View Story | 823 comments
Comments: Expand Shrink Hide (Always) | Indented Flat (Always)
me want to fight harder for racial equality.
Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.
by Granny Doc on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:48:07 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
I think it's more like a reality we have to come to terms with, not a possibility.
As Bill Maher said, the older generations are lost and that undercurrent of racism just has to die out.
Unfortunately many will still be around in Novemeber 2006.
by GregNYC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:50:09 AM PDT
by GregNYC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:50:39 AM PDT
by Granny Doc on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:51:04 AM PDT
We'll have to out organize and out GOTV: the times they are a-changing.
by pamelabrown on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:53:14 AM PDT
I'd agree times are a changing. But we can't have our head in the sand. He has to be able to make up those votes and I'm not confident he can.
by GregNYC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:55:15 AM PDT
You see half empty, where I see half full. Trust me, I'm no ostrich; on the whole I see Obama transcending identity politics.
by pamelabrown on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 10:59:33 AM PDT
Well he hasn't in the primary, and I doubt he will in the general.
We give the American people too much credit at our peril. Head in the sand syndrome.
by GregNYC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:06:03 AM PDT
in national polls up against McCain. Clinton and McCain are in the margin of error when pitted against one another but Obama is up like 8 points.
Don't underestimate Obama here. He's no slouch.
Pretty Bird Woman House has a new house!
by betson08 on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:17:13 AM PDT
Kerry was up by ten (and more) in polls against Bush at this stage.
No one has even layed a hand on Obama. You watch it tighten.
And the loss of the Reagan Democrats and Latinos will be a problem for him.
by GregNYC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:21:39 AM PDT
Reagan Democrats are a myth. They'd all registered as Republicans by 1995 and have stayed Republicans.
Stop trying to scare people with dinosaurs. They're gone.
It rubs the loofah on its skin or else it gets the falafel again.
by Fishgrease on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:27:45 AM PDT
I remember Kerry being only 2-3 points ahead of Bush, at best.
by metal prophet on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:37:57 AM PDT
Latinos have voted 70-80% + for Dinkins and Washington--both northern African-Americans.
Give us Obama, and we'll see that Latinos will vote for the Democrat. Many Latinos are finally getting familiar with Obama's record and political framework, and some are changing their support from Hilary to Obama: it is rarely the other way around.
As for the vote in California and South Carolina, Latinos often remember the protection the Clintons afforded us for nearly a decade (and we felt the racism back then just as much as today as reflected in draconian immigration proposals)--and Obama is a newcomer. Many in the working class are often very, very busy--and Latinos don't vote fads, they vote loyalties.
If Clinton is gone, Latinos will favor the Democratic nominee.
Habeas Corpus:See Hamilton quoting Blackstone in The Federalist Papers, number 84.
by Ignacio Magaloni on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:40:13 AM PDT
thank you. Now watch how an Obama supporters will question you with a Oh yeah? Loyalty for causing all the the war dead.
donate to a shelter box please http://www.shelterboxusa.org/
by TexMex on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:58:56 AM PDT
I live in NJ but I happened to be in California on Super Tuesday. I'm Chinese, and I can tell you that the Asian American community in SoCal is pervaded with racism. I was discussing politics with lots of extended family members and friends and I could tell that the reason why people were voting for Hillary was because of not-so-veiled racism. I got questions like, "Isn't he a muslim?" and "I heard he was playing basketball and smoking pot while Hillary was out campaigning in California." endless crap like that. It was prevalent in the older 50+ generation, but I even heard that from many of my 30-something cousins and their friends. I really, really hope the Latino community is different, because as an Asian American, it seems like Asians are some of the most closeted racist people in this country.
-5.50, -4.62
by blzabub8 on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 12:03:21 PM PDT
they'll feel comfortable with Obama.
While we have been watching Obama's rising star for a few years now, he does seem to come out of nowhere to many folks who do not keep up with politics.
And let's keep fighting disinformation until election day!
by Ignacio Magaloni on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 12:42:03 PM PDT
This has been worrying me. Maybe about Obama at least as much as for Obama as nominee. (And I like Obama.)
by gloryoski on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 05:17:09 PM PDT
I think the results in the Potomac primaries bear out my point as well.
We do have to acknowledge the good work the Clintons have done in the past will be reflected in many Democrats' vote, including the Latino vote, though the "Triangulation Democrats" often enacted policies Eisenhower Republicans could live with comfortably--or should I say, in more comfort.
We'll see if Obama has the kind of coattails that can result in more progressive Congressional lawmaking.
by Ignacio Magaloni on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 06:45:49 PM PDT
ratings in 2004. Sorry, but that is THE deciding factor on whether an encumbent is unseated. But, see, Obama is already making arguments that McCain = Bush, the right argument to make. We all know what the president's approval rating is now.
John Kerry: "The rubber stamp Republicans have now become the Roadblock Republicans"
by beachmom on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:55:00 AM PDT
or Dukakis effect. I am uncomfortable with that polling. Call me paranoid, but Repugs stating that Obama would be difficult to run against or the fact that Karl Rove's car was plastered with Obama stickers by his staff after he resigned has me a little less cheery. I think we are really going to have to work hard.
C'est la guerre!
by never forget 2000 on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:45:30 AM PDT
Republicans think they should own all the glasses.
;-)
by YucatanMan on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:34:15 AM PDT
I imagine a lot of people told Dr. King, President Johnson and Robert Kennedy that the world just wasn't ready yet for equal rights and perhaps we should wait until the environment is more firnedly to such a radical notion.
It's a damn good thing they didn't take that friendly advise.
That's the thing about hope. It's not conditional based on whether or not the changes you want to see are palpable. The change we want to see is not just going to happen when the country is good and ready. We have to be the change that we want to see.
by John in Chicago on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:12:17 AM PDT
You are a closet racist. Thank you for giving us a living example right here in the comments section.
Shame on you!
I mean that.
Shame!
by Fishgrease on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:17:12 AM PDT
You need better evidence than the parent comment for this charge.
by Joe Buck on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:46:32 AM PDT
ABC =shoddy and despicable
by zombie on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:52:11 AM PDT
GregNYC has used this racist argument over and over and over. It is a racist argument.
Let him deny it. Can he deny he made the comments?
by Fishgrease on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:53:13 AM PDT
equation.
At first I though he had a point to consider, but the harping on it seems over the top.
Yes the country still has a lot of racists, and the Obama vs. McCain campaign should be interesting for exposing some of it, but fear it, NO.
Contact Pelosi about impeachment: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
by Pescadero Bill on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:58:03 AM PDT
He raises a legitimate issue and you call this person a racist?
Is that where we are now on this site? If you merely acknowledge that race will be a wedge issue in the general election, you are a racist?
by VoicelessInDC on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 03:58:33 PM PDT
... in my lifetime - hugely. And they want to vote for Obama.
Some of this has to do with distaste for Clinton, but it also has to do with loathing of McCain. Not because he's not evangelical enough but because he's a warmonger and too right-wing.
You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott
by javelina on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:03:37 AM PDT
by Granny Doc on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:04:46 AM PDT
Very, very Southern Texans (by which I do not mean residents of South Texas, rather people with a distinctly Southern heritage who trace their ancestry to Virginia and the Carolinas). But still Texans.
So there is that. Still I see reason for hope.
by javelina on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 02:32:48 PM PDT
...between Blacks and Southerners. Most African Americans were Southerners at one point, having come from the South, and Black culture and Southern culture have a lot in common. I think that will help Obama in the South tremendously. I would even bet money that well-educated, Democrat-leaning Southerners are less likely to have residual racism than people in the NE.
Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. -Barack Obama
by klizard on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:25:09 AM PDT
but some racist pockets in surprising states have emerged during these primaries. I'm thinking New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I'm kind of shocked by this.
Yes, there is entrenched racism still in the South. I have a lot of relatives in Northern Mississippi--so-called low-information voters--who are racist. It's entrenched in the culture. They're good people (not Klan member) but they don't question what they believe. And it's not just AA's. I was shocked to hear my aunt complain that one of the local plants was hiring more Hispanics and laying off white workers because the GOV'T IS PAYING THEM TO HIRE HISPANICS. I don't know how many of us tried to explain to her the ridiculousness of this but she believes it. Even her sister in Memphis, who left Northern Mississippi and has a more worldly view, tried to convince her how stupid this was.
But the world is passing them by and if the younger generation still believes in these cultural biases, they'll be disadvantaged outside their small communities. Change sometimes comes slowly but inevitably.
by txdemfem on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:47:42 AM PDT
I live in Chicago and I have travelled all over the country and I have found Chicago is one of the most segregated racist cities in the country. The race dissimilarity index is very high here.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. --Martin Luther King
by BlackBox on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 06:15:29 PM PDT
"He who fears something gives it power over him."--Arab proverb
by crazyshirley2100 on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 12:03:13 PM PDT
...the south, the north/midwest, and the intersection of everywhere else + Appalachia that is the DC area.
by klizard on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 12:36:12 PM PDT
I'm 68 today and still fighting.
I sat in the colored waiting room at the Atlanta train station in either '53 or '54 until my white skin was escorted out.
Bush and McCain and their Social Security Privatization Plan.
by samddobermann on Wed Feb 13, 2008 at 01:54:22 PM PDT
I have ever read on Daily Kos.
How dare you say that less educated, lower middle class and working class white voters are racists. That is a racist statement right there. You want to know why Obama is not winning their votes? Because he is largely talking vague ideals instead of bread-and-butter issues, and people need good jobs and affordable health care! It's the economy, stupid. Obama himself is trying to change his rhetoric somewhat to speak specifically to the ISSUES that concern these voters. Remember those?
Enjoy your self righteousness though.
on strike.
by daria g on Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 02:37:09 PM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 823 comments