I'd poll you if I knew how to post one :) Please chime in about this racist statement.

[Mira]

Yesterday, in a last minute endorsement of John McCain for President, the Winston-Salem NC Journal in it's awkwardly worded explanation said this about Sen. Obama:

"Regardless of how this election comes out, he has shown the world that America is still the land of opportunity, a place where even the son of a multiracial couple, one of the pair being an immigrant, can rise to enormous heights".

Sidenote: I wrote a LTE in protest and cancelled my 40 year subscription.

But, since yesterday, the racist and paternizing overtones of that sentence won't leave me alone.

If I were black, I would simply be demoralized. I would consider the unprecedentedly perfect and brilliant campaign we have witnessed; yet it is still not enough to overcome.

The word "even" simply rots my gut.
And we are all immigrants.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Thinking that an insult is a compliment is a sure sign of ignorance.

I guess the editors did not know any better...

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. It was an insult wrapped in a 'compliment' and that is what made it so bad.

[JDwho]

13. My thoughts exactly! Blue State Native.

[RagingInMiami]

2. Considering he is the first multiracial candidate to get this far

I really don't see the racism in that line.

I know we like to pretend that race doesn't matter but this is the United States and it has always mattered. Barack is changing all that, one vote at a time.

[LisaL]

3. I think "even" is what makes it questionable.

[RagingInMiami]

6. I think you're looking too much into it

But I know I'll be in the minority here.

[Mira]

9. Might that be the insidiousness of racism, that you can gloss over if

it does not pertain to you, or
that you can't notice unless you are "Black" a "Woman" an "immigrant" etc.
(I'm two out of those three, you guess which two :) :)

[RagingInMiami]

21. I am a Hispanic son of a Colombian immigrant

And I didn't get offended by it. It is the truth. We have not seen anybody but white males run this country so it's not inaccurate or offensive for a paper to say that "even" a multiracial man can make the presidency because before Obama, it just wasn't happening.

[vixengrl]

10. That's the word that does it for me too--

like "Even the shoeless and backwards!" or something. "Even the dubiously sired and hastily-raised!" "Even self-befouled tatterdemalions!" "Even the people who lack country-club memberships!" There is a perceptible "sniff" from a long nose frequently looked down, if I've heard that word "even" correctly.

It sort of implies: he is who he is, and he got as far as he got, and America should win a prize...we let everybody *think* they can be president.

[Mira]

15. Oh I so like your command of putting thinking into language

[Raineyb]

18. Very well put

Any compliment that starts with "Even <insert group here> can <insert action here> in this country" is not really a compliment. I'm not even sure why this is considered a point for debate. Is it not obvious?

Regards

[yardwork]

23. The paper endorsed McCain.

[TahitiNut]

4. Barack Obama, Sr. was NOT an immigrant.

He was here on a student visa and did not announce or demonstrate any intention to reside permanently in the U.S.

I really wish folks would be a bit more diligent in the terms they use.

[Terran]

12. That struck me too

It's as if the person who wrote doesn't actually know the circumstances of Obama's parentage. Embarrassingly bad, for them.

[medeak]

5. don't get your anger

sounds fine to me particularly from NC

[Mira]

8. I might just be overly sensitive - your comment

about "particularly from NC" strikes me as judgmental too.
We are all evolving and the Jesse Helms NC no longer exists.
I hope very much we can turn blue this time and prove it.

[medeak]

17. oh brother

am from the south originally. No judgement intended jeeeeesh

[Raineyb]

20. How about if I put it this way

That crossword puzzle was rather easy to solve; even someone from North Carolina should finish it quickly.

Would you still think that the use of the word "even" is innocuous?

Regards

[charlie]

11. Sorry, this is off topic

But I've got to say they've given one of the weirdest rationales for an endorsement I've ever seen -- that the inept bumbler on the campaign trail will morph into straight talkin' two-fisted John McCain if we put him into office. It'll only cost the presidency to find out he won't be the idiot we're seeing today :crazy:

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/oct/30/election-08-president/opinion/

[Mira]

14. You are only enlarging the picture., I posted the ridiculously

worded endorsement yesterday, which in essence was supporting the McCain he once was to them before he deteriorated into the specimen we are now confronted with. One that will never ever return to it's original dimensions, because his time on earth is running out.

[orleans]

16. i'm responding to your op, but i wanted you to see this

i call that sort of thing a "back-handed compliment"

& TahitiNut is right--barack's father was not an immigrant

[eowyn_of_rohan]

19. "Rots my gut"

That says it. I feel that way too, that there are people out there who would even think or talk that way. Im a whitey but it demoralizes me too.

[yardwork]

22. Unfortunately, a common attitude in the Winston-Salem area.