Biden was right, Obama is articulate

HERE'S IRONY for you. Last spring, focus-group guru Frank Luntz said that Sen. Joseph Biden should be considered a front-runner in the Democratic Presidential primaries because so many Democrats in New Hampshire and Iowa judged him to be -- wait for it -- "articulate."

I should back up. Biden is famous for his brain's chronic inability to hold brake fluid. Once he revs his engines, the motormouth can't be stopped, and he just keeps talking and talking and talking. My theory is that those constant smiles where he displays his shiny fake teeth are the facial equivalent of flashing your brights while driving, signaling to those in Biden's path, "I can't stop this thing!"

Anyway, Biden is running for President. On the day he announced, the New York Observer released an interview in which it was clear Biden had no brakes. Asked about Barack Obama, the Democratic wunderkind, Biden said: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

This statement didn't amuse some folks -- and highly amused others, particularly his Democratic rivals. A plain reading is indefensible (as Biden has admitted). First, the word "candidate" is missing, so it reads like he's talking about blacks generally, which everyone agrees is preposterous. But even with that caveat, he seems to be saying that Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes were lacking some or all of those attributes -- mainstream, articulate, bright, clean or nice-looking. Feel free to play pin-the-adjective on the former candidates. But all I will say is that I've met Alan Keyes, and whatever his other flaws, he's so clean you could eat off him.

What I find fascinating is that the least offensive adjective describing Obama -- "articulate" -- has caused the most offense. The New York Times ran a lengthy essay by Lynette Clemetson on the troubling and pernicious racism behind the oft-used compliment for well-spoken black people. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson penned a similar meditation arguing that "articulate" is essentially code for not scary to whites. "It's being used to describe a black person around whom white people can be comfortable," writes Robinson.

Obviously, there's ample truth here. Colin Powell, for example, was routinely described as "articulate" when he was pondering a Presidential run. But you know what? Powell is articulate. Moreover, if you ever heard him talk to inner-city kids, you'd know he puts a great deal of importance on speaking and writing ability. Why? Because much of low-income black America has a problem in this regard (as does much of low-income white America, I should add).

It's weird: Everyone agrees that our schools are disproportionately failing African-American kids, that there is a cycle of dysfunction afflicting large swaths of lower-class black America. But if you ever point to the consequences of those failures, even in the most oblique and glancing way, someone cries "Racism!"

Clemetson spoke to a host of hyper-successful blacks who are weary of being called "articulate." But nowhere do Clemetson and the people she interviewed address the fact that not all of black America is as articulate as Condoleezza Rice or D.L. Hughley. It's as if white America just made up the idea that proper diction and speech is lacking in some quarters of black America.

Many blacks are deeply sensitive to all of this. Indeed, the whole "Ebonics" fad -- a social-science neologism conceived to describe black slang as a distinct dialect, which it is -- was designed to cover up the fact that large numbers of black Americans are not articulate in mainstream American English. But as Bill Cosby and others have noted, simply because Ebonics describes something real doesn't mean it's in the best interests of black people to embrace it.

Again, I think complaints from elite blacks about the overuse of the word "articulate" are well-taken to a point. However, not only is it not the code word some are making it out to be, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and even Biden himself are routinely described as "articulate," and President Bush is relentlessly dubbed "inarticulate," yet nobody thinks that means he's being called "black."

But more important, the word "articulate" is used to describe eloquent blacks both truthfully and in an important context. Large swaths of black America are not articulate enough to succeed in the 21st century. We are constantly being told that we need a "national conversation" about precisely this sort of thing.

But when even the most well-meaning whites use the word "articulate" to describe successful blacks, they're called racist. It's no wonder that national conversation is so slow in getting started.

Right. What gets me is that otoh, outright dissing Condi is quite all right. Remember Barbara Boxer's comments...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1766961/posts

Let's not forget this gem that somehow (rolling my eyes) escaped attention of the now offended media:

'Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii called Miss Rice "the most overrated, underperforming individual in executive authority that I have ever seen."
"She constantly gets a pass," he told the Honolulu Star Bulletin this week, days before the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day. "Who knows if the whole question of race and gender come into it, but ... I can't account for it, except to say she isn't up to the mark.'

Beam me up.

who spent time in a madrassa

That report is untrue.

Here's the skinny on skinny

Obama lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for five years, from 1968-1973.

Obama's early schooling began when he was entered into the Roman Catholic, Franciscus Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. He was registered under the name Barry Soetoro, serial number 203. School documents listed Barry Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen and his religion was listed as Islam.

Barry attended the Asisi Primary School for three years until class three. When his family moved from H Ramir Street to Dempo Street, he attended the Besuki Primary School, a government school, for one year. He was enrolled as a Muslim.

A government primary school in Indonesia is not quite as secular as one in the west might imagine. In fact, Islam plays a very important role in Indonesian schools and a foreigner might be surprised to find out that religious classes are compulsory for all Indonesian students.

All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school and a young Barry Soetoro, being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam.

Obama attended two schools in Indonesia and in both he was enrolled as a Muslim -- but -- was he a practicing Muslim? The evidence seems to show that both Ann Dunham and her husband Lolo were devout Muslims themselves and they raised their son as such.

Akhmad Solikhin, the representative of the SDN head 1 Menteng, was not sure if Barry's religion was Islam. "He (Barry) indeed was registered as Islam but he claims to be Christian," he said surprised. But, according to Tine the teacher, Barry actively took part in the Islamic religious lessons during his time at the school. His teacher was named Maimunah and she lived in the Puncak area, the Cianjur Regency. "I remembered that he had studied "menjaji" (recitation of the Quran)" Teni said.

Classmate Rony Amiris describes young Barry as enjoying playing football and marbles and of being a very devout Muslim. Amir said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. His birth father, Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim economist from Kenya ... all of the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims"

"We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong he looked funny," said Rony.

Rony Amiris now the manager of the Bank Mandiri, Jakarta, recently said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. His birth father, Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim economist from Kenya. Before marrying Ann Dunham, Hussein Obama was married to a woman from Kenya who had seven children. All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims"

Rony extrapolates further, that Obama at one point had to change his religion if he ever intended later to run for the office of President of the United States because America would never elect a muslim to the be President of the United States.

On 22 January 2007, family friend Emirsyah Satar, CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was quoted as saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong', at that time, he was quite religious in Islam but only after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion."

Obama and Michelle Robinson of Chicago, Illinois were married on October 18, 1992. 1992 was also the year Obama converted to Christianity. Born in 1961 as a Muslim, Obama's conversion in 1993 means that Obama was a Muslim for 31 years. He's been an apostate Muslim since.

Here's some more from an American Expat in Southeast Asia

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