>She's a professor of African-American studies at Princeton, knows her
>shit, and has more specific examples on the subject than I.
>Or try Michael Eric Dyson's criticisms. He's sociology professor at
>Georgetown university and an Obama backer but is bothered by Obama's
>nonsensical rhetoric about personal responsibility as pandering to his
>white supporters because he know Blacks won't abandon him.
well, i agree with jim straub in so far as: it's complicated. at my workplace, most black people support what obama says. they are upper-middle strata, professional managerial class blacks. even the ones who are sales reps earning $8/hr plus commission support what he says.
they also bitch about building condos next to the projects because "those" people, well, you just can't trust 'em, etc. etc.
but just because black folks agree with obama, it doesn't follow that the rhetoric has to be supported -- as you point out with the examples of obama's critics.
iow, i don't think it was *just* pandering to whites; i think it was pandering to a lot of black folks.
which doesn't make the position right. that black people support something in some kind of numerical majority or some such, doesn't make that position beyond criticism.
it reminds me of the burqagate wars in feminist blogland, where some women of color were outraged at the use of burqa imagery to symbolized the worst form of sexist oppression. white women on the opposing side would trot out some other woman of color who differed with them and said, "well, i got me a brown woman over here, and she thinks my use of the burqa was appropriate and funny and burqas ARE sexist. my brown woman's opinion trumps your brown woman's opnion, so there>"
but of course the objection, on the part of the women of color who first lodged a critique was that it wasn't about _identity_ so much as it was about radical political practice.
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