Obama's race strategy or nonstrategy - excellent (0.00 / 0)

Race is very "hot", and it is not at the top of the list of issues to be addressed for the vast majority of Americans (job security, housing, health and education costs, etc.)  

Making race an issue is foolish in just about any political campaign where race itself is not a top priority, unless you're trying to leverage the racist vote, or can definitively prove that a candidate is racist.

Moreover, there are probably many people across the US who are borderline comfortable with Obama, and any poke resembling the slightest accusation that they themselves might be even a little racist is an affront.  They may only now be coming around to the idea of voting for a black man.  (Would they vote for an "angry black man?") This is not the time or the place to have this conversation.

Obama can lead by example as a good President and candidate.  In the political realm, race conversations at this point in our history should be about policy.   There is plenty of room within a political movement to talk about race...but not in a campaign like this close race right now, when the minds of most everyone are on other things.

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by: Crab Nebula @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 14:10:27 PM CDT

If Palin were not white (0.00 / 0)

she would have been drummed out of the race. Only white citizens are given the leeway to hold such opinions concerning sedition and gun-play by their teen-aged children without being labeled as a "gangster", or a "unpatriotic".


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 14:30:24 PM CDT

funny (0.00 / 0)

The Journey thing is funny as I don't know what. I've so been there before, thinking you are having a good time and some idiot comes up out of nowhwere and says something stupid.

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by: jstrick @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 14:40:28 PM CDT

i've never heard Obama mention it at all (0.00 / 0)

I think he might have alluded to it during his "More Perfect Union" speech. But for all I know, he believes it's a non-factor in this country. (I mean, he does repeat over and over that race is not a factor in this race, because he pretty much has to. Why? White privilege.)

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by: danthrax @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 15:25:27 PM CDT

No, I think not: (0.00 / 0)

Obama certainly doesn't think that it's a "non-factor in this country". Even stupid people don't think that. Obama has lived through much of the same stuff that the very excellently intuitive and funny, Justin Krebs spoke about in this post and others.

I watched a lot of the Democratic Convention and  came away thinking that someone, someday should put a video together of the reactions of black people in the crowd over those few days. Their emotions were on display. I was brought to tears and laughter many a time as I watched. Even though I haven't lived what they have lived, seeing them react each day and celebrate in the end was a beautiful thing to see.

Obama knows to put it in perspective. It would be simplistic to think that the magnitude of the present time and the history of blacks in America could be addressed meaningfully and moved forward during the white hot heat of a presidential campaign.

The time for that will, I hope, be ripe for the picking very soon. And by soon, I mean as soon as possible after January of '09 and then on and on.    

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by: Kitt @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 15:53:14 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

We'll have four years to talk about it (0.00 / 0)

... if he wins.

And I don't see how this discussion can conceivably help him at this point, and in fact I can't think of much else that would make his support collapse faster than if he started to talk about "White Privilege", which can only breed "white resentment"

I think he deftly and brilliantly handled it back in the spring, and right now he should do exactly what he's doing - making it as unremarkable a thing as he possibly can. The only way some people will be comfortable with a black man is if Obama can make them not think about the fact that he's black.

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by: ejp1082 @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 15:30:18 PM CDT

Found a terrific LTE on race today (0.00 / 0)

and reproduced it here.

Meanwhile, all the activist people of color I know keep sending me this from Tim Wise.

There's a conversation all right -- it just isn't for everyone who might had ought to be in it.

Can it happen here?

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by: janinsanfran @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 15:47:09 PM CDT

Does an ivy league grad/senator/currently ahead in polls running for presidency (4.00 / 1)

Really have any business talking about white privileged?

I have to admit I don't exactly feel privileged when compared to Obama.  Even if I do feel fairly privileged.

The liberal wiki
Send an email to terra@liberalwiki.com

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by: TerraFF @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 16:49:35 PM CDT

Um... seriously? (0.00 / 0)

You owe it to yourself to listen to This American Life's fantastic and common-sense explanation of the economic crisis.

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by: whathaveyou @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 17:27:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

My point was (0.00 / 0)

Its completely counter to Obama's message and wouldn't have much effect anyways.

What is Obama supposed to do?  Say "I've suffered so horribly from my lack of white privlege"?

