For me, reading the piece by my old friend Joe Darby on today’s op-ed page was another excruciating instance of the apparently unbridgeable cognitive divide between black and white Americans. I always find it very troubling — in fact, I lack words for just how much it troubles me.
Somehow, Joe looked at the fact that Republicans LIKE an inexperienced conservative Republican, but DON’T like an inexperienced liberal Democrat, and saw it as racism. I realize that after my more than half a century of living in this country, I should not be shocked at such things, but I was. Shocked, and very worried.
Remember this post about Bill Moyers’ hyperbole about the stakes in this election. Something one of y’all said caused me to express my worry about what will happen if Barack Obama loses this election: Democrats, who have been VERY charged up about their expectation of winning, and whose hatred of Republicans has reached new depths in the past eight years, will be so bitter that — and I hate even to think this thought aloud — the political polarization will be even WORSE in this country. MoveOn.org, to name but one segment of that alliance, will probably implode to the point of nuclear fusion.
(Republicans, by contrast, have been expecting to lose all year. As recently as last week, when I wrote that earlier post, I would have expected the GOP to accept defeat in November relatively fatalistically. Of course, that was before Sarah Palin got them excited. Now, if they lose, I expect the usual level of bitterness, just not as severe as what I think we’re in store for if Democrats lose.)
And that was without considering race. If you add in the expectations of so many black voters this year, the potential for bitter disappointment is incalculable. This year I’ve noted a potent paradox in the attitude of many black voters: A disbelief that a black man (if you consider Obama to be a black man, which I don’t — another subject for another day) has won a major party nomination, combined incongruously with the notion that if he doesn’t also win the general election, it’s because of racism.
Even though I was aware of that, Joe’s piece was a shock, because it wasn’t just generalized excitement about Obama combined with being prepared to resent it if he loses. It was the logic, or lack thereof, that Joe employed in seeing racism specifically in the fact that Republicans like Sarah Palin and not Barack Obama.
No sooner had I read that on proofs yesterday and taken my worrying to a new level than The Wall Street Journal reported this morning:
An anxious murmur is rising among black voters as the presidential race tightens: What if Barack Obama loses?
Black talk-show hosts and black-themed Web sites are being flooded with callers and bloggers reflecting a nervousness — and anger — over the campaign. Bev Smith, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, devoted her entire three-hour show Monday night to the question: "If Obama doesn’t win, what will you think?"…
If Sen. Obama loses, "African-Americans could be disappointed to the point of not engaging in the process anymore," or consider forming a third political party, said Richard McIntire, communications director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
This is not a good place to be.
I first met Joe Darby about 15 years ago. The newspaper sponsored a black-white dialogue group that was coordinated by a reporter I supervised. Joe was one of the panelists, and I was struck by his patience and mildness of manner in explaining his perspective to whites flustered over black citizens’ sense of aggrievement.
I’m sure Joe would have been just as patient with the middle-aged white acquaintance — someone I’ve known for many years, and who I am quite sure is not a racist — who came up to me this morning and said, based on the op-ed piece, "That Joe Darby is a racist." I insisted that I knew Joe Darby well, and he was not, but this was exactly the reaction I had predicted to a colleague when I saw the proof the day before. I had said that what Joe had written was precisely the kind of thing that caused white conservatives to be profoundly alienated by the way many blacks express themselves politically.
Fifteen years after that black-white dialogue experience — and many, many less formal such dialogues later — I find myself close to despair that mutual understanding can be achieved.
Particularly if Barack Obama loses the election.
Related Posts
brad
do you think democrat’s hatred of republicans has matched the intensity of the gop loathing for the clintons? i find the intensity of each troubling but as you said in an earlier blog there are a heck of a lot of people who profit handsomely from making the basest appeals possible so i don’t expect a change. since at least the mid-19th century there has been money to be made in the political vitriol business-the medium may have changed, but not the “message.” according to dr edgar the state newspaper was not founded to be some kind of “objective above the clouds” news source any more than murdoch’s fox news network though each may claim to be so.
But, Brad, if John McCain is the aisle-crosser and bipartisan leader that you think he still is, how could the divisiveness possibly continue at this level should he win? Won’t his spirit of bipartisan leadership change the dynamic in Washington? Or do you suspect that, yes, after all, he indeed he will govern further from the center, mindful of how much he will owe the Palin constituency?
Conversely, if you think Republicans won’t be as angry if Obama wins, then wouldn’t that be a promising atmosphere for Obama to make good on his pledges to create a new, less divisive atmosphere in Washington?
I meant to add one more thing to the above: the black-white divide in terms of electoral politics won’t change until the GOP decides to do the following things:
1)come back closer to the center politically
2)return to its roots of fiscal conservatism
3)but shed they identity politics (Small-town America=Real Americans…which several African-Americans have told me they take as codespeak)
4) can no longer rely on a solid South as an electoral base due to the Dems’ embrace of civil rights, because of the rapidly changing demographics in the region, and
5) as a result of the above, field more strong African-American candidates like Michael Steele etc.
