[quote]valiance. wrote:
VALERIUS wrote:
Professor X wrote:
snipeout wrote:
Professor X wrote:
snipeout wrote:
Did I say Obama or did I generalize by encompassing all voting parties? You were the one who stated you understood why people felt like Wright, not me. Sounds like an anti-white statement to me.
Understanding why someone who grew up through the Civil Rights movement and the racism of the 60’s and 70’s has a hostile view towards those in power during that time makes you “anti-White”? Really? And you DON’T think your perspective is narrow?
Wow.
WRT Wright that makes it alright to continue to spew hate? You would think that someone who experienced that would want to stop the cycle of hate, not continue it. Continuing this cycle is narrow minded, not condeming this cycle is narrow minded.
Oh yeah, because racism died 40 years ago, huh?
Barack Obama could not have been elected without tens of millions of WHITE voters’ ballots. In fact, he polled half the total WHITE vote.
What does that say about racism?
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He polled less than half the White vote; 43% of it to be exact. If it wasn’t for minority voters, John McCain would be president. Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com
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I’d argue that there’s a difference between voting for a black president because he’s black and a white president because he’s white (even though both are discrimination based on race).
Given the historical oppression of black people in this country, it is not unreasonable for anyone to want to see a black person in the highest office of the land simply to show that it can be done. To give the lie to hundreds of years of propaganda asserting black inferiority and to show that America has moved beyond its racist past.
To assert that because a black man is president all our racial ills are healed is idiotic, but it’s certainly a sign of progress; especially when it was under 50 years ago that blacks and whites even going to school together was unthinkable. It’s an astonishingly powerful symbol both at home and abroad, and I think that should be fully acknowledged.
I hope it might lead to a good deal of integration of the black community into greater American society. The amount of cynicism and distrust of the American government (and the system, the man, and white authority etc.) in the black community would shock most white people (see Jeremiah Wright for an extreme version). But in their defense, segregation wasn’t that long ago; hell, slavery wasn’t that long ago! A woman whose parents were slaves voted in this election! Obama winning this election is a huge sign of how far we’ve come as a country. Black people often have the sense that the system is rigged against them (since it was for so long–rather than seeing that its rigged for them in some places as it is now). This win doesn’t mean the system isn’t rigged–it still plainly is in places–but its certainly opened the eyes of a lot of black folk I think. (This election season also brought out a lot of ugly racism and ignorance some people thought was dead but that’s another story)
Of course, if race is your sole reason for voting for someone I think you’re being an idiot. Noone but the most virulent racist would vote for someone solely based on his or her race. Blacks don’t come out in droves for Alan Keyes for example. Policies and politics matter, and Obama’s dominance of the black vote isn’t terribly out of line with typical Democratic numbers (and his dominance of Hillary Clinton in that regard is explained by the preceding paragraphs).
Finally, to vote for a white man because of his whiteness is to simply echo the centuries of oppression of black people in this country. It’s not so much a vote for a white man (after all we’ve had 43 white presidents in a row) as it is a vote against a black man (likely because of feelings of racial animus).
- I’d be very much surprised if those clamoring about disrespect of GWB would be willing to give even the tiniest bit of respect to the president elect. BHO. I don’t know people here so I’m not going to point fingers or call names, but if Democrats should be respectful of Republican presidents, so should Republicans be respectful of Democratic presidents. We can revisit this thread idea in 4 (or 8) years and see how everyone has done
**By the way I COMPLETELY disagree with the premise that the president–any president–is entitled to our respect or admiration merely because of his position. He’s entitled to our obedience–or rather the obedience of those in the armed forces when he is acting in his role as C-in-C, but I should be allowed to hate the president’s guts and a call him a dirty coward if I want and noone can say different. It would be NICE if we could respect the president, but respect is earned and not every president will earn every citizen’s respect. There are people who disrespect GWB or BHO on principle, and they’re certainly entitled to that foolishness.[/quote]
In other words, you do not know what the hell you are talking about. Your first post was an epic fail and bored people so desperately; it made people feel like maybe you shouldn’t hang around.