The liberal wiki
Send an email to terra@liberalwiki.com

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by: TerraFF @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 20:28:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Is that how it works? (0.00 / 0)

Does Obama have to make a case that he has suffered?

What about the benefit accrued to his white opponents?  Ain't it a "privilege" to have your teen-aged daughters pregnancy accepted by the nation at large as a "private" and positive matter, rather than another example of the degeneration of her race?

Ain't it a "privilege" that the gaffes and negative personality traits - like, say, cheating on your wife, or calling her foul names in public, or using your political position to enable her drug addiction - are not portrayed as yet another example of your corruption and anti-American tendencies?

Ain't it a "privilege" that the VP nominee's spouse can belong to a radical group of fundmentalists that seek to separate from the USA and everyone will simply laugh it off?


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 08:46:07 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Obama can't talk about it (0.00 / 0)

His campaign can't talk about it. Let's be real. Obama understands this more than anyone. Sometimes, I think only Black folks understand the true gauntlet Obama is facing in this race. What he's REALLY up against.

So, let him win, and we can talk about some stuff, but only until the scared White folks on the edge realize that the republic will not fall because a Black man has been elected.  

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by: rikyrah @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 21:07:21 PM CDT

I hate "white privilege" -- and I'm a confirmed Liberal (4.00 / 1)

"White privilege" is the newest rhetoric that proves how pure and Politically Correct you are. I find it offensive and insulting.

I work hard to share my resources, to do outreach so others can participate in our schools and society, I'm not rich (not as rich as many people of color). (Yeah, I understand that if a black person and I were equally qualified, I might get the job or the apartment. But that's not my fault! I didn't ask for it, and I work to avoid the special benefits.) I do not consider myself "privileged."

Now imagine the potential voter-guy, who experiences a life of scarcity, in face of endless commercials and ads for things he (and I) can't afford, whose children may not get to go to college, who struggles to pay his/her bills. He/she does not experience a life of "privilege."

Thank heavens Obama doesn't go running around talking about 'white privilege' and alienating me and all the voters who are not progressive or Liberal at all.

Puhleez! What a silly idea.

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by: MS @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 02:36:40 AM CDT

Driving down the streets of a major city without getting pulled over (0.00 / 0)

or being able to walk through a shopping mall without being followed by security.

These are now a "privilege" that some of your fellow citizens do not enjoy.

Is that a "silly idea"?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 08:49:06 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Class privilege not white privilege (0.00 / 1)

If you use the word "privilege" to describe me, you have basically stripped the word of any meaning beyond incoherent pejorative. That's too bad, because it's a powerful word that could be a useful rhetorical weapon against, well, the truly privileged elite. I've had a very difficult life with enormous systemic obstacles that I don't care to dwell on in a public forum, including many obstacles that many would not even consider possible for a mostly-white person like me. That's because the big flaw in "white privilege" theory is the failure to consider the towering importance of class in general, and the status of poor and working class white people specifically.

Part of the reason for this is that to guilty rich white liberals, just as to their evil conservative counterparts, poor white people are invisible, because white people are simply not supposed to be poor! In the rare instance when it is acknowledged that poor white people do exist in some remote corners of the world, they are written off as willful failures, as it is generally (and insultingly) assumed that poor white people must have actively created their own problems, what with all the privilege they must have enjoyed.

Thus do notions of "white privilege" incorrectly normalize the real extreme privilege enjoyed by a very small upper class elite that run society for their own benefit. The sociology nerds in college who used to go around solemnly accusing people of being privileged were all guilty rich white liberals who wanted to spread their own guilt around on as many other people as possible. I never had any time for them and still don't.

The package of social identifiers labeled "whiteness" does not describe many white people from low-income or poorly-connected backgrounds. In place of "white privilege," I suggest we talk about "upper class privilege" or "joined-the-right-fraternity privilege." Many affluent white people DESPISE poor white people, just as they despise poor people of color. Many others feel apathy or even antipathy toward those who suffer economic hardship, regardless of race. The social mechanisms they have set up to protect their own privilege shuts out many white people, as they do to people of color, because those mechanisms are largely economic and class-based.

VISA is Hungry! http://www.funnyordie.com/vide...

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by: mildewmaximilian @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 23:57:16 PM CDT