable he would have troubles dealing with everything. Sociological research has revealed that mixed-race Americans often end up identifying with one race or another. But Americans need a president without such issues. At the very least, he'll have to convince America he's past it by explicitly contradicting his published work.
Also, I hope people can focus not on Obama's father's behavior, but on Obama's reactions to it. I don't think it's fair to punish the candidate -- who so far seems a decent if extremely liberal man -- for others' sins.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com.
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