There’s no reason that large numbers of African-Americans could not be drawn to the strong historic traditions of conservatism, but as long as the GOP tries to play off working-class and less-educated whites against blacks, this will never happen. McCain to his credit does not seem in his heart to subscribe to this Reagan-onward GOP trend, but it was shocking to see at the GOP convention an already-nearly-all-white party become even more that way, delegate-wise, than 2000 or 2004.
On Cognitive Divides
Upon reading Joe Darby’s op-ed piece that appears in The State today, Brad Warthen said he was struck by “…the apparently unbridgeable cognitive divide between black and white Americans.”
Brad, this doesn’t have anything directly to do with this post, and maybe someone else has already suggested this possibility, but, in view of your hopes for a less divisive politics…I share those, but have been fearing the following nightmare scenario on November 4:
I’m going out on a limb here and predicting a 269-269 tie. If I’m figuring this right, if Obama holds onto all the states Kerry won, plus wins New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa (a very plausible scenario) that makes a tie.
Can you imagine? It would make 2000 pale by comparison. (Or 1876, for that matter). What would happen? (I know it could go to the House, but an individual elector here or there could change the election one way or the other.)
Anyway, that’s my call.
The Rev. Joseph Darby’s letter is that of a racist. He resents everything except the fact that he is not white. There is nothing new in his letter that I have not read and heard from the black community for the past 50 years. You are not given respect. You earn respect.
Until the black’s rise above the resentment of what the white’s have accomplished, nothing will change. There is no catch up here because the blacks have had all the time they needed since slavery to equal the white race in education, jobs and places of respect in the community.
The white man when he came to this country carved out a place in the wilderness that is today the greatest country in the world. The white man did not do this alone but the people were made up of all nationalities. Anyone that wants to say that the Negro has been held back by the whites have it all wrong. The blacks have held themselves back.
God created all men equal. He did not create one man more equal than the next. If you live in a country such as the United States of America, you have equal opportunity guaranteed. It is up to you after that.” YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE AND THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR SOUL”.
On cognitive divides http://www.crackthebell.com/2008/09/on-cognitive-divides.html
…. nevertheless, McCain should not only swear off crap like the “sex-ed” ad, but take affirmative action to make sure no one associated with him engages in it (which is much, much harder — perhaps even impossible — when you’ve got so many people who might presume to speak for you in such a short time period, but he should still try).
And Obama needs to do the same.
OBAMA IS NOT DOING THIS STUFF. Maybe his surrogates but NOT OBAMA. He’s expressly stated that Briston Palin’s pregnancy is off-limits. And in other ways he’s taken the high road. He hasn’t had any sleazy ads like that. True, he’s pointed out, correctly, that McCain and Bush are very similar in their policies. And McCain has become even more so with flip flops on taxes and torture. And that’s fair game. But outright lies like the sex ed ad have clearly not been a part of the Obama campaign. Brad, you’re just throwing journalistic integrity out the window with this. McCain is running a gutter campaign. He’s chosen a thoroughly unqualified woman for VP, someone who has no clue what the Bush doctrain is. For crying out loud she’s totally not fit to be president.
Yet somehow the MSM has to be balanced. This is insane. This is so infuriating to see how the MSM continues to feel this undying need to be balanced.
Maybe this story will help explain Joe Darby’s frustration. Apparently GOP hacks in Michigan are going to block residents from voting based on a property foreclosure list. The idea is these voters are not residents of the home they have on their voter registration. This is probably illegal and it’s certainly unethical but it shows how far the GOP will go to win an election:
http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote
Slugger really said it right. Some very good points. As for Rev. Darby’s suggestion, I looked at Oboma’s resume without race or gender consideration, I still can’t vote for the man. Could Obama get a high security clearance?
bud, you forget that I find the “lipstick” line objectionable on the grounds that it is based in the biggest, most offensive falsehood in the Democratic playbook this year: That McCain=Bush.
Yes, I know you don’t agree, and that you don’t consider my opinion to be legitimate — which, of course, is the problem with today’s political discourse.
But I AM entitled to that opinion, I DO hold it most sincerely, and therefore there is nothing inconsistent in my saying both sides need to knock off the crap.
Once again, bud, this is not a contest between black and white, good and evil. It just isn’t. And it will ALWAYS be an aim of this blog to get the two ends of the political spectrum to stop acting as though it were.
BIG LIE: “Obama is not doing this stuff. His surrogates are.”
His surrogates are his agents.
The Obama campaign hired the lawyers to attack reporters who wrote articles about his shady past.
The Obama campaign hired 30 lawyers to go hunt dirt on Palin in Alaska.
Obama claims his experience is in managing this campaign of smears and lies.
The “lipstick on a pig” comment was crude but well within the bounds of reasonable political discourse. Obama was making the point that on policy issues McCain is pursuing mostly the same things that Bush did. Given McCain’s 90% agreement with Bush on policy that seems a legitimate point by the Obama campaign. I find nothing remotely as offensive in that comment (used by McCain and not interpreted by the Clinton campaign as sexist) as compared the McCain ad falsely charging Obama with pushing sex-ed for kindergarten kids. The two campaigns are approaching this very differently. McCain is clearly taking the low road. He’s seeking out any little scrap to use as phony indignation. And he’s going further by simply lying about Obama’s position.
