Old Wounds Run Deep - America and Race

[Mizmoon]

Every country has a curse. For many it's religion, like Ireland with Catholics and Protestants, or Iran with Sh'ia and Sunni. In other places like the US, it's race.

What is being done to Obama (and know that I am a Hillary supporter) is that all those old racial issues that remain under the surface are coming home to roost, shall we say. White fears about Black Muslims for example. I bet you anything that if Obama wins the nomination that the GOP visually paints him as a Malcolm X with his close cropped hair and neat suits. Black fears about genocide via AIDS or crack-cocaine will be stirred up. All of that racial rage that is right below the surface will be stirred and at a dangerous time too - when the economy is not all that it could be. Harmony is easier when people feel safe.

I know none of this is groundbreaking. Maybe it's even obvious. But know this - the GOP with their Willie Hortons and the MSM with their stirring up of the OJ trial will tear the scabs off of our national racial wounds and do things, damned things we can't even imagine. If Obama is the nominee, this is just a taste of their first salvo. By the time they're done they will have tried to paint him as an SLA radical ready to kidnap Patty Hearst.

Will it stick is the question.

[rpannier]

1. That ass-clown jeff greenfield

did that 'story' comparing Obama to Ahmadinajad because neither wore a tie with their dress jacket.

[Deja Q]

4. Hillary didn't at her last debate w/Obama. Why can't Jeffie-poo mention that?

Oh, that's sexist and misogynistic, sorry...

[CitizenLeft]

2. I may be naive...

...but I'm hoping that real life problems will trump racism, at least in enough voters' heads so that we get past this and determine that our survival is more important than petty bigotries. I still, even now, have enough faith in people to believe that.

[EFerrari]

8. This is like the third time I've read someone post to the effect

that racism isn't a real life problem.

[Kitty Herder]

13. And I 'm thinking, "What world does this person live in, where race isn't a problem?"

Because it's not a world I'm familiar with.

[CitizenLeft]

24. WTF! I'm black, and I don't need YOU to tell me what world...

I live in. I happen to agree with MICHELLE OBAMA who said herself, last night on CNN, that she has faith in the voters to put aside their differences - EXACTLY what her husband has been saying ever since he announced his candidacy.

Good grief. Stop being so quick to label people. I'm on YOUR side... BOTH your sides.

[CitizenLeft]

23. okay... I know you didn't mean to accuse a black person...

...of... whatever you were inferring, did you? I know you didn't. I said EXACTLY what Michelle Obama said herself last night on CNN before she even said it - and what Obama has said himself: that in the end, people will vote to survive, and not vote their prejudices.

Is there something wrong with what I said? WTF!

[jody]

3. BO cannot escape his Muslim childhood and his adult role in Wright's church -- could cost him GE.

Islam an unknown factor in Obama bid (March 16, 2007, Los Angeles Times)

[Mizmoon]

6. I don't think it's the reality of his "connection to Islam"

It's the vicious swiftboating that will occur. These are the same people who had the nerve to wear band aides with purple hearts on them at the Repuke convention to mock John Kerry. They may flat out - I don't even know - what's the most childish, playground prankish thing they could do? Start calling him Hussain all the time?

[jody]

11. My point is swift-boaters can take a simple fact and distort it with devastating effect. Wright and

the Muslim connection are two such simple facts.

[Texas Hill Country]

5. ummm... iran doesnt really have sunni's... maybe 5% of pop iirc, but i know what u sayin

[kenny blankenship]

7. and they will FAIL

They will probably gay bait him too, as Hillary & supporters are now doing. And that will fail as well.

[Mizmoon]

10. These are the guys who made Max Cleland, a senator who lost three limbs

in Vietnam, look like an unpatriotic traitor.

I admire your faith, but we are dealing with masters of manipulation and it's important to face reality. This is not an argument against Obama's candidacy, it's just a wake up call. "They" have not yet begun to fight.

[jody]

12. What Mizmoon said. n/t

[kenny blankenship]

15. Their time is up.

I live in GA and saw what happened. But the country is sick of people like Bush Rove --and also people in our party who act like them.

[EFerrari]

9. They have a similar menu planned for HIllary.

Whoever we run, they will be pigs. We know that.

[Mizmoon]

14. Hillary - what can they do to her that they haven't already done?

What's left? Seriously? Her family, her past, her record ... there isn't much left to attack her with and she is used to it by now. I didn't intend this thread to be about who would be a better candidate - the whole site is about that these days, but I do think she's more viable because there's little left to attack her with. Who knows what those rotten pricks pull out of their bag of tricks with Obama.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

16. Giustra, Gupta, Burkle, Hsu, and the list keeps growing.

Not to mention sniper fire or whatever lie she wants to pass off next.

[EFerrari]

20. I see it the other way around, then. At least with Obama they'll have to dig.

With the Clintons, all they have to do is recycle.

[cali]

22. First of all, I think your OP is very good indeed.

Secondly, conjuring up old stuff will light up the brains of millions re HIllary. Old doesn't mean not potent. But aside from that there's plenty of new stuff about the Clintons- Gupta, Giustra, what Bill's been up to over the past 7 years, trading favors for donations to the Clinton library, etc.

[NJObamaWoman]

17. If Obama steps down or doesn't get the dem nomination over this fear

than it will prove what I've been saying all along that America is truly not ready for a black president. That America is still a racist old fart of a country as it has ever been. Its just that racism has been hidden to make America appear all nice and shiney which its not.

[Mizmoon]

18. I think like many long marriages

that the issues have not been resolved, they just lay there like elephants in the room.

There is no doubt that our national racial issues are unresolved. Obama's nomination, whether successful or not, might help us get a little closer though. It will not be pretty tho. Kind of like watching those whites pour salt on the blacks at the Woolworth's lunch counters.

[NJObamaWoman]

21. I'm starting to question if anything will ever be resolved.

[ej510]

19. NJObamawoman that is probably the case.