Cloudy Obama

D.P. Smith writes:

Obama was asked again yesterday what needs to be done regarding race in the U.S. His response that we need to have a conversation about race is getting a bit old. We have had a 50 year conversation about it. Race discrimination is illegal. It’s time to move on. Supposedly this was part of his charm. Then he is asked if he thinks racism still exists and he states that it does among blacks and whites even if only on a subconscious level. Now tell me, what is the President of the U.S. going to do about racism on a subconsious level? Will this country ever get back to reality?

LA replies:

That’s it? We have to have a conversation? Why doesn’t HE start this conversation?

Any public man who says, “We need to have a conversation about X,” instead of saying what he has to say about X, is a fraud, because he’s acting as though there’s this great problem that needs to be discussed, while the fact that he himself has nothing to say about this big problem reveals that the big problem doesn’t exist, at least not for him. He’s just using the idea of this big problem to manipulate people.

Not only is he one of the biggest liars I’ve ever seen, re the Rev. Wright, but he’s also turning out to be a major intellectual lightweight. How is the statement that the only remaining racism is subconscious, consistent with his earlier statements that racism in America is so bad that it justifies Wright’s anti-white hatred, and that it is whites’ responsibility to recognigze that Wright’s hatred is justified and to take vast steps to ameliorate it, adding up to the total socialist reconstruction of America? And how can a white racism which is not even conscious justify the statement that America deserved the 9/11 attack, and that the white government created AIDS to kill blacks?

On one hand, Obama says that whites are guilty of a racism that justifies demented black hatred of whites; on the other hand, Obama says that the white racism is only subconscious. It’s evident that the reason he calls for a national conversation on race is that he doesn’t know what he thinks about it himself.

Also, after the Rev. Wright business, will people let Obama get away with the statement that black anti-white racism is only subconscious? Far from being subconscious, it is the explicit centerpiece of much of black American culture.

What really needs to happen is for whites to stop playing the liberal game with blacks. We need to say to them: “Until you drop your anti-white anti-American thing, we’re not going to listen to your grievances. We’re not going to ‘respect’ your perspective. We’re not going to regard you as good members of our society. We’re going to regard you as a hostile party and we’re going to act accordingly. If you want us to respect you, you’ve got to stop acting like our enemies.”

In other words, white America as a whole needs to say to blacks what Mayor Giuliani said about New York City’s black “leaders” back in 1994: that he would not meet with them until they changed the way they spoke.

So, if Obama wants to have a conservation about race, I’ve just given what I think the white side of this conversation ought to be. It would be a very brief conversation.

N. writes:

Ah, yes, another call for a “conversation” about a subject of contention. How many times in the last generation or two have we been urged to have a “conversation” or a “dialog” about race, or about any of the other topics the Left wants to hector us about? What is a conversation? Is it not two or more equals who take turns listening when they are not talking? Is that what the Left wants? Is that what Obama is asking for, to have others speak while he listens to what they say? I am skeptical, very skeptical that this is the case. He seems to listen to people with the only purpose of finding what “buttons” he can push to get them to go along with him.

All too often, “dialog” or “conversation,” when used by the Left, turns out to be a monologue, consisting of the Left ranting at the rest of us while we are to sit down. Thus, in my opinion, anyone who asks for a “national conversation” wants a bigger platform and megaphone to tell the rest of us what we should do, and think, and believe. Whether that is what Senator Obama wants I cannot say, but based on years of observation I believe that is what his left-wing supporters want: a national monologue.

But the fundamental Obama-question is revived again. Is he so isolated and insular in his cultural life that he doesn’t really know that there’s been a “conversation” about race going on in one form or another for nigh on 50 years? Or is he so cynical and calculating that he fully understands these code words he has just used are going to fortify some people against him, while encouraging his supporters, and that this call is merely a careful ploy to bring in the “moderate middle”? Foolish and isolated, or cunning and calculating? Which is it? We still cannot tell!

LA replies:

The messiah as empty suit!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 05, 2008 04:43 PM | Send