Obama's White Men: Do They Hear Something Blacks Don't? (BAR)

[katty]

more: http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=537&Itemid=1

Obama's White Men: Do They Hear Something Blacks Don't? (link/plenty of comments)

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"His strategy from the very beginning has been to flip the historical script by appealing directly to the most backward demographic in electoral politics."

Tuesday's Democratic primaries saw Barack Obama racking up over 60 percent of the white male vote in Wisconsin, riding an unprecedented historical demographic anomaly that will likely send him to the White House - barring a third consecutive general election theft by the Republicans. It appears Hillary Clinton's goose is cooked.

Once whites demonstrated their willingness to vote for a "certain type" of Black man, in Iowa back in January, it was a foregone conclusion that African Americans would line up in overwhelming numbers behind the Illinois Senator. Before then, all that had held back the tides of Black mass commitment to Obama's candidacy were lingering doubts that whites would support any "type" of Black person's elevation to the nation's highest office. When that dam broke, the African American celebration began. After 400 years in slave hell and Jim Crow purgatory, we've finally got a chance! Or so the crowd believes.

Obama wasn't taking any chances. His strategy from the very beginning has been to flip the historical script by appealing directly to the most backward demographic in electoral politics: white males. This "white male strategy" - smelling eerily of a previous Republican "southern strategy" - required constant assurances to white men that Obama's run would signal the end of race as a point of political contention in the United States. No longer would whites, especially males, be compelled to answer for their privileged status. A 40-plus year annoyance was nearly over, since Blacks had "already come 90 percent of the way" to equality. Obama told them so.

[provis99]

1. This Glen Ford sounds like a clueless tool

Well, Mr. Ford, you got us pinned down. The truth is, the only reason us white guys are voting for Obama is because he's half-white, so we really think of him as a redneck like us.

Now, does that sound any stupider than everything Ford wrote?

God forbid that there are white guys out there who actually believe that Obama would make a great leader.:sarcasm:

[MADem]

2. My, that is a pretty stark assessment, isn't it? K/R for debate and discussion

I hope we'll see some substantive discussion, other than "This guy is a HATER and a RACIST" (a black racist, he'd have to be....).

I've always regarded BHO as a tad more conservative than HRC, myself.

...Reagan-loving whites - especially the white men who have always led the "backlash" against real and perceived African American gains - found themselves wooed by a Black man who understood their sense of revulsion at "the excesses of the Sixties and Seventies." Wow! That's the kind of change we've been waiting for, exclaimed increasing numbers of white males. A new day beckoned, free at last of psychological harassment from the likes of Reverends Jesse and Al.

"No longer would whites, especially males, be compelled to answer for their privileged status."

Obama is a world-class wooer. His white male wooing is made much easier by the fact that those who consider themselves his "sisters" and "brothers" demand nothing whatsoever from him. Just come home when you get ready, brother. Obama is free to concentrate his attentions on the hard-to-get demographics, especially white men with their peculiar notions of "change." No need for Obama to promise the hood a damn thing, except that he'll cut a dashing figure in the Oval Office and make the homefolks proud that he's there, symbolically representing them.

Republicans and GOP-leaning "independents" (meaning, deep-dyed whites) are crossing over in herds to vote for Obama. They've gotten the message: happy days are here again, when the darkies smiled and were careful not to hurt our feelings by telling the truth. That's the kind of "change" we've always "hoped" for, by golly!

The white liberal/left, ineffectual and geographically scattered, are drawn irresistibly to the Black man who regales them with sweet nothings - literally, nothing in the way of the concrete policies for peace and social justice they claim to champion. His presence in their midst is enough. Besides, Obama is someone who is "capable of forging a progressive majority," they say.

That's a strange concept, since Obama doesn't act like a progressive, or claim to be one. But he has no problem with folks gathering around him. He's a real party guy.

