Re: Americans have partyitis
by
julieboomer
07/05/2008, 5:50 PM #
well, let me refresh your memory.
…..Ralph Nader reemerged Wednesday with a off-key critique of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
"He's half African-American," Nader told the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. "Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos." He went on to say, "What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white?" When asked to clarify the "talk white" remark, Nader added, "I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas . ..." Oh, and then there was this little ditty: "He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful."
Nader's offensive remarks smack of that ultra-liberal condescension that African-Americans should think, talk and behave a certain way -- and that people such as Nader are equipped to explain this to them. Those who dare to stray from such rigid orthodoxy are belittled at best. Nader displayed a stunning misunderstanding of the spark behind Obama's support. When Obama went before a black church on Father's Day to preach responsibility and the importance of fatherhood, he did not aim his message only at African-American men; his positions on education and health care, to name two, are meant to benefit all Americans. Surely, African Americans would stand to benefit from such expansive thinking rather than the stale strategies Nader believes Obama should employ.
If Nader's patronizing comments were meant to attract attention, they succeeded. Unfortunately, they also served to reinforce how out of touch he really is.
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A series of newsletters in the name of GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul contain several racist remarks -- including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went "to pick up their welfare checks."
CNN recently obtained the newsletters -- written in the 1990s and one from the late 1980s -- after a report was published about their existence in The New Republic.
None of the newsletters CNN found says who wrote them, but each was published under Paul's name between his stints as a U.S. congressman from Texas.
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