Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Is Obama Black, and Does His Whiteness Hurt Him

Mickey puts together a great series of polls and articles addressing the question of why Obama is doing better among white voters than black voters. One apparent reason: some argue that he isn't 'black.'

Another reminder of how the debate over race is turned on its head in America. Folks who support preferences based on nothing more than skin color turn around and argue that race is about more than just the color of the skin. So Bill Clinton is black and Barack Obama is white. And if Obama isn't careful, he'll be called an 'Uncle Tom' before this whole thing is over.

Read Mickey's material for this great observation:

Dickerson has great fun mocking the civil-rights establishment's forthcoming attempt to put Obama in their debt. ("Never having been 'black for a living' with protest politics or any form of racial oppositionality, he'll need to assure the black powers that be that he won't dis the politics of blackness (and, hence, them) ... "). She only veers off the rails when, after explaining how Obama's lack of slave ancestry hurts him among blacks, she tries to flip the blame and "point out the continuing significance of the slave experience to the white American psyche; it's not we who can't get over it. It's you." How's that?

Back to the top.

No comments: