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The Big 'What If' (If Obama loses, threat of 'stark rage' by black America)
WaPo ^
| 9/15/08
| Kennedy
Posted on 09/15/2008 4:59:45 AM PDT by pabianice
The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air.
I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., later that decade. Tales of racial oppression and racial resistance were staples of conversation in our household. My father often spoke of watching Thurgood Marshall argue the case ( Rice v. Elmore) that invalidated the rule permitting only whites to vote in South Carolina's Democratic primary. Memories of that story played a large part in producing the tears I shed on the evening Barack Obama won this year's primary in the Palmetto State.
Related memories -- the most haunting being our visit to a D.C. funeral home to pay last respects to Medgar Evers, the courageous head of the Mississipppi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was murdered by a segregationist -- helped reduce me to tears, again, on the night the senator from Illinois accepted his party's nomination as its candidate for president.
Never before have my emotions been so exercised by a political campaign. For one thing, never before has a candidate so fully challenged the many inhibitions that have prevented people of all races, including African Americans, from seriously envisioning presidential power in the hands of someone other than a white American. With intelligence, verve and elegance, Obama has opened the public mind to the idea of a black president and made that idea broadly attractive.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: electionpresident; elections; obama; obamabiden; racism; shootownfoot
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To: autumnraine
I voted for him in the Senate primary, vs. Johnny Isakson.
I will say that Isakson has been better than I expected, but I still think Cain would have been preferable.
121
posted on
09/15/2008 2:45:02 PM PDT
by
FreedomPoster
(Obama: Carter's only chance to avoid going down in history as the worst U.S. president ever.)
To: eccentric
eccentric said:
"My teenage grandchildren have a black father. Therefore they like Obama. " Who does the black father support? He is in the best position to educate his children to judge others by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. If he is unable to do so, then it would be no surprise if your grandchildren are unable to do so.
122
posted on
09/15/2008 3:11:15 PM PDT
by
William Tell
(RKBA for California (rkba.members.sonic.net) - Volunteer by contacting Dave at rkba@sonic.net)
To: Iron Munro
Obama’s wife, Michelle is what I consider to be a real racist. One who hates America too.
123
posted on
09/15/2008 3:12:01 PM PDT
by
B4Ranch
("Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you"--John Steinbeck)
To: B4Ranch
Obamas wife, Michelle is what I consider to be a real racist. One who hates America too. Right on both counts.
124
posted on
09/15/2008 3:48:31 PM PDT
by
Iron Munro
(The Alaskan landscape is littered with the bodies of those who have crossed Sarah Palin)
To: tcrlaf
As one of my old colored friends once said to me about White privilege, “It what you get when you don’t collect food stamps, when you pay your own bills and don’t whine about it.”
He was proud that he’d never been on any assistance programs.
125
posted on
09/15/2008 4:06:19 PM PDT
by
B4Ranch
("Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you"--John Steinbeck)
To: ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY
Her black heart, bless it!
126
posted on
09/16/2008 3:41:27 AM PDT
by
Theophilus
(Abortion: 9/11 Every Single Day)
To: B-Chan
127
posted on
09/16/2008 4:42:59 AM PDT
by
A.Hun
(Common sense is no longer common.)
To: 50sDad
Every February I am educated about dozens of impressive blacks of the past who, rightfully so, earned my respect by advancing science, healing the the sick, and creating Jazz, Rock, Swing, R&B and Gospel. And then I look around today, and see thugs making millions calling women "hoes" and getting shot because after becoming millionaires, they continue to hang with the same loosers and act like petty criminals.
I am appalled at my kids' infatuation with hip-hop. And it's not as though they've had no contact with good music. Before this they enjoyed a wide variety of music, and even liked gaelic and country music. I told them, look, these guys like to act like they're really tough guys and what do they do? They challenge each other to a poetry contest. I draw attention to the lack of melody, the lack of good rhythm, the lack of joy, the over-abundance of anger, the near-complete focus on self-gratification, the degradation of women (the lollipop song, for instance), the hand gestures and body language that look like a neurologically spastic condition, the use of third-world sweatshop labor to make clothing products pushed by the "artists," the way those wearing these clothes have to walk down the street holding the front of their pants to keep them from falling down but only end up looking like they can't keep their hands off their own dicks.
I pointed out that over the centuries hemlines and necklines have gone up and down, that there have been long pants and hip-hugger pants, shorts and short shorts, even pants with the butts cut out. The gamut has been run. The only thing left was to just wear the pants halfway pulled up or halfway pulled down but that that hadn't been done in all these centuries because it didn't look like being dressed, just halfway between getting dressed or undressed. That's not being in fashion; that's just being indeterminate.
So now we have an industry devoted to folks who can't sing, who cannot, for the most part, read music or actually play any musical instruments, who, for the the most part, cannot even rhyme very well, who choose a tent-like clothing ensemble that looks as though a five year old has raided his daddy's college sports wardrobe and his mother's box of costume jewelry, who sport expressions like they're bored, angry, depressed, or in the middle of a painful bowel movement, who choose names like Ludacris, Dr. Dooom, and Fannypack. How could we not expect their fashion sense to be equally defective?
128
posted on
09/16/2008 5:36:01 AM PDT
by
aruanan
To: aruanan
I am appalled at my kids' infatuation with hip-hop...Don't worry, cousin. They'll come around eventually. In a few years they'll hear the old stuff, and it will bring back pleasant memories and make them nostalgic.
129
posted on
09/16/2008 2:44:57 PM PDT
by
FierceDraka
(I'm not against the government. The government is against ME.)
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