January 8, 2008
As soon as the results of the Iowa caucuses were announced, the media kept repeating the talking point that democracy and our way of life had come a long way: a black man had won the caucus of a state that is 95 percent white.
That would have been great, but Al Sharpton isn’t running this year.
Despite the Oprah endorsements and the assurances from the media, black people don’t like Barack Obama any more than feminists like Hillary Clinton. There’s a reason the L.A. Times called him the "Magic Negro" - prompting a hilarious spoof on Rush Limbaugh’s show - and it's not a term of endearment.
I'm not trying to say I'm upset he won. Quite the opposite, in fact, as my slogan for '08 is "Anyone but Hillary."
But let's talk about Obama's life for a moment.
Obama was born in Hawaii to a White mother and a Kenyan father. When Obama was 2 years old, his parents divorced, and his father returned to Kenya. Coming from a fatherless household is the last connection Obama has with the stereotypical inner city black community.
Obama’s ancestors weren’t affected by slavery, unless a maternal ancestor happened to be an indentured servant. His father probably wasn’t affected that much by segregation, as he came to this country as a foreign student in Hawaii and continued at Harvard. And that was pre-Affirmative Action.
Obama does not have the life experiences typical of the average black man. How can you understand a group of people you claim to be associated with if you’ve never experienced a day in their life? As rude as Joe Biden's "clean and articulate" quote may have been, it was the final nail in the "Obama's the white man's black" coffin.
I don't mean to sound politically incorrect, but Obama is just as black as I am. I'm sure he's a nice guy, and he seems honest enough, but the fact is he isn't this Martin Luther King Jr. figure clearing the way for future black candidates by fighting the ignorance and oppression of the American electorate.
You want to talk about fighting stereotypes and ignorance? Talk about Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who had to deal with lies about inappropriate relations with Anita Hill.
Talk about Condi Rice (first black woman, second black person and second woman to serve as secretary of state and first woman to serve as national security adviser). She actually faced Jim Crow discrimination in Birmingham, Ala. In addition, her marital status (or lack thereof) is constantly being (openly) questioned in the media. Furthermore, both she and Thomas are called traitors to the black race.
What kind of discrimination did Obama face? The Democrats took one look at this state senator and said, "You know, we feel bad about slavery." So they invited him to be a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Then, after finding out that Hallmark was writing his speeches (and he sounded smart reciting them), they decided to take it a little further. They got him elected to the Senate, helping him win 70 percent of the vote in a year where Republicans won a lot.
But it could have ended there. Liberals could have said, "We made this nothing into a senator. Let's go home."
But that wasn't enough for the "We're sorry for slavery" section of the Democratic Party. They then made him into a presidential candidate. There was a brilliant piece in the New York Sun in late 2006 comparing Obama to a similar white politician. The piece said if Barack Obama were white, he'd be a nothing. No one would consider him for president, especially in the media.
Unfortunately, like most things that are supposed to help blacks (welfare, Affirmative Action, etc.), an Obama candidacy doesn’t really help. More importantly, the party forgot to consult the black community, which apparently doesn’t like Obama because it doesn't feel connected to him.
In fact, the only people who seem to like Obama are middle- and upper-class liberals who feel bad for slavery, something they had nothing to do with. In order to compensate, they aid people who weren’t affected by slavery. And it’s these people who went to the polls in Iowa and delivered an Obama vote.
But please, don’t be surprised when states with more urban populations take one look at this so-called "White Interloper’s Dream" (Rush Limbaugh) and vote for Clinton.
