"The voters aren't ready for a black president" is not an acceptable arguement this year.

[Ken Burch]

To use that tactic insults every African American in the country. It makes it impossible to ask African Americans to support our ticket in the fall. It tells them "accept that you'll never be fully equal". It means that the dream of racial equality IS lost forever, because if it doesn't come now, it never can.

If you use that arguement, you forever lose the right to claim you support civil rights.

It also insults all white voters. It says "we won't nominate this guy because you are such iredeemable racist pigs that you'll just never ever get it". It will lose us all of their votes because nobody supports a party that denigrates them and disrespects itself.

And it means that whoever we nominate, even if that person still remains electable after such a tactic is used, can never do anything positive for any nonwhite voters, or, for that matter, for anyone other than racists. You can't obtain power by appealing to ugliness and then still do good with that power. If you win with the devil, you spend your term in hell.

If you want to attack Obama on the issues, fine.

If you think he doesn't have the experience, fine.

"We can't nominate Obama because the country's not ready for a black president" is not fine and will never be fine again. To say that is to give up all hope for this country and to be unworthy of victory. IF we say no to him, it will never matter even if we do elect a black president later. It will be too late by then.

Don't surrender to evil. It's that simple.

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. I'm sure all the racists in this country will bend to your will

Don't make me laugh, I'm trying to drink coffee. :P

[Ken Burch]

2. None of the racists would vote for ANY Democrat

If you're racist, you're gonna be right-wing on everything else.

You and I both know that if Obama is beaten by that tactic that our party will have no right to ask African Americans to vote for it and no right to say we support civil rights anymore.

Also, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights act prove that we make the racists "bend to our will" or at least defeat them.

The "not ready for a black president" meme is a meme of surrender and disgrace.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. Are you of the oipinion that only Republicans are racist?

Don't you just wonder if maybe racism knows not political parties or religious affiliations?

As for your meme that the argument for Obama having a lesser chance to win because he is black is a "meme of surrender and disgrace", others will argue it's simply reality and there are numbers and examples to back that up.

I could argue that your meme-on-top-of-a-meme is akin to what one might find coming from a political lemming, and based on a neophyte argument ignorant of the historical record of this country.

[Ken Burch]

4. It we say "the country isn't ready for a black president' this year

That means we're giving up on it ever being ready.

If if doesn't happen now it can't happen in the future.

And no, all racists aren't Republican, but there sure as hell aren't any who'd vote even for HRC.

People who can't handle the idea of a black president, in this day and age, aren't going to be capable of supporting ANYTHING progressive. They won't support health care, they won't support getting out of Iraq, they sure as hell won't support gay rights.
And since the polls show a majority of the American people DO accept the idea of a black president, why even bother with the ones who don't? People like that are a dead loss.


You can't get elected on racist votes and do anything antiracist once in power.

A Democrat who got nominated by saying "the country isn't ready for a black president" would have to be a reactionary disgrace. Don't you see that? And it would mean telling black voters "Your dreams mean nothing to us, and never will".

And don't call me a lemming. I didn't back Obama until after Super Tuesday, when it became clear he was the only candidate remaining in the race who was even vaguely non-conservative.

[Cronus Protagonist]

6. I agree on principle, but the reality of the elective structure is a huge problem

Racism is concentrated in places where they have little contact with the race against which they hate, I think we can all agree that this ignorance is the basis of all racism and bigotry. As the structure of this country's elections stands, several of these highly racist states prevent a truly progressive president from being elected. If it were a popular vote only situation, I'd be in agreement with you, fuck the racists, and Obama is a good man and will likely make a good president too. However, since we cannot change the fact that a successful presidential candidate HAS to win several highly racist states, the fact that a black presidential candidate, even a half black one, has to run inside this system, and the racists ain't going anywhere, he IS at a disadvantage.

That's just a fact, not a meme.

Now, someone who says "America is not ready for a black president" IS stating a meme, because the majority of America surely is ready for it, and I have been all my life, but the fact is that there are several states filled with people who are insulated, bigoted and proud of it who will and can scupper any black candidate if they so choose since they weild disproportionate power under the current elective structure of the country.

We know WE are, but the queston that is truly reality-based becomes then, are THEY ready for a black president?

I wish I could say "yes" without that heavy feeling in my heart that tells me it's a lie.

[Window]

7. Ken, as an Afro-American, I agree wholeheartedly with post, as with

your OP.


Edited to K/R.

Peace:thumbsup:

[Ken Burch]

10. Thanks. Oh, and disregard my second private message.

Good to hear from you.

[Window]

14. Okay.

Peace:thumbsup:

[Ken Burch]

15. It wasn't anything bad, it's just that what I said has now become superfluous.

peace.

[Window]

5. ..

[tavalon]

8. Nor is the argument, that the nation isn't ready for a woman President

For all the bad will spewed between Dems this primary season, one thing that has come out of it is that we will have a black or a woman President this time around. That rocks either way.

[Ken Burch]

11. I agree, but Obama people haven't, as far as I know, been making the arguement

That the country isn't ready for a woman president. Their issue(and remember, I come late to their ranks)has been that she was the establishment centrist candidate and that Obama was the insurgent. I'm confident you'd find Obama people working hard for the ticket if HRC still came from behind and won.

[EffieBlack]

9. Nothing like telling black voters: "We want your votes, we just don't want YOU!"

[Ken Burch]

13. Indeed. And there is a real danger that a chunk of black voters

could begin to drift away from this party if they see it crushing their dreams that blatantly.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Aye!