<p>Personally, I’m terrified every time I hear footsteps behind me. Because I’m sure it’s a renegade Republican, wielding an ice-pick with the intent of planting it between my shoulder blades.</p>
<p>Again, I grew up in a very accepting environment in one of the most liberal areas of the country, and I am a college student. I do have a different reaction when I walk alone at night and am followed/approached by a black man, and I think I am typical in this way.</p>
<p>Keep up the efforts to turn down the burner, hunt, and you will be a write-in candidate whether you like it or not. Wait… diplomacy is <em>not</em> a political attribute. I forgot. Never mind. (but thanks for the opportunity for the pithy retort)</p>
<p>Drosselmeier,</p>
<p>For some time I have read your posts and marveled at their well reasoned writing. In matters of religion, culture and racism, it always seemed to me that you were burning through the dross (pardon the pun) to get at the gold hidden within the debris of the argument --even to the degree that I never really felt I had anything to add.</p>
<p>For whatever reason --the election?-- your writing and reasoning seems to have taken a “typical” turn into atypical partisanship. I cannot say that anyone else is avoiding the same creepy muscle-flexing, but this seems to be something new --at least to my eyes-- in your style.</p>
<p>Senator Obama’s “typical white” was regrettable: A real faux pas; the more so since Obama really works his writing. He takes obvious pride in it. It wasn’t off hand.</p>
<p>Even still, it was not racist, nor even mean spirited. </p>
<p>But given the context, very very regrettable. I would have known better than to have written a compassionate speech on race and ethnicity that included the phrase “typical white person”, “typical Jew” or “typical Arab.” Especially not making a typical bigot out of the grandmother I’d loved. Even if for a good cause; especially if I was trying to win over or allay the misgivings of black, Jewish or Arab Americans that for either rational or irrational reasons feared me.</p>
<p>Out of respect, I try to follow even your more condemnatory writing but this is where I come to a dead stop:
</p>
<p>Worse, throughout this election their have been scurrilous un-sourced charges made against Senator Obama and Ms Obama that I expect to hear only from the party-paparazzi, those win at all cost true believers. I do not expect a gifted and reasonable person to do this. </p>
<p>I also do not expect a reasonable and gifted person to use this bit of un-sourced boilerplate against Senator McCain and his wife:
I cannot imagine using a phrase like this against Senator Obama or McCain.</p>
<p>The following was equally disingenuous if only politics as usual:
</p>
<p>Like you, I feel the war was a great mistake, but I try to make that point without twisting it for greater effect.</p>
<p>This is the original remark by McCain, in context, as spoken on May 15, 2008 :
</p>
<p>Clearly what you say “he claims he meant” was in the original remark you cherry-picked.</p>
<p>Lastly,
I grew up in Detroit. I’m a pretty strong athletic guy, but I cannot remember a time that I was being followed by some guy of any description that I did not feel a passing need for caution or self-awareness. It is ridiculous to think that if anyones grandmother was walking by a white or black guy of the same chauvinistic disposition that any grandmother not related to Laura Croft would not also feel a passing fear…that is, if she is a typical white/black woman.:)</p>
<p>And for the record, here are the relevant remarks made by Senator Obama about his ever-loving grandmother:
</p>
<p>I respected Senator Obama’s laying himself out for his friend the Reverend Wright.
