In which I defend Obama
And Hillary. But only this one time. Probably.
It was amazing. I’ve had two conversations recently in the real world that left me dumbfounded and uncomfortable. One was a guy that I know at a social setting. An educated man who is successful. And he said to me roughly I’m not voting for the nigger and I’m not voting for a woman. My response was that I’d vote for a black person and a woman, if it were Condoleezza Rice. We had a laugh at that and I moseyed away to find other conversation because that was awkward. As much as we like to pretend racism is a thing of the past, it’s not.
The other was in a more professional setting where someone (an educated and successful person) told me they couldn’t support Obama because they thought he was a closeted Muslim. Sweet Jebus! First, I find that claim laughable and second, so what?
I mean, if they both had said they won’t vote for a socialist, we’d have been cool. But, come on, the color of skin, who has a penis, and whose invisible man in the sky is better are the primary reasons?
Update: And for the record, one was a Democrat and one was a Republican.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
May I suggest that Margaret Thatcher and General Honore are two other folks, respecively non-penised and heavily-pigmented, who might fit the bill as examples? I’m sure you could think of more.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
People who think white people are the master race have spent very little time in South Baltimore.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 am
And people who think racism is primarily whites hating blacks haven’t spent enough time around a lot of black people. It’s dangerous to constantly think of racism as a white on black issue. I’ve talked about stereotyping the majority before.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Obama’s not Muslim, he’s the Antichrist. =)
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
Lots of reasons to oppose and (even) loathe Hillary and Obama without stooping to the idiocy of racism.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I’m not voting for Obama mainly because he’s Mayor Daley’s proxy, not to say puppet. But I do also have problems with his antecedents. Not his reading on a light meter but to what extent he has an “American conscience”. His spoiled princess of a hippie mother conceived him with a Kenyan chief, educated him in a madrassa in Indonesia with her second Muslim husband, and then dumped him onto her parents who had made her what she was. Maybe it’s unfair to him (who gets to pick his parents) but he will be, among other things, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States and so far he has shown nothing that qualifies him for that job.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
My first eye-opener about racism was from suffering reverse discrimination from my LPO in the Navy. My second was when my family disowned me for marrying an asian woman.
Having grown up in Northern Virginia, in an area that was very evenly mixed racially, both were a bit shocking to me.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Obama’s father was muslim which makes Obama a muslim according to muslim law. If Obama converted to Christianity, which has not been confirmed, then that makes him an apostate in muslim eyes. This carries the death penalty under muslim law. Basicly every muslim has not only the right, but the duty to kill him.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
What Robert said, X10. There’s plenty of reasons to vote against either Obamessiah or the Hildebeast without resorting to racism/sexism. Their socialism is enough reason to oppose them.
That said, I have to say it’s pretty freakin’ cool that we’re at a point where we have minority candidates outside of the fringe.
I just wish it could be Condoleeza Rice…
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
P.S. And religion is a powerful (and dangerous) thing. I can speak irreverently of my “Great Bearded White Legend” but it is a part of me, inculcated into me at an early age, and it will always influence my thoughts, attitudes and actions.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Mike,
I worked for Russ Honore back in the mid-90s. A difficult task masker, but a great boss as long as you don’t have a thin skin. However, he is not presidential material regardless of his pigmentation.
BTW, he is so light skinned that I wasn’t certain that he really was black until I read a story about him during the Katrina aftermath that described his family background as being mixed. Not that it matters.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Being a white dude in a predominantly black neighborhood in a predominantly black city certainly gives you some perspective on the issue. It just reinforces how thoroughly race issues still penetrate almost everything, no matter how much educated people try to fool themselves into thinking otherwise.
When I walk down Washington Blvd at night with my dogs watching young black men selling drugs and making pistols with their hands and pointing them at me, I can assure you this white dude is acutely aware of the role race plays.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Er, last I checked, Christians and Muslims believe in the same big, invisible man in the sky. I expect that the typical concern is more that the two have significantly different cultural expectations.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
So, are you going to tell us which party member said what? My speculation is democrat was the racist, republican was the religionist. I know it doesn’t really matter and wasn’t the point, just curious.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
The guy who placed religion as a reason is a hillary supporter.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I never hear that word used around here by anybody, but I work from home and don’t have any professional or social set.
Despite similar Invisible influences, the Christian Guy-In-The-Sky doesn’t promulgate a green book in which a Seven-Pillard Path describes the specific beheading-treatment of certain slaves, the use of coitus-interrupts to impregnify and/or demean female slaves, or the proper stoning of adultresses (not adulterers). Funny how there are differenced beyond invisibility.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
DirtCrashr:
That’s because he was too busy promulgating a book that tells you that it’s okay to beat your slave as long as you don’t kill him, that your menstruating women must be banished from the city and not readmitted until a couple of doves are sacrificed, that you should execute anyone who works on the sabbath, and that offering up your virgin daughter to be raped by a horny mob in order to prevent a guy you don’t even know from being sodomized makes you a hero.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Hey Hon, you making fun of Pigtown?
Seriously, all the white people in Baltimore(at least the ones with any sense), leave at 5 PM on the Meto.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:26 am
You trying to say I lack sense? đŸ™‚
Heh. The white flight thing has certainly derailed the city for a long time, but there are some neighborhoods making a comeback thanks to intrepid volunteers like me who A) can’t afford a McMansion in the ‘burbs and B) don’t mind taking on the challenge of living in the city as it were.
The upshot of the real estate debacle everywhere else is that houses in my area are worth more, not less.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 am
Obama could derail that whole Muslim thing by publicly eating some pork ribs or ham. Heck he should have a fundraiser with a pig in the ground. Kind of tough to call him a muslim after that.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
All that and literacy too!
February 24th, 2008 at 5:00 am
nk, that’s what scares me too, about Obama. He’s not really culturally American, at all. Hawaii is a nice place from all reports, but aside from the US Military folks there, is pretty much unlike the rest of the country, culturally. Malaysia is even more unlike the USA. I hear that Chicago, and Illinois, are pretty weird, too, at least politically.
As the man said in “The Blues Brothers”, I hate Illinois Nazis. (Hillary) I also hate Illinois commies. (Barack)
I’m gonna have to vote for the Naval Angriator: Embrace the Suck: McCain in 2008!
And vote for Congresscritters who will hold his feet to the fire and make sure the only bills which show up on his desk are good ones.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Hmm, just thinking… I wonder what would happen if Senator McCain got really hoppin’-mad angry, sometime between now and the convention, and popped a blood vessel in his head and dropped dead. It could happen, y’know. He’s old, and much beaten-upon, and famously short-tempered.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Justthisguy writes,
‘As the man said in “The Blues Brothers”, I hate Illinois Nazis. (Hillary) I also hate Illinois commies. (Barack)’
I heard Michael Savage the other night basically say the same thing re: the two Democratic contenders, “we have a choice between Hitler and Stalin.”