Wonkette
Oh poor St. Barack of Obama, the evil media has him in one of their traps! You know, the one where there's a controversy over racist comments, and then you have to explain them away so many times that, eventually, you'll utter something off-key and turn a racial scandal into a Race War. One lucky interviewer snagged a fine out-of-context quote from Barry today, involving his Kansas "white grandmother," the one Barry eulogized as a racist in his speech Tuesday. Today, Barry explained to Philly's WIP radio that his grandmother was an example of the "typical white person," in this regard.
Easy, Barry — your racist white granny hasn't been "bred" into any of our "experiences":
...The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction that's been been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it...
Gotta love the "uh" that follows "typical white person" — Barry's a smart one and picked up on that slip immediately. His candor is appreciable enough, and most people are going to be saying Obama called typical white people racist (half-true). But isn't the problem more that his preacher's statements offended people, and the more he speaks out about understanding and transcending instead of denouncing, the more his thoughtful reaction comes across as a lecture? Barry has limited experience with the media, since he rarely engages them. There's not much more he can say about Jeremiah Wright, so he shouldn't.
Comments
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This is okay for Barry, because noone wants to think of themselves as typical, so he didn't offend any actual white people...
...except Paultards with tatoos, who think of themselves as quite typical, and think everyone else is insane.
I'm a typical white person. If I see someone on the street I don't know (which happens every day since I live and work in the city), I jump up and down, wave my arms, and ululate. That's just the nature of race in our society.
[stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com]
I think this may help define a "typical" white person.
if only i had the balls to tell millions of people that theyre all racist asses...
i really wish obama would stop speaking to the media as if they were adults.
Mystery solved! Geraldine Ferraro is Baracks grandma.
The "uh" was short for "uh, shit," as in "Uh, shit, this thang is cooked!"
I thought it was common knowledge that most typical white grandmothers have a swastika tattooed on their knees.
The typical white person who sees somebody on the street he/she doesn't know would offer them $20 and give them a bj.
White people are not racist, we're not! Not, not, not, not!
That Barack Point is positively Sarko-esque.
Yep, I guess that these three words will be enough for a full-on media wide takedown of his entire speech . Kill me now and get it over with because I am not going to make it until November.
That's why there's so little dialogue about race, Senator -- it's too easy to paint yourself into a corner. But don't worry, it'll dry soon, and in the meantime maybe somebody can toss you a sandwich.
Like Colbert, I do not see the color of your skin.
I am sitting at a computer.
He should keep his comments to something less controversial, like religion.
Ahhh, the real flaying has begun. By the time the general rolls around, Hillary will have used him like a scratching post and people will be so sick of the Ds, they'll figure, "what the fuck, why not McCain? We're used to warmongering craven white guys."
Then there's the typical republican...
I love BO for giving the race speech, if only because it prompted Keith Olbermamn's own strained admission about his own horribly racists grandfather to Rachel Maddow. Hilariously awkward.
I think Barry was just bored of this whole "winning over the electorate" thing so he decided to "Get America Right with Race". That or he is just super non-confrontational and thought addressing the nation would be easier than sending Wright a text message.
I'm glad that someone finally caught him saying the word "white." Nailed!
This is fucking tiresome. No matter what he says, people are gonna jump all over it. Why? Our country is still racist. It was when it was founded, it was during the Civil War, it was during the Civil Rights movement and it is today. The thought that this stellar man has to jump through hoops to try to win over working class white men in order to win is a joke. It's Willie Horton all over again. It's fathering a black child yet again.
There are folks who benefit from roiling up the racial divide and they will do it and continue to do it, even if they think it's bullshit themselves. Because there is a segment of our population who will never let a non-white get beyond them.
The speech was magnificent. It was profound, honest, candid, courageous. But some people don't give a fuck, because they would rather close their minds than open them. Do you wonder why Rev. Wright isn't blindly loving America in his sermons?
I am a huge honky for Barack!
I guess I always assumed that everyone was a racist to some degree. Everyone I've met and gotten to know well has been. I thought the whole point wasn't to try to wish it away but to work through it and still accomplish what needs to be done. But I'm just a white Cheesehead, what do I know.
It's a fear of big penis thing, huh?
I realize that I'm old school, but I'm a year younger than Obama and I was raised that you shouldn't use race to describe someone. It's proper to say "te kid in the plaid shirt and jeans", but it's not correct to describe them by race unless it's a box on somebody's form.
I realize that the younger generation has had no problems with using these descriptors, but the more frequent use of "white" and "black" does seem to go against an entire generation's tendency to try and appear capable of completely ignoring such things.
So, then the question becomes, do I disown a candidate because he makes stereotypical racial remarks that make me cringe?
