Sometimes all I can say is, what a fascinating post and thank you for having found and shared it.
I railed passionately against Political Correctness during the peak of its reign; Hillary is a byproduct of what I call the "pod" mentality but I don't think Obama is.
I dunno. I thought we were supposed to move beyond this sort of identity politics. I mean, for years we pandered to special interests like these "Angry white men". Indeed, the politics of the last 8 years have been the triumph of this one special interest above all others. They have failed. It's time to let someone else have a say...
Because I think this nation is as black as it is white as it is latino. Much of the transformative genius in this country has been occasioned by the providence of African American individuals. I have always felt that racism might be envy.
I really want a President that is a good President, regardless of the color of his skin. If only someone could articulate a vision where people would be judged by their character, rather then theis color...oh wait...
I'm not saying that to attack you but I can't help but think that if I, a white guy, said, "I really want a white president," I'd be labeled a racist.
I don't know if you're black, white, or tangerine but wanting a President simply because of the color of their skin seems like poor policy.
Does this mean you want any black President? Jesse Jackson? Sharpton? Farrakhan? Because when you say you want a black President you open the door to any black person.
Kevin D., Your charge against what I said is quite valid, and I deserved it, because I didn't take the time to add any texture to what I stated bluntly about wanting a black president.
I would absolutely not want any black president, and do not like or trust the black leaders you cited--Sharpton et al.
Let me try again, to say something that I hope you will understand is not racist.
I think Obama is a providential person, (to borrow a phrase from my friend Rich Kotlartz, who actually used the phrase to describe Ron Paul. I agree in both cases.)
Obama has something very powerful attached to his karma and path. I want to see and hear what comes up, what is expressed what change that is meant to happen does happen, because it seems clear to me only he--among these candidates-- has that kind of energy and portent about him. (Actually, I think Ron Paul does as well, and in his case too, what is most interesting is not the man but the passions around him, the devotees.)
So why did I say I want a "black president" and not "I want Obama for President."
Both are true. I voted for Obama in the primary.
I haven't voted in many elections and haven't believed even in the concept of a "President" in I don't know how many years. Sometimes I enter the voting booth and I just can't bring myself to do it, and I walk out. This is another subject for another time--conscious non voting.
But back to whether what I said is racist: I hope not. I meant it as a measure of excitement about change. Would you think me a sexist if I said "I want a woman for president?"
No. You would say that's perfectly understandable, as a way to express a desire for radical change from status quo. Hope.
How about if I say it this way, change the statement: "I would like to see the New Yorker edited by a black man (or woman.) I would like to see a black man or woman run the Columbia Journalism Review. The New York Times. The Nation. The New Republic. The Charlie Rose Show."
What would I mean by that?
I would mean that I am sick of the elite.
Not because they are white, but because they are the elite. I don't want a "black" president because of his or her skin color, but because of the relief to me personally of getting away from the constant domination of the elites.
Now, Obama is of the elite too. I KNOW.
Never mind Obama for a moment. It is Obama's capacity to allow me to hear the black story/narrative rather than just the white story that is what I am getting at. I think the Civil Rights Movement was left half finished. In the end, as in South Africa, the white elites maintained domination over the "culture," or at least the dominant culture. (Except Oprah.)
Would it be racist to say one was happy to see a black president of Soutb Africa when Mandela took the post?
My (white) South African friend Anthony Brink reminds me that the media (elite) in South Africa remain as he puts it "lilly white."
I don't know if there is a single major newspaper edited by a black South African, which goes a long way to understanding the malignant racism of the way Mbeki and his health minister have been pilloried in the press, there and around the world.
Where are all of these angry white men? I mean, other than the usual suspects on the net? I have not seen any evidence of angry white men anywhere, and I don't really see any evidence in either article.
Does anyone else know anything about these ragin' Rotarians?
I didn't think the article was good either, but I did think that Trudy posting it was good. It was interesting. The article was yet another mid-reading of what PC is and what is wrong with it. PC has little to do with correcting injustice, racial or otherwise. I think the article makes people think PC was important and right and good. It was mostly hell--for people of all races.
