Posted on 05/16/2008 6:16:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Wouldn't it be something if Michelle Obama, not the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or John McCain, were the reason Barrack Obama looses the presidency? Instead of "change," the First Lady-in-waiting is sticking with old hurts held closely by certain black communities.
They are those who relish the pain suffered by their slave forefathers and mothers. They revisit, over and over, what was; hurts, carefully protected and harbored as badges of honor.
None of us on this land are responsible for what happened to their kin, but they don't care. They marinate in crippling history.
Why?
The reasons reek of the psychology of it all. As long as struggle is someone else's fault, change is not a consideration.
Very few pioneers, who wove the early foundations of this country, missed out on suffering caused by prejudice. Either they were the wrong culture, sex, skill or religion. None, however, endured the evil suffered by the Native American.
Surely, every one of us, who cannot claim Native American blood, should leave this land forever, if justice is to be granted a wounded race. When that is done, let the next victims speak their claims against a nation so grand that during the past century it astoundingly righted major civil wrongs.
Where will it end?
Time for healing is long passed. Resentments and victimhood are now simply an excuse.
Despite her education, Michelle doesn't seem to compute the reality of the struggle of all humanity, everywhere. Behind the scenes, I imagine the Obama campaign handlers are choking on their pizza.
"They just keep raising the bar on Barrack," Michelle complained.
And, we all know what that means. If it's hard to be elected president, it's about discrimination. No mention of black Americans who've broken the attitude chains of helplessness.
There are a good number among the black community who call on their citizens to stop sniveling, to reach forward, not back. They urge them to gather their families, mothers and fathers, and teach children values and the privileges of hard work. But, the other voices seem to dominate. Many are religious leaders, such as Wright, the Obama family guru for 20 years. They capitalize on a transparent time warp. They talk change, but they really mean hold fast to the past and cling to hopelessness. Be sure and blame the white man.
Sometime ago (March/April 1995), Psychology Today quoted British psychiatrist Anthony Daniels (pen name Theodore Dalrymple) in an article called "The Uses of Resentment:" "If the world is unjustly stacked against us ... it absolves us from the painful necessity to change. We can remain exactly the same while calling down anathema on a cruel world."
And then he drives it home: "There is one further advantage of believing oneself to be the victim of circumstance. Our supposed victimhood assures us of our own importance."
No one can ignore the evils of slavery. Like Auschwitz, it'll always be with us. But, even if black Americans cannot find it in their hearts or religions to forgive, they can at least consider the power of letting go for the sake for their children's futures.
The oddness of Michelle's tack is this: she and her husband have proven the laws of hard work. Still, she resorts to political dirty tricks with snarly references to prejudice. Michelle's seeking to capitalize on white guilt, but what she risks is the backlash of those who have grown weary of the gimmick.
Her husband's right. It's time for change. A great place to start is in those black American communities, which cling to cultural resentment.
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Linda Turley-Hansen is a syndicated columnist and former veteran Phoenix television news anchorwoman who lives in the East Valley. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached by e-mail at letters@lindastake.com.
The things that Wright says and his congregation cheers are widely believed by blacks in the South. I've heard it regularly for decades. I can't say that it comes from the church specifically because it is almost unheard of for blacks and whites to attend the same church around here. Occasionally a funeral will draw some of each, though.
***America is weary of black resentment***
REPARATIONS! Here is the only reparations they should get.
618,000 Americans who died in the Civil War.
Paid in full.
They marinate in crippling history.
This gal is a good writer.
Quite a few years ago my two kids and I were watching an old movie that used a racial epithet (not the N word, everybody still knows that word).
It was evident to the kids that it was supposed to be a joke and they didn't get it. They didn't get it because they weren't hearing those things in school or on the street anymore like I used to hear in the olden days.
I went through the list of words I used to hear routinely so the kids would know to avoid them. I was amazed at how many of those words there were and how long it had been since I had heard them and the kids had NOT heard them.
Damn straight.
We all know the “why”. It’s a trump card that cannot be refuted.
In a white on black encounter, dragging out the history only serves to stop the discussion, because the white person has no way to refute it.
I think it basically serves the same purpose as somebody saying “Yo Mama!” in a black on black encounter.
IMHO if a black person puts the historical slavery-race thing on the table during an argument, they are admitting they lost the REAL argument whatever that is.
It is my belief that the greater number of Blacks will never be free... not until they realize that they have been free for decades.
618,000 Americans who died in the Civil War.
They NEVER say they appreciate it either.
Whether Obama wins or loses this fall, he and his supporters are going to have to deal with their thwarting of the bitchocracy.
Oh yes a white person can refute it.