Obama on the other hand is trying his best to talk about issues while pointing out inconsistencies in many of McCain’s claims regarding lobbyists and the like. Sorry Brad, but the GOP is behaving like the GOP and the press is missing the boat on this.
The conservatives need to come to the middle? Just what the hell is the middle? I hate abortion but I would never stand in the way of a woman’s right to choose. I am against raising taxes, unless Brad deems it necessary. I think we have the right to go to war, unless someone gets hurt or it costs money. I favor free health care so long as the medical profession and the pharmacueticals make record profits.
So tell me just what the hell is the middle or mainstream America?
The McCain=Bush comparison is based on objective facts, such as voting records for the past couple of years and McCain’s embrace of Bush-style campaigning, right down to employing the very same people who smeared him here in 2000.
Besides, how offended can you really be since you endorsed Bush in 2004?
Tell me if I am wrong. The law that allows a church to be tax free says that it cannot be political in nature or it will lose the tax free exemption.
The money that is collected for Obama’s campaign does not come from black churches? Right?
Does the contributions come from foreign country’s?
Remember all the contributions that came to the Clintons and Al Gore?
Should we have some investigation into contributions?
Sarah Palin is liked so much because she comes across as believable. She sells you into the fact that she is real. Nothing phony or political about her. A fresh flower in bloom that has not been corrupted by political fertilizer to make her bloom.
This is driving the Donkey’s crazy because this lady knows how to clean and dress the Donkey.
Hey Brad – like another gentleman who I corresponded with this morning, you and some of those on this blog missed my point by a mile.
Read my piece again and you’ll see that I did not endorse Barack Obama. Neither did I say that GOP loyalists should not be excited about or embrace Sarah Palin – I expect that they would, because she’s their candidate and deserves their enthusiastic support.
As a matter of fact, my column was not pro-Obama or anti-McCain. I simply urged voters to practice civic responsibility – “listen to what the candidates on each side say about the issues and about their plans for action, and vote for the
presidential and vice-presidential candidates whose positions and strategies
for American revival best match your perspective.”
I do, however, understand your distress because the point of my column still stands – we have miles to go to to close the gap or racial understanding in America, and that makes a lot of well meaning folks uncomfortable and very touchy. I actually appreciate the epithets, because they mean that I spoke the truth in the way that touched a few nerves.
My point was to note that Sarah Palin had been given a “pass” by a lot of folks – media included – that was not given to Barack Obama in a lot of areas.
I got a call today from a friend – who happens to be white – who understood my point and who gave a practical example of what I tried to say. She
said she and a friend – also white – were engaged in their usual friendly political debate at work and that her
(white) friend said, “I don’t know if I can vote for someone named Barack –
the name just sounds funny to me.” My friend said that her response was,
“you can’t vote for a man named Barack, but you can vote for a woman who
named her sons Track and Trig?”
That’s the double standard and the cognitive divide I was highlighting, and it only affirms the distance that we still have to go. The only other point I’d make is that for all who see my sharing my opinion as evidence that I’m a racist, take a look in your own personal “mirror” and check yourself out – honestly.
Rev. Darby so that you might understand. There are people in this country that love black people and feel that they do not need a crutch to succeed in life. The black people will rise to a place only by education and hard work. There are many black leaders that say the same thing.
My point was to say that it is not just the black race that remain at the bottom but also any race of people that do not take advantage of all this country provides for everyone to “be all they can be”. It all starts with education which is provided by the government for everyone. The taxpayer pays for everyone to have an education. Schools are governments way of returning your money back to the people. It is up to you to use this government resource.
“Fifteen years after that black-white dialogue experience — and many, many less formal such dialogues later — I find myself close to despair that mutual understanding can be achieved.
Particularly if Barack Obama loses the election.”
Both Obama and the blacks are deluded if they think or thought that Obama really had a chance. Whites who thought so or think so are even more deluded. I believe that in Iowa, Karl Rove got enough whites to show up and vote for Obama because he and the GOP knew that they will have a field day. American may not be as racist as in the past but there are significant pockets of racism in places such as PA, WV and OH where white working class will vote the color of their skin rather than their economic interests.
Rev. Joe, it’s good as always to hear from you. The aspect of your column that I was reacting to was the fact that you compared Obama and Palin as both being inexperienced, and then said:
That’s where the cognitive divide lies, because I can’t see that at all. Republicans like Palin and not Obama because she’s a very conservative Republican. The people who really like her like her better than McCain, too — they don’t see him as their kind, either. But it has nothing to do with race.
Anyway, what I focused on here and in my Sunday column was that divide between the way you see that and the way I do.
Brad,
What I have been trying to say here is this lady Palin comes across as not a politician but a concerned citizen, a mother, a reformer, a person wanting to give the government back to the people without the people having to pay for all the people that will be brought along as free baggage.
Do you folks realize what kind of debt this country faces with all the governmental subsides?
Forget about all the cost of fighting the war against terriorism. We have taken on all the medical and prescription drugs for all the illegals. Show up and just downloaded with a baby and the rest of the family automacially become available for all benifits of natural born citizens. The illgals have the right to public education.
What is anyone running for office going to do about illegal immigration, the economy or terriorism? I will put my money on the Republican Party.
The major bullit in the gun of the democratic party is that they will take care of all the needs of the needy by taking away from the rich and giving to the poor.
With the invasion from Mexico, there is no way that the employed taxpayer is going to pay for the extra added burden along with the medicaid dependents that increase the medicaid budget yearly. The Mexican Catholic invasion of this country alone will overpopulize this country to the extent that there will be more receiving money than taxpayers to take care of the overpopulation.
I know that you do not want to think about this as a consequence of living in the US. It is a fact.
Obama is playing to just those people that use the system to his advantage to get votes to make this country socialist/maxist and we seem to be willing to give him a free pass as long as the disadvantaged get part of the wealth.
Let the sunshine in and I am also talking about the people that will be used by Obama. They need to be aware that Obama is not going to elevate their living to the ownership of a home and money in the bank. You will be renting a house and driving a auto that requires monthly payment beyond what you can afford.
Joe Darby says blacks have to vote for Obama because he is black, to show racial solidarity, and whites have to vote for Obama just because he is black, to show that they are are not racist.
Joe Darby’s ideas are racist.
Two months ago I was so discouraged by John McCains’ ascendency and what it seemed to mean as a setback for genuine conservatism that I was preparing to go down to Gervais Street and jump in front of an Amtrack express.
Seriously, I said several times on this blog that I was considering not voting this fall. Because of the very real threat that Obama poses to this country I have concluded that not voting against him is not an option, and Sarah Palin has made a vote for McCain easier to stomach.
Here’s my point: If I don’t vote this fall I deserve whatever I get. Likewise for black people! If Obama loses in November and for that reason black people get angry and disconnect from the political process, well…tough nuts! Anyone who forfeits his voice because he’s in a snit deserves whatever comes his way. White, black or pokey dot.
The questions I have are: Why does anyone really care what Joe Darby
thinks? What exactly qualifies him to write these opinions the get dutifully printed in the newspaper, other than his ethnicity? It’s Joe Darby…who cares?
Faust
“It all starts with education which is provided by the government for everyone. The taxpayer pays for everyone to have an education.”
Oh really?
http://www.chicagoreporter.com/index.php/c/Web%20Exclusive/d/Wildly_Disparate_Funding
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1119271,CST-NWS-skul21.article
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/chicago-schoolchildren-protest-funding/n20080903235309990031
Obviously you are living in a different America than the one I am living in.
“What is anyone running for office going to do about illegal immigration, the economy or terriorism? I will put my money on the Republican Party.”
Not John “the Shamnesty McCain”. Romney ran a commercial saying a vote for John McCain is a vote for Shamnesty and people still voted for him anyway, and with a Dem congress it is shamnesty time!
“The white man when he came to this country carved out a place in the wilderness that is today the greatest country in the world.”
Yes, nose deep in debt, dependent on other Arabs, Jews and Asians to bail them out, slouching towards communism through nationalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac run to the ground by incompetent whites such as Dan Mudd. Incompetent white CEOs who ran the banking, finance, airline and construction industry to the ground and the white man led by Lou Dobbs sobs at American corporation moving jobs abroad. Intel, Microsoft and others should be very happy to have moved jobs abroad..these were smart white CEOs. Otherwise they would be facing the same fate as Fannie, Freddie, Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers all run into ground by incompetent whites. Would I invest and creat jobs in this country if I were in the shoes of Intel..I think not. No wonder unqualified minorities want AA..they want a share of the pie. After all why should incompetent and unqualified whites such as Dan Mudd have all the fun?
“Joe Darby says blacks have to vote for Obama because he is black, to show racial solidarity, and whites have to vote for Obama just because he is black, to show that they are are not racist.
Joe Darby’s ideas are racist.”
Not very different from working class whites who would rather have their jobs go abroad and go hungry than vote for a black man!
George,
Number one, raising taxes on employers is about the quickest way to force them to move plants abroad and thereby export jobs to other countries.
The candidate most likely to raise taxes on employers is Obama. He’s promised as much.
Number two, it seems a little ridiculous to me that you think working class whites would rather “go hungry” than vote for a black man. This is the kind of thoughtless, shallow and “fur around-the-hole” throw away line that evidently sounds good to mindless minions on the left, but have no basis in reality or fact.
The problem that people (working class whites and others) have with voting for Obama is NOT that his skin is black. It is that his ideas are really horrible. Working class whites, among others, are realizing that, if elected, Obamas’ policies will destroy this country.
Your candidates’ problem isn’t bigotry on the right, it’s that he is an ardent socialist, is morally bankrupt and an intellectual lightweight. Add that to an astonishingly thin resume and he’s going to look bad, black skin or pink.
Your party picked the wrong guy, and his slick oratory is not making up for lack of substance and obvious wrongheadedness.
Faust
And even his oratory is no longer so slick. Obama is such an empty suit that he is completely incapable of coherently laying out his thoughts in a speech without a teleprompter.
His ineptitude and intellectual vacancy are becoming painfully obvious.
To the extent that they vote against him, working class whites are simply acknowledging the obvious: Obama is unfit for the presidency. Skin pigment notwithstanding.
Faust
Brad, if the best you can come up with is that “McCain=Bush” is an offensive falsehood, than I have to judge that you hold Obama to a higher standard than McCain.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, the most one can accuse that statement of being is a bit of a generalization or oversimplification, which is certainly not the same thing as a falsehood.
So how bout this: “McCain’s policies are generally very close to Bush’s policies on the majority of issues.” Or how about this: “President Obama would pursue policies much more different from Bush policies than President McCain would.”
Are these statements “offensive” to you?
Today in THE STATE, there is a story, written in a tone of feigned surprise, that black people in SC have HIV and other venereal diseases at SIX TIMES the rate of whites.
75% of black children are born to unwed mothers.
70% of black children have only one or zero parents in their home.
25% of black men are convicted felons.
Mr. Darby needs to work on those root causes of black poverty and unhappiness.
“Number one, raising taxes on employers is about the quickest way to force them to move plants abroad and thereby export jobs to other countries.”
The taxes on employers are low. So why is Lou Dobbs sobbing about jobs moving abroad despite low taxes. Is Lou Dobbs wrong? Jobs are moving abroad now…Intel CEO has said that since the markets are mostly abroad he does not need to hire any American white or otherwise.
“The candidate most likely to raise taxes on employers is Obama. He’s promised as much.”
The candidate most likely to bring communism and nationalize firms such as Fannie Mae is the GOP candidate. No free markets here.
“Number two, it seems a little ridiculous to me that you think working class whites would rather “go hungry” than vote for a black man. This is the kind of thoughtless, shallow and “fur around-the-hole” throw away line that evidently sounds good to mindless minions on the left, but have no basis in reality or fact.”
The white working class is so racist that they would rather go hungry. After all they have guns to hunt for a living. They along with you are the ones with low IQ.
“The problem that people (working class whites and others) have with voting for Obama is NOT that his skin is black. It is that his ideas are really horrible. Working class whites, among others, are realizing that, if elected, Obamas’ policies will destroy this country.”
BS. Obama’s views are not very different from that of Hilary Clinton and they did not crossover and vote in the GOP primary then, but voted for Hilary. They would have voted for Edwards or Bayh not for Obama. By the way, the GOP are doing great now, right? With the financial mess, economic mess and other mess..George Bush and Dick Cheney have pretty much destroyed the country, but then again you are probably too dumb down there to take notice.
“Your candidates’ problem isn’t bigotry on the right, it’s that he is an ardent socialist, is morally bankrupt and an intellectual lightweight. Add that to an astonishingly thin resume and he’s going to look bad, black skin or pink.”
Who are you calling socialist? Nationalization of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, spying on Americans, wiretapping American homes, beating upon journalists, all happening under the GOP. You guys are the Marxist socialists. The likes of Pat Buchanan. GOP has been following some of the soviet style policies during the past few years. As one conservative right wing analyst put it America is more communist than China and I agree….
“Your party picked the wrong guy, and his slick oratory is not making up for lack of substance and obvious wrongheadedness.”
White working class fools voting their color of the skin. Hilary Clinton is not anyway different from Obama..they voted for Hilary..but after all one cannot get betters sense from even educated white CEOS who ran the financial institutions of this country to the ground..what can one expect of the uneducated white working class. The congressional black caucus is the real idiots here. They never stand up to the white working class…the next time they come looking for votes to kill McCain’s fast track: they should say sink of swim white boys and girls, I am not going to help you! But, I am sure as typical bleeding heart liberals they would support the interests of the white working class.
I dont know what the hell Faust is talking about Obama bringing communism to America. George Bush has already brought Marxist-Leninist ideology to America (on the advise of the arch-communist Pat Buchanan)…KGB and Stalin will be very proud…
http://digg.com/business_finance/US_is_More_Communist_than_China
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080908171808.aspx
http://www.drudge.com/news/112101/financier-america-more-communist-than
And dont forget KGB style wiretapping and spying on Americans and the Patriot Act (Spread of Communism Act)
Bullseye for Lee.
And I ask again, who cares what Joe Darby says, thinks, or works on? I mean really? Why SHOULD anyone care?
Now, I readily admit that this character has evidently ingratiated himself somehow with The State newspaper and gets his opinions published in that lofty resource quite regularly. Brad is apparently quite impressed by Mr. Darby. But exactly what qualifications and accomplishments make him someone to whom we should turn for for wisdom?
His status as a Reverend? So what?
That he somehow has his finger on the “black pulse” in our area? Again, so what? Whether or not he knows what black people are thinking (and that is doubtful), what we routinely hear from Mr. Darby is that the problems in the black community can be blamed in large part on white people…with almost never a word about the problems Lee has so accurately pointed out. In a word, much of what Darby writes is borderline racist.
I make it a general policy to disregard anything Joe Darby says. This strategy that has stood me in good stead down through the years, and I recommend it highly.
David
Rev. Darby: I quote from your post above: “My point was to note that Sarah Palin had been given a ‘pass’ by a lot of folks – media included – that was not given to Barak Obama in a lot of areas.”
I am not certain at what point in time you came to that conclusion. But as I sit here, Saturday morning, Sep. 13, that is certainly not the case. It is not the case of the media [giving her a “pass”] who have descended on Alaska and outnumber native Alaskans. It is not the case of “comedians” and commentators who, if they said the exact same thing about Obama, would be accused of rascism. And don’t even defend the left-wing, Democrat blogs.
By the way, you do recall I hope the outcry following the ABC-sponsored debate when George Stephanopolis had the temerity to ask Sen. Obama about his relationship with William Ayers.
As a resident of Georgia, I sincerely hope that Georgia is not in play when election day comes around. I really don’t want to vote for either Obama or McCain.
But it is opinions like yours that strike fear in my heart that if Sen. Obama does not win that American cities from New York to Los Angeles will burn and thus it is my civic obligation to vote for Sen. Obama.
Joe Darby is no different than many whites and blacks in this country hung about skin color.
To independents and undecideds who might have read down this far:
The black/white divide to which Brad refers on this post is sadly still real. We see evidence here that Rev. Darby’s words seem incomprehensible to many of the readers of this blog; likewise, Rev. Darby might reject out of hand some of the understandable frustration expressed by some of our commenters here.
Keeping all that in mind, do you remember this remarkable speech on race given by Barack Obama last March? It seems an eon ago, but his words then and his record before and since indicate that he has the opportunity to be THE person to bridge that gulf. I think he gets it, he gets Rev. Darby and I think he even gets Slugger.
Can America afford to miss this opportunity? We have a unique chance to change history this November. Will we have the courage to do so?
Philip: I am certain you are as sincere and committed as any supporter has ever been for any candidate ever. That said, your words remind me of comments I hear from fellow whites who are supporters of Obama. All of you sound like 12-year-olds who have just returned from their first Hannah Montana concert. “Like, he’s SO-O-O cool.”
Stirring words and speeches alone do not make a great leader. If so, then Adolph Hitler would be the standard by which all others would be measured. NOT, repeat NOT that I am comparing Sen. Obama to Adolph Hitler. I am, HOWEVER, comparing the naivete of those who supported Hitler then and supporters of Obama now.
There is an old saying in the Black community “it’s not whether you talk the talk, it’s whether you walk the walk.” I am a news junkie. I have yet to see one high level supporter of Obama [the kind that get interviewed on the talking heads shows] that did not quickly change the subject when asked to name just one significant accomplishment of Sen. Obama since he has been in the Senate. Even Sen. Obama admits his record is thin. When asked the reason he had not attended one meeting of the Afghanistan sub-committee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a sub-committee he chairs, his response was “I have been busy running for President.”
Since making that statement, he may actually have attended a meeting, recognizing as he surely must, the PR nightmare if asked about it in one of the Presidential debates.
Barack Obama is a fraud, a puppet managed by old-line white party bosses.
With every weekly scandal which comes out about Obama, legitimate black candidates are hurt by association.
If, God forbid, this Muslim-raised, America-hating Marxist does get elected, he will ruin the chances of legitimate black candidates for a generation.
Peter, to be impressed with the intelligence, coherent thinking, breadth of knowledge on international (hello Sarah?) and domestic issues, and most of the policy positions of Sen. Obama has nothing to do with naivete or infatuation or any of those things. It’s a common theme we hear from the anti-Obama side, as if his ability to string together words coherently were some kind of reason for suspicion.
One also hears the charge of no legislative accomplishments: well, for one thing he was in the minority party for over half his term. In spite of that the co-sponsorship with Sen.Lugar regarding old Soviet Union weaponry and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, and legislation on behalf of wounded veterans, all come to mind.
At every level, in the Illinois State Senate, and in the US Senate, Obama has emerged as someone who has that rare ability to lead. In the early primary stages I was initially more interested in Richardson and Biden for reasons of experience as you indicate, but I’ve continued to be more and more impressed with No-Drama Obama and his continued ability to remain cooler than the other side of the pillow.
As for Hitler, it’s a myth to say that he came to power strictly through people’s naivete. Much of his platform was well-known and supported by many people, horrifying as that is to say. My mother and her parents were there, so they know. Strong speechifying indeed is not enough to lead, but in the case of Obama we know his positions, too. The alternative is far, far worse.
Philip: I tip my hat to you. You make perhaps the strongest argument I have heard for Sen. Obama given the incredibly weak factual basis with which you have to work. As I said in my first post above, I sincerely hope the election is decided before Nov. 5 [is it the 5th this time?] so I don’t feel as though I have to vote. If I am forced to, I guess I will vote for McCain, but not with a great deal of enthusiasm…and only because the smugness exhibited by so many in the Obama camp truly nauseates me.
For the record, the one candidate that would truly excite me is Colin Powell, preferably running as a Republican, but I would vote for him if he ran as a Democrat. The contrast between his experience and gravitas and that of Obama’s is so stark that I would hope even left-wing nut cases [and yes, there are plenty of right-wing nut cases] would rally to his banner.
