[lbo-talk] Sub-prime crisis in Kansas City

Seth Ackerman sethackerman1 at verizon.net
Fri Jan 4 14:09:46 PST 2008


Dennis Claxton wrote:


>>If all this is true, then the really interesting question is why these
>>people wouldn't give a black guy a prime mortage, but would vote to make
>>him president. Especially given the American belief that presidents are
>>meant to be higher beings of impeccable probity and character.
>>
>>
>>
>
>One take from Black Agenda Report says it's because to whites in,
>Iowa say, he's not "all that black":
>
>
>>
>>As was painfully evident from Obama's forced drawls and other
>>attempts to sound and look more culturally "black" (3), Obama has
>>never been an especially African-American public figure. The man
>>does not say "y'all" in his normal discourse. He deletes such
>>terminology when addressing the AIPAC Policy Forum or the Council on
>>Foreign Relations - to reassure them of his deep commitment to the
>>predominantly white ruling class's imperial ambitions and to the
>>apartheid state of Israel (4) - or the Caucasian masses in Des Moines.
>>
>>One of the dirty little secrets about Obama is that he owes no small
>>part of his popularity with many whites to the fact that many
>>Caucasians don't think of the biracial Senator as being "all that black".
>>

Wait a minute. This seems to imply that a person in America can escape much of the stigma of blackness by (quoting Ford) "not saying 'y'all' in his normal discourse." But Ford is always standing up for the principle that race -- race qua race, not as a mere correlate of something else, like culture or class -- still matters, that it hasn't been "transcended." I think there's a deep contradiction here.

Seth



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