<p>“If the tragic crime story in Massachusetts had surrounded a white criminal, his face in a campaign as would have been just as effective.”</p>
<p>I also have a bridge and some swampland that might interest you.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know that disowning the relative that raised you and sacrificed much of her life for him would be an option.”</p>
<p>What, now? Didn’t he just say he couldn’t disown her?</p>
<p>They could also have used a white “viscious criminal,” but chose to prey upon stereotypical fears instead. I don’t cut them much slack on that one. It was playing the dreaded Race Card, pure and simple.</p>
<p>HIndoo, why the quotes? Wouldn’t you classify Horton as a vicious criminal?</p>
<p>I was quoting you, StickerShock! You used the term “vicious criminal” and I was (sort of) giving you attribution by using the quote marks. (Although I misspelled the word. Oh, well.) … And yes, I consider Willie Horton to be exactly as you described him–a “vicious criminal.” However, it was no innocent accident that the Republican PR machine opted to use a large, very scary, very dark-skinned man in their ad against Dukakis. A scrawny white guy in spectacles wouldn’t have touched the same nerve, and they knew it wouldn’t. They were preying upon what they clearly perceived to be white fear, and if that isn’t playing the race card in a shameless way, then I don’t know what is.</p>
<p>They played the card Duke gave them Did he release any white guys with glasses that went out and murdered again?</p>
<p>Good question, barrons. I’ll have to research that.</p>
<p>Hindoo, you copied my bad spelling. I got it right the second time around. Luckily there aren’t too many spelling cops on CC.</p>
<p>I’d be interested in Barrons’ point. Were there any scrawney white criminals serving life sentences who were released through the furlough program & who then committed another violent crime? Or even big, burly white criminals?</p>
<p>Very few scrawny white criminals, I’ll bet … though, one never knows. Big, burly white ones–possibly. Unless Dukakis hand-picked the people he released, based strictly upon skin color!</p>
<p>“Slavery was certainly a factor and I did a poor job of defining my point”</p>
<p>Slavery was not just “a factor”, at least not one that was equal to all others. It was the figurative match that lit the fire that was the Civil War. The other issues did not lead to war as slavery did. Indeed, each time they arose, the sections developed compromises that averted continual conflict. But those early debates over tariffs did influence the war in that they helped create the sectionalist hostility between the northern and southern states. Your article is correct that the primary issue of debate prior to 1850 (the article is wrong when it claims 1860), concerned tariffs. But we should note that your nps article was written for children, and so it is understandably incomplete since children will not generally understand the link between tax law and the moral implications of humans as property.</p>
<p>In truth, the division between the issues of tariffs and slavery was not as clean as you may wish to believe. In fact, the South openly advanced the argument that states had a right to nullify federal tariff laws with which they disagreed, and since states had a right to nullify tariff law, they had a right to nullify slave laws. John Calhoun, who actually developed the Nullification doctrine that fueled one of the chief uprisings on tariffs, was very clear on this point. [His</a> “opposition to tariffs, or more accurately the federal powers they implied, cannot be separated from his pressing desire to preserve the slave system.]( <a href=“About Tax Notes”>About Tax Notes) He feared that as border-south states gravitated to northern economic orbits, slavery in those states would grow less economically viable, their percentage of black slaves would diminish, and anti-slavery factions would succeed in eliminating slavery there (the percentage of slaves in states like Maryland had dropped precipitously since 1790). If slavery evaporated at the periphery, Calhoun believed, southern slave interests would face perpetual political perils. The same geographic coalitions that enacted the tariff laws in Congress could succeed in limiting slavery’s expansion into western territories, and might even threaten the institution in the deep south. Kentucky’s Henry Clay, one of the congressional champions of the tariff, actually proposed that some of the revenue collected be used to fund state colonization societies dedicated to relocating African Americans overseas. By diffusing the American black population abroad, such organizations effectively sought to phase out slavery in the United States. In this context, Calhoun and his supporters targeted the tariff issue to test the limits of federal power, since the south had continually lost tariff-related battles.”</p>
<p>Eventually slavery took a more prominent place in the tariff debate so that by 1850 tariffs were rarely discussed at all. Southern whites simply continued moving North to get the jobs created by the rapidly industrializing North, and this made the North even more powerful, politically speaking. Slavery became the one issue provoking such hostility between the states that, unlike tariffs, no compromise was possible. As one then future Confederate general remarked, “it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere – in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections….I think then, 1st, that the only safety of the South from abolition universal is to be found in an early dissolution of the Union." [SEE Allan Nevins’, The Fruits of Manifest Destiny pages 240-241.]</p>