1) Except for a very tiny percentage, presentd-day white people do not have ancestors who owned or supported slavery.
2) Point to the refugees from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, etc. who came here with next to nothing, not even knowing our language -- and yet they have succeeded in less than two generations! How many generations have the Blacks been playing victim instead of getting off their butts and learning and working?
Where I come from, respect is something you earn on a point system. When I first meet you, my respect for you necessarily starts at Zero. By your deeds, by your actions, and by what comes out of your mouth, the world decides how much respect you deserve. You start with none at all, and you gain it by working hard, holding down a job, loving your spouse, caring for your children, being kind to animals, and loving your country.
But because of the entitlement mentality, where you automatically get a check or a promotion or a perk because of the color of your skin or your sex or any government sanctioned bigotry, some think that they are handed 1000 Respect Points at the start of the month. And if you don't see me exhibit the kind of obeisance those imagined points should get you automatically, I must have somehow stolen them from you. This allows the victim to change the subject from "what have I done in my life to earn the respect of others" to "what have YOU done to take the respect I had from me."
Martin Luther King, Jr. had the same human failings we all have, but I do wish that the vision he held for all peoples had really come to pass. I too have a dream that all Americans will be judged not on the color of their skins, but on the contents of their hearts. Sadly, most of who pass for leaders in the black community today don't share that vision, or they would be preaching not "God Damn America" but "God Bless this nation where we have come so far, and can leave old hatreds dead in the past."
I am so sick of this Black Racism garbage. And that’s what it is, garbage.
The Blacks, and most everyone else for that matter, seems to forget that White Christians were enslaved over 2 thousand years ago.
They were treated far worse than the ocassional whip crack.
The were tortured and slaughtered wholesale for sport up to and including being fed to wild animals.
If Obama becomes CIC and the LA Riot crowd starts their crap,
Charlie Manson may well see his Helter Skelter ater all.
I remember a friend from Holland a long time ago who was criticized by her in-laws (American) for answering back a black guy (from their integrated church) who made nasty comments about white people. She was dumbfounded that they thought she was racist for confronting him when he was very wrong. She thought they were racist for putting him in a special category that couldn't handle criticism that she and they would have given to a white person.
I agreed with her, but had to admit to myself that at that time I would have been intimidated by the magic word racist and wouldn't have confronted him either. Fortunately, through over use and misuse the magic word is losing its magic. People just might have to get over themselves and learn to interact as people. I hope.
I’m so sick of this rot that “Native Americans” are water-walkers. Just WTF is a Native American? I was born in America, so by definition I am a Native American. But, alas, I am a white guy, so I get short shrift. All these hyphenated labels do is fracture American society. There’s African-American (a title claimed by 99.9% of the blacks in America, which is ludicrous because the vast majority of them have never been to Africa, nor have their parents, and nor have their grandparents. Mexican-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, ad nauseum; all those hyphenates make one wonder just where their true allegiance lies. Well, I guess I’m just an American-American.
Hyphenates are so silly.
Actually you can keep the discussion going by informing them of the 3,000+ black people who owned slaves or the very wealthy black slave breeder who sold his own children into slavery. There were thousands of free blacks in this country before the Civil War. Many of them were also slave owners.
“It’s been suggested, here and elsewhere, that she knows very well that without her melanin content she wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near Princeton, let alone a mid-six-figure do-not-much job.”
Far more likely that she believes she deserves everything she’s received because of her inate superiority. If anything, she believes she has yet to receive all her superiority deserves.
Apart from the rather strange racial categorization based on race, I disagree completely with the assesment.
Michelle strikes me as average at best. She graduated from a prestigious school and hitched herself to a "community organizer". What's the big accomplishment there? She clings to Marxist claptrap, in spite of overwhelming economic and historic evidence of it's failure as an organizing principle of society. How is that smart? Real smart people know that bitterness and whining are unseemly and avoid those behaviors, especially in public.
Condi? Seems like a nice enough lady, but I've always wondered what all the slobbering over her was about. Lot's of academic credentials, but how smart is somebody that thinks they can broker peace in the middle east with diplomacy?
Colin? Who's to say, but one in a thousand in IQ? Not likely.
I don’t know the percentage, but there is still a portion of black Americans who will not let go of the victim status, they cling to it like a non-swimmer clings to a life preserver on a sinking ship. And Michelle and maybe Barack seem to be among that percentage, as well as such race hustlers as JJ and Reverend Al.
Preserving the victim status is one of the most important aspects of life for many. And that leads to all the resentment and nurturing of old wrongs they never themselves suffered, such as is discussed in the article. And this is, of course, being passed on to the next generations as their heritage and built in excuse. I know many white Americans who are very weary of it.
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