Black English vs. Obama

Jasper   Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:53 am GMT
RandomDigits, the notion that we voted for Obama because of racial guilt really is marmalade, to put it kindly.

Historically, Americans have voted their pocketbook; this election was no different. Our economy really was on the precipice of another Great Depression.

Somehow, Obama was able to make us feel a sense of hope and promise.
wremway   Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:10 am GMT
<<Somehow, Obama was able to make us feel a sense of hope and promise. >>


Yep, and he already has let us down!
Jasper   Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:48 am GMT
"Yep, and he already has let us down!"

Unfortunately, Americans are not known for their patience. Obama has only been in office for seven months.

It takes longer than that to build a house.
Guest   Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:14 pm GMT
"Guilt, my ass.

I guarantee you few Americans give a crap about racial guilt when they go to the polls. People don't tend to feel personally responsible for past history. They simply either vote for somebody they like, or against somebody they don't. This "guilt" thing is mainly in the imagination of the European media, which is primarily where I've heard it espoused. It's ridiculous to us. I mean, seriously: picture someone standing in a voting booth, scratching their chin with the pencil, and saying to themselves,"Oh, gosh. I'm a hardcore Republican and every fiber of my being wants to vote for John McCain. But, you know, I've always felt really bad about the Dred Scott Decision and the Fugitive Slave Act, and if I just tick that box next to Obama's name, I will have struck a mighty blow for the civil rights movement and my conscience will finally be clear."

It just doesn't happen. "

Yeah, "white guilt" (I assume that's what we're really talking about here) is one of the most stupid temers ever invented. As if collective guilt must be asigned to everyone designated under the term "white" (a construct) for oppressing everyone under the term "black" (another construct), when slavery and the setting up of the system in which blacks were oppressed was perpetrated by a small minority, long since dead, well before most of the "white" immigrants ever set foot on the shores of America.
Uriel   Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:24 pm GMT
And honestly, we're not particularly shocked by our history. We grew up with it. We've known all about the Indian persecution and decimation and the slave trade and jim crow laws the civil rights movement since we were little kids, and we've all met people who are still ignorant and prejudiced. It's really something we are far more conscious of than Europeans, who seem to have just gotten wind of racial discrimination in the last century or so, and are just now dealing with the implications of other colors and religions in their midst as a major presence. We've had 400 years to wrap our heads around that and experience every angle, good, bad, and ugly -- 500 if you go back to Columbus.

We think of it as a long, long work in progress, and Obama isn't anywhere close to being the end of it -- which is why he was just another politician to most of us who aren't black ourselves. (Blacks had a little bit of a different take on it, of course -- to be expected.) Nor were we all that shocked to find him on the Democrat ticket. I was more surprised to see a woman on the Republican ticket, to be honest! THAT blew my mind.
Jasper   Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:04 pm GMT
Uriel: " I was more surprised to see a woman on the Republican ticket, to be honest! THAT blew my mind."

I wasn't, Uriel; allow me to explain.

I was a former supporter of Hillary, because I remembered the rip-roarin' days of Bill Clinton, and wanted a piece of that era back. Her defeat was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

I didn't feel comfortable with Obama because of his relative lack of experience. There's no way I'd have voted for McCain, because that would have been four more years of Bush. I probably would have stayed home and not voted.

But when McCain nominated Palin as his running mate, I was offended but not surprised. Palin was so stupid that I found it absolutely insulting that McCain would have pandered to us Hillary supporters that way, and this fueled my interest in Obama as a serious contender.

It is ironic now, but McCain's nomination of Palin may have cinched Obama's election.
Uriel   Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:50 pm GMT
I dug Hillary, too, ever since Bill first ran*. She's always impressed me. And if this Sec. of State things works out, it may be her way up in a few elections.

I don't really care about experience; there's no way to "practice" for being President, and the whole beauty is that supposedly anyone can do it. Some will be better than others. When Clinton lost the nomination, I was left with Barack, and he didn't bother me -- seemed very intelligent, articulate, and forward-thinking, so I figured he'd do. And slow progress doesn't bother me a bit; he's got the job for 4 years, maybe 8, and he didn't create any of these issues he's trying to now fix.


*And Bill Clinton was called the "first black president", tongue-in-cheek.