Racial Chips on Very Tall Shoulders
In spite of my being opposed to Obama for being our president from the very outset, an opposition based entirely on the young solon’s executive inexperience and his propensity to vote present on any legislative issue that might prove later to be politically controversial, I truly hoped, after his election, that he would lead America to racial peace.
For six years Barack Obama has insisted on insinuating his presidential presence and influence into every racial conflict that has proved newsworthy. And to the horror of white America, their duly elected leader has chosen to side with whoever the black participants are in any situation that posits black America against the rest of the country. It began with the cops are stupid at Cambridge, then was buttressed by his “If I had a son” comments regarding the Trayvon Martin affair.
Throughout all the rising racial tensions, Obama has made a criminal race-baiter, Al Sharpton, a frequent guest at the White House, an action that white America must realize is a big middle finger to the huge majority of us who rightly recognize Sharpton as a semi-literate black opportunist who leaps into every racial conflict to promote and enrich himself, sometimes pouring fiery racial rhetoric onto already incendiary situations. That an American president would openly associate with such a despicable figure is the equal of George W. Bush having a similar relationship with the national leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Now comes the presidential spouse who was never proud of her native country until her husband was nominated for the presidency to demonstrate for us all how a single encounter in a Target store can be characterized initially as a racial bridge yet, when politically expedient, redefined as a glaring example of white racism. I have a question for the president and his spouse: “Just what the hell do you think you are going to accomplish with such a one-sided alignment with black America?”
The only conclusion that can be drawn from most thinking white Americans is that they have a half-white president who has taken a firm stance on the black side of American culture, a stance that affects virtually every domestic issue he is called upon to decide. What we are belatedly discovering is that racial resentment isn’t limited to urban ghettos; it’s also in the White House, where the American electorate elevated a half-black man to the most powerful office in the world.
Yet he and his wife still bristle at past racial slights.
I submit to you, America, that as long as blacks up to the highest levels of American culture remain so racially sensitive to the most insignificant insults and become resentful to the most minor of perceived slights, we have no hope of racial reconciliation and cultural harmony in this country. Think about this: an overt race-baiter and riot-inciter like Al Sharpton is an honored guest in the American White House – your White House.
My momma always warned: “You, your character and your worth, are all a reflection of whom you choose as friends.” That old conventional wisdom tells me that Barack Obama is not my president; he is a too racially sensitive president of black America.
Category: Politics
I have never voted for Obama. In 2008, I disqualified him for my vote because he was, in my opinion, too inexperienced. I never dreamed that he would stimulate this racial hatred of black over white. I’m sure that some blacks would like to make the whites their slaves as payback for the past, but enslavement of anyone is never a good solution. Nor is this indiscriminate liquidation of any person because of their ethnicity, unless that ethnicity is proven dangerous for the common good for the peoples of this planet. All I can say is that all this racism shit scares me and saddens me greatly.
Israel and Germany get along well, even though Israel is predominantly Jewish and the Germans did horrific things to them during WWII. You wanna’ know how come this can happen? It’s because Germany atoned for its past, and the Jews agreed to let bygones be bygones (although they remain firm in remembering their dead, and are fully justified in this).
Now, you may point out that Vater Deutschland paid reparations, and you’d be right. They’re still paying Shoah reparations, as far as I know. That said, I’d say the trillions we’ve paid in welfare and tax subsidies to predominantly Black and Brown cities count as reparations paid. Heck, the blood shed by the Union during the Civil War should be enough to wipe out the slavery debt 69,105 times over!!
Does racial privilege exist? Sure it does! But it can be overcome – as 0bama once said to the Palestinians: ‘we will extend our hand, if you will unclench your fist’. We Whites need to be colour-blind; Black and Browns need to collectively shun ‘thug life’ and take some accountability for their actions. The people out there who would call me ‘racist’ for this post are the first ones in line for introspection and self-correction.
+1!
“Yet he and his wife still bristle at
pastimaginary racial slights.” FIFY.The pResident said that he was handed someone’s keys for their car as Barky and da Mooch were leaving a restaurant, as the white guy thought he was a valet. The pResident said, “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys,” Obama said, including himself. Oh woe is me, I’se so put upon. This family is just plain disgusting.
