[BretLudwig]

A black Obama cynic explains

"Cinque Henderson writes in The New Republic:

Ninety percent of black Democrats support Barack Obama. So that might
leave an observer wondering: What the hell is up with that other 10
percent? Are they stupid? Do they hate their own race? Do they not
understand the historical import of the moment?

I can shed some insight on this demographic anomaly. In gatherings of
black people, I'm invariably the only one for the Dragon Lady...

I disliked Obama almost instantly. I never believed the central
premises of his autobiography or his campaign. He is fueled by precisely
the same brand of personal ambition as Bill Clinton. But, where Clinton is
damned as "Slick Willie," Obama is hailed as a post-racial Messiah. Do I
believe that Obama had this whole yes-we-can deal planned from age 16? No,
I would respond. He began plotting it at age 22. This predisposition, of
course, doesn't help me in making the case against Obama, especially not
with black people. But, believe me, there's a strong case to be made that
he isn't such a virtuous mediator of race. And it's this skepticism about
Obama's racial posturing that has led us, the 10 percent, into dissent.
....

But, once you stare past the radiant glow surrounding Obama and begin
to study the exact reasons for his so-called racial transcendence, you
can't help but conclude that it is mostly hokum. Why do black people love
Obama? In large part, it's because of the dark-skinned woman on his arm.
Black people (especially black women) are nuts for Michelle. Had Barack
married a white woman, his candidacy would've never gotten off the ground
with black people. And would whites really be so into him if he hadn't had
a white mother? Based on U.S. political history, you would have to
conclude: not a chance. My suspicion is that people are ultimately
comfortable with Obama because a member of his family looks like
them--and, if you think about it, that's not terribly transcendent.

It's also not terribly true -- Obama wants you to believe that, but his
life story suggests that he'd be more moderate about race if he was black
on both sides and thus didn't have to keep proving he's black enough.
(Something similar is true for the Bob Bar-lookalike Rev. Wright.)

This is really not a complicated concept to grasp about the frontrunner
for the Presidency, but since we've all been indoctrinated to be
childishly simple-minded about race, very few get it.

It is Obama's biography, we are told, that will govern his behavior.
He was raised by a mother who supposedly didn't see color, so he doesn't
see color. He was born into tolerance and multi-racial understanding, so
he will practice tolerance and multi-racial understanding. Except, that
is, when it's not useful to him.

Which brings me to South Carolina, where I was born and raised. I was
there before and during the primary. Recall the moment. Obama was gaining
on Clinton--but had also just lost New Hampshire and Nevada. A loss in
South Carolina, and he would have been done for.

It's worth remembering that the majority of blacks still think O.J.
Simpson is innocent. And, in times like these, when a black man is out
front in the public eye, black people feel both proud and vulnerable and,
as a result, scour the earth for evidence of racists plotting to bring him
down, like an advance team ready to sound an alarm. Barack needed only a
gesture, a quick sneer or nod in the direction of the Clintons' hidden
racism to avail himself of the twisted love that rescued O.J. and others
like him and to smooth his path to victory, and, therefore, to salvage his
candidacy. After Donna Brazile and James Clyburn started to cry racism,
Barack was repeatedly asked his thoughts. He declined to answer, allowing
the charge to grow for days (in sharp contrast to how he leapt to Joe
Biden's defense a month earlier). But, while he remained silent about the
allegations of racism, he gave speeches across South Carolina that warned
against being "hoodwinked" and "bamboozled" by the Clintons. His use of
the phrase is resonant. It comes from a scene in Malcolm X, where Denzel
Washington warns black people about the hidden evils of "the White Man"
masquerading as a smiling politician: "Every election year, these
politicians are sent up here to pacify us," he says. "You've been
hoodwinked. Bamboozled."

By uttering this famous phrase, Obama told his black audience
everything it needed to know. He was helping to convince blacks that the
first two-term Democratic president in 50 years, a man referred to as the
first black president, is in fact a secret racist. As soon as I heard that
Obama had quoted from Malcolm X like this, I knew that Obama would win
South Carolina by a massive margin. ...

As the son of a Baptist minister, I can attest that Wright is and was
an extreme aberration from how the overwhelming majority of black
Christians worship. In church, black people hear about Peter, Paul, Mary,
and how to get into heaven. How to forgive. How to love. Not how to vote.

Well ... you don't have to fully believe that to realize that Rev. Wright
is to the left of the black church mainstream.

But here was Barack suggesting that Wright's behavior was commonplace
in black churches: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black
community." He generalized Wright's ridiculousness to distract from his
individual choice to worship under a buffoon for two decades. I have a
cousin who attended Wright's church for three weeks and then left, never
to return. She had no interest in hearing his nonsense from the pulpit.

Barack obscured the true nature of black religious life because, to do
otherwise, he would have had to answer the question, "Why are you a member
of a church that is this racially divisive and such a sharp aberration to
how the rest of black people worship?" When Barack beautifully suggested
that the beliefs pronounced from the pulpit of Trinity in Chicago are not
uncommon, he was feeding us garbage. But Barack needed to protect his
reputation as a race-healer and unifier, so he told a lie about black
religious life to help keep the glow of his own reputation alive. And now
the evidence suggests that Barack didn't, in the end, break with Wright
over his outrageous racial claims, but over his suggestion that Barack is
just a politician.

That so many people have a stake in ignoring these real concerns is
troubling. At least the Hillary supporters I know seem to be aware of her
more unsavory traits: that she carries a knife with her that she could
pull out at any minute. Not so with Obama's fans. It's nearly impossible
to get them to admit any wrong in him. Given the choice, I prefer to side
with the group that knows their candidate can be a jerk, rather than the
group that believes their candidate is Jesus.

Cinque Henderson is a TV writer, working on a book about Abraham
Lincoln."

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/b...-explains.html

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