People see in Obama what they want to see - that's a blessing and a curse

[CHIMO]

Last Tuesday a 25-year-old white student was wandering around Union Square in New York when she was set upon by four black teenage girls who pushed her, pulled out her earphones, and spat in her face. She was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "Obama is my slave" that she had bought from Apollo Braun's Lower East Side store in Manhattan.

This isn't the first controversial T-shirt Braun has printed about the Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama. His body of work includes such slogans as "Jews Against Obama", "Obama = Hitler" and "Who Killed Obama?" - which he told New York's Metro was his most popular yet.

When questioned about the message that he is putting out, Braun insists these are not his views but those of the rest of America. "For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. People think America is not ready for a black president," he said. Not people like him, he says, insisting that Obama's race is "the only thing I like about him. He opens the door for other minorities" - but "ordinary Wasps", with whom, it turns out, Braun has more in common than he cares to admit. "I can't stand Obama," he says, comparing him to Hitler, because "he is a Muslim".

With the exception of Angela Merkel, riding high on folksy popularity, he will meet leaders (Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy) who are not much more popular than Bush. So Obama's arrival gives Europeans a chance to be passionate about politics - a feeling they have not had for a long time. In Obama, they pine for something they have singularly failed to produce - a politician who inspires them and a politics of hope.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/21/barackobama.uselections2008

[yourout]

1. Unfucking belivable that there are still nut jobs like this running around New York.

[Bicoastal]

3. It should be pointed out (by a resident of Brooklyn)...

...that in many parts of the city, T-shirts with Obama's name or face on them are almost as ubiquitous and popular as Michael Jordan gear was a decade ago.

[Bicoastal]

2. Obama is like Hitler because he's a Muslim?

...I can't begin to describe how many things are wrong with that statement.

[ulysses]

4. *snort*

He must be the only "radical Islamist" whose biggest scandal to date has arisen from membership of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

[grasswire]

5. we see that right here on DU

People project their own hopes and the traits they admire and seek onto him. It always happens to a charismatic leader, and doubly so for Obama since he has such a short record of public attention. He's a blank slate. People can dream he is whatever they want him to be.

Of course, the certainty is disillusionment down the road for some. He's just a human, and a politician who must make compromises. Some people will be disappointed.

I wish people could be more discerning and realistic. I recall how the freepers colored Bush with every hope they had, and most of their hopes were unrealistic or self-deceit.

I remember that the women of freerepublic had/have a daily photo thread of Bush photos where they would gush over his manly attributes and his personal habits. They would project onto him the traits their own husbands did not possess. In their eyes, he was gentle, competent, loving, strong, romantic, an outstanding father and companion, etc. etc.

It was very creepy.

I've seen some of the same blind adulation here with Gore, with Kerry, with Patrick Fitzgerald, with Olbermann, and with Obama. It's a disservice to the object of their gushing. I always speak out against it.