As if every parking valet has a Secret Service detail! Just like his parents met in Selma and people thought mooch was a Target employee. The only thing they’ve been mistaken for is competent honest human beings (and not by me I never bought any of the bullshit).
^^^Like^^^
With Obama, it’s really a self-hatred, isn’t it? His black father abandoned him, leaving him to be raised mostly by his white grandparents who gave him a privileged upbringing. But everything he says and does denigrates that from which his privilege stems. He is one screwed up man.
Interestingly, I’ve heard similar things from the actress Halle Berry. Her white mother raised her as a single mother, she’s accompanied her to the Oscars, etc., yet she seems to only identify as black, even though her black father abandoned her. Nice way to honor her mother who sacrificed everything for her. Or is her preference only because it gets her attention that she wouldn’t get as a mediocre white actress?
Here is a link to a Letterman interview two years ago when the same incident wasn’t racist at all.
http://tinyurl.com/p3v5l98
If this were the 1920s thru the 1950s, these two self-involved morons would have some basis for their butthurt babbling.
They do not know what real racism is.
If this were the 1920’s through the 1950’s, no one who went to the “God Damn America” church would ever hold national office.
Many a person has said “If only I could build a time machine…”, not me, I’d want a “Time and Place Machine” that I could place today’s race pimps and hustlers in say, Jackson Mississippi in the mid-1920’s for at least a few weeks, then they could tell me how racist the USA is these days when and if I brought them back!
I’ve been asked “Do you work here?” before, and I have never worked at a store. I did not take offense. I am white, but more important, I do not have a chip on my shoulder.
well, I was wearing a blue shirt in Kroger’s once and someone asked me where the yoghurt was. Guess I should be buttthurt by that, demand a couple million in reparations (small, non-consecutive used unmarked bills please) and go public.
Well, I guess I should be butthurt as all hell over the numerous times people have seen me while on the clock in public and thought I was a cop. I know they clearly just see an ethnically-Irish dude in a navy-blue uniform with a badge and determine that I MUST be a cop, and probably a bad one at that. Fucking RACIST, yo! Da man be keepin’ me down with racism and shit!
Hell, even Dave Chappelle tore this one up in one of his stand-up shows with his joke about how, “You’re right, that was wrong of me to make the assumption. But you ARE wearing a whore’s uniform!” Moochelle can eat a bag’o’dicks.
Seriously though, when I get the mistaken-identity crap, I have to wonder how they miss the lack of a pistol belt or donut crumbs, the fact that the badge and patches clearly say FIRE right on them, or I dunno, maybe the great big bright red fire engine!! Speaking of Obama-level stupidity…
“I know they clearly just see an ethnically-Irish dude in a navy-blue uniform with a badge and determine that I MUST be a cop, and probably a bad one at that.”
RACIST! 😉
A funny thing that happened to me when this Irishman was a cop in Honolulu. I was in my blues moving through the Honolulu Zoo parking lost checking for violations when a family came up to me. The man of the family had a bunch of quarters in his hand and asked me if I would put them in the meter when it ran out. Hilarious!
While I’ll admit that racial privilege is real, I must also admit that Black and Brown people are doing themselves no favours with the ‘thug life’ subculture. I mean, if one would shoot another member of their own family over something as trivial as a slice of pizza, a parking space, or a pair of tennis shoes; what does that say about what that one person would do to a complete stranger?
Yes, Black and Brown people do have to take a lot of undeserved crap. Yes, White privilege is real. That said, if the Black community would just abandon the ‘thug life’ way and learn to behave and act intelligently, a lot of their problems would go away.
In fairness, many Black and Brown people are working to change their communities for the better, like Jam Donaldson in the District of Columbia. You can find her website, here: http://www.hotghettomess.com Good start – but not enough in and of itself.
I wonder what TAH’s Constant Readers think of this one. If you feel inclined to give reply, you know where the REPLY button is. ;o)
That said, if the Black community would just abandon the ‘thug life’ way and learn to behave and act intelligently, a lot of their problems would go away. And what about those communities like Ferguson MO which have a proven track record of statistically inappropriate automobile stops and at least 10% of the 50 man force known perjurers for their actions during a beating of a man in a case of mistaken identity 5 years ago when no officer was reprimanded for perjury or wrongful arrest? The judge is an issue in that case as well because he ruled that even though the officers admitted their perjury when confronted with it the perjury was “minor” because the black man only had a minor concussion and there was no reason to prosecute police who commit perjury as long as the victim was a black man who didn’t get beat up too bad? Do you think those are the actions of a group of people creating a situation that blacks can rise above? I don’t disagree with your premise that the first steps towards autonomy of action are a good education and a serious attempt to integrate and assimilate into the larger society. But I would also argue that there are serious pockets of systemic, institutional racism throughout the nation and those areas need to be systematically reviewed and adjusted until they no longer exist as an impediment to anyone’s progress regardless of color. Understand I’m not advocating on behalf of Mr. Brown, but I am pointing out that the systemic issues in Ferguson have existed long before that incident took place and nothing has been done or is likely to be done about that systemic problem as there appears to be no motivation on the part of authorities to deal with the issue. If you think Ferguson’s past history and current disproportionate activity is unique to that single location in this country I would suggest that you are also due for some much needed introspection regarding your perspective. YMMV certainly, but the Ferguson PD is just a small example of what… Read more »
What happened in Ferguson(sp?) was indeed racist. That said, when some young buck is going around with his pantaloons hanging down to his arse, his cap on backwards, and wearing a tee-shirt with profanity on it; he is going to be stereotyped as a thug, no matter what. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the women who dress as sluts, then complain when they are treated as such. Your clothes say a lot about you, and these thugs / skanks need to know this.
We all – ALL – got to do better. This means both White and Black.
Not sure Ferguson, MO, is a particularly good example to use to argue that point, VOV.
Per the 2010 census, Ferguson, MO, had a population of 21,203. Of those, 14,297 – or somewhat over 2/3 – were of African-American heritage.
I don’t have the numbers for the racial breakout of traffic stops and arrests for the Ferguson PD. However, statistically speaking the demographics of the community indicate that roughly 2/3 of the traffic stops/arrests in Ferguson should be expected to involve African Americans – because 2/3 of the population of Ferguson is African American. Further: if the force is disproportionately targeting Black Americans, the voters of Ferguson have the power to change that reasonably quickly.
If you have a reputable citation for arrest/traffic stop numbers for Ferguson, please post it. I’d be interested in examining them.
I’m also not sure I’d give all that much weight to a single incident – particularly one involving police covering for other policemen regarding excessive use of force. The “blue wall of silence” in such incidents is a well-known phenomenon, and very often is far more important than race during such incidents. The incident might or might not be indicative of a racial problem; more information would be needed to assess whether or not race was a primary factor. If you have specific information concerning that incident, please post a link to a reputable source.
The traffic stops indicate that white people carry illegal contraband far more often than blacks do, yet black are stopped at a rate of over 80% of all the stops while being under 70% of the population Hondo. From a simple effective policing strategy one would expect at some point that the chief would question why there were so few stops of whites when they were carrying contraband a third of the time and blacks only about a fifth of the time.
There is another data source I had but I can’t seem to find it…here’s one from the Missouri government: http://ago.mo.gov/VehicleStops/2013/reports/161.pdf
I will admit I’ve not run the numbers on that PDF because I was using a different link that I can’t find right now, but it appears that stops are 86% black and about 12% white with contraband hit rates of 22% and 34% respectively for 2013. That would indicate that some effort to adjust the stops to yield more effective arrests of the contraband hits for whites would be a better use of police time than a disproportionate stopping of black drivers. I understand that statistics aren’t cause, they’re just identifiers of what happened at a certain point. I do believe that allowing the perjurers to remain on the force does little to push the notion that the mostly white force has an intention of being accountable to blacks, even when the force is legally and morally wrong as in the Davis case.
Also the Henry Davis beating is the one I am referencing above, there are several good sources for information about the police actions and the judges comments depending where you apply your Google-fu.
I apologize for not preparing a better reference, I’m in the middle of a server and sewer meltdown here and it’s been a shitty day no pun intended…
Server AND sewer meltdown? Best of luck in shoveling your way out of that situation, amigo. (smile)
When I was a cop, I would say that 90% of the arrests I made were of people of color. Am I a racist? Or was I just working in a neighborhood composed of close to 95% persons of color?
The area I worked in was not cop friendly for the most part. The descriptions of Ferguson remind me a lot of the place I worked. It was the Wild West. One day, I made 3 traffic stops in the first three hours of my shift and got a total of 15 violations AND 16 outstanding warrants. People didn’t like cops cause we held them accountable for that crap. Plain and simple.
No matter what, though, except for a few circumstances, I always treated everyone I came into contact with respectfully. Most times, they reciprocated. A lot of times they didn’t. But hey, I always got the last laugh. When we got to the jail, they stayed, I left.
Yes VOV, what about Ferguson? A community where the black community has a 2 to 1 advantage at the ballot box, and hasn’t taken advantage of it to change their situation for the better.
Sorry, I won’t argue that there are no racial problems in that town, but if they’re not smart enough to cure it, the right way, then I’m not wasting time feeling any sympathy.
Is there a website for the “white privilege”? I need to sign up for my share. how much Is it? I am missing out, and I really could use it. Evidently you Semper Idem know where this privilege is. I am 56 years old, reasonably intelligent and mostly white been working to earn my keep since I was 14 years old. I have no idea what it is like to be a black man in the USA, but I also know no black man knows what it is like to be a white man in the USA. People should only speak for themselves whenever they make a statement like “Yes, White privilege is real”. Unless it really is. In that case, please refer me to where I can collect.
The specifically black racial issues in this country are, indeed, complex. And I also hoped for more from our current President (No, I didn’t vote for him – for reasons that had zero to do with race).
And I grow more convinced as each day passes that his agenda simply has little directly to do with racial issues.
Certainly he does use the “Race Card” at his convenience, but there are enough other indicators that have me, and the paranoid voices in my head, quite convinced that either his ultimate agenda has political rather then social roots, or… he his a dolt.
All he had to do was stand in front of The White House and note that HE was elected President and use that example to highlight what that fact demonstrates. But no…
He’s doing the only thing he knows how to do race extortion. That is what community organizers do. Americans voted for race extortion and that is what they’ll have to live with.
The higher the income among blacks, the MORE socialist they’re likely to be. Jews also show this tendency, which means that no matter the raft of legislation enacted to create quots, destroy discrimination, etc., will have an effect on those whose minds reside in a sort of resentful ghetto.
I have to disagree. I have some very successful Black friends that are very Conservative, they’ll look at you, me, or anyone else right in the eye and say “Jackson, Sharpton, and the NAACP DO NOT speak for me!”. They don’t believe in set-asides or quotas based on race, gender, etcetera, all they want to do is work to earn something like any other real person does, and they can’t stand those who want it all handed to them.
I believe what the President and his wife said. It happens all of the time. In fact, I heard that two Marines stationed at the White House were mistaken for umbrella stands.
+20 Cool Points for Hack Stone!!
Someone had to say it. I’m just surprised someone didn’t say it already.
Oh, the irony …
And I seem to remember a 4 star who was mistaken for a waiter by Jarrett. But hey, no big deal.
Lie Zero P., I’m convinced Obama uses the race card as a smoke and mirrors trick for his shitshow.
Benghazi investigations and LOOK ! TREYVON MARTIN!
Dems get their asses kicked in election….LOOK! FERGUSON.
Obama is worse than a race pimp. He’s a typical, cycnical, Chicago Politician.
” Like Zero P. said”
gotta get a new keyboard.
I can think of few people who have done more to increase racial tension than that braindead social moron* in the Oval Office, who has a serious knack for saying the tackiest things possible at every opportunity.
*and wife