I even believed he did more than what was necessary for the “dodgy” media, given the religious nature of a pastor/congregant relationship. But one of those things that I think was very very unnecessary was taking down the woman who “sacrificed again and again” for him and who he felt needed to make one more sacrifice for him: to be taken down to the level of a bigot in order to prop up his pastor and his slipping campaign.</p>
<p>I am sure he felt he needed to shoot the moon on this one, that’s why he needed to publicly ridicule his own aging grandmother…rather than “a white woman” or simply “a woman” or “people.” </p>
<p>There is no other way to put it then to say that this was amazing cynicism in a very noble cause. And that --I hope-- this was the lowest moment in his life.</p>
<p>
Even so, he was born ultra intelligent & didn’t see racism really until he moved to the mainland. Despite having no father, his family unit was pretty cohesive. His educational opportunities have been unmatched in comparison to 98% of the US population. He is definitely not getting pity from me.</p>
<p>I bow at your feet, woodwork. And to think I “typically” (word selected on purpose) cringe at those point-by-point long, quotation-filled posts.</p>
<p>I know we can’t link to Youtube, but go there and look for the video entitled “Red State Update: Mormon President? Obama Not Black?” I think what they say about Obama’s race is pretty true.</p>
<p>this
is the kind of stuff that stirs the pot, IMO, especially because it is filled with statements using extremes and “absolutes” about race and opinions, in response to a comment never mentions race at all. The original post simply mentioned other possible variables to be considered. When posters stop reading into things statements or opinions that are not there, only to accuse the poster of thinking or saying something they did not, then we can stop the defensive posturing and mud slinging. Woodwork spoke beautifully to this. Thank you again.</p>
<p>Hunt:</p>
<p>I’ll agree with your last point, that taking your own limited experience and generalizing it into some kind of rule is dangerous. I have been a Caucasian for over forty years, and I’ve lived in a rural area, a couple of suburbs, and more than one major city. I have also traveled extensively throughout Western Europe. I have walked down streets for decades with others of my race, both men and women and all ages. Many African Americans (or in Europe, people of African descent) have passed me by for over four decades. I think I could have perceived that “visceral” fear that you described at least some of the time. I never have. Not as it would apply to race. </p>
<p>Now I have seen people (myself included) be unnerved by individuals who look scary (not that it was warranted). If you dress like a gang member, a Goth, a drugged-out hippie or a slimy character in general, people may be wary no matter what color your skin is. If you are well groomed and look like you are a stable member of society, no one is going to fear you. I’m not saying that there aren’t exceptions. I am sure that there are people out there who are just bigoted, and don’t like certain people because of their race, ethnicity, or sexual preferences. But my experience is that there aren’t a lot of people like that - they are the fringe members of their communities. The pariahs who really don’t feel like they are a full-fledged member of the group, so they are looking for someone else to place lower than themselves in their minds.</p>
<p>Hunt
</p>
<p>I really think it is outrageous that a person could generalize like this about all “white people” or all “any people’ for that matter. That is racism, plain and simple. Every time you walk down the street past a “white person”, you will have the very experience you described (not because it is really happening, but because you have made the decision in advance of what is going to happen because of your generalization). Your experiences then become a function of affected perceptions. Generalizing about a whole race of people is prejudice.</p>
<p>A separate issue is that you can post something like this without fifty people jumping all over you about it. Imagine if someone who was not African American started posting about “all Black people are like this [insert criticism]”. That is a major double standard. I reject the notion that anyone of any race should be able to get away with this type of stuff. It’s bad enough to think and believe it, it’s worse to say it, but it’s outrageous to then think that you can jump all over other people when they do the very same thing and generalize negatively about race. </p>
<p>The same rules need to apply to everyone. We all need to be civil and not generalize about each other. The Golden Rule applies. In addition, it’s better to live in reality. In reality, people need to be assessed individually, and not by the color of their skin (and that goes for everyone).</p>
<p>Dang, Woodwork - that was some great post up there.</p>
<p>Spideygirl, I don’t understand your post. You say you don’t experience this visceral fear; others say they do. I can tell you that its existence was a commonplace understanding where and when I grew up. The whole point of my post was to ask how it could be that something that seems so obvious to some people could seem non-existent to others.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well you see, this is where you and I differ. I don’t think he in any way “ridiculed” his grandmother. I think the speech was on race relations in America. It was an attempt to show understanding and call for honest and open dialog. My take on his mention of his grandmother’s admitted fears and occasional stereotyping is that, good and “everyday” sorts of people, people worthy of our love and utmost respect, are products of our historical and on-going social dynamic. Daily bombarded as we are by all manner of overt and covert messages about race, none of us is immune to their influence. That’s all he was saying. It doesn’t make us “bad people” that we are influenced. But, it’s a good thing to be aware of that influence, to honestly acknowledge it, and work to overcome the negative consequences that sometimes arise from that influence. I certainly didn’t think negatively about his grandmother as a result of his having acknowledged what would seem (at least to me) virtually axiomatic in light of America’s history and racial sociology. His speech was not about blaming or vilifying white people. And it was not about “playing the victim”. </p>
