“Meanwhile recall that we have had a black armed services chief and a black secretary of state – both previously touted as presidential candidates (Condi might still be).”

They were appointed, not elected.

Err..no they didn’t. They just reinforced the concept of having to sell your soul to the devil to get ahead. They never took on the mantle for the oppressed or downtrodden.

You need to get this in your head. For an ethnic person to get ahead in a white dominated system, there is an easy route. That is to become a poster boy/girl and know your place. That, I believe, is what Powell and Condi did. When you do this, you will find that often you will be promoted and patronised by those in charge. This is plain old tokenism.

Obama, however, has opened a debate that many would like to see stifled. So what seems to be going down is that supremiscists will use the few exceptions like Condi and Powell as a tool to negate and undermine feelings of resentment and frustration felt by a infinitely larger group of people from that persons ethnic background. The blacks in America have genuine concerns and issues. Like the problems of most communities, some will be of their own making whilst some will be the result of the impact of external forces. One of these external forces is the continuing and historical apathy and even antipathy many white people feel towards blacks and perhaps all people of colour. This subject, which effects the lives of so many, has never been opened up in societies wider debates. Often people who try and highlight it are swiftly labelled cranks or marginalised. Personally, I think it really does need to be discussed and resolved. Not just in America but in other countries like Britain too.

Can we not stoop so low with trashy and wholly misogynist terms like ‘bitch’ in order to make our point !

Ha ha ha!

These people are not interested in anything other than sucking up to those in power for their own progress. How you can tout a bitch that followed a dimwitted nutjob into a bullshit war as some sort of positive for black people is mind blowing. But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Morons usually thrust their token cronies in our face to distract us.

Really? A new breed of politicians?
Y’all have gone nuts over this guy.

Meanwhile recall that we have had a black armed services chief and a black secretary of state – both previously touted as presidential candidates (Condi might still be).

I have come to realise that he might lose the election to McCain, because let’s face it: these are the people that voted Bush twice. Who know the economy and the war is damaging America, but God forbid anyone who does not wear a flag lapel pin. Change cannot happen overnight. But Obama has broken a glass ceiling – not just the race barrier, but also has given opportunity for a new breed of politicians.

cjcjc — on 19th March, 2008 at 5:09 pm
“the whims of the white politically correct”

“Indeed – he seems happy to compare his gran’s private failings with Wright’s public hatemongering.”

Well, well…one rule for one and one rule for the other. I don’t hear any clamour from anywhere within the black community for Obama to disown his own grandmother. Alas the private failings of a white woman weren’t so private in the presence of her black grand son. Maybe Obama’s mistake was to not record her comments on black society and then broadcast them on You-Tube, for the world to see. I fear CJCJCJ that for you, ignorence is indeed bliss.

The only thing I recall posting would be that it would be worth seeing Obama in the White House just in order to be able to read Gary Younge’s piece in the Guardian the following day arguing why the election of a black president just proved how racist the US was!

Yes, I agree the social problems in the u.s. are immense and getting worse.

But Obama has not described, specifically, how he will reverse this course. So he is no better than a trickle down Republican in that regard.

“his policies are against anyone or any group who has accumulated wealth in the U.S. in the last 20 years.”

the republicans have been telling us that the “trickle-down economics” will work….no, it hasn’t. all it’s done is breed more GREED.
———————–

Sen Obama’s speech needed to be said. i recently moved from a very liberal area to a very “Bush-can-do-no-wrong” part of the country.

the racism is so overt, “I” can see it (i’m white). and the poor (black & white) in the rural areas are very poor. the poor white feel superior because they’re not black — many are “separatists.”

our laws have kept the poor, poor and the blacks seem so down-trodden that they don’t care anymore — here is what i hear: “what’s the point…i’ll never get ahead, so “f%ck” it.”

the religious-right pass laws that affect the black youth — for example: there are areas of our country, where wearing baggy pants is either against the law (as in Atlanta, Georgia) or on the books to make it so.