You speak of the domination of the "elite," and believe that an Obama presidency would be a move away from this domination. Question:
What if Ken Chenault (CEO of American Express, who is black) was running for President? Would you also view his candidacy/victory as a movement away from elite domination? What about Ursula Burns, President of Xerox, who is black as well as female?
Yeah well...beats me. I don't think relief from elites is realistic. I think actually the only candidate who truly embodies radical change is Ron Paul. He is much less of the elite than Obama. Better to say, he is not at all of the "elite." Obama is, utterly. Now I am contradicting myself. Or am I?
I still think Obama could inspire Americans to think things could change. (This equals change.) In other words, we are the change and we only need a catalyst.
You know how Pete Townshend always said the band only reflected the feelings of the audience in the beginning, the mods? "We can't explain what we can't explain so please carry on doing it for us."
In the end, as in South Africa, the white elites maintained domination over the "culture," or at least the dominant culture.
I'm not sure what you expected. The country, as of 2006 census data, is 73.9% White and only 12.4% Black. The reason minorities are minorities is generally because they are in the minority.
I still think Obama could inspire Americans to think things could change...In other words, we are the change and we only need a catalyst.
I'd rather like to know what this highly vaunted "change" is actually going to entail. What is going to be changed? And changed into what? It's wonderful rhetoric to be sure, and I suspect it's going to win him the presidency. Perhaps then he'll let us in on the changes.
Rather than there being a single elite in this country, it seems to me there are multiple elites whose interests and opinions are very different from one another. The business elite, the lawyer elite, the Ivy-league-tenured professor elite, the inherited-money-and-social-status elite, the sports and entertainment elite--the members of these groups tend to have different interests and to look at the world in different ways. Even within these categories, there are big differences--a Silicon Valley venture capitalist with big investments in alternative energy is likely to be a very different creature, in many ways, from a guy who has built up a substantial manufacturing firm in Philadelphia.
I think Obama is a providential person, (to borrow a phrase from my friend Rich Kotlartz, who actually used the phrase to describe Ron Paul. I agree in both cases.)
Obama has something very powerful attached to his karma and path. I want to see and hear what comes up, what is expressed what change that is meant to happen does happen, because it seems clear to me only he--among these candidates-- has that kind of energy and portent about him. (Actually, I think Ron Paul does as well, and in his case too, what is most interesting is not the man but the passions around him, the devotees.)
This scares me. When I read intelligent people following emotions over reason at a very fundamental level alarm bells ring and I get chills.
Perhaps it's my understanding of history and the personalities who shaped it, but this is exactly the kind of honesty that has historically lead so often to tragedy.
I'm a white man, and a lot of what Gary Hubbell writes here resonates with folks like me. Am I a racist? I surely don't think so.
Unlike most people you know, I not only spent some of the formative years of my life -- kindergarten, first grade -- playing with black kids my age in the wintry streets of Chicago.
(One of them probably may have saved my life after I got bitten by a rat while we were playing in a street corner depression era junkyard, and he brought me home and told my mom about it. After which I endured many weeks of some of the nastiest injections I ever have known, as insurance against rabies.)
Then 13 years later, I served a couple of years of active duty in the US Army during the Korea war and lived my life in an army barracks that with a population about 1/3 african-american and most of the rest european-american, with a sprinkling of Hispanics and american Indians. That was 1953-1955, a hell of a long time before the rest of America was integrated. And the commanding officer of the last unit in which I served on active duty was a black captain. I respected him and followed his orders. Because he deserved no less than that. And because he was the head of my outfit. Simple as that.
But just because I like African-Americans doesn't necessarily mean I like Senator Barack Obama or want him to be president just because of his skin color. Nor do I feel any particular sense of guilt about anybody over race, religion, I'm-depraved-on-accounta-I'm-deprived, or the rest of the liberal thinkshit.
Sure, I too am looking forward to watching on television as an african-american man -- or woman -- being sworn in as president of the United States. But maybe no more so than if that president-elect were a white or asian-american female, a Mormon/Jew/Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox. Maybe even a Moslem, which for me would be something of a stretch. But yes indeed, I would honor him or her just the same.
By the way, Celia. I heard on one of your dad's talk shows a long time ago that he is from Carolina. So how many black kids did you run around with as a kid in Charleston, Columbia, or wherever you grew up? What the hell do you really know about them, or the shit they took as their particular part of the American experience?
Or when I read your stuff such as you wrote in your comments here, is it just the guilt talking?
I am not an Obama fanatic I am just tentatively inspired by what he seems to be inspiring. There is nothing "scary" about responding emotionally to a presidential candidate. Calm down.
About my family background and the question of racial education and/or guilt:
My father grew up Jewish in Greensboro North Carolina from age 5, born 1930 in Baltimore. He played a critical role in desegregating his university, and like many of his generation was very active and involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and he was (and is) white. He later, as a radio broadcaster, became a close friend of Malcolm X, who cited him as the only white journalist he trusted, in his autobiography. This, so far, has nothing to do with me. But Arnold mixed in my father and various people are getting fairly hostile so I am laying it all out for you.
I was born in New York, and moved with my mother to Sweden at age 11, returning at age 18, never having set foot in the US in between.
I saw my father once, sometimes twice a year for a few days, during those years, and we rarely had time to discuss racial strife in America, because I was busy explaining racism in Orebro, Sweden, such as it was. In terms of racial experience, I have none to speak of. I went to public school in NYC in the 70s. I was one of the only white kids in the class and the only emotion I can recall is mortification over my hair and clothes and general lack of talent of any kind.
In Sweden, the racism was focused on immigrants with dark hair, "svart skallar," many of whom lived in the housing complex where I grew up. As an American, I was hated and scorned but also somewhat admired, (for being from New York) as a "jude," (jew) I was exotic and mystifying. I was also half Swedish, but my (Swedish) mother did not like Swedes.
The hatred I have had projected onto me in my life is primarily from my sin of reporting that some people don't think HIV causes AIDS, starting in 1987, when some people started to think that.
When I hear the D word, (denialist) my soul shudders in a way I imagine somebody black would upon hering the N word, (nigger.)
It is a total and immediate debasement of the human being, and there is no way to answer it. And it says nothing about me--everything about the person calling me that.
Bigotry is everywhere. Fear is everywhere.
I thought you people here at DW were big enough and unafraid enough not to accuse a person of racism because she says she is excited about Obama and excited by the idea of a black president. I don't owe anybody any explanations. I think you guys should take an inventory of your fears and reflexes, and ideally, apologize.
I have nothing more to say at a website where I am called a racist. I can't believe this, frankly. It simply snuffs out any will one might have had to express ideas, perceptions, feelings. NOT that one is challenged or disagreed with, but that a wrench is thrown into one's face, a very ugly accusation indeed. Racist?
ARE THERE ANY AFRICAN AMERICAN READERS OF DEAN'S WORLD?
If so, can you please tell me if my statement was racist, about wanting a black president?
I'm pretty sure the concept that only black people have the ability to discern racism is in itself racist. When you roll up a Black Character, do you automatically get the "Detect Racism" trait?
2.25.2008 2:02pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
Sometimes all I can say is, what a fascinating post and thank you for having found and shared it.
I railed passionately against Political Correctness during the peak of its reign; Hillary is a byproduct of what I call the "pod" mentality but I don't think Obama is.
Later I'll explain what I mean by "pod."
I really want to have a black president.
Period.
So, are you admitting to being a racist?
I'm not saying that to attack you but I can't help but think that if I, a white guy, said, "I really want a white president," I'd be labeled a racist.
I don't know if you're black, white, or tangerine but wanting a President simply because of the color of their skin seems like poor policy.
Does this mean you want any black President? Jesse Jackson? Sharpton? Farrakhan? Because when you say you want a black President you open the door to any black person.
I, too, would like to see a black president. But not Obama.
I would absolutely not want any black president, and do not like or trust the black leaders you cited--Sharpton et al.
Let me try again, to say something that I hope you will understand is not racist.
I think Obama is a providential person, (to borrow a phrase from my friend Rich Kotlartz, who actually used the phrase to describe Ron Paul. I agree in both cases.)
