As I occasionally do, there is a comment on my post "The Top 10 Racist Moments of the GOP Primary (So Far)" that merits further discussion. Nomad (who needs to claim his book prize) perennial critic of Barack Obama, and long time commenter here on WARN observed that:
Everything you say is true about the Republican assault on issues of concern to black people:
"the 2012 Republican candidates are stirring the pot of white racial anxiety, this is a means to a larger end—the destruction of the country’s social safety net, in support of vicious economic austerity policies, and protecting the kleptocrats and financiers at the expense of the working and middle classes."
What you fail to mention is that a Democratic president, who "happens to be black", is leading the charge. Clearly racism is being used in a novel way here; to align black people behind policies that are antiblack, in their support for a black president. Diabolical. The irony is hilarious. Tea party on one side of the political divide working against their best interests in their support for the super-rich; and black people working against their best interests in their support for a conservative black president.
I wonder if a similar list of racist moments, albeit intra-racially racist, could be compiled for the enigma in the white house? I'd nominate this moment. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-to-congressional-black-caucus-stop-complaining-stop-grumbling-stop-whining/This is a very sharp (and quite rich) observation. Partisanship colors--pardon my pun--how voters assess a given candidate's job performance and efficacy. Moreover, allowing for the historic and groundbreaking nature of Barack Obama's election, the white backlash he has experienced, his ability to code switch as he plays the black authenticity game, and given their long standing loyalty to the Democratic Party, African Americans' support of Obama makes sense. However, has that deep well of support paid any political dividends to the black community?
Certainly, Barack Obama has not engaged in the type of racial triangulation game that is typical of black conservatives like Herman Cain or Allen West (where they signal their acceptability to white people, and White political interests, by playing the exceptional pro-white negro), nor has Obama had a Bill Clinton Sister Soulja moment where he threw a black person under the proverbial bus in order to make white middle America feel comfortable.
[Well, one must ask: does the Reverend Wright exercise in realpolitik political abandonment count in that category?]
I never expected a Black radical to win the U.S. presidency--thus, my qualifier that Barack Obama is a "president who happens to be black, and not a Black president." I knew that he was a corporatist, who in another generation, would have been an Eisenhower-Rockefeller Republican.
So help me out, did folks actually believe that they were getting a black freedom fighter who was going to be the second coming of Dr. King with their vote for Obama back in 2008? And if the choice is between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, what is a better use of the black (brown, young people, poor, working class) vote strategically?
Stumble It!
