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 Now along comes Barack Obama, and much of the_world, with its fixed image of America - an image that is often as outdated as it is accurate - doesn't know quite how to deal with his astonishing success.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 ...
Nah, they won’t take anything but Euros right now. ;^)
France is racist, much of asian is racist, europeans in general think they are better than everyone else.
Screw em all.
I heard he didn’t write both of em. He had his terrorist friend write at least one of them.
We didn't. He said it himself, we elected a mutt.
Foreigners always think America is racist and wasteful until they spend a little time here. A while back I was dating a Serbian woman living in this country who said that living here had changed her attitude about America dramatically.
She says Europe is far more racist than America. Before coming here she said she despised our “car culture”. once she moved here she realized that we are far larger than Europe and trains just won’t get the job done.
He said “laid”; not “laid low”.
Do we have a say in who becomes their leaders? I didn’t think so
They know exactly who we are. At the end of the day, they will paint us however it suits them. Our only mistake is giving a rats a$$.
In 1964, my young nephew, who was born & raised in England (brother was serving 2 consectuive 4 year USAF tours there) screamed and cried and begged my parents not to leave for home, when they visited.
No; not the usual doesn’t want granpa & grandma to leave him.
No; it was “don’t go to America! The Indians will kill and scalp you!”
Between British news & entertainment, and American westerns, even he had a very distorted view of our reality.
To counter that misperception, I suddenly found myself sharing my bedroom when they returned home with him.
Just so. I have been reminding people of this periodically for years now--that the rest of the world, despite it's childish, naive know-it-all posturing, is woefully ignorant and provincial re: the USA. They get their "information" by watching reruns of crime shows and Baywatch, and perverted images propagated by antiAmerican news outlets from both here and abroad.
Which is why I, indeed, do not give a sh&t what they think.
oops
: )
YEP...a co-worker of my husbands was on assignment in South America.....locals asked him....how many guns do you have? He said “None.” They couldn’t believe it....they thought ALL American’s had MANY guns....and carried them with them everywhere....
America doesn't need Europe telling us how to govern ourselves. For God's sake, we LEFT Europe because of how depraved they'd become. And thank God, too--because we've been savin' their ass the last 100 years or so...mostly from THEMSELVES.
no black Prime Ministers in England or Chancellors in Germany making them all racist nations too! What about Canada? Oh this is fun. All these countries now have to take a look at their issues.
See, Obama is a capitalist. Created jobs, managed the division of labor according to those most able to do the work, buy cheap, sell dear, figure out the marketing angle and manage the packaging and the sale price [of his soul].
The world has no conception of what America is about
So in reality, European nations are all racist nations
You know, if Barack went to the UN and gave that speech and took them all to task....he could really put himself on a track to real jfkness. Oh well. Never mind.
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