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Palin needs a history lesson (Richard Cohen flips out)
Washington Post ^ | 11/23/10 | RICHARD COHEN

Posted on 11/23/2010 6:58:09 AM PST by Libloather

Palin needs a history lesson
RICHARD COHEN
Tuesday, November 23, 2010

When I was 11, my father thought it was time to show my sister and me the nation's capital.

**SNIP**

It's appalling that Palin and too many others fail to understand that fact - indeed so many facts of American history. They don't offer the slightest hint that they can appreciate the history of the Obama family and that in Michelle's case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one. Even after they were freed they were consigned to peonage, second-class citizens, forbidden to vote in much of the South, dissuaded from doing so in some of the North, relegated to separate schools, restaurants, churches, hotels, waiting rooms of train stations, the back of the bus, the other side of the tracks, the mortuary, the cemetery and, if whites could manage it, heaven itself.

It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom and, in the Civil War, massacred them if they were captured fighting for the North. And yet if African Americans hesitate in embracing the mythical wonderfulness of America, they are accused of racism - of having the gall to know more about their own experience and history than Palin and others think they should.

Why do politicians such as Palin and commentators such as Glenn Beck insist that African Americans go blank on their own history - as blank as apparently Palin and Beck are themselves?

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: catfight; cohen; dnctalkingpoints; history; idiotorial; liberalbigot; michelle; palin; palinbashing; playtheracecard; pravdamedia; revisionisthistory
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To: a fool in paradise

I’ve heard it said that Muhammed Ali realized how much better off he was living in America after he went to Africa.

It’s all in the way you look at it. I feel sorry that Black people are taught this way. It keeps them down and angry. It’s probably part of the Dem. plan, so unfortunately, it will probably continue.


61 posted on 11/23/2010 8:32:31 AM PST by marstegreg
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To: Libloather
cohen needs an ass whuppin’... I will do it if someone will loan me a full body condom... this prick has aids bigtime.

LLS

62 posted on 11/23/2010 8:40:16 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!)
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To: Psycho_Bunny
Amen and Amen.

Michelle is not nor ever was a slave. Next!

63 posted on 11/23/2010 8:46:55 AM PST by carton253 (Ask me about The Stainless Banner - a free e-zine dedicated to the armies of the Confederacy.)
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To: Libloather

Michelle may have been “more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before” but she didn’t live through anything like her ancestors did. I am sure I would be “more aware of my ‘whiteness’ than ever before” if I were dropped off in certain neighborhoods.

I can’t imagine that an affirmative action black woman (who go a law degree and somehow “lost” it) in this day and age never saw a “proud of her country” moment before her knucklehead husband got elected.


64 posted on 11/23/2010 8:55:27 AM PST by Right Wing Assault (The Obama magic is <strike>fading</strike>gone.)
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To: a fool in paradise
Further information from Wikipedia:
"In 1959, Obama Sr. received a scholarship in economics through a program organised by nationalist leader Tom Mboya. The program offered Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students. Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama Sr.'s early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University. Funds provided the following year by John F. Kennedy's family paid off old debts and subsidized student stipends, therefore indirectly benefiting Obama Sr. and other members of the 1959 cohort."
"Facts are subborn things."

This is more egregious than Hillary claiming to have been named after Sir Edmund Hillary or her famous tale of having been forced to land while "under fire."

I guess Obama "misspoke" like Hillary did.
65 posted on 11/23/2010 8:56:25 AM PST by Sudetenland (TSA - Theatrical Security Affectation)
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To: Libloather

This article says a lot more about Richard Cohen than it does Sarah Palin. For people like Cohen, the glass is always half empty. As if white Americans didn’t know about the evils of slavery. The fact is Michelle Obama was not born a slave and has basically had many things handed to her. A great percentage of Black Americans live better than many middle class whites of the fifties and sixties. There is today a black middle class something that couldn’t be said forty or fifty years ago. Because in this country history doesn’t stand still. Cohen fails to grasp that obviously.


66 posted on 11/23/2010 8:56:49 AM PST by driftless2 (For long-term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: Doc Savage
mutant

Good one!