@Pupster: I'm white and I am starting to hate white people. All you need to do is go look at the comments section of any article about Obama in WaPo or NYT and it makes you want to hurl. No wonder Limbaugh got rich- we are a nation of IDIOTS!
"Work through it." Have you been listening to the pundits and reading the papers since the speech? So far, nobody seems to want to work through it. They want to exploit it.
Obama tried to be complex and nuanced, speak in grownup terms. But since then, the discussions couldn't be more base and reductive. They're doing it right now. I'm listening to the MSNBC boneheads.
This is sad. I'm sad for our society right now.
My grandmother was a bitchy dinner host who hated pigeons and made bad spaghetti sauce. But I love her even long after her death, and won't be repeating her mistakes during my Presidency.
My grandmother was from Indiana farm country, born in 1904, and referred to black people as "darkies." My mother referred to the biracial child down the street as "the oreo." My dad makes regular use of the "n" word. My dad's second wife told my Jewish spouse that someone tried to "jew her down." *Sigh.* I would say they were all typical white people. I'm also pretty sure I was switched at birth.
Wonkette says, "Barry's a smart one", as if the typical black pol isn't smart?
[www.attytood.com]
I don't know about that "typical" white people statement. Because people grew up in that era where such remarks were socially acceptable doesn't mean they subscribe to that way of thinking. Now, if someone said, "typical black person," what image pops into your head? Do generalities and stereotypes make you racist? That was a dumb thing to say, not because of the political ramifications, but that it is no less offensive than the same statement made about a black person-- and more importantly, it is no more true.
It's not the nature of race in our society, as Barry would have it; it's only a normal response to a potential threat. I grew up in an all-white, industrial town that was all on the wrong side of the tracks. We were mostly working-class, with a sizable minority of non-working, recidivist-criminal class, and assorted punks, drunks, thieves, and hoodlums. You learned early to look out for trouble, and to deal with it the best way you could.
Much of the discussion of race could use some consideration of the role played by the factors related to the economic and social class.
Trash is trash, no matter what color the crayon.
I think it's atypical when I don't scare the shit out of White ppl...
If a woman on the elevator doesn't clutch her purse when I get on I yell at the top of my lungs to get the point across.
A typical white candidate polls like this...
Don't worry, Barry. John McCain's mom hates Mormons.
@OreGONE: I've pretty down about this whole thing and then you brought up big and penis... allow me to add Obama...feeling much better now!!!
My grandmother was a typical Black woman who would whip your ass!!!
Many people with exclusively Western European ancestry who live in small towns and rural areas in the Midwest go for days without seeing, much less talking to, people primarily of African ancestry. When they do see the latter, it is on the network or cable news, and the coverage only reinforces their long held views on race.
Future civil rights marches should focus not on major cities but on the rural Midwest, or maybe not.
@Complexnegro: Yes, but I'll bet that she didn't have a big penis.
My husband's relatives, seven states away, got drunk last Friday night and called him to talk about the "nigger". They will be visiting soon and I keep repeating to myself: Under no circumstances, drink with them and/or discuss politics.
I'm very lucky because my lovely blue collar parents never, ever disparaged anyone in racial or ethnic terms. "Nigger" and "spic" have never been in my vocabulary, not even in my mind.
Sorry. No snark.
@Final: i love you
@palmbeachmaven: In fairness, they could have been talking about any black person. I understand they number in the tens these days.
I was actually at a business lunch when one of the fellows when off on how everything was going to hell and if Obama got elected it would only get worse when he let all the terrorists in.
Surprising that crap came out in a business setting, but you should have seen his coworkers shut him up quick.
I was going alone with Barry's summary of the status of the race problem until I saw how prevalent the knucklehead response was. Now I think Barry's underestimated the problem.
@Godless Liberal:
You are 100% correctumundo. My quote marks around "nigger" were inappropriate since I have never heard these people refer to any black person as other than a nigger. "The Nigger" would have been a better choice.
Wait, some of you other honkeys don't/didn't grow up around people who were a little loose with "Niggy The Magical N-word" and it's casual permutations?
@Motortruck: Quite a few white people presume any black man they see walking down the street, presuming he is not wearing a tophat and tails to indicate he is a billionaire, is possibly a threat. They (we) broadly expect police and other security to protect them (us) from these 'threats'.
The scariest black man in America is Justice Thomas. He hates me and every thing I believe in even though I concluded that Ted Kennedy was a big, fat buffoon and Anita Hill was the dumbest lawyer on the face of the planet during his confirmation hearings. Nothing I could do or say would make Clarence Thomas like me or treat me fairly ever again.
Well, penis in a whore, this country's got some reckoning to do. If we get cracking we'll have her figured before the troops are home in 12008.
I keep hearing about those white women that supposedly cross the street when they are alone and come across an African American man. You know, the ones with all of those "stereotypes" in their heads.
