Ever heard of the Obamorons? These are the morons who will cheer anything that Barack Obama says. Right now the Obamorons are wildly enthusiastic about their man's race speech, and are trying to persuade the rest of us to stop talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and move on to talking about how Obama is the next best thing since Jesus Christ.
Obama does have some very good qualities, but it's clear he also has a dark side that is only now beginning to surface. Consider his bizarre analogies aimed at vindicating the Reverend Wright. Many of us, he argues, "disagree" with things that our pastors and family members have said. True, but how many of us have pastors who say stuff like the Reverend Wright? It's one thing to sit quietly while my pastor says things I don't agree with about evolution or the Rapture, quite another for Obama to sit quietly while his pastor says that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11 and that the U.S. government deliberately injected AIDS into the country. My guess is that even in the black church "God damn America!" is not exactly standard rhetoric. Certainly the Reverend Martin Luther King didn't talk like that.
Especially bizarre was Obama's analogy between the Reverend Wright and his white grandmother. According to Obama, grandma too was given to racial "stereotypes" and at one point confessed to her fear of black men. First of all Obama didn't cite what stereotypes his grandmother held. A stereotype is merely a generalization: it may be true or false, harmful or benign. As the sociological literature on the subject shows, most stereotypes contain at least a grain of truth, because stereotypes develop out of popular experience.
As I document in my book The End of Racism, fears of black men are rationally explained as the consequence of the fact that black men have the highest violent crime conviction rate of any group in our society. One out of four young black men are at any given time in prison, on probation, or on parole. Some years ago Jesse Jackson admitted that if he heard footsteps in the dark and turned back to find out that the person was white, he would feel relieved. The point here is that Obama's grandmother's views, as relayed by Obama, seem rooted in empirical facts and bear no comparison with the Reverend Wright's maniacal ravings.
Besides, she's his grandmother! We choose our pastors and mentors but we don't choose our grandparents. When Obama calls the Reverend Wright "family," this is because he selected him as a friend and teacher. At any point during the past two decades, Obama could have walked away from the pew. Wright is not "family" in the involuntary sense that Grandma is family. In addition, Obama's grandmother made her remarks in private, within the sanctity of the household. The Reverend Wright has been shouting his doctrine from the pulpit for decades. Private prejudice is much less harmful than public hate speech.
Obama is smart enough to know all this. So what is the explanation for the bizarre moral equivalence that he seeks to create between his pastor and his grandmother? It cannot be that she treated him badly, since Obama himself says she loved him more than anything in the world. The only other explanation is that Obama is that Obama is more attached to the radicalism of the Reverend Wright than he is to his kind old grandmother. He is quite willing to protect Wright, and his own presidential prospects, by throwing grandma under the bus. Hell of a guy, right Obamorons?
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 40)
46.
Dinesh, for once I agree with you.
And I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Ugh at 10:01AM on Mar 24th 2008
47. Hello everyone and Happy Easter!
There is absolutely no excuse for Obama to slander his grandmother in a speech. I hope that someone from his mother's side of the family contacts the media to criticize this blatant act of disrespect! It is ironic that Obama seems to hate the very people that raised him. His father abandoned him. He only knew his mother's relatives growing up. He is a very angry person. Incidentally, did anyone hear on the news Sunday that the Easter sermon at Obama's church compared the situation with Reverend Wright to Christ's crucifixion! The minister called it a "state lynching"! Can you believe that? How appalling!
janesophie1 at 10:02AM on Mar 24th 2008
48. test
Joe Bob at 10:10AM on Mar 24th 2008
49. DD: "Obama Dissed His Grandmother"
No he didn't. He used her as an example of how even someone he loved and who loved him could still have racist reactions, and how that is not surprising given the history of race in the US.
DD: "Obama does have some very good qualities, but it's clear he also has a dark side"
I see where you're coming from...
DD: "his pastor says that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11"
His pastor claimed that the motivation behind the attack was the perception of unjust American policies in the Middle East. In a book you wrote, you claim that the motivation behind it was the perception of a decadent "liberal" American lifestyle. Of the two explanations, yours is by far the most ludicrous.
DD: "He is quite willing to protect Wright, and his own presidential prospects, by throwing grandma under the bus."
Ouch, poor old lady! ... Except that no one was thrown under a bus.
Joe Bob at 10:12AM on Mar 24th 2008
50. Dinesh
I think the grandmother remark is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? But the whole Rev. Wright controversy is disheartening. The world will be a better place when everyone realizes that
pastors/preachers are no more enlightened than anyone else. That they are just human beings, who's ultimate goal is to further their
careers, not to help you reach some higher plane of spiritual enlightenment. I can't imagine being so weak minded that I need someone else to tell me how to think or to be a better person. On the same note, these politians are using clergymen to further their careers, so I guess it's a win/win situation for them. (But then you know who that puts in the losers bracket.)
dani at 10:26AM on Mar 24th 2008
51. "6. Don't you ever criticize the republicans? How christian are they when they start a war totally on lies and are responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people needlessly?
Richard Quiggle at 10:58PM on Mar 23rd 2008"
__________________________________________
Of course not. Republican = Christian and we all know Christians are never, ever wrong. About anything. *cough*thesunrevolvesaroundtheearth*cough*
K at 10:36AM on Mar 24th 2008
52. You know Dinesh, atheists don't have crazy preachers. Why don't you elect one of them?
AndrewV at 10:35AM on Mar 24th 2008
53. If he's half WHITE how come he didn't just go to a WHITE church? Instead he went to a WRIGHT one. POOR CHOICE, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHOICES WE MAKE!
monty at 10:47AM on Mar 24th 2008
54. Of course not. Republican = Christian and we all know Christians are never, ever wrong. About anything. *cough*thesunrevolvesaroundtheearth*cough*
K
Dear K,
PAGANS worshipped a tree, a rock, an animal,and still do, so what's your point? At least Christians finally got it right.
monty at 10:51AM on Mar 24th 2008
55. Maybe we should elect someone who ignores the entire race issue altogether. Maybe a privileged white christian man who-- I'm not speaking too racist for you, am I? Maybe we should elect someone who is not related to anyone who was ever afraid of the black man, and has never listened to inflamed rant against the government.
Mokele-Mobembe at 10:54AM on Mar 24th 2008
56. 51. ... Dear K,
PAGANS worshipped a tree, a rock, an animal,and still do, so what's your point? At least Christians finally got it right.
monty at 10:51AM on Mar 24th 2008
________________________________
See? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah! Who cares about the mother earth that sustains us! Yeah! Burn it! Use all the oil and natural resources! Cut down those trees! Pollute those waters! We're all going to ascend into the sky to space-heaven any day now, anyway! It's already been 2000 years, can't be too much longer! Those stupid pagans. If they had any brains, they would have learned from the Crusades and all the witch burnings that Christianity is the only right religion. Maybe we should have another witch hunt to shake up some sense into all these non-believers... this time, let's try the Muslims. Beat them at their own game. Who's with me?!
K at 11:02AM on Mar 24th 2008
57. AndrewV,
Billy Hays is the crazy preacher of the atheist, but I've learned to just skip his sermons. Atheists, I believe if they look at abstract concepts of an impersonal universal entity and see God as just a word for what we don't understand, and consider epistemology, they will embrace the humbler spirit of agnosticism. There is no coercion. Ours is a world of mystery.
Mokele-Mobembe at 11:05AM on Mar 24th 2008
58. i thinK K is an angry young black man or woman who just liKes to stir the pot and cause discord. K if you liKe obama by all means vote for the man. but speaK the truth, your voting for him because in large measure he is blacK. K you and 95% of all black americans dare not call yourself racist yet you vote 9 to 1 for a man of your race? who in the world are you Kidding K?
brian at 11:10AM on Mar 24th 2008
59. Mokey,
I spent my 3-day weekend contemplating that very thing, and you know what? I found a great comfort in it. I think I have moved from atheism into agnosticism and that works for me more than any religion. I have long pondered that there was an entity somewhere that started it all, but is a "watchmaker god" if you will and let it's creation to grow, form, and change on its own. A "mind" of the universe that keeps everything running, but certainly not anything like the hypocrisy and double-think of the christian faith. GHB's idea of a "universal brain" and we're "all dreamers dreaming the same dream" didn't make any sense before now. Now I can see where he's coming from exactly.
K at 11:11AM on Mar 24th 2008
60. LOL @ brian. I am a 22 year old white woman who hasn't made her mind up about any candidate. (Notice I never participate in any of these political blogs?) Nice try, though.
K at 11:13AM on Mar 24th 2008