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11/06/2008: "Racists successfully vote in new US president"

We media monkeys will look very silly indeed if President Obama behaves in the manner predicted of him by one lady voter I saw interviewed on TV. She said that as soon as he got in the White House he would 'put on a turban and start shooting the white folks'. She was a McCain supporter, I believe, from somewhere like Toilet Duck, Arkansas. You have to hope that she's wrong. The TV news programmes came up with a dingbat like her pretty much every evening, a little spurt of racism from Hicksville which will have had the effect of flinging a few more white votes the way of Obama as people recoil instinctively from bigotry and crass stupidity.

Race has not been a single factor in this election, it has been many factors. To hear the British correspondents talk you might think the only thing that mattered was the so-called 'Bradley effect', when a black Democrat was expected to win in California but did not do so because white voters switched at the last moment for reasons which were perceived to be racist. There will have been some of that, I suppose, this time around (especially among Hispanics in the Rocky Mountain states, it would seem). Meanwhile, the Republicans employed, from time to time, a racism-by-stealth strategy, Sarah Palin contrasting Obama with something she called 'Real America'. And then there's the little-remarked-upon racism of African-American voters. The Bradley effect would not occur to such an extent this time around, we were told confidently, because America had grown up and would not vote on racial lines.

Well, quite a lot of it did. Some 97 per cent of African-Americans voted for the black candidate and I think it is fair to surmise that many of them did so largely because of the colour of his skin. This, however, is something we are expected to be thrilled about, for some strange reason. The BBC News was never happier than when showing black voters energised by the prospect of giving whitey a good whupping. When the issue of race rears its head, weird things start to happen to logic.

[ It's the Obama Banana Republic! ]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2577126/is-barack-obama-really-black-actually-im-not-so-sure.thtml

Replies: 3 Comments

on Tuesday, November 11th, Emily said

Well, I did not vote for him based on race at all. I voted strictly on the issues at hand. I'm much more open to socialism than most, and the moment right-wingers started yelling about "socialism", my eyes lit up. Aside from that, I don't believe the War in Iraq is constitutional. That is not to say he won't go into Afganistan and make Iraq out of that one, but...I couldn't bear the stale bleak policies of McCain. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I never trust any politician - they all care about the same thing in the end - making sweet sweet love with big companies that screw us over. HOWEVER, despite possibilities, I dearly hope that Obama will want to be re-elected in 2012. That means he will have to implement at least some pro-active policies in order to gain support of the independent thinkers.

I understand why African American voted for him in such large number. Doesn't make it right. But I bet that if it was someone from the more modern Nazi Party (for the sake of argument) - a large percentage of Nazis would vote for that candidate. Not saying all, but a large number. It's the way human psychology works: we're naturally pre-disposed to like people who are similar to us.

I'm Jewish (oh yeah, why am I on this site again, lol?) but I like to attempt to understand all ideologies out there. Most people are too - what's the word - afraid? Unwilling? There is a better word, I'm sure.

Because if we spend most of our time trying to disagree with each other, no common ground can ever be met and the world will remain the shit-hole that it is for most of us. And all of us are responsible for that world. Everyone. Me. You. Us. Them.

What concerns me most is that folks like to talk in "sound-bites." Any ideology is bound to get lost within that and ends up getting misconstrued.

What I am surprised about is people constantly hating each other, wanting to be apart from each other, fearing each other. We could do so many great things if we just stop that obscene pattern of negativity.

It's naive to think that someday people will be judged on the content of their character rather than where they come from. I know. Is that worth fighting for? I'd like to think so. I saw this neo-nazi the other day. We were waiting for the bus. He was looking at me and I could tell what he was thinking. I thought my own thoughts too. Then the bus approached. Out came an old lady who accidentally slipped and fell down the steps through the exit door, hurt her arm badly. We both ran down to her and helped her up, he got her a cup of water from nearby Deli and I called 911. We helped her to the hospital with the ambulance. Then, we both had a cup of coffee. Talked about things. I realized that even when it seems rational to judge someone based solely on their beliefs and tattoos, it doesn't mean that there's a certain personality trait that accompanies those. I don't know what he thought. I'm sorry that lady got hurt, but not sorry I had this experience.

There was no usual internet-like anger or passionate exclamations on his part, there was no defensiveness on mine. He took my number and called me later, asked me out. He was really cute and funny. Wouldn't take no for an answer. Against my better judgment, I said "yes".

We went out for several months and had the best time - had a lot of things in common. We talked philosophy and politics, literature... Sex was off the wall amazing. We did it 8 times one night/morning. Everything changed when I met his friends. I was aware what I was setting myself up against, but he assured me they'd be respectful. They were - in his presence. Alone with them, and it was like night and day. I was heavily intimidated and even threatened, but I never told him about it. He met my friends too and they were not quiet about their disapproval either to both of us, so I decided to not have them meet anymore. His best friend said that if I don't leave him alone - well - he pointed out that he knew where my family of "kikes" lived and so did his buddies, including the very unhappy EX girlfriend. I took them at their word and decided that my family might be in danger. I broke up with him the next day and he was very upset. I was really upset too. He suspected his friends might have had something to do with it, but I couldn't say anything. I said we were just too different. I couldn't ask him to give up his friends for me. That would be too selfish, and he couldn't ask me to give mine up for him. He calls me sometimes. And I want to call him too. I was asking myself if I did the right thing and gave up. I wasn't in love yet. Perhaps, it was a sign of weakness to give up. But my family's safety was paramount.

It was the craziest relationship I had - in concept. But in reality, I feel I might have lost the best thing that happened to me. He txts me all the time and says the same thing. I don't know why I was psychologically strong enough to deal with the flag on his shoulder and a swastika on his bicep. I don't know why he was strong enough to deal with my "Jew-ness" or whatever, given his very strong beliefs. And he is HARDCORE Neo-Nazi-Supremacist-and all the shiny happy stuff that comes with it.

Love is so fucking blind. But we weren't in love...yet. We kept asking each other all the time if it all was a deformed lust or lie or something, even months after we broke up. But he got off work and took care of me when I had bad flu, and then would take me to a tranquil lake house for the weekends and I maxed out my credit card to buy him that bicycle he salivated over for a month and looked after his senile and very mean grandpa when he stayed at the hospital. Was that lust only? I wouldn't like to think so.

Wow...rambled on a supremacist site more than I care too. But I wrote too much and it's a shame to erase it at the moment. Maybe he reads this and...oh, I don't know what I expect him to do. I don't expect anything.

I wish the world were different. But hey, nobody gives a shit.

on Friday, November 7th, Coretta said

Go Obama!! Change the state of our miserable country...YES HE CAN!! Change the mind of sick old school racist fools..maybe not!

on Thursday, November 6th, Cpt. Candor said

"Grown up" my ass. My local newspaper, which gets moist just thinking about Barack, hasn't been able to write a SINGLE article about him in the past six months that doesn't cast his race as a prominent factor, whereas MY racist ass can think of numerous arguments against him that have nothing to do with race. Today's paper featured people who followed the election in an emotional fog and expressed a kind of religious euphoria when they found out that The One™ had managed to commit more ballot fraud than McPalin.

We haven't grown up, we've regressed to the point where we're not even worthy of something bearing so much as a superficial resemblance to self-government. We've become so engulfed by shit as trivial as Image and Slogan that we can't even be bothered to do a little research and SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE.