Posted on 01/27/2007 9:22:48 AM PST by canuck_conservative
Ask Reverend Al Sharpton about Barack Obama's virtues as a presidential candidate and the portly civil rights leader responds with a tortured metaphor about grilling a steak.
"We keep hearing sizzle from the media" about Obama, Sharpton told me in an interview yesterday, but "we're not hearing substance."
Sharpton, a master of colourful and frequently incendiary rhetoric, never strayed from his talking points during a flurry of meetings in Washington with Democratic presidential hopefuls. "I want to know from Senator Obama where the meat is," he said on MSNBC.
Sharpton's lukewarm assessment of Obama has jolted many Democrats caught up in the wave of partisan excitement that followed the Illinois senator's decision last week to launch a presidential exploratory committee.
Obama's upcoming political battle against Senator Hillary Clinton will make history, marking the first time an African- American and a woman have been the major candidates for a party's presidential nomination.
But several prominent African- American leaders -- including Reverend Jesse Jackson and the anti-war singer Harry Belafonte -- have publicly hedged when pressed on whether they will back Obama's candidacy, raising questions about the depth of his support.
Belafonte recently told The Times of London people need to be "careful" about embracing Obama just because of his skin colour.
"A lot of us are very proud of what he has done with his life. But that does not mean we don't have the right to ask questions," Sharpton said. "We have had two black secretaries of state [Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice] that we were proud of their personal accomplishments. We didn't agree with their policies. I think it's really racist for people to assume just because somebody is black, we ought to automatically support them."
With his campaign only a week old, there has already been furious speculation about the reasons some black Democrats have given Obama the cold shoulder so early.
In Obama's home state of Illinois, there have been complaints that the senator has staffed his campaign with too many white political advisors.
Others suggest the cool reception is rooted in Obama's mixed racial heritage and relatively affluent upbringing.
Obama's father was a black Kenyan immigrant; his mother a white woman from Kansas.
He was raised not in the streets of urban America but in the more exotic locales of Hawaii and Indonesia. He attended Harvard Law School before moving to Illinois and becoming active in politics on the south side of Chicago.
"There are people who are going to say, 'Oh well, he's not really black.' It's a kind of stupid cheap shot," says Roger Wilkins, a professor of history and American culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
"It's a label that gets put on black politicians who don't spend enough time in the black barber shops or the black nightclubs. It is a pretty nebulous concept which translates into, 'I really don't trust this fellow's fidelity to the black cause.' "
Obama sought to cultivate his African-American identity during his early years in public life -- joining an African-American church in Chicago and, at one point, taking a $10,000 job in community development in a poor black neighbourhood.
But the knock on him by opponents --both Democrat and Republican-- early in his career was that he did not really identify with the problems of urban blacks.
"The idea that somehow he is not sufficiently, authentically black is just crazy," says Wilkins.
"That was tried on Obama in Chicago, where they said he went to Harvard, meaning he was a snooty son of a gun."
Obama's doubters wonder whether the senator's concern for civil rights might get lost as he tries to broaden his appeal. The danger, some fear, is that he will become a black candidate for white America.
Sharpton insists he has no preconceptions about Obama or any other Democratic candidate. He just wants to know specifics about how he would tackle poverty, racism and the problem of crime and incarceration rates -- all traditional civil rights issues.
"We still have serious economic disparity between white and black life in this country," he says.
Much of Obama's appeal, say his supporters, is that he comes from an entirely different mould than other groundbreaking black politicians.
Both Sharpton and Jackson, who failed in two presidential bids during the 1980s, come from a traditional civil rights background and never appealed to the broader American public.
Obama "may not make it to the presidency, but he surely looks like more of a traditional politician running for the presidency than either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton ever did," says Wilkins. "He doesn't have the resume of a civil rights worker or a preacher."
The skepticism about Obama, however, underscores the challenge he could face winning support among black Democrats --a key constituency -- during the party's presidential primaries.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll this month of black Democrats found Obama with just 27% support compared to Senator Hillary Clinton's 53%.
A third leading Democratic candidate, former South Carolina Senator John Edwards, also has deep support in the African-American community. He launched his presidential bid in late December from New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, a historically black neighbourhood destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
The competition for the support of black voters was evident from the moment Sharpton set foot on Capitol Hill for a morning chat with Senator Clinton.
The event was advertised as private, but Clinton seized the chance to be photographed with Sharpton on the same day he was also meeting with Obama.
"Well I'm delighted that Rev. Sharpton is here today. ... His commitment to the 21st century civil rights agenda is one that I share," Clinton beamed.
© National Post 2007
No street cred?
This article makes Obama sound like the black John Kerry snot.
Also many Whites, typically, point to recent African immigrants and their ability to prosper and use it as a sledgehammer to excuse themselves from culpability for America's history of racism.
Sharpton, Jackson and other race hustlers want to preempt a candidancy that could change the dynamic of racial politics in America. That Obama, for all intents and purposes, appears to be liberal in all manifestions is what makes this breach even more interesting.
Yep, tell any Jamaican that Colin Powel is black and you'll get...errr a black eye
"I think it's really racist for people to assume just because somebody is black, we ought to automatically support them."
The most intelligent thing I have ever heard Mr. Sharpton say.
"I want to know from Senator Obama where the meat is,"
He really wants to know where the feed basket is.
I don't get your point. But for the record: I'm white, but I have no culpability for America's history of racism, because I am not a Democrat.
My theory as to why some black "leaders" aren't feelin' Obama:
1. He has no money or power to distribute
2. He does not talk about race enough
3. He is bi-racial and perhaps not black enough
4. He has Islamic roots (which he downplays, most black Americans are Christian
I don't believe one bit of this. They are going to go with who they think can win.
But it works the other way as well. American Blacks are a lot more "White" than African Blacks (assuming Africa as the standard for Blackness). And successful Blacks have as much of White America in them as of the ghetto.
So it's not surprising if the first serious Black candidate for the Presidency (if Osama and his candidacy are indeed serious) is going to be at least "a little bit White" (if not more White than Black).
Obama's ancestry makes him an exception to be sure, but any Black who reached the point of being considered a potential President would face similar objections).
It was the same way with Catholics. Al Smith was judged "too Irish" and "too Catholic" -- too roughcut and too Lower East Side -- to succeed. John Kennedy was WASP enough to win (when you get to John Kerry, you've probably gotten too waspy and way too not Irish).
Born in Hawaii, grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, raised in a white middle-class household, attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School. How can anyone doubt his "street cred"?
Looks like the White Plantation Masters who run the Democrat Party are afraid their tame slaves might just rise up and take over the plantation.
yeah but he doesnt mean it just ask steele in Maryland
Since he's a politician, it should be legitmate, not offensive, to ask at every oportunity,
all i know is that whatever obama is or isn't he probably doesn't have eight homicides directly on his head nor has he probably ever been a paid snitch for the police-this is certainly no endorsement of obama because he's a liberal gun grabber,etc,but sharpton is lower than whales##t
How is it that these two moronic losers are the only black politicos that garner any media attention? They both had make-believe presidential campaigns 20 years ago, yet they're followed around as if they actually accomplished something. Think about it, how many failed white candidates get as much front-and-center attention, 20 years after they lose, as these two clowns? There are dozens of black politicians out there, if the media needs a "black perspective." Let these two has-beens fade away, already.
(In their time...) George Wallace & Harrold Stassen?
Or did you mean fawning attention?
History tells us the answer is obvious, if not pretty. The Black community is the original bucket of crabs, each busily pulling the other one down.
Halfrican, as Rush says.
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