Obama has something very powerful attached to his karma and path. I want to see and hear what comes up, what is expressed what change that is meant to happen does happen, because it seems clear to me only he--among these candidates-- has that kind of energy and portent about him. (Actually, I think Ron Paul does as well, and in his case too, what is most interesting is not the man but the passions around him, the devotees.)
So why did I say I want a "black president" and not "I want Obama for President."
Both are true. I voted for Obama in the primary.
I haven't voted in many elections and haven't believed even in the concept of a "President" in I don't know how many years. Sometimes I enter the voting booth and I just can't bring myself to do it, and I walk out. This is another subject for another time--conscious non voting.
But back to whether what I said is racist: I hope not. I meant it as a measure of excitement about change. Would you think me a sexist if I said "I want a woman for president?"
No. You would say that's perfectly understandable, as a way to express a desire for radical change from status quo. Hope.
How about if I say it this way, change the statement: "I would like to see the New Yorker edited by a black man (or woman.) I would like to see a black man or woman run the Columbia Journalism Review. The New York Times. The Nation. The New Republic. The Charlie Rose Show."
What would I mean by that?
I would mean that I am sick of the elite.
Not because they are white, but because they are the elite. I don't want a "black" president because of his or her skin color, but because of the relief to me personally of getting away from the constant domination of the elites.
Now, Obama is of the elite too. I KNOW.
Never mind Obama for a moment. It is Obama's capacity to allow me to hear the black story/narrative rather than just the white story that is what I am getting at. I think the Civil Rights Movement was left half finished. In the end, as in South Africa, the white elites maintained domination over the "culture," or at least the dominant culture. (Except Oprah.)
Would it be racist to say one was happy to see a black president of Soutb Africa when Mandela took the post?
My (white) South African friend Anthony Brink reminds me that the media (elite) in South Africa remain as he puts it "lilly white."
I don't know if there is a single major newspaper edited by a black South African, which goes a long way to understanding the malignant racism of the way Mbeki and his health minister have been pilloried in the press, there and around the world.
Oh boy, I bet I'm in trouble now...
ARE THERE ANY AFRICAN AMERICAN READERS OF DEAN'S WORLD?
If so, can you please tell me if my statement was racist, about wanting a black president?
I'd prefer to leave the indentity politics to the race baiters like Al Sharpton.
Does anyone else know anything about these ragin' Rotarians?
I still want Fred Thompson to be president. Oh well.
You speak of the domination of the "elite," and believe that an Obama presidency would be a move away from this domination. Question:
What if Ken Chenault (CEO of American Express, who is black) was running for President? Would you also view his candidacy/victory as a movement away from elite domination? What about Ursula Burns, President of Xerox, who is black as well as female?
I still think Obama could inspire Americans to think things could change. (This equals change.) In other words, we are the change and we only need a catalyst.
You know how Pete Townshend always said the band only reflected the feelings of the audience in the beginning, the mods? "We can't explain what we can't explain so please carry on doing it for us."
I'm not sure what you expected. The country, as of 2006 census data, is 73.9% White and only 12.4% Black. The reason minorities are minorities is generally because they are in the minority.
I'd rather like to know what this highly vaunted "change" is actually going to entail. What is going to be changed? And changed into what? It's wonderful rhetoric to be sure, and I suspect it's going to win him the presidency. Perhaps then he'll let us in on the changes.
The majority of South Africans are black. This is from Wikipedia, "South Africa:"
Black South Africans, who speak nine officially recognised languages, and many more dialects, account for slightly less than 80% of the population.
David Foster
This scares me. When I read intelligent people following emotions over reason at a very fundamental level alarm bells ring and I get chills.
Perhaps it's my understanding of history and the personalities who shaped it, but this is exactly the kind of honesty that has historically lead so often to tragedy.
I'm a white man, and a lot of what Gary Hubbell writes here resonates with folks like me. Am I a racist? I surely don't think so.
Unlike most people you know, I not only spent some of the formative years of my life -- kindergarten, first grade -- playing with black kids my age in the wintry streets of Chicago.