67 posted on 11/23/2010 8:58:01 AM PST by Right Wing Assault (The Obama magic is <strike>fading</strike>gone.)
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To: Libloather

Democrats and Jim Crow laws. By PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_democratic.html


68 posted on 11/23/2010 9:00:41 AM PST by listenhillary (A very simple fix to our dilemma - We need to reward the makers instead of the takers)
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To: VRWCmember

The founder of FR was Wookie Obama’s great-great-grandpa???

... and that in Michelle’s case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one.

Hmmm, trouble wrapping my head around this one./s/


69 posted on 11/23/2010 9:04:10 AM PST by JerseyDvl (Sometimes the road less traveled.... is less traveled for a reason.)
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To: Sudetenland

So Jackie Robinson(R) is partially responsible for Barry having a son in America?!


70 posted on 11/23/2010 9:13:03 AM PST by a fool in paradise (The establishment clause isn't just against my OWN government establishing state religion in America)
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To: VRWCmember
And if we knew more about Barak's actual ancestry we might know if one of his paternal ancestors

If I'm not mistaken I do believe one of O's great, great someone-or-other on his mother's side was a slave owner......

71 posted on 11/23/2010 9:30:00 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (There's only one cure for Obamarrhea......)
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To: Libloather

The brilliant, really really smart intellectual genius, whose intelligence is incomprehensible, speaks.

/s/

IMHO


72 posted on 11/23/2010 10:00:55 AM PST by ripley
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To: kara37

I’m sure my great-great-great-grandfather had a rough life. In fact, he ended up dying.

Other than that, whatever he did or didn’t do doesn’t really matter a whole lot to me today.


73 posted on 11/23/2010 10:02:57 AM PST by Right Wing Assault (The Obama magic is <strike>fading</strike>gone.)
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To: backwoods-engineer
"Why do politicians such as Palin and commentators such as Glenn Beck insist that African Americans go blank on their own history - as blank as apparently Palin and Beck are themselves? It is Cohen who is blank, not Palin or Beck."

Exactly! And why are the lefties so DETERMINED to miss every point in the place? This is one of my pettest peeves with these people, and one of the major reasons why I don't even attempt to have a discussion with one of them.

74 posted on 11/23/2010 10:04:43 AM PST by redhead (1. Kill early voting. 2. Restore paper ballots everywhere. 3. Demand photo-ID of EVERY voter)
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To: Libloather

“It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom”

Sounds like a good argument for limited government to me! (Don’t these morons ever listen to themselves?) FWIW-as an American of British/Saxon lineage, my ancestors were also enslaved, but I’ve managed to come to terms with the trauma.


75 posted on 11/23/2010 10:25:29 AM PST by Spok ( "Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day." -Isaiah)
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To: Libloather

It’s hardly possible that she is not knowledgeable about the history of African Americans - no Ellis Island for them, immigrants in their colorful native dress waving at the camera.

Apparently Mr. Cohen needs a history lesson himself. Ellis island was opened in the 1890’s. Had Michelle’s relatives come over at that time, they would have gone through Ellis island just like everyone else. The rest of us had no Ellis Island either.


76 posted on 11/23/2010 12:10:33 PM PST by marstegreg
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To: a fool in paradise

She could not be the president of black America nor of Hispanic America.

I guess Obama failed at that too, wasn’t he supposed to change Black Amreica, White America, Hispanic America to the United States of America? I’m pretty sure that was the big message in one of his speeches.


77 posted on 11/23/2010 12:14:30 PM PST by marstegreg
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To: Libloather

Btt


78 posted on 11/23/2010 12:35:37 PM PST by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: Libloather

Did Palin’s great great grandparents not own slaves like Barack’s did?

Is that why she doesn’t understand our history? That, or not have a marxist history prof in college?

BTW, correct response ... “You Betcha!”


79 posted on 11/23/2010 1:23:58 PM PST by WOSG (Carpe Diem)
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To: Libloather
Michelle Obama quickly explained herself. She was proud of the turnout in the primaries - so many young people, etc. Evan Thomas, writing perceptively in Newsweek, thought - as I did - that she was saying something else.

Sarah rightfully focuses upon Michelle's revealing remark that exposes the hostility of the ruling elite. Despite her private feelings, even Michelle will not publicly defend her resentment against the country. Cohen apparently feels equal or greater malice and is not shy about proclaiming it. He is betting that shouts of racism will stop Sarah from shining a light on the unpatriotic hostility of the established elite.

80 posted on 11/23/2010 1:53:41 PM PST by mas cerveza por favor
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