Let us hope the country is not as divided after election day as it is presently and that civility will return to the political arena.
Hitler and Mussolini were supported by academic liberals. The New York Times praised both of them, just as they praise Obama.
Obama, like most modern liberals, is not liberal, but an authoritarian, who thinks his agenda can’t be held up by having to debate with the opposition.
>Hitler and
>Mussolini were
>
>
Oh for Chrissake..these guys have been dead
for more than a half-century.
Now you’ve opened the gate for more “reparations” for “the six million.”
Oh, please.
Obama has said many times that he supports “slave reparations”, and his campaign tells blacks that he will deliver “their fair share”. Go read Obama’s “Mein Kampf”.
The community activist, whether a religion draped agitator or an affirmative action hire, is decidedly anti America, anti government and anti white.
Those like darby, howard, clyburn and wright can longer disguise their blatant hatred of white America; don’t whitey understand the tongue lashing protocol in the white be bad ritual?
The darby types are zealot cultist rabble rousers of racial resentment in the atlantic slave descendants, attracting even those like wright who call themselves black.
Now they are all huffy because whitey won’t kneel before the race card, and is acting uppity to black guilt supremacy.
The jive talk just won’t wash no more. The cheerleaders like pitts, herbert, smiley, dyson and opra can convince the two standard deviation below crown, but now regular Americans.
The revenge wing of the naacpee.ers, just darby, are not conerned with single black female births, who are unemployable and unmarried,
because their offspring will be big trouble for social order so more reasons to declare discrimination, and if released as felons, will have voting rights advocated by the democrats.
The naacp practices alinsky marxist ideas with black liberation jizzm voodoo rituals.
An editorial typo correction.
The jive talk just won’t wash no more. The cheerleaders like pitts, herbert, smiley, dyson and opra can convince the two standard deviation below crowD, but noT regular Americans.
Obama’s position on abortion, even to the point of defending infanticide, trumps all other issues for me, and I believe I speak for many evangelicals who do not wish to be pushed into an ideological right-wing corner, but cannot back down on this issue.
As John Bresnahan aptly puts it:
And as the Good Book says:
>
>groups of people
>Hitler wanted to
>exterminate—like
>Jews and the
>retarded.
…ah ha! Another watcher of The History Channel!!!
…but in order to be fair, I must confess that I have also seen elements of the Holo-Hoax story show up on National Geographic Channel as well.
God’s Chosen know a good hustle when they have a good one going!
Wow.
Surely Mr. Hamptons’ idiocy can be useful in developing some minimal intelligence standards for voters. I suppose the good news is that he represents a vanishingly small percentage of the voting public. Of course, I am assuming that he’s actually a member of the voting public, and not posting from a recreational computer inside an asylum somewhere.
If the weight of photographic evidence alone has not convinced Hampton that something bad happened to a lot of Jewish people in the 1930’s and 40’s, what else can be said?
Wow.
David
Joe Darby = Racist
Watch what happens on election day. Watch the “Democratic” party load and unload bus fulls of “voters” rounded up at housing projects to vote for Obama. How many of these traditional non-voters will be voting on race alone? 100%??? Not that it will help in South Carolina, but it will happen.
>If the weight
>of photographic
>evidence alone
>has not convinced
>Hampton that
>something bad
>happened to a
>lot of Jewish
>people in the
>1930’s and 40’s,
>what else can
>be said?
Who said anything “bad” didn’t happen to
them? Not me. Their casualty rate was
roughly the same for American GIs on both
theatres of the war – around 200,000 to
300,000 or so; certainly nothing like
the “six million” they keep bewailing about.
Both the Germans and Russians lost tens of
millions in the war, but you never hear
then cry-babying about it.
But then, they don’t have control of the
mass media to maintain a hustle like the
Holo-hoax, now – do they….
Whenever the subject of racial ANYTHING comes up on this blog, the sheer number of posts pulsing with red-hot anger and hostility shouldn’t shock me – a native, white South Carolinian – but they always do. Bigotry and hatred is so deeply ingrained within our state’s sociological psyche that vast numbers of folks aren’t even aware of how poisoned their souls are.
People who have grown up in societies such as ours often don’t understand the insidious nature of bigotry… how it seeps into a spirit to destroy what is good and replace it with venom, resentment and spite. They are blind to the malevolence that lives within them because it is an essential part of who they are.
Racial hatred is a disease, living in a soul like cancer in living flesh. It can be both beaten and contained but, like cancer, it requires knowledge of the disease and the will to conquer it. I believe with all my heart that someday my beloved state will overcome our racial cancer but, while I believe, I grieve.
Let me get this straight. Some people believe Palin is inexperienced, but Gov. Clinton was not? Hmmm!
Perhaps executive experience does not count in such people’s minds. That likely means that another, unspoken distinction which Palin does not have, but which Clinton, Biden and Obama do have counts immeasurably more — what could it be?
Oh, right! Obama, Biden and Clinton have law degrees, therefore they must have experience.
Although Obama has negligible executive experience for a definitively executive position (the highest in the land), he has ex-lexutive experience like too many of the other cooks in the kitchen (legislative branch).
Bumper Sticker: OBAMA HAS EX-LEXUTIVE EXPERIENCE!
I felt that I understood Mr. Darby. He saw Obama blasted for not having enough “experience.” He then saw the same people who blasted Obama for lack of experience praise Palin for the lack thereof. Seeing this he asked himself, ‘how can this be a good thing in one person and a bad thing in another’? The answer he came up with may be tinged by his race’s generations of experience, but I think it is quite reasonable to expect that the same standards be applied to both. And Brad, McCain has been running one of the dirtiest campaigns I’ve seen in awhile. He’s quickly removing any positive opinion I had of him. I can only theorize that if he had solid ideas he could run on them, instead of accusing Obama of wanting to promote sex-ed amongst kindergarteners.
Here are two links about what Karen McLeod and Joe Darby said.
The first is to the Daily Show’s comparison of Karl Rove vs. Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly vs. Bill O’Reilly, Dick Morris vs. Dick Morris and Nancy Pfotenhauer vs. Nancy Pfotenhauer. This link is more about gender than race.
The second is to a similar comparison of language from John Ridley of the Huffington Post. That second link deals a little with the topic of race.
Obama, when told that his plan to double taxes on investors and retirement plans would actually lower tax revenues, said he didn’t care, because, “it is the right thing to do.”
Obama wants taxation used, not for public good, but to redistribute wealth to the never-do-wells, to punish whites, and punish blacks who have worked hard because Obama’s ilk sees them as, “acting white”.
To even participate in a discussion such
as this, is the implicit implication that
Negroes are somehow on an equal basis with
Whites.
If you’ve bought that, then it is apparent
you’ve bought the 9-11 “terrorist” attack,
along with the ‘Holo-hoax.”
Go ahead. It’s a lot easier to die, than
to think.
When white working class democrats vote for McCain/Palin ticket in an econony this messed up – It is definitely due to race. Reagan knew that divid and used it well. Only to fire all the airtraffic controllers and set the anti-labor tone of the next decade against the very folks who had voted him in. And the republicans continue to use race. If white working folk are this dumb well I guess they are getting what they deserve when their jobs go overseas.
And unless you are making $250,000 and up Obama is the candidate who will reduce your taxes. But I guess you rather see us fight hard against foodstamp receipents who get $90 a month in food stamps and bail out all the banks with taxpayer dollars while they pay their CEO’s to retire with bonuses!!
Obama’s tax plan will hit hardest on the lowest-paid workers, because it will remove investment capital and destroy entry-level and manual labor jobs.
It was Clinton who cut the income tax rates on investment banking and venture capital from 28% to 14%. Why weren’t Democrats attacking him then?
White Americans are pretty incompetent…
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/lehman-crumbles-wall-street-turns/story.aspx?guid=%7BFCAED76B%2DA96E%2D4DA8%2DB381%2DFA579D24EA7D%7D
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/lehman-files-bankruptcy-protection-historic/story.aspx?guid=%7B50D06AF4%2D0AD5%2D4B38%2D8206%2DD4C8D6E62EC7%7D
Now unqualified blacks want an equal say..
If “unqualified blacks” like Obama want a say in running Wall Street, they need to buy enough stock to have a say.
“If “unqualified blacks” like Obama want a say in running Wall Street, they need to buy enough stock to have a say.”
The “unqualified black” like Obama has plenty of stocks in Wall Street..unfortunately, most unqualified whites do too! Glad to see Barclays buying up parts of Lehmann and I am hopeful, HSBC, DBS and USBC will get involved, and run the incompetent Americans of all colors out of town and put shareholder interest first!
“When white working class democrats vote for McCain/Palin ticket in an econony this messed up – It is definitely due to race. Reagan knew that divid and used it well. Only to fire all the airtraffic controllers and set the anti-labor tone of the next decade against the very folks who had voted him in. And the republicans continue to use race. If white working folk are this dumb well I guess they are getting what they deserve when their jobs go overseas.”
Serves them right! What really bothers me that bleeding heart liberals such as Dick Durbin will still be fighting for this working class and call them their constituents despite this rejection. Congressional Black, Hispanic and Minority Caucus members should make it clear to politicians such as Dick Durbin that they
would not get support in the fight against the so-called job killing free trade agreements!
Obama’s FEC filing doesn’t show him owning hardly any stocks. No wonder he couldn’t explain capital gains taxes to Charlie Gibson.
Until he was picked up by the Daley machine and put on an $8,000 a month retainer, Obams was only making $25,000 a year in his law practice. His wife was making about the same.
Suddenly, Obama began putting together shady real estate deals for Rezko and the Nation of Islam to get federal money to rehabilitate slum buildings in the old ward where Obama had been a community organizer.
As soon as Obama was elected to the state senate, Mrs. Obama was appointed to a $126,000 job, meeting 12 times a year, on the board of a hospital. Mr. Obama funneled tax money to that hospital.
When Obama was elected to the US Senate, the hospital gave Mrs. Obama a $200,000 raise.
“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. But she is a typical white person”
by Barack Hussein Obama
Granny’s not the racist in that family.