I am neither dumb, nor a Cracker. That is probably why you can't relate.

Jack

And you can speak but you don't say much.

Jack

RainMan:

And you can speak but you don't say much.

Jack

By the way Jack, what's it like being one of the 9 people that Obama isn't trying to reach?

Gosh, could it be because we are a vast multiracial, multicultural and very free society, full of immigrants from countries and races and languages and religions all over the globe, that "racism" (probably better called "race-based distrust and resentment," because it isn't an ideology) is inevitably one of the things we will always have to struggle with?

It isn't America that makes people "racist," my friend. It's people that make America "racist," and those people, who are from all over the world, are just behaving as human beings always have: distrusting and resenting those who symbolize the not-us. America gives them quite a bit of freedom to behave like assholes; it also gives them traditions of rule of law and civic peace and democratic (if sleazy) politics with which to try to contain their anxieties and work things out. It has never fully succeeded and it never will. But it will fail only when it stops trying.

Obama is only the latest in a long, long line of American leaders, at all levels, who have offered their contributions to making the society work for everyone. I myself am not overly impressed, but I understand why people, here and elsewhere, long for some sign that this country can still recognize and choose decency. For some of us, however, decency is merely a threshold requirement for the office. After eight years of rule by frauds and incompetents, we'd like to see some actual skill at governing . . . which sometimes takes a little deviousness. Was it not said of your own celebrated assassin-turned-statesman that if he ate a nail he'd shit a corkscrew? We could use a little of that.

Less than a year ago Obama was too white.

Now he's too black.

The man is an inveterate flip flopper.

Yes, it could be that, but only partly that. You probably know your country's history better than I, so I won't presume on your wilful ignorance here except to remind you of two basic historic facts preceding your present-day pluralism -- the genocide of the Indians and the enslavement of Africans. Two good starts for shitty race-relations

I agree with you that it's basically just about people, but we are afterall talking about the American people here, an American presidential candidate in an American election, that candidate's response to charges of racism, and his resolve to address the particular brand of racism in American society. I realize America is a big melting-pot, but it's still a big melting pot full of Americans.

I also agree with you that it's high time you Americans elected a decent candidate. We all look to you as the only big guns left. We all hope brainy guys like you will slough the illogic of your recent excrescence, 'Why I'm Not Irish', and take ownership of 'Why I'm an American and Proud of it.'

For whatever it's worth, I assure you that that post's subject line meant only that I'm not Irish because the villain in the story died too soon to become my grandfather. (I admit to some gladness at that good fortune.) If I have an a priori antipathy to anybody, it isn't the Irish.

I also have a history of posting nasty things about holidays in general. My "Fuck Memorial Day" post is probably still remembered by a few here. The only reason I thought about that grandmother story (which is true, or at least what my family has taken as true) was that everybody was saying all the usual St. Patrick's Day things, so of course I had to be different.

Anyway, allow me to do what I can to make amends. I don't cultivate feuds with posters I enjoy reading, which certainly includes you. I've been wondering about the seeming change in your style. You used to sound Joycean. Now you sound subdued. Nothing bad in your life, I hope.

in racism like it was a bad thing. It's not. It should be easy to have a monocultural society and declare that 'all men (the guys who wrote the Declaration of Independence never dreamed it would actually include women which is why we now have to share the term 'men' with them to mean both men and women because we cannot at this point write the damn thing over again) are created equal. It's much harder to prove that out beyond a doubt when your country is primarily composed of all the people who no one else could tolerate, or were dragged here in chains as property.

So what we really have here is not a land where everyone is equal, but a land where nobody is equal and curiously enough, that would almost be the same damn thing, except that it doesn't work. And knowing that it wasn't going to work, the very first thing three or forefathers did after they wrote the Constitution was give all these unequal people an equal opportunity to complain about it - except for black people where this offer was void or prohibited by law. The second thing they did was guarantee these unequal citizens the right to bear arms which means that if things got too unequal, you could go out and get yourself a semi-automatic equalizer.

There were a bunch of amendments after that which mostly boil down to insuring that the government stayed out of the way while the people fought it out amongst themselves until we got to the thirteenth amendment which in no uncertain terms finally gave nappy-headed property the opportunity to be very unequal citizens themselves.

It was only shortly thereafter that many of those people who were weary of showing other people just how uncivil a civil war could be wandered westward with their semi-automatic equalizers and showed the Native Americans how to be unequal, too. By the time we had accomplished that, we were spread out so thin that we had to go back to Europe and Asia to find more unequal people and that continued up until Europe and Asia got into a big fight and we had to go back to some of those places and show them how inequality works.

That's was a turning point. That was the first time everybody came back and could say, 'I fought in that Great War just like you and so you and me is equal.' That is what changed everything. Everything that has followed is just the working out of that basic understanding.

The Wright Ministry is wrong for a lot of reasons...reverse racism is not his biggest problem or his most grievous sin.