<p>It would be wrong to claim that the North wanted to end slavery purely because of slavery’s immorality. That is partially true, since Northern abolitionists continually made this argument. But there were many factors involved. Very many Northerners did not like the agitation caused by abolitionists because many Northerners were from the South, having moved there to get jobs in the new factories. These Northern southerners were sympathetic to the South. Other Northerners identified with the moral issue, but not enough to cause war over it. Still others were like Lincoln. They desired to end slavery, but not where it existed. They hoped for a gradual destruction of slavery by attrition. Generally, the moral conscience over slavery did not come from the South. It came out of the North, and it was due in large part because of Northerners like the Quakers, and then later like those comprising the abolitionists.</p>
<p>When in 1860 Abe Lincoln decided to run for the presidency, South Carolina declared it would break the Union if he won office because Lincoln had been adamant that he would not permit slavery’s westward expansion. By this time Southern leader after southern leader declared, in writing and in speeches, that slavery, not tariffs, was the issue for which they would fight and die. James H. Hammond, for example, a Congressman from South Carolina declared openly, along with vast numbers of Southern leaders “Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth….the moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.” (SEE William Miller, “Arguing About Slavery”).</p>
<p>When Lincoln won the presidency, the entire South followed South Carolina into secession and Civil War – and slavery was the chief and immediate cause of it.</p>
<p>Brown University did some research on the Willie Horton ad and the politics surrounding it. It’s long, but pretty interesting–though, sadly, not particularly definitive in supporting my feelings about the ad. Anyway, here’s an excerpt, and at the end I’ve included a link to the entire article for anyone who’s interested.</p>
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<p>“I didn’t know that disowning the relative that raised you and sacrificed much of her life for him would be an option.”</p>
<p>What, now? Didn’t he just say he couldn’t disown her?"</p>
<p>That Obama even considered it was outrageous. He was saying that he did not disown her even though she is a “typical white woman.” How big of him. And he compares her to Reverend Wright, the public rascist. All she did was supposedly tell her grandson that she felt scared when she saw someone of a certain description walk down the street. What had been her prior experiences? Why does she have any comparison to Wright, who rails on and on publicly in a very rascist way? Couldn’t she even trust her grandson, whom she raised, in a private discussion, without him not only resenting her but going public about that resentment for all of the world to hear? It is disrespectful and unappreciative. I hope other sons and grandsons don’t take it as an example of admirable behavior to speak publicly about an elderly relative to make a political point at the relative’s expense.</p>
<p>But Hindoo, the “Revolving Door” ad (which was run by the Bush campaign after the Horton ad was pulled) had mostly menacing white guys posing as criminals. The numbers according to Wiki were 25 whites, 3 blacks, and 2 Hispanic. It would seem that the Bush campaign wanted to tread VERY carefully so as not to make it a racial issue. Certainly the actors were not chosen in a ratio that represented actual prison populations.</p>
<p>StickerShock–You’re right about the “Revolving Door” ad with all of those inmates spinning through the turnstyle. Black, white, brown, pink, or green, it didn’t matter–it just scared the bejeebers out of me. And the fact that I can remember it vividly all these years later means it did it’s job. With me, anyway. … I think the Brown U. people got the two ads mixed up, at least they seemed to in part of the excerpt I included.</p>
<p>Swatparent–You sound like someone who can’t stand Obama and nothing will change your mind. Kind of the way I feel about Bush!</p>
<p>“That Obama even considered it was outrageous. He was saying that he did not disown her even though she is a ‘typical white woman.’”</p>
<p>I think you’ve read too much into his statement. It seemed to me he was saying that she was a typical white woman in the sense that if she encounters someone she does not know, especially a black guy on the street, she will be faced with an internal struggle that is influenced by our racist past and present experience. He was not trying to slam whites. He was trying to say he understood his grandmother, disagreed with her reaction, but could not disown her for it because he understood it and knew her to be the darling grandmother that she is.</p>
<p>“How big of him. And he compares her to Reverend Wright, the public rascist.”</p>
<p>First, try to support the claim that Wright is a racist, one who thinks someone’s race is superior to another’s. I suspect you will fail. I have tried to find one comment showing Wright to be a racist, and I have failed. Please show this.</p>