<p>Concerning issues of race, what I’ve observe is that many black people have grown hypersensitive and sometimes paranoid, seeing malicious intent and racism in situations where none is intended, and that many whites (especially conservatives, it seems) have grown resentful and hyerdefensive, insisting that racism is basically a thing of the past, and that any mention of racism by black people is just “whining”. I wonder why any attempt to address the gulf that divides is met with resistance in the form of panic/defensiveness/resentment (often from both sides).</p>
<p>“Concerning issues of race, what I’ve observe is that many black people have grown hypersensitive and sometimes paranoid, seeing malicious intent and racism in situations where none is intended, and that many whites (especially conservatives, it seems) have grown resentful and hyerdefensive, insisting that racism is basically a thing of the past, and that any mention of racism by black people is just “whining”. I wonder why any attempt to address the gulf that divides is met with resistance in the form of panic/defensiveness/resentment (often from both sides).”</p>
<p>Because these issues are often being addressed with the same type of stereotyping that is objected to. Just as blacks don’t want to be stereotyped, neither do whites, Asians, Native Americans, conservatives, democrats, Republicans, etc.</p>
<p>And because as soon as someone objects to these streotypes, then they “don’t understand racism.”</p>
<p>I think that if Obama loses, it will be seen as a racist backlash by many of his supporters, instead of their being able to just accept the fact that many Americans see him as a young, immature and underqualified candidate for preseident.</p>
<p>I’m a 300 lb. guy and I always look to see who is behind me if I hear footsteps. Even in my office building. Some ot if it shear curiosity to see if I might know them but to be perfectly honest it is to make sure I’m not being followed by someone who looks less than friendly.</p>
<p>Poetsheart (another of my favorite posters),</p>
<p>To me, as matter of politics, this is more or less a dead issue so I will add no more on the issue of Madelyn Dunham, Obama’s grandmother, than this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>but admitted to who, really? </p>
<p>The world, her community, her book club and personal friends, the bus driver, postman, store clerk and pastor, or to her grandson. A grandchild that by all accounts she had a loving and very personal relationship with? </p>
<p>Was it really ever “admitted” --or was this simply Senator Obama’s own recollection of her behavior that he recalled when the time called for it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are right. Who could say that being afraid makes us bad people?</p>
<p>And had Senator Obama simply said that Madelyn “often feared black men when she would pass them on the street,” we could perhaps leave this with a debate on the relative statistics of how many white men of similar character and disposition gave Madelyn the shake-up when she crossed their path, alone, on a street; and does that behavior amount to common bigotry or mere irrational caution. He didn’t. </p>
<p>He compounded this ambiguity with this.
This, unfortunately, leaves little room for ambiguity.</p>
<p>It certainly does not publicly describe a loving-grandmother with ephemeral fears, but rather an old lady with an aggressive sense of bigotry. </p>
<p>I never heard my grandmother --ever-- say anything bigoted about anyone so I cannot draw a direct comparison (of course, she was deaf and not given to great monologues of race-hate). She did have some sketchy qualities mixed into her alchemy of precious metal, but having loved her completely I cannot imagine ever having a reason to go on to the world stage to out-her to the nation…and her local green-grocer (fwiw, my Great Grandmother also raised me through my first years of life --the joke is, it was a quiet time). </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I do understand what you are saying, and you make a good case for it. Senator Obama is neither a bigot or a racist.</p>
<p>And as it is, this does not in any way cripple the Senator in his bid to be president (though I am not so sure the lasting impact on his Grandma Madelyn’s legacy will be laudable). Not in my eyes. </p>
<p>It does, however, add one more complex piece to these wispy enigmas and spiritual wraiths we call politicians. They fail. Sometimes miserably.</p>
<p>I would not want to be in their position; an otherwise untenable one for any honest human being.</p>
<p>,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I certainly have heard my paternal g-mother drop the n-bomb among other unsavory words about other ethnicities (she also believed the Space Shuttle was ruining the atmosphere…I guess that could be debated). She was raised in an era where that was commonplace. The older you get the more stuck in your ways. My beloved Marge Schott was a perfect example… As the generations go on it will get less and less. My grandmother never concerned herself with being PC. She was a redneck from KY and that’s just the way it was.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Right! Don’t listen to anything he says. :)</p>
<p>In my earlier post about McCain’s record I forgot to mention that he’s NEVER voted for a tax increase. I know all you smart people already knew that, but I’d be remiss in describing his record w/out mentioning it!</p>
<p>I know there’s lots more I could’ve mentioned too, but I was rushing out the door & that was just a cursory list. The point remains that we DO have a record for McCain while Obama is just a big unknown who seems to be ultra-liberal (at least that’s his record, but he’s been “changing” lately) and doesn’t mind raising taxes.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’m not inclined to read every word of a lengthy & verbose post (sorry Dross!). Call it a personal flaw, but I much prefer succintness (is that a word?). I know I’ve had a couple of long ones, but I cringe every time!</p>
<p>Brevity is underrated! ;)</p>
<p>I have to say, during wartime, when our country is enduring such an enormous deficit, touting that McCain has never increased taxes doesn’t help to sway me. You wage war, you pay for it.</p>
<p>
How has Obama differed from McCain during Iraq War votes?</p>