Hussein . . . there I said it
I lost it in all the Heller stuff. But did anyone else find it odd that Barrack “He who shall not be middle-named” Obama decided to have a real conversation about race in this country? I mean, a guy whose campaign implied it was bigoted to reference his actual name came out and talked to Americans about race like they were adults.
Funny.
BTW, it was a good speech. And he made some fine points. But I find it hard to buy what he’s selling.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
He’s all show, no go. It may catch up to him before the Dems do the nominating thing, but it certainly will after.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Didn’t he have the speech in the first place because he’s been going to some racist preacher’s church for 30 years?
This has pretty much been the number one story on the radio around here (Heller was #2). Someone commented that any reasonable person would, over some point in the span of 30 years, get up and walk out. Other people say, that his preacher’s comments were taken out of context. That comment was anomoyous, but I’ll bet it wasn’t from Don Imus.
Separate standards for “hate speech” will never make us equal.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I actually thought his speech was good. Nonetheless I have to seriously question his judgment. Not only did he go to this guy’s church for 20 years, have his kids baptized by him, consider him a personal mentor etc. he also had him on his Presidential campaign until these hateful speeches came out.
I can’t imagine Obama never heard Wright make racist, vitriolic, bigoted speeches in 20 years of going to his sermons. I think we’re going to have to have some equal accountability if both blacks & whites want to come together and get past petty race issues. Right now we have “separate but equal” as far as what a white man can say and what a black man can say. You can’t expect both sides to come together when you actively seek to perpetuate racism
March 20th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Of course, everybody knows that a couple of sound bites culled from years worth of sermons make for a fair representation of a preacher’s career.
As a side note, I’ve seen little evidence that Rev. Wright is “racist.” He’s said some stupid things, no doubt, but not much that could fairly be described as racist, as far as I can tell. Makes me wonder if the allegation has any teeth, or if it’s of the “if we repeat it often enough, it will be true” variety.
Regarding the middle-name thing, that’s been hashed over dozens of times, but Uncle still keeps playing by the right-wing playbook. I expect better.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Mike W:
I can’t imagine Obama never heard Wright make racist, vitriolic, bigoted speeches in 20 years of going to his sermons.
Similar speeches have never stopped the GOP from sucking up to the Falwells, Robertsons, and Dobsons every election cycle. IOKIYAR, I guess…
March 20th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Yeah, I know. I got my marching orders earlier this week but I was busy.
BTW, you realize how dumb that sounds?
March 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Not as dumb as pretending that the consistent use of Obama’s middle name is totally innocent, or that the Obama campaign had no legitimate reason to criticize it.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
He lasted until the 20th word of the second paragraph without uttering the word ‘slavery’.
That’s where I put him on ignore. For trying to invoke something which I have none of.
White guilt.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
tgirsch – Here’s an example for you. Kelly Tilghman from the Golf Channel. She made ONE racially insensitive remark about Tiger Woods that was clearly spoken without malice. She quickly apologized, Tiger accepted and said it was a non-issue, but black leaders jumped all over her and the media talked about it for a week. She was branded racist despite the fact that nothing she’d ever said previously would substantiate such a claim.
Context and intent mean everything, but Sharpton, Jackson etc. ignored that and got butthurt over what should have been a non-issue. it was nothing more than a bad choice of words. Here we have a black man saying things with clear vitriolic / malicious intent and somehow it’s OK because “the rest of what he said wasn’t bad.”
March 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Yeah, I know silly me for making fun of how dumb it was to out-dumb your opponents.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
mike w.
Yup. Separate standards for “hate speech” will never make us equal.
tgirsch:
Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, Al ‘Tawana’ Sharpton, and Minister ‘White Devil’ Farrakhan all called for various people to lose their jobs over what other people have said, even if they have apologized afterwards.
There is a double standard on what is considered “racist”. Undoubtedly, some may consider what I’ve said here to be racist hate speech. Whatever.I don’t care if that label gets applied to my pseudonym (and it would look great next to my misogynist label. If I could only score the anti-semitic label for the trifecta…)
March 20th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
As a side note, I’ve seen little evidence that Rev. Wright is “racist.” He’s said some stupid things, no doubt, but not much that could fairly be described as racist, as far as I can tell.
Cognitive dissonance on crack. Hear what you need to hear.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
>But I find it hard to buy what he’s selling.
I don’t think anyone is selling stuff I don’t find hard to buy right now.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
mike w:
She made ONE racially insensitive remark about Tiger Woods
Err, making a joke about a kind of race-based terrorism that a lot of people are old enough to remember first hand goes a little bit beyond a “racially insensitive remark.” If she had suggested that a Jewish golfer should be “loaded onto a railroad car,” I expect the reaction would have been much the same, whether or not she was laughing while she said it.
Uncle:
Criticizing a dirty trick is “out-dumbing” your opponents?
SM:
Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, Al ‘Tawana’ Sharpton, and Minister ‘White Devil’ Farrakhan all called for various people to lose their jobs over what other people have said, even if they have apologized afterwards.
You won’t find me defending any of those three, but it’s funny how none of those individuals is named “Wright.” +20 points, though, for the compound guilt-by-association argument.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
#9:
Feel free to cite specific examples. He may well have made racist remarks. Based on what I’ve heard from vocal preachers of all stripes, I’d be a little surprised if he hadn’t ever made any such remarks. But it strikes me as odd that everyone keeps repeating that he’s a “racist” without ever explaining why this is so.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Lol – they made more out of hussein than the TNGOP ever thought of doing.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
SayUncle
If you think it was limited to the TNGOP, you’re more provincial than I thought. Even McCain called bullshit on the tactic, after one of his guest speakers at a rally in Ohio repeatedly used it. Nor was it exactly uncommon among the talk radio pinheads (the aforementioned speaker among them). It’s probably still common. But hey, if Uncle doesn’t think it’s a big deal, then it must not be a big deal.
Hell, IIRC, Xrlq even called it out for what it is.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Oh, that was bullshit (the implication not his middle name which shall not be spoken). But my point is that it got more play from the left than the right. Which put the idea in more people’s heads than anything bill hobbs ever did.
Just saying.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
But my point is that it got more play from the left than the right.
Only in the short-term. I suspect that if left unchecked, the tactic would still be in use a lot more. I’d frankly be shocked if we’ve heard the last of it from the Islamophobic wing of the right…
March 20th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Wright can’t be a racist. He didn’t wish Strom Thurmond a happy birthday.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
tgirsch:
+25 points for ignoring my “double standard” point, and then, mere minutes later, twisting the idea around and blogging about it.
March 20th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Don’t y’all know that you can only be “racist” if you’re white.
If you’re a member of the Black Panthers, you’re just Afro-centric.
If you’re a member of La Raza, you’re just Latino-centric.
Double standards & newspeak are FUN!
March 20th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I never denied that a double-standard exists. I merely deny that it works the way you think it does. If you think that white people generally come out on the short end of racial double-standards, then you are either completely sheltered, or a blithering idiot.
When was the last time you got pulled over for Driving While White?
March 20th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Probably the last time most blacks have. My dad did once get pulled over on his bike for a really stupid reason, and a bunch of cops drew guns on him and threatened him for no good reason. He doesn’t think they did it because he was white, but if he were black and the same thing had happened, he likely would believe it had happened because he was black. And given the circumstances, I’d scarcely blame him.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
OK, wait. before we go any further, please tell me that the directions we are going with this conversation isn’t People like Jeremiah Wright get a pass for the hateful things they say because African-American people have been traditionally oppressed.
I’ll admit it, never. Although I hasten to add I live in a majority African-American county with a majority African-American police force. I suppose that African-American police officers would be much more sensitive to racial stereotypes than other police officers. (Remind me to tell you about the car-to-car IM scandal that rocked P.G. county Maryland a few years back. Specifically, which police officers were IMing other officers about which citizens they regarded as niggers.)
March 20th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I can’t help but wonder if the people who are giving Obama a pass for his connections to his pastor would feel the same way if the front-running Republican candidate had attended the Westboro Baptist Church for 20 years, considered Fred Phelps his mentor and spiritual advisor, and had donated thousands of dollars to the church, even if he had not personally picketed at any funerals.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
re: the speech. Fisked at http://www.slate.com/id/2186845/#obamaracespeech
March 20th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
SM:
please tell me that the directions we are going with this conversation isn’t blah-blah-blah
It isn’t.
jesse:
If you think, based on 3 minutes of YouTube, that Rev. Wright is anywhere near the level of a Fred Phelps, you haven’t been paying attention.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:01 am
tgirsch:
Awesome. So when is Jeremiah Wright going to publicly denounce his past hateful speech, and apologize to the general public so we can move on with that transcending race thingy?
Does he need racial sensitivity training?
Regardless of his apology, I doubt that Jeremiah will be able to rejoin Obama on the campaign trail. Sorry, that’s just the way things usually work out.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 am
Tgirsh, I just have to ask this. Are you being paid to say dumb shit? Do they pay you by the word? or the issue? or what? You can’t possibly believe all you say in the face of reality. Therefore I must assume there is a dynamic at work here that the rest of us are not privy to, unless we just decide to believe you are as damn pig stupid as the shit you say.
Hey, no offense meant just asking. This was a lot longer, so please don’t judge me or my comments out of context. I really am all sugar and sunshine, sweetness and light, and have never said anything bad about you, if you are open-minded enough to give me the same kind of pass you give Rev. Wright, and I suspect Michelle Obama.