<p>Secondly, Wright has long commented on injustices in America between the races, issues with our government, and other issues influenced by race. And many of those statements are open to be debated and rejected. But Obama was claiming that he could not reject the man himself because of these comments, however much he disagrees with them. As he disagreed with his grandmother, but nevertheless continues to love her, he disagreed with Wright, but continued to love him.</p>
<p>“All she did was supposedly tell her grandson that she felt scared when she saw someone of a certain description walk down the street. What had been her prior experiences? Why does she have any comparison to Wright, who rails on and on publicly in a very rascist way?”</p>
<p>See above. The comparison is apt. It shows that Obama can reject controversial opinions while not necessarily rejecting those who harbor them. Wright’s opinions were controversial, but as far as I can see they were by no means racist. Even Obama’s grandmother’s response, while open to debate and rejection, is not inherently racist. It is certainly prejudicial, but not racist. Obama was simply showing how two people in his life, both harboring views he himself rejects, are still worthy of being in his life.</p>
<p>(btw - I wasn’t offended by the New Yorker cover. I thought it was quite good, and I knew immediately that the magazine was poking fun at Obama’s critics.)</p>
<p>
Say Whaaaaa??? That interpretation of the “typical white woman” statement is rather… far fetched, to say the least. Is there some documentation from BO that this was in fact what he meant by his statement? Otherwise, this interpretation is unfounded. (and please, no history lectures. Just quotes from Obama that this was his intended message)</p>
<p>Drosselmeier:
I have never seen the Obamas freak out over anything. Many of their supporters certainly do. Spend some time reading left wing blogs, or even some of the political debates on here. It is clear to me that the vitriol and hyperbole from the left is more intense by a landslide. This is not a point which can be won or lost, as the two of us could post examples from now until election day. I am quite sure that the din from the liberal side goes from the ridiculous to the sublime. There are exceptions, and when I see people represent left wing viewpoints in a reasonable manner, I always take note.</p>
<p>
“Uproar” depends on subjective usage and context. That being said, it is false that the left freaks out only when Obama’s identity is attacked. For example, Obama’s choice of Wright as his mentor and spiritual advisor was analyzed and criticized because of the Reverend’s political beliefs, and how Obama’s association with him might be a predictor of future presidential decision-making. It had nothing to do with Obama’s religion or his identity. As you say, “People, the reasonable ones that is, understand this”.</p>
<p>The current New Yorker cover issue is a perfect example of a ridiculous outcry in response to something that was not in any way an attack on Obama’s identity. The magazine was trying to help him. You may not agree that the approach is effective, but it is not justifiable for such a classic parody of criticisms against Obama to be met with such a hullabaloo. The technique of diluting concerns by reducing them to the ridiculous is a sound one . The uproar against The New Yorker cover was not warranted.</p>
<p>
Obama’s background and identity as the child of an African father and who has extended family there is a relevant matter. For example, Obama will be the first US President with such a distinction. This is a most attractive characteristic to many people. It simply has to play a role in his world perspective, and it could have a positive effect on the future role of this nation in the world community. If Hillary Clinton posted the picture as a negative campaign ploy, I couldn’t support that. However, I am never surprised at anything politicians do.</p>
<p>Virtually everything about a man or woman who aspires to hold the office of President is open for analysis and discussion. It is na</p>
<p>Follow up:
I listened to a tape of Obama’s response to his “grandmother” comment. He said:
</p>
<p>Have there been follow up comments by BO about this? BO seems to be trying to say that while his grandmother may have been dealing, as someone elsewhere said, felings “embittered by the civil rights struggles of the last century”, younger generations are continuously like his depiction of a “typical white woman” of at 2 generations ago.</p>
<p>Whew, spideygirl! That wore me out just reading it! You make some very good points, though, and I’m totally with you on your final one. My impression has been not that you detest Obama, but that you disagree with him on some issues and feel that he lacks necessary experience. … One point I disagree on is:</p>
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<p>This is probably a matter of personal perception. For me, I generally see the right wing bloggers and radio clowns as angrier and more irrational than their liberal counterparts. But then, of course I would!</p>
<p>Agghh, too late to rephrase was I was trying to say, so before I get my head handed to me on a platter, let me rephrase the comment. Seems to me that while BO acknowledged the outdated stereotypes his grandmother voiced (and in doing so he used a stereotype himself), he sees younger generations making continued improvements in this arena.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t consider myself a left-winger, but I think lefties are really angry - and they should be. Bush’s presidency has been a disaster, and it is some combination of heart-wrenchingly tragic, hilarious, and infuriating the whole way through.</p>