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Now the world has to rethink its image of a racist US
The London Guardian ^ | November 9, 2008 | Keith Richburg

Posted on 11/10/2008 6:02:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Back in midsummer, when the long, hard-fought Democratic primary campaign was drawing to an exhausting end, I heard a lot of sceptics saying that even though Barack Obama had prevailed for the nomination he could never win the presidency. America, I heard over and over again, wasn't ready to elect a black man as President.

What was unusual about these sentiments was that they weren't mostly from Americans-although there were plenty of sceptics here, too. Instead, the most pessimistic were my friends around the world.

Despite some notable advances for black Americans over the years - Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as successive Secretaries_of_State, for example-a prevailing global narrative about the US has persisted; that this is an indelibly racist country and that black Americans remain an oppressed and entrenched underclass. It was a view I heard repeatedly, not only in this election season, but during my nearly 20 years as a foreign correspondent.

If I mentioned the growth of the black middle class, or the number of black American CEOs running companies such as American Express, Time Warner and Kmart, or the increasing number of blacks with PhDs, I was usually met with stares of incredulity or slapped down by undeniable statistics. 'So why are so many black men in prison?', a French friend asked me once. Another, in Hong Kong, asked: 'So why are black people in your country all living in ghettos?'

Of course, if I persisted there was always the trump card; yes, but a black person can never be elected President in your country. Now along comes Barack Obama, and much of the_world, with its fixed image of America - an image that is often as outdated as it is accurate - doesn't know quite how to deal with his astonishing success.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; bho2008; blackpresident; election; elections; obama; presidentelectobama; racism
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No wonder the world hates us, they have no idea who we are!
1 posted on 11/10/2008 6:02:08 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

who cares?


2 posted on 11/10/2008 6:03:10 PM PST by television is just wrong (obama is going to pay my mortgage for me!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Those foreigners will rationalize any opinion they hold.


3 posted on 11/10/2008 6:04:06 PM PST by Anti-Bubba182
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

We’re not racist anymore. We’re socialist dontcha know! I should be able to get laid anywhere in Europe now!


4 posted on 11/10/2008 6:05:25 PM PST by saganite (I for one welcome our new Socialist masters /s/)
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To: saganite

You could have anyhow...You are an American

:)


5 posted on 11/10/2008 6:07:13 PM PST by Shyla
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"Or, in the words of Ugandan journalist and commentator Charles Onyango-Obbo, in a column written before the election: 'If Obama is elected President, thousands of public intellectuals, radical professors and social activists and nationalist politicians and journalists will be plunged into crisis. Now they will have to explain how it is possible that a black person could be elected in this profoundly racist country.'"

Oh, don't worry, they'll find an angle.

6 posted on 11/10/2008 6:07:42 PM PST by americanophile
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Now the world has to rethink its image of a racist US

No, for any Obama backed bill or policy that is opposed will be blamed upon racism, not because of the merits or foolishness of the bill/proposal itself.

7 posted on 11/10/2008 6:08:14 PM PST by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspell)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Reminds me of a verizon commercial: I wonder what else Europe doesn’t know about us?


8 posted on 11/10/2008 6:08:55 PM PST by DBCJR (What would you expect?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Maybe something big will happen that will banish the world’s image of a homosexual Britain. Doubt it though.


9 posted on 11/10/2008 6:08:55 PM PST by dr_who
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Why....anyone who disagrees with Dear Leader is racist!
Problem solved.
10 posted on 11/10/2008 6:08:58 PM PST by Dallas59 (Redistribute Obamas Wealth)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
...er...When someone gets elected solely because of the color of his skin (to the exclusion of experience, wisdom, or content of character), don't tell me we are not a racist society...
Man's nature is idolatry. Today's idols in America are the various hyphens that exult the exterior and not the internal...
11 posted on 11/10/2008 6:09:24 PM PST by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No they don’t.


12 posted on 11/10/2008 6:09:29 PM PST by nickcarraway (Are the Good Times Really Over?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Now the world has to rethink its image of a racist US”

#####

Yes. They will have to make room for a new, apparently much more accurate image of the US as undeniably soft, self-satisfied and ultimately stupid; putting an unaccomplished, affirmative-action Marxist into the most important executive position in the world.


13 posted on 11/10/2008 6:10:14 PM PST by EyeGuy (Obama will deliver America on a Leash to an envious world.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

In France, are there any ranking politicians that are Black Muslims? I didn’t think so. So France is a racist nation


14 posted on 11/10/2008 6:11:47 PM PST by realcleanguy
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To: saganite

Saganite, just to make sure you can get laid anywhere in Europe make sure you have a fist full of 50 dollar bills with you at all times.


15 posted on 11/10/2008 6:12:50 PM PST by hflynn ( The One is really The Number Two)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Most people know about America from the news broadcasters and from Hollywood.

And if thats all you know about America, you don’t know anything about us.

I can remember living abroad and catching the occasional CNN International broadcast, and I would almost literally get the hives. Watching the news when you’re living in the US, you know to take it with a grain of salt, whatever the scandal or horrific demented crime of the moment, you know there is context; you know that is only the tiniest percent of what the country is. But when you are overseas, and you watch CNN’s (or any other) non-stop recitation of horrors you will be left with the certainty that your country has most assuredly gone grotesquely mad in your absense.

Then think back over the last thirty years. How many movies have been cranked out in which the bad guys are rogue CIA, rogue green berets, rogue Viet Nam vets, running drugs, hit men for hire, psychotic mass murderers, wife beaters, guilt ridden, drug-addicted, consciences torn by the evil they’ve done in their past, or consciences so seared by the evil they’ve done for Uncle Sam that crime seems like playtime by comparison.

For most foreigners, thats all the America they will ever know. If thats all I knew about America I’d hate us too.


16 posted on 11/10/2008 6:14:12 PM PST by marron
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Much of the world complains that Americans are self centered and know little of the rest of the world. Something about glass houses comes to mind.

Name the last European country to have a black president or prime minister...

Crickets.

Racists.


17 posted on 11/10/2008 6:14:50 PM PST by Poser (Willing to fight for oil)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“No wonder the world hates us, they have no idea who we are!”

Absolutely right. I think people in the US are generally less racist than any other country in the world I’ve been to (that is limited to about 10 countries in Europe, and South America)


18 posted on 11/10/2008 6:15:29 PM PST by villagerjoel (1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual!)
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To: realcleanguy
I could care less of what the world thinks of us.

The press was all up in arms about the world wanted Obama to be Prez. Seriously, who cares what they want?

RightWingIt.com

19 posted on 11/10/2008 6:16:43 PM PST by GaryLee1990 (www.RightWingIt.com)
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To: EyeGuy

You forgot “narcissistic.” What kind of pathological narcissist writes TWO autobiographies before he is 48 years old?!!?


20 posted on 11/10/2008 6:17:22 PM PST by villagerjoel (1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual!)
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