Posted on 04/19/2010 3:38:53 AM PDT by ICAB9USA
Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa.
Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama , Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign "isms", instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas.
The tropes of America's racial history as a way of understanding all things black are useless in understanding the man who got his dreams from his father, a Kenyan exemplar of the African Colonial.
Before I continue, I need to say this: I am a first generation born West African-American woman whose parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970's from the country now called Nigeria. I travel to Nigeria frequently. I see myself as both a proud American and as a proud Igbo (the tribe that we come from -- also sometimes spelled Ibo). Politically, I have always been conservative (though it took this past election for me to commit to this once and for all!); my conservative values come from my Igbo heritage and my place of birth. Of course, none of this qualifies me to say what I am about to -- but at the same time it does.
My friends, despite what CNN and the rest are telling you, Barack Obama is nothing more than an old school African Colonial who is on his way to turning this country into one of the developing nations that you learn about on the National Geographic Channel. Many conservative (East, West, South, North) African-Americans like myself -- those of us who know our history -- have seen this movie before. Here are two main reasons why many Americans allowed Obama to slip through the cracks despite all of his glaring inconsistencies:
First, Obama has been living on American soil for most of his adult life. Therefore, he has been able to masquerade as one who understands and believes in American democratic ideals. But he does not. Barack Obama is intrinsically undemocratic and as his presidency plays out, this will become more obvious. Second, and most importantly, too many Americans know very little about Africa. The one-size-fits-all understanding that many Americans (both black and white) continue to have of Africa might end up bringing dire consequences for this country.
Contrary to the way it continues to be portrayed in mainstream Western culture, Africa is not a continent that can be solely defined by AIDS, ethnic rivalries, poverty and safaris. Africa, like any other continent, has an immense history defined by much diversity and complexity. Africa's long-standing relationship with Europe speaks especially to some of these complexities -- particularly the relationship that has existed between the two continents over the past two centuries. Europe's complete colonization of Africa during the nineteenth century, also known as the Scramble for Africa, produced many unfortunate consequences, the African colonial being one of them.
The African colonial (AC) is a person who by means of their birth or lineage has a direct connection with Africa. However, unlike Africans like me, their worldviews have been largely shaped not by the indigenous beliefs of a specific African tribe but by the ideals of the European imperialism that overwhelmed and dominated Africa during the colonial period. AC's have no real regard for their specific African traditions or histories. AC's use aspects of their African culture as one would use pieces of costume jewelry: things of little or no value that can be thoughtlessly discarded when they become a negative distraction, or used on a whim to decorate oneself in order to seem exotic. (Hint: Obama's Muslim heritage).
On the other hand, AC's strive to be the best at the culture that they inherited from Europe. Throughout the West, they are tops in their professions as lawyers, doctors, engineers, Ivy League professors and business moguls; this is all well and good. It's when they decide to engage us as politicians that things become messy and convoluted.
The African colonial politician (ACP) feigns repulsion towards the hegemonic paradigms of Western civilization. But at the same time, he is completely enamored of the trappings of its aristocracy or elite culture. The ACP blames and caricatures whitey to no end for all that has gone wrong in the world. He convinces the masses that various forms of African socialism are the best way for redressing the problems that European colonialism motivated in Africa. However, as opposed to really being a hard-core African Leftist who actually believes in something, the ACP uses socialist themes as a way to disguise his true ambitions: a complete power grab whereby the "will of the people" becomes completely irrelevant.
Barack Obama is all of the above. The only difference is that he is here playing (colonial) African politics as usual.
In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father -- an eloquent piece of political propaganda -- Obama styles himself as a misunderstood intellectual who is deeply affected by the sufferings of black people, especially in America and Africa. In the book, Obama clearly sees himself as an African, not as a black American. And to prove this, he goes on a quest to understand his Kenyan roots. He is extremely thoughtful of his deceased father's legacy; this provides the main clue for understanding Barack Obama.
Barack Obama Sr. was an African colonial to the core; in his case, the apple did not fall far from the tree. All of the telltale signs of Obama's African colonialist attitudes are on full display in the book -- from his feigned antipathy towards Europeans to his view of African tribal associations as distracting elements that get in the way of "progress". (On p. 308 of Dreams From My Father, Obama says that African tribes should be viewed as an "ancient loyalties".)
Like imperialists of Old World Europe, the ACP sees their constituents not as free thinking individuals who best know how to go about achieving and creating their own means for success. Instead, the ACP sees his constituents as a flock of ignorant sheep that need to be led -- oftentimes to their own slaughter.
Like the European imperialist who spawned him, the ACP is a destroyer of all forms of democracy.
Here are a few examples of what the British did in order to create (in 1914) what is now called Nigeria and what Obama is doing to you:
1. Convince the people that "clinging" to any aspect of their cultural (tribal) identity or history is bad and regresses the process of "unity". British Imperialists deeply feared people who were loyal to anything other than the state. "Tribalism" made the imperialists have to work harder to get people to just fall in line. Imperialists pitted tribes against each other in order to create chaos that they then blamed on ethnic rivalry. Today many "educated" Nigerians, having believed that their traditions were irrelevant, remain completely ignorant of their ancestry and the history of their own tribes.
2. Confiscate the wealth and resources of the area that you govern by any means necessary in order to redistribute wealth. The British used this tactic to present themselves as empathetic and benevolent leaders who wanted everyone to have a "fair shake". Imperialists are not interested in equality for all. They are interested in controlling all.
3. Convince the masses that your upper-crust university education naturally puts you on an intellectual plane from which to understand everything even when you understand nothing. Imperialists were able to convince the people that their elite university educations allowed them to understand what Africa needed. Many of today's Nigerians-having followed that lead-hold all sorts of degrees and certificates-but what good are they if you can't find a job?
4. Lie to the people and tell them that progress is being made even though things are clearly becoming worse. One thing that the British forgot to mention to their Nigerian constituents was that one day, the resources that were being used to engineer "progress" (which the British had confiscated from the Africans to begin with!) would eventually run out. After WWII, Western Europe could no longer afford to hold on to their African colonies. So all of the counterfeit countries that the Europeans created were then left high-and-dry to fend for themselves. This was the main reason behind the African independence movements of the1950 and 60's. What will a post-Obama America look like? 5. Use every available media outlet to perpetuate the belief that you and your followers are the enlightened ones-and that those who refuse to support you are just barbaric, uncivilized, ignorant curmudgeons. This speaks for itself.
America, don't be fooled. The Igbos were once made up of a confederacy of clans that ascribed to various forms of democratic government. They took their eyes off the ball and before they knew it, the British were upon them. Also, understand this: the African colonial who is given too much political power can only become one thing: a despot
“What will a post-Obama America look like?”
Happy, safe and free!
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"Western Intellectuals" --- that's a real laugher.
;-)
Thanks for the entire quote, Diogenesis
****
Freebies, freebies, and more freebies for me.
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I can't agree with that. He marrying a very real American black woman was for other reasons.
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We can't.
I don't know about anyone else, but I never obsessed over his color. It was never even the slightest issue to me, until it became clear to me that he was obsessed by it.
ML/NJ
What this writer is saying is that Americans have been making wrong assumptions about Obama’s ‘roots’ and how they have affected his personality and philosophy.
He has no foundation in traditional two-hundred-year-plus American background as a black member of a community. His association with his skin color goes to Kenya where his father lived except for short periods of study abroad in the USA.
Notwithstanding that millions of his books have been bought - which expose who he is - apparently they have not been read with a critical mind by very many people.
This misdirection of Obama as an “African-American” was an intentional feint by his crew and the media to hide his true inclinations toward autocratic rule. I hope, at least, that his open antipathy to anything European has come as a surprise to the complicit media who are composed mainly of “elite” white folk.
—bflr—
I will use your phrase. It is very descriptive and catchy. Anything that can grab the attention of the not yet attentive is important.
CASTLE COMMUNISTS
Impeach him.
I think the key to understanding him is his actions:
Crotch-saluting our flag
Breaking our economy
Laughing at citizens’ honest questions
Promoting destructive Islam
Slamming our allies
Promoting Socialism
Praising enemies
By their fruits you shall know them. No mystery there.
And Western culture has a tradition seen in the allegory of Hercules and the cleaning of the Augean Stables. King obuma and his collection of Marxist morons are about to see it in action. It’s already started and on Nov. 2 we bring in the frontend loaders and light the pyres.
While I often considered his childhood upbringing to be dysfunctional as a root cause of his narcissism. I neglected to consider the exercise of one writing your own biography. In 0bama’s circumstance of seeking to find himself, identify himself, he embraces post-colonial Africa.
What really goes wrong here is he easily adopts a foreign ideal because is upbringing has left an empty hole in his life. This is the reason for “needing” the biography at such a young age. He has to fill it with something. Once filled that information is embraced and hard to dislodge, no matter how misguided it is.
Instead it manifests itself in what we see today and will continue to get worse with each reward/success it perceives.
I am what I call a multigenerational American. I am melting pot of ethnicity, cultures, etc. While I acknowledge them I am distinctly American. My heart, my roots, my core are with the United States of America.
Now consider 0bama and the Democrats constituencies. All the diversity and the embrace your past culture etc. It is not just 0bama that has fallen from America, but a whole segment of diverse Americans are led astray by the elitists of politics, college, and media.
Thank you for posting this article.
bookmark
We aren’t enforcing it because it end up being a big ugly shooting war which it’s going to be sooner or later...the can is just being kicked down the road so that the constitutional and civil conclits will even be bloodier in the future.
We should start calling him Colonel Obama.
oops’’’conflicts”
The writer has a real point there. IMO, the swing vote that put Obama into office was the white guilt vote, the white voters who still might vote for either party's presidential nominee from one election to another. They just felt so good voting for a black guy in 2008.
As far as the overall article goes, I've often said that Obama has the mentality of an envious and resentful Third Worlder. However that is described, he definitely views American like a Third Worlder who finds it convenient to blame the USA for any and all problems in the world.
Thank you for posting this excellent article.
I think Michelle was just for cover. He has no claim to be accepted as an American black and shares none of their experiences (or even the ethnic background of the majority of them). But he knew that it was crucial to his strategy to be able to present himself as an American black person, and therefore he found somebody he thought would give him the “credentials” he needed.
Black Americans are none too fond of African immigrants, and it was important for him to avoid being associated with foreign Africans so that he could use the black community as his stepping stone to power.
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