So after posting my little rant this morning and talking about my frustration with apparently lack of a Democratic response, I stumbled onto "What Progressives Don't Understand About Obama" by Ishmael Reed (NY Times).
One progressive commentator played an excerpt from a Harry Truman speech during which Truman screamed about the Republican Party to great applause. He recommended this style to Mr. Obama. If President Obama behaved that way, he’d be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. His grade would go from a B- to a D.
What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years.
I'd like to think we're beyond such things, but I know we're not. We like to think that because Jim Crow and miscegenation laws are off the books, we are living in a post-racist society. We're not. Racism is not dead, it's just had a facelift. We utter a collective gasp when we hear of Holocaust deniers, but what about U.S. conservatives trying to sanitize our own deplorable history of slavery and prejudice?
He makes a valid point that the color of Obama's skin makes for a more complicated scenario than white minds are generally capable of conceiving.
And now they are whispering about a primary challenge against the president. Brilliant! The kind of suicidal gesture that destroyed Jimmy Carter — and a way to lose the black vote forever.
Something to think about.