[Diogenes2]

4. Substantive discussion? Is the word "ridiculous" allowable?

Doesn't "act" progressive? Senator Obama's entire political CAREER is progressive. He spent 10 years in the "hood" after law school helping the underprivileged. His voting record is far more progressive (some would say "more to the Left") than Senator Clinton's. This pundit or whatever he thinks he is, is spinning some kind of personal fantasy, it sounds to me, out of some kind of jealousy or envy or resentment of the "dashing figure" Senator Obama presents to him. I call capital B Bullshit on the idiotic, totally made-up scenario touted by this cynical individual.

[MADem]

7. He spent two years as a community activist, several years as a civil rights and property attorney

at a private law firm where his "billable hours" rate (and you can do an hour's worth of work in much less) was a hundred and sixty five dollars an hour, and he taught college. He did a lot of legal work with the city government and got to know a number of politicians while so doing, dealing with public housing issues. A mere six of those hours were billed to Tony Rezko. He also served in the State Legislature after he left that law firm (he realized that he could not do both after a few months).

He didn't spend "ten years in the 'hood." TWO, sure. Ten, no.

:eyes:

Well, I guess we aren't going to have that substantive discussion, since you don't even know the candidate's CV.

[Demeter]

6. As the 60's Have Been Over for 37 Years Now

Could the white Reagan voters please exit the time warp and proceed to the next exhibit?

[AGirl]

9. K and R

[Justitia]

3. What a nasty, offensive article. Another "he's not black enough for me" screed. -eom

[bemildred]

5. I guess I don't understand what this guy wants us to do?

Who are we supposed to vote for? Would he approve if us white guys voted against Obama because of his color? Yet he seems to feel we are doing something wrong in voting for him regardless of his color. I don't know about other people, Obama wasn't my first choice, but I have no reluctance about supporting him. Is that wrong? What does the writer want? I think the writer is stuck in a political rut and doesn't see it. He's essentially accusing Obama of adopting Nixon's "southern strategy" if I read him right, of selling out, which is kind of stupid on it's face. Maybe the "southern strategy" doesn't work anymore in the ruins of Bush-world, and that will put a lot of these political pundits out of work. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

[readytoblowagasket]

8. I have to respect Glen Ford for speaking out about Barack

but I think this particular article is fairly inscrutable without any background info.

I recommend this interview Glen Ford did with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/9/barack_obama_and_the_african_american

Ford is arguing that whites (males in particular) are flocking to Obama because Obama doesn't hold whites accountable for any historic misdeeds against African Americans. I think Ford is right about that. To make matters worse, Obama has characterized the civil rights struggle for African American equality as 90 percent complete. Understandably, such a claim sets Ford off.

For reference, here's Obama's March 4, 2007 speech from Selma, Ala., where he says:

The previous generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there. We still got that 10% in order to cross over to the other side.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/03/obamas_selma_speech_text_as_de.html

[unc70]

10. Same speech Obama "misleads" timeline on his father

That Selma speech is where Obama misrepresents the reasons the Kennedy Foundation brought his father from Kenya and paid for his education in the US. Obama implies that the marches in Selma and Birmingham somehow led to his father coming to the US; that is obviously not possible because Barack the son was born before those marches. I suspect that Obama was trying to overcome the concerns by some in the Black community that he wasn't really "Black enough" by trying to make a connection between the events of the civil rights movement and his family, but it really is a stretch and not accurate. Particularly with his family story, Obama does not allow anything to intrude on a compelling narrative.

His father actually came to the US in 1959 at age 23, leaving his pregnant wife, Kezia, and their first child. He then left a two-year-old Obama to attend Harvard. Soon after the marches in Selma, the father left Harvard and returned to Kenya with his third wife to take a position as a senior economist with the government. He had two more children with Kezia and two with Ruth.

Others have discussed how Obama is able to appeal to whites ("such a polite young man", "not angry", "non-threatening", "not tied to the past", "doesn't act like we owe him something"), partly because his family had never been part of the "Black experience" in American, never experiencing slavery, or even Jim Crow.


"He was the bravest of them all"

- Gene Pitney "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence"