Obama appreciates firmness.
Posted on 03/02/2008 11:16:58 AM PST by grundle
Crowd cheers advice to turn off TV, skip Popeyes for breakfast
FORT WORTH, Texas -- On the campaign trail, Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama talks about how he would use the bully pulpit if president, and he offered a demonstration Thursday when he drew wild cheers as he told a mostly African-American crowd that parents need to shape up, turn off the TV, help their kids with their homework and stop letting them grow fat eating Popeyes chicken for breakfast.
"It's not good enough for you to say to your child, 'Do good in school,' and then when that child comes home, you got the TV set on, you got the radio on, you don't check their homework, there is not a book in the house, you've got the video game playing," said Obama while in Beaumont, in southeast Texas.
"So turn off the TV set, put the video game away. Buy a little desk or put that child by the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework. If they don't know how to do it, give them help. If you don't know how to do it, call the teacher. Make them go to bed at a reasonable time. Keep them off the streets. Give ' em some breakfast. Come on. ... You know I am right."
Can change happen with words? That's a core question being raised about the Obama candidacy.
"I've got to talk about us a little bit," said Obama. "We can't keep on feeding our children junk all day long, giving them no exercise. They are overweight by the time they are 4 or 5 years old, and then we are surprised when they get sick."
Obama -- who exercises and is careful about what he eats -- said obese children need to improve their nutrition habits, invoking the name of a chain that makes delicious fried chicken.
"I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly," Obama said. "But I also know that if folks letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch, or Popeyes for breakfast.
"Y'all have Popeyes out in Beaumont? I know some of y'all you got that cold Popeyes out for breakfast. I know. That's why y'all laughing. ... You can't do that. Children have to have proper nutrition. That affects also how they study, how they learn in school."
Obama has delivered "tough love'' messages before about personal responsibility, but he seemed to revel in his "truth-telling" while campaigning in Beaumont, on a day that also took him to Austin and Fort Worth in advance of Tuesday's crucial primaries.
As Obama stumped in the Lone Star State to Texas-size crowds -- he packed in 13,000 people at the convention center here Thursday night -- his campaign was downplaying any presumption that he will emerge in a few days as the all-but-certain Democratic nominee.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "is working tirelessly, as is Bill Clinton, in both Ohio and Texas; these races are extraordinarily tight," Obama said during a press conference on his plane en route to Beaumont. The Obama team was shocked to lose the New Hampshire primary in January, and since then, Obama has curbed the bravado that bubbled up in the Granite State.
Obama resisted an invitation by a reporter to write the Clinton campaign obituary. Said Obama, "Remember New Hampshire?"
When Bill Cosby said something similiar, the Blacks went off on him...hopefully they will for Obama too.
I don't want to eavesdrop where I'm not wanted, but what's a "popeye"?
I was wondering the same thing.
But did he quit his church before he started up trying to be the new Bill Cosby of the century?
libertarianism leads to socialism. yeah let’s have lots of pot and oh... we’ll need universal health care to take care of the unemployed sick druggies. Let’s trash marriage...oh we’ll need universal child care to help all the single moms and out of wedlock kids.
it is conservatism that leads to smaller govt and more freedom.
Front page story at the Chicago Sun Times.
I have to side with him on this one, took some balls Im not going soft 99.9% of all he says I disagree but he got it right with this one RESPOSIBLE DEDICATED PARENTS WHO HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN THIER CHILDS LIFE! GET ER DONE!
The Great Migration that started in the 1920s (when Ford offered black workers the same wages as white in his factories) brought a lot of blacks from the South to Northern and Midwestern cities. They brought their dialects (and their cuisine, but that's another story) with them.
I don't see anything wrong with speaking colloquially on the stump, to reach people where they live. George W. Bush certainly does it, as did Bill Clinton. Hillary does it badly.
Fried chicken is extremely high in fat, and the fast-food version uses batter laced with tons of sodium compared to the homemade version. It's not poison, but it's not for every day.
Obama appreciates firmness.
It's referred to as colloquial or casual speech. I'm an educated Southerner, more than capable of formal speech and writing in standard American English, but I use constructions like that all the time in casual conversation and writing.
The primary purpose of language is to communicate, and sometimes that means meeting the audience halfway. If that means breaking the rules of formal grammar, then the rules go out the window. Show me any writer who strictly adheres to the formal rules of grammar, and I'll show you Mark Twain.
Compare the effectiveness of the following two statements: "Up with this we will not put" vs. "That dog won't hunt."
One last note: I am a zealous, almost militant, advocate of "y'all." It's a second person plural pronoun, like the French "vous," It's a useful, functional word that formal English lacks. And contrary to its misuse by New York and Hollywood screenwriters (which makes me wince), it is only used as a plural.
But Obama, if anything is Hawaiian, not southern or a product of the Black Diaspora in the ‘30s. So y’all is either something he picked up in Chicago in his 20s, or simple Hillaryesque pandering (”I’s in no way tarrrrrred...”) for which he will not be ridiculed by the press, because his melanin content is significantly higher.
"The Blacks" are not monolithic. There was certainly a considerable backlash, but he also got support from a number of black leaders, Jesse Jackson among them. Cosby wasn't run over by a train of public opinion -- he sparked a debate.
Popeye's is a fried-chicken chain with a New Orleans theme. They have sides like etouffe and red beans & rice, and their batter tends to be a little spicier than the other fast-food chicken chains. It's a watered-down version of cajun/creole, of course, because that's what fast food chains do.
Popeye's, like Church's, tends to place restaurants in black neighborhoods, where KFC targets white neighborhoods and Zaxby's targets the suburbs. That's based on what I see in the South -- I haven't done a comprehensive survey nationwide.
He's been immersed in Chicago's black community for most of his adult life. I know in my personal life, I deal with people from all over, and I adapt to the conversation -- I don't consider it pandering, and at times it's not even conscious.
The issue with Hillary isn't that she used the words -- she was quoting after all -- but that she adopted an accent that sounded forced. When I talk to Georgians, or New Yorkers, or Texans, or Californians, I don't try to sound like the person I'm talking to -- it's a more subtle matter of pacing and rhythm and word choice. Sounding like someone you're not is something that even good actors with a good dialect coach often can't achieve.
The most extreme example was when I went to Thailand. With few exceptions, the people I met who knew English didn't know it very well. So within a day or two, I fell into a sort of pidgin. It wasn't a conscious choice; it was just the best way to get the message across.
I know Obama wants the federal government to take over health care. But sometimes after someone gets elected, their actions are very different from what they had campaigned on. Several Supreme Court justices who were thought to be conservative turned out to be quite liberal. Obama’s economic advisor is from the University Of Chicago, so Obama could be full of surprises.
Yes, this website has a new look. It was hard to find the post button to start this thread!
Anyone who is from the University Of Chicago has been exposed to some pretty good ideas on economics. He might not agree with them. But at least he has been exposed to them.
Yes, he would make a fantastic private school pirncipal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.