Newsflash! Those women? STEREOTYPES.
The thing that jumped out at me in reading his autobiography, was how much Obama's story was shaped by race and by his questions about his own identity. It seems a bit disingenuous to talk about transcending race when so much of his focus has been on his identity as a black man (as he defines himself). It will be quite the Shakespearean tragedy if Obama's search for a place in the black community and his desire to, essentially, prove his "blackness" and embrace an Afrocentric theology ends up being the very thing that destroys his ambitions.
@PutinMuscles: LOL and I love you back.
@rose0red: Oh no, they're very real. But women I can honestly understand when they do it. It's still insulting on a certain level. One: because I'm not a criminal but I'm treated like one. Two: because if I'm about to rob you jay walking isn't going to stop me. Seeing a man pick up the pace and clutch his man bag is far more entertaining though.
you have to keep a sense of humor about it or you'll go crazy.
I think anyone who has to deal with people of different races and social classes in close proximity, at high frequencies who doesn't hold a few stereotypes in mind is lying. (Anecdotal) I live in a bad section of an ungentrified, dangerous town and I treat certain minority categories (esp. groups of poor teens etc.) with a dab of prejudice, especially at night. I get fucked with if I don't. It's tiresome, and after being fucked with many, many times, I instinctively the street, pat my wallet and do ugly stuff like that.
Of course I know there are plenty of macroscale demographic, cultural and political factors at play, but if I don't act like a racist asshole me, husband or one of my kids will get hurt.
@Final: Ah, sorry it insults you. If it makes it any better I steer the hell away from ANY man on the street, including those with man bags.
You're ALL equally potentially criminal in my mind.
@KiKiRiKi: "tiresome, and after being fucked with many, many times, I instinctively the CROSS street, pat my wallet and do ugly stuff like that."
@KiKiRiKi: CROSS the street.. see I need affirmative action
It's stuff like this that makes me soooooooo glad I don't vote.
Its funny how folks talk about THEIR gross generalizations when Obama was expressing HIS gross generalization: TYPICAL WHITE FOLKS!
Well, as a Republican, I am just here to enjoy the show.
Denver is going to make Chicago 1968 look like a walk int he park... Hee hee...
I think he meant she was not wholly untypical among white people. At least that's what it means to me in context.
But I see in this thread there is a genuine conversation about race going on, and that's cool.
@maikur: Nawh it's not going to be that bad at all. I'm in Denver. The WTO Conference in Seattle was far worse then the G8 Summit here in Denver...
I'm just wondering how many Republicans are going to vote for the Dem. Nominee come Nov.since the Right is almost tearing itself up as bad as the Left.
Wait, it was supposed to read, "Obama Says White Person Racist Grandma was Typical Kansan." But how can we be sure she lived in a trailer??
@Final:
Barry had the opportunity for crossover votes prior to this preacher thing. No more.
As a Korean-American, I would also like to put the racism in the Asian and Latino communities against Black people on the table. Some douchebag Asian guy actually wrote an article in Asian Weekly or something about why he hates Black people.
Also, candidly, I'd like to point out that Black Americans are the most politically intelligent ethnic group in the country. This is the real well-spring of experience that Obama has for himself to draw upon to bring the country together in the post-modern fashion -- through gradual building of consensus across all sectors of society.
@maikur: What did you think about his speech yesterday?
I took his statement to mean, typical, as in not a racist, but still uncomfortable around black people as they aren't a regular part of her world.
Recognizing a racial divide is not the same as saying everyone is racist. At all.
Whoa. Barry definitely looks like he could use a cigarette.
[rawstory.com]
Richardson endorses Obama
Speaking as the Platonic Form of a white person, it follows by self-predication that I am also white, but the whiteness I share with Obama's grandma is predicated on the existence of a "Third Man," or secondary whiteness, and the whiteness of that whiteness likewise, ad infinitum.
Luckily for Obama, the infinitude of us whiteys spend all our time arguing each other out of existence, and none of us has ever voted in a U.S. election.
"There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." - the Reverend Jesse Jackson, as quoted in US News, 3/10/96.
Obama's white granny used to talk like Jesse Jackson and that was hurtful. But he forgives her for it.
Does that mean he'll forgive me for voting for Hillary?
Looks like the hope ship's taking on a little water, eh? Hopefully none of his connections with the "weather undergrond" people surfaces that might take a lot of uh's to explain.
Honestly, I'm a Clinton supporter...but this is the most likable I've ever found him.
He could've handled the Wright situation better. One statement would've sufficed. I found the entire "let's talk about the whole history of race in America" speech rather obnoxious.
By the by, although clearly incendiary and somewhat divisive, nothing Wright said was new discussion among black people or all that incorrect theoretically.