the fine to get caught with powder cocaine (mainly a white crime) is far less than those who are caught with crack cocaine (mainly a black crime).

the fastest growing business in the US is the privatized prisons.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
i guess we gotta fill ‘em. (sarcasm)

i volunteer with black teens; they are struggling with the educational system. (“no child left behind” left a lot of kids BEHIND. plus, our schools don’t teach civics anymore — how our government works.)

there is NO enthusiasm to learn. they feel that every teacher is against them, so they “act out.”

i have been able to reach several to “suck it up” (since they’ll never have to see that teacher again) and get their education so that they can get involved and help change the system. (they now show me their school grades so i can see how they are improving.)

Sen Obama said exactly what needed to be said. the preacher (Wright) lived in a different time, born in 1941; look up the “Civil Rights Act of 1964″ — so his words should be taken in that context.

So what’s the big deal? McCain disowned the racist comments from Hagee, its in his quote. Also, the comparison of McCain-Hagee and Obama-Wright is not an apples to apples comparison. McCain does not have a deep relationship with Hagee like Obama has with Wright whom Obama calls a “family member.”

So what is the difference between American south asians and British south asians such that Americans prefer Hillary and Brits prefer Obama?

You can’t really compare a some readers on here with millions of Americans like that…

Britain will never have a Black, Asian or Mixed Race Prime Minister.

It will happen (most likely a mixed race one if you ask me due to demographics and something like the Obama effect). It wasn’t that long ago people couldn’t imagine having a woman PM.

In the US it was inconceivable only a couple of decades ago they could have a Black President…Martin Luther King was right, imo, the moral universe is long but it does bend toward justice.

yeah right
*smirks*

You’ve been cursing him long before this speech, no? Look, people have unsurprisingly read into the speech along partisan lines. And that’s fine – people will fit events into their own prejudices.

But I think the fundamental point here still stands. Conflict seems to arise when one group doesn’t understand the other because its trying to judge their experiences on their own standards. So the fact is, you don’t know what its like to face racism as a black person in the USA. There is deep seated (and justified) anger with many Black Americans, given that 40 years after the civil rights movement many of them are still discriminated against. You don’t think that deserves some empathy?

Finally – you’re supporting McCain, despite him embracing Hagee?

Listen, I might even have voted for Obama before I found out more about Wright. I don’t know about McCain, but I certainly would not have voted for any of the other GOP clowns.

I understand your pain over the Wright issue, and why you and many others are in denial.
Yet, as others have more originally observed, as Obama ceases to be a tabula rasa onto which you can paint whatever image your (wrinkled white) guilt demands, and as we learn more about who he actually is, the disillusion is bound to set in.
How can it not?

Cynically yours.

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/03/deja-vu-all-over-again.html”

I heard both speeches. I think Obama’s has infinitely more meat. The two speeches touch on common ground but they don’t seem as close as people are suggesting. Obama’s assessment on the hostility that breeds from ignorance is 100% spot on in my opinion. It is refreshing to hear his words and the fact that they have been aired openly is wonderful and much needed.

I don’t know whether he is an honest man – the Blair experience has (almost) completely jaded my view of politicians. But one thing I am certain of is that we certainly need alternatives to the current brigade that dominate world politics (yes, they are mostly white and their token cronies).

I’m impressed by the way Obama hasn’t turned his back on a long time associate for politically correct reasons and his assessment of where the pastor went wrong (assuming a society is static), shows he did not absorb the pastors words without critical analysis.

As someone put it earlier – he has shone some light onto very dark areas. Either we have these debates and resolve them or one day be at each others throats over them.

If I’d been guilty of an an ‘ad hominem’ attack I’d apologise.

Your ideas, which I happen to find abhorrent, is another thing entirely. Open to the scorn and abuse that I point in your general diriction.

‘Obama’s honey-tongued words merely covers up the fact that his policies are against anyone or any group who has accumulated wealth in the U.S. in the last 20 years.’

For far longer the flow of money has been from the poor to the eternally rich. Remember Clinton I’s workfare programmes?