Yes, because white racism drove slavery. Black racism did not drive slavery. All racism leads to trouble, but do you believe that racism is somehow resolved or that African Americans tell themselves that all is resolved? I doubt you do.
Are welfare-moms and gang-bangers things that are easy to transpose to white people? Not really. They are stereotypes that are so connected with the African American, inner city experience that to simply convert them to "white" without an accompanying multi-century history of oppression and blatently accepted racism would be naive. It's apples and oranges.
Do you really not understand the underlying resentment of the historically dominated toward the historically dominant?
How, then, are we ever to understand things like Shia and Sunni history, or the complex interrelations between hispanics and african americans in this country? Are we left to simply look at it without paying attention to the beliefs of the various combatants and the history that led to those beliefs? You and I both know that it is not as simple as that...
Are we really at the point in this country where a legitimate argument is "substitute black for white"? As if they are somehow equally grounded in their narrative about this country? Blacks were having dogs and water hoses turned on them, not during the 19th century, but during the 1960s!
The argument you make depends on the assumption that being white and being black in America is the same thing, as if there are no systematic and cultural differences. I will freely acknowledge--and take great pride in the fact that I am proud of the progress that has been made even since my parents' generation. Did your parents grow up telling you about how you decended from a slave-owner who raped their great-great grandmother and then sold her and kept her kids? Have any decendents who were killed for learning to read? Did your parents and grandparents talk about being forced to the back of the bus because of the color of their skin, in a country where "all men are created equal" is held up by the majority as some sort of moral pillar, but not actually followed?
Do you truly think Jackie Robinson was as naive about his history as his calm outward appearances (in his first few years, at least) may have made it seem? He was threatened, harassed, and insulted on a daily basis and told he could not fight back. Years and years and years this happened in our "great" country, and a black pastor gets thrown under the bus because he speaks of the common feelings of "god damn America" that are ACTUALLY shared across many tables in this country? The first legitimate african american candidate for president is suddenly untennable because of something his pastor said... something that is a real part of the shared history of african americans in this country?
A lack of tolerance for this type of mixed emotion is nothing but an attempt to sweep understandable views under the rug. I, for one, am MORE than willing to cut African Americans some slack for venting in a church and I would hope you would be too.
Obama is in no danger of losing this nomination. I'd be willing to bet just about anything I have that, barring some cataclysmic disaster like assasination or nuclear war, he will be the candidate.
It will be Kennedy-Nixon all over again, as McCain is a bumbling speaker and--though it doesn't matter to ORS--does not understand the facts about the middle east. How come Leiberman corrects him multiple times this week, on very important issues? Is that what 'experience' gets him? More tolerance for being ignorant? Jesus, that's a low, LOW bar to jump over.
Yes. We are currently in a war that is costing us thousands of lives, $12 BILLION a month, started on mis-information based on a PUBLIC CONFLATING of various far-away "brown people" (my quote) who are angry at the West and have explosive weapons (i.e., Iraqi insurgents/Hamas/Iran/Bathists/Hezbollah/PLO = Al Qaeda).
Therefore, it is more important that our next president understand how the world works than that everyone he's ever befriended have the moral perfection of Jesus (or One Red Seat) himself.
What harm has that spiritual advice done, One Red Seat? Seriously. Go ahead and list how this has impacted his character, his resume or his stated and practiced views.
Has he secretly been killing whites in dark allys?
Has he been supporting a black-coup movement that has worked its way deep into the inner-workings of American society that is coming to kill your kids?
Do you feel like African Americans that you meet are secretly plotting your death, or that this particular church is trying to take over Chicago?
Stop being scared and start looking at this situation the way that ORS would look at a baseball situation--clearly. You are a smart guy, so why do you keep coming up with this absurd shit about how important his religious influences are to his decision making? You are a fucking agnostic, so do you feel like someone controls YOUR moral worldview? Or are you influenced by a number of different people and belief systems?
I'd be willing to bet that most people you know who DO attend church would not live and die by each and every word their pastor states. They would probably also refer to their pastor as a 'spiritual influence' or 'spiritual mentor', even though they disagree that pre-marital sex is a 'sin' or that someone should be stoned for taking god's name in vain?
You do realize that millions of white people--including just about every president we've had--hold up the Bible as the most morally pure explaination we have about the world, right? And that in the bible people are told to do all sorts of horrible things, from slavery to stoning sinners to death, right? Did George W Bush get automatically banished from the presidential race because the book he claims to have learned the most from involves some of the most grievous acts imaginable and ends with the son of God returning to kill all of the non believers? Is it different if your spiritual guide is a book read by billions rather than a man who preeches a common social story to thousands?
Why do you hold Obama to a higher standard than you would hold your friends, grandparents and/or neighbors in terms of his ability to navigate the moral world?
If your argument is that reactionary idiots are going to get up in arms about it and not vote for him, that's fine. Of course, those folks weren't going to vote for him in the first place. You're also enabling such idiocy by pretending that the argument is legitimate.
The most important thing here to me is that this type of worldview DOES exist. Barack Obama has articulated his worldview in many places, and it is patently different from the view of Reverand Wright. He's been a VERY public person in VERY prominent positions and nobody legitimately believes he believes in what Wright talks about when he's feeling angry.
I'm not going to respond to the 'ex1 would vote for a pencil' comment. Just know I have about as much respect for your political world view (from Obama being muslum to your "free market" wet dream about how much better the average American is doing since Reagan) as you have for mine. Mine are backed up by numbers and history, yours are backed up more by knee-jerk reactions based on the Republican-Democrat (sorry, free market-socialist ) divide than on the lived experiences of ACTUAL people in this country.
I'm proud that I support Obama, and I'm not alone. I think is ability to articulate difficult issues clearly is unparallelled, and even many conservatives agree that he represents something new.
Perhaps its not your cup of tea, that's fine.
I'm assured that tens of millions of people will vote against him in a few months, I just think a few million more will vote for him.