(One of them probably may have saved my life after I got bitten by a rat while we were playing in a street corner depression era junkyard, and he brought me home and told my mom about it. After which I endured many weeks of some of the nastiest injections I ever have known, as insurance against rabies.)
Then 13 years later, I served a couple of years of active duty in the US Army during the Korea war and lived my life in an army barracks that with a population about 1/3 african-american and most of the rest european-american, with a sprinkling of Hispanics and american Indians. That was 1953-1955, a hell of a long time before the rest of America was integrated. And the commanding officer of the last unit in which I served on active duty was a black captain. I respected him and followed his orders. Because he deserved no less than that. And because he was the head of my outfit. Simple as that.
But just because I like African-Americans doesn't necessarily mean I like Senator Barack Obama or want him to be president just because of his skin color. Nor do I feel any particular sense of guilt about anybody over race, religion, I'm-depraved-on-accounta-I'm-deprived, or the rest of the liberal thinkshit.
Sure, I too am looking forward to watching on television as an african-american man -- or woman -- being sworn in as president of the United States. But maybe no more so than if that president-elect were a white or asian-american female, a Mormon/Jew/Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox. Maybe even a Moslem, which for me would be something of a stretch. But yes indeed, I would honor him or her just the same.
By the way, Celia. I heard on one of your dad's talk shows a long time ago that he is from Carolina. So how many black kids did you run around with as a kid in Charleston, Columbia, or wherever you grew up? What the hell do you really know about them, or the shit they took as their particular part of the American experience?
Or when I read your stuff such as you wrote in your comments here, is it just the guilt talking?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I am not an Obama fanatic I am just tentatively inspired by what he seems to be inspiring. There is nothing "scary" about responding emotionally to a presidential candidate. Calm down.
About my family background and the question of racial education and/or guilt:
My father grew up Jewish in Greensboro North Carolina from age 5, born 1930 in Baltimore. He played a critical role in desegregating his university, and like many of his generation was very active and involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and he was (and is) white. He later, as a radio broadcaster, became a close friend of Malcolm X, who cited him as the only white journalist he trusted, in his autobiography. This, so far, has nothing to do with me. But Arnold mixed in my father and various people are getting fairly hostile so I am laying it all out for you.
I was born in New York, and moved with my mother to Sweden at age 11, returning at age 18, never having set foot in the US in between.
I saw my father once, sometimes twice a year for a few days, during those years, and we rarely had time to discuss racial strife in America, because I was busy explaining racism in Orebro, Sweden, such as it was. In terms of racial experience, I have none to speak of. I went to public school in NYC in the 70s. I was one of the only white kids in the class and the only emotion I can recall is mortification over my hair and clothes and general lack of talent of any kind.
In Sweden, the racism was focused on immigrants with dark hair, "svart skallar," many of whom lived in the housing complex where I grew up. As an American, I was hated and scorned but also somewhat admired, (for being from New York) as a "jude," (jew) I was exotic and mystifying. I was also half Swedish, but my (Swedish) mother did not like Swedes.
The hatred I have had projected onto me in my life is primarily from my sin of reporting that some people don't think HIV causes AIDS, starting in 1987, when some people started to think that.
When I hear the D word, (denialist) my soul shudders in a way I imagine somebody black would upon hering the N word, (nigger.)
It is a total and immediate debasement of the human being, and there is no way to answer it. And it says nothing about me--everything about the person calling me that.
Bigotry is everywhere. Fear is everywhere.
I thought you people here at DW were big enough and unafraid enough not to accuse a person of racism because she says she is excited about Obama and excited by the idea of a black president. I don't owe anybody any explanations. I think you guys should take an inventory of your fears and reflexes, and ideally, apologize.
I have nothing more to say at a website where I am called a racist. I can't believe this, frankly. It simply snuffs out any will one might have had to express ideas, perceptions, feelings. NOT that one is challenged or disagreed with, but that a wrench is thrown into one's face, a very ugly accusation indeed. Racist?
It's racist now, to be excited about Obama????
I'm pretty sure the concept that only black people have the ability to discern racism is in itself racist. When you roll up a Black Character, do you automatically get the "Detect Racism" trait?
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.