Obama is Black! Who Knew?
"We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves." - John Locke
Perhaps because of living in Asia rather than Canada, in recent years I have been lulled into thinking that Political Correctness had faded to near invisibility and the dark days of endangering life and limb by calling any female a "girl" or, even worse, a "lady", were behind us. Silly me. I am so naive sometimes.
A couple of news items this week grabbed my attention for their PC content. The first, very overt and unavoidable; the second, considerably less noticeable but actually far more significant and I'll talk about it in a later post.
Former Governor of New Jersey and Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who once said that she would never have risen to the level of VP candidate were she not a woman, had the audacity to say "If Obama was a white man he would not be in this position… He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
So, what do I think can be reasonably said about her statement? Easy: It was a stupid thing to say. Not evil. Not a capital crime. Not racist. Just stupid. Surely Ms Ferraro could not have thought she could say that without causing a furor. And furor is what she got. Her remark has been described by pundits and arbiters of acceptable speech as everything from "offensive" to "divisive". The commentary, recrimination, quasi-defence and apology is as ridiculous as it is knee-jerk and predictable.The one thing common to all commentary though is this: It is all about her making the statement, not about the merit or its lack in the actual content or meaning of the statement. And that is what makes it just another example of mindless political correctness. It matters not if the statement is entirely accurate, partially accurate or totally inaccurate. What matters is that she (or anyone) is simply not allowed to express such a thought.
Apparently we are to believe Obama's race is an irrelevancy. We are not supposed to notice that he is black and if we inadvertently do, certainly not allowed to suggest that this fact might in any way (positively) impinge on his presidential aspirations. No matter that it is impossible to watch any lengthy coverage of primaries or speeches or debates without hearing mention of his race. No matter the endless references to the possibility of Americans electing their first black President. No matter that analysis of primary returns always goes into excruciating detail about voting patterns of various demographic groups with particular focus on women, Hispanics, and blacks. (Sorry, Neanderthal that I am, I refuse to use the ridiculous "African American".) No, Obamarama's success to date must be attributable only to his combination of skillful oratory, wisdom and blah blah blah.
Ferraro said he has benefited from being black. That may or may not be true. Personally I think to dismiss the idea out of hand would be absurd and that it matters not a damn if it is true, but debatable it may well be. However, I did not see anyone actually debating it. Not one person I saw on the tube offered up any argument that the statement was not true. Not a single one said flat out "Obama has not been helped by his being black.", only that it was shameful for her to say it. It was stated by some that nobody would dare to suggest that Hillary is in the position she is because she is a woman. Perhaps that's true, but why? And how about "Hillary has achieved the level of success she now enjoys in part because she is lucky enough to be the wife of a former president."?
These people make we want to throw up. If I didn't know better I'd swear they are all Canadians.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Great post. I agree with your assessment. However, I decided not to focus on Ferraro’s comment in my blog.
Although I do use the term ‘African American’, I am far from politically correct. In fact, I am a fan of Bill Maher despite the fact that he appears to support Obama.
Please feel free to browse my blog and leave comments.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:52 am
The statement that Obama is black is not true. Obama is Mulatto. He is the offspring of a white mother and black father and that’s the name given to the offsprings like Obama. I know that the media refers to him as black but not so. He is not totally African-American because he has a white mother. I thought educated people would know better but you don’t have to be a college graduate to know the facts. Obama was born in Kenya because his mother was refused boarding of the plane to take her to Hawaii. After he was born then later she came to Hawaii and registered him there. But he was a citizen of Kenya first. I read his BIO in the NYT and it was very interesting.His mother eas married and divorced three times and his father was married and divorced four times. Obama has a half sister in Hawaii and several half brothers and sisters in Kenya. And the book Dreams Of My Father who abandoned Obama should have been Dreams Of My Mother. It was his mother who spent the time to educate him before he started school. His mother was the one who gave him a book about MLK. His grandmother who he called a typical white women cared for him but evidently he didn’t appreciate that. Obama disliked white people at an young age and no doubt wished his mother was black. There are a lot of things that people don’t know about him but this country never had a candidate running for office of the president that has a background like that. I hope this country don’t go down into a disaster because this is the greatest country in the world.
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Hello again.
Of course Obama is not “black” - just as Clinton and McCain are not “white” and Han Chinese are not “yellow” and so forth. Such designations are both inaccurate and pejorative. That said, if we have need of identifying people in terms of the relative melanin levels in their skin I would certainly prefer “black” to the absurd and utterly misleading PC term “African American”. I once had an acquaintance from Capetown - blond hair, blue eyes, and almost alabaster skin. Were he and a physically similar female from Capetown to emigrate to the US and have children those children would be “African Americans”, would they not? Of course not. But then, if skin color is an element of what constitutes “African American-ism” why waste words? Why not simply “black”?
As to Obama’s past, I plead ignorance. However, I think if a pristine, blameless history were a prerequisite for the presidency, the office would remain vacant at least until the Second Coming. They are ALL - to a man and woman - liars, thieves, and ill intentioned. The sad truth is the American public doesn’t really care so long as they think the candidate will somehow help them. A truly “moral” candidate has zero chance of ever being elected in a decadent, amoral society.
JB
May 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I disagree that Obama has great skills. Obama was given a speech that Richard used so he would know what to say on the platform. Obama was give a book of speeches of RFK by a friend or senator. That’s where he found the words hope and change, they were used in one of RFK’s speeches that was shown on the internet. Obama cannot form the words to make speeches on his own. He also does not have the ability to win debates, cannot answer questions quickly, stutters at times when answering and has to think the answer. I have watched all the debates and he has lost them. Because he is a graduate of Harvard doesn’t mean he is that smart. Everyone in this world is not a genius. College doesn’t mean you are smarter than a high school graduate. There are a lot of drop outs in colleges because the students cannot master the courses. But that doesn’t make them dumb, they can be smart in otherways. What we don’t know we can always learn from others who do know. And I myself am always willing to learn something new if it appeals to me.
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Thank you for your thoughts, Mariann.
Personally, I have no idea how intelligent Obama is or is not. However I will say that to suggest one need not be smart to graduate from Harvard sounds a bit unreasonable to me. I am willing to be proven wrong of course - e.g. by your identifying one or more Harvard graduates who have an IQ of let’s say less than 110.
As for the other comments regarding ineptitude in public speaking, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were talking about George Bush the Younger.
Cheers,
John