Wright practices an especially insidious form of persuasion that has a name and an identifiable pattern. " Black Liberation politics " it is not something that he should promulgate from the pulpit unless he intends to sever all ties with religion and start a political organization that would be taxable. You see the real 800 pound gorilla in the room here is not race or even Politics....it's money!

Obama says that wright introduced him to Jesus...well beg to differ. If wright was a true student of Christianity racism such as it is would be a very minor part of his ministry...as it is I see no white faces in his congregation...now why do you suppose that is?

Church organizations like Wright's are correctly viewed by the IRS as scoff laws and the legislation is right around the corner for these guys....pretty soon he will have to pay taxes on his Cadillac Escalade and his 15 room Mansion....oh yeah he forgot to mention his little golden parachute.

The worst offense this man commits in my eyes is falsely connecting skin color to authority and lack thereof. White equals perverse power authority and prejudicial culture, whereas Black equals subservient underclass and permanent victimization. Well sir...that's just plain bullshit...but I'll tell you what...it makes the collection plate nice and fat.

Or maybe I missed that so far? Seems every time I check in on him I hear the same general schmaltzy rhetoric about change and unity sans any specifics. Oh, how original.

I believe as some others do that the guy is a phony. You ask why is he running for president? Because he has a super ego, that’s why they all run. The difference appears where in the past century a select few have been able to deliver in meaningful ways, the rest have been serious disappointments, if not serious liabilities.

This “unite the country” pledge or plea is nothing but bunk. How do you unite people who want to stay in Iraq and try to win with those who want out asap? How do you unite those who consider abortion to be our greatest crime against humanity with those who hold you in contempt for even holding that opinion? How do you unite those who believe every Mexican has a right to care for his family’s needs by illegally working in America with those who are scared to death at our unsecured borders? How do you unite a Christian moral populace with a secular, devil may care sector? You don’t. Nations are almost never united on major causes, but the hope is everyone will be civil in settling differences or accepting the prevailing laws and decisions.

So spare me the Obama is some kind of savior baloney. He needs to act like any responsible candidate should and specify what his views are on every major issue and what his plans are for rectifying the problems. I tire of noble chants of change or unite or hope for the future. I don’t get sentimental too easily. And to those who think a great many are turned off to Obama because he is black or because we are racist, I personally take offense to that and those types of accusations sicken me. If I had my choice from a list of five, I would take Alan Keyes or Condoleeza Rice over Obama, Hillary or McCain in a heartbeat. And the last I checked neither of those two had very light skin.

to see somebody actually thinking. I have grown so tired of the racist tag that I am all but ready to embrace it.

jo

non violent aggression, who does Obama point to? his family,

his community, his infinitely interesting childhood, this is a man

who strides, and you're right, he turned around and faced a demon

that in my estimation, doesn't have an appointment with him, that

demon has an appointment with every one surrounding him,

And I love the breathtaking false sophistication that some hold

in disparaging his "audacity", others call it "naivete" or a "fairy tale"

I find that level of cyncism, laughable, see, for Americans, it's okay

to dream of helping little children dying in Darfur, or donating to

Doctors without borders so they can repair the cleaf palates of some

child in Sierra Leone, but the minute you ask them to "self improve"

they point that finger with the dirty nail at the end of it, (thank you

Ben Franklin) and tell you you're being "childlike" "naive", "inexperienced".

I find it amusing the fights that this week has brought, the everlasting

arguments as to "who is a racist" and "what a racist" is.

Usually, that demon that Obama turned on and stared down this

week, lurks under the cover of darkness, behind the safety of one's

own little fiefdom, or in this case, the safety of a pulpit where God

does not dwell, see, if there were divine providence at play here,

and this game was really that serious, one group or the other,,

would not be sitting in the pews listening to the prophets of

sophistication; they would be rooting around in the mud, looking for

food.

I salute the isle that birthed you and your forefathers,,,

Whatever color they might be.

Regards

Pace

Woolley:

We have to create a new reality for them other than being the bulk of those percentage-wise remaining in the lowest quartile of income and the highest unemployment, other than those who incur the greatest degree of violence, and other than those who become the majority sent off to prison. I have no doubt any person can go beyond what they were born into; but, I do not believe it is quite the same as what we live in or what we experience. Socially and structurally, much is against their advancement. The "Alger Hiss" myth of placing the blame upon themselves for non-advancement is little more than a lie meant to hold them in place . . . a shaming device.

I do not know the circumstance of your youth. The road for myself was difficult and still remains such at this time; but, I am well beyond the circumstance that the majority of African-Americans endure.

These folks here almost single handed, changed the military, and the country, for the Black man, and for Whites as well.

They proved that the Negro is not inferior on an individual basis, if given equal opportunity and education.

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If I were in a fighting hole, surrounded by bad guys trying to kill me, I don't want a pansy-assed why are we here progressive, pondering the duality of man. I want a mean ass Black Man from Chicago who will help me stay alive.

Jack