very glad to see dwayne bring this up. the reality is somewhat similar to the "good jewish germans" in the late 1930s who believed hitler's brown shirts would never reach them. after all, hitler "just said these things for political reasons."
fact of the matter is, just as dwayne alludes, to the white racist and to whites ignorant of what blacks are as human beings, "they all look alike."
obama is educated, intelligent, smooth and polished, rather julian bond in his early days. nothing threatening here; he's "safe." he's a relative unknown. at least for the time being.
rev al reeks of the streets and is "scary." he didn't pull any punches; he got down. he's not afraid to mix it up.
as one of the "euro-spawned," in name but not in spirit, i think i have a little insight into the shit side of US racism. i've been worried for a long time about the resurgence of jim crow in florida and tennessee in the 2000 election; and the black, and white, community's pallid, ineffectual response to a true and always present malignancy.
also, the black community's relative integration here and there into better jobs, etc., which seems to have resulted in most young people forgetting what it was like -- and could easily be again -- 50 or more years ago. to loose touch with this past -- as americans all seem to like forgetting everything that's over a year old -- is disastrous, leading to a terribly false, dangerous sense of security.
as long as all "minority" communities, and all of us, never loose sight of what dwayne's just written, there's hope. the reality is tragic and hurtful, but it can't be ignored -- ever.
R
At 09:16 AM 7/29/2004, you wrote:
>Doug:
>
>Well, not exactly. They love Obama. But he's moderate and exudes Harvard
>(and to concede part of your point, only half black).
>
>=====================
>
>
>Not being in his neck of the woods I can't claim to be an Obama expert
>though he seems, at this stage in his career, fairly cool as Dems go.
>
>I have to take the slightest of exceptions to the 'half black' thing though.
>
>You see, I don't think Americans actually see half black - they see black
>and that's it. This isn't Brazil after all - we like our ideas, and our
>racial divisions, simple: on/off, crazy/sane, terrorist/freedom lover,
>good neighborhood/bad, black/white, zero sum game all the way.
>
>...
>
>In my old neighborhood there was me - part Cuban, all scientifically tuned
>trouble, longing for robots to end human rule - my immediate neighbors on
>the left side who had Irish grandparentage, the girl up the street whose
>mom was Italian (a very exciting tale of family woe, disownership,
>clandestine meetings and secretly supportive uncles behind that) and the
>cool comic dude who was half Korean and liked to claim he was a boat
>person to spice up a dull party.
>
>Now, every single one of us, when interacting with white people, were
>understood to be black - differing shades of color and facial structures
>and the grand, ethnic kaleidoscope notwithstanding, we were all just plain
>old black folk in the mint julep sipping, lazily relaxing on the front
>porch minds of America's proudly euro-spawned majority.
>
>So I think the MSNBC zero-thought jerkoff squad dig Obama's Harvard aura
>(everyone loves a Harvard man except perhaps you Yalies) as opposed to
>Shaprton's preacher man style but the fact of being 'half black' probably
>never crosses their television addled minds.
>
>.d.