Black men have been tagged with every possible negative association

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Throughout American history, almost anything bad you can say about another human being has been attributed to African-Americans, and specifically, attributed to black men.

Since black men have been tagged with everything, any criticism will be suggestive of some racist perception or another.

There is no way around it. Our history of racism in America is an almost infinite font of ugliness.

So rather than hunting for correlations between criticisms of Senator Obama and criticisms that have been made of black men at one time or another, it might be more psychologically wholesome to note the persistent black male stereotypes that have never been leveled at Barack.

He is universally acknowledged to be highly intelligent, honest (by political standards), and faithful to his wife. I have never heard anyone suggest his success is due to affirmative action. His work ethic is not questioned. Nobody suggests that he is violent or lacks self control or is in politics for the money.

The fact that he is painted as "unready" can be seen to have a racial component if one is motivated to find racism behind every rock, but since he is very young (by Presidential standards) and has very little traditional resume experience in national politics, that mode of attack would be employed against him no matter his race. (Lloyd Bentsen didn't need any racial hook to savage Dan "the other white meat" Qualyle as inexperienced.)

If striving to find racism in every criticism helped the Obama cause in some way we could write this stuff off to enthusiastic advocacy, but racism-hunting is actually disastrous for Senator Obama's prospects, so I am baffled as to why any Obama supporter would find this stuff so entertaining.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Have you got a valid complaint against Obama?

Because I haven't heard one yet.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. The OP is hardly anti-Obama

The OP is not a call to anyone to not vote for him. It is quite complimentary.

He's a great guy. Everyone who likes him should vote for him.

My criticism in the OP is of some posters here who seem to relish spinning every campaign development as predicated on racism. It's ugly and counter-productive.

And I don't see the fun in it. It's dispiriting. I am not excited by the prospect of ANY candidate, Hillary or Obama, having a stronghold of votes along racial lines.

[ThatPoetGuy]

6. If you haven't heard any valid complaints about Barack Obama...

it just means that you've been standing around plugging your ears, shouting "NEENER NEENER NEENER I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!"

How's this, for the tip of the iceberg:

* On his own website, he details his plans for Iraq. He plans to keep an occupation force there, to fight "terrorists," until at least 2013. Both Hillary and Edwards have plans to get us out of there sooner.

* His health care plan would leave the 15 million poorest Americans without coverage, while driving up the costs if they need to get medical help out of pocket. Both Edwards and Hillary have plans for universal health care.

In short: his policies SUCK. This is why he only talks about "hope" and "change" and "prayer" -- because on every issue, the other guys have better ideas than he does. This is why his followers are given lessons to talk only about their own conversion narratives, and never to address Obama's policies -- because they're bad policies, across the board.

WHY would a liberal vote for Obama? Fercrissakes, Rudy Giuliani has come out in support of gays and abortion rights -- why can't Obama? Mike Huckabee supports the people over the corporations -- why doesn't Obama?

It's a sad, sad day when one of the Democratic frontrunners is more right-wing than some of the Republican front-runners.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Huh.

Link?

[ThatPoetGuy]

12. I'll gladly provide links.

Which statement do you want to see linked?

[jonnyblitz]

11. good post.

:hi:

[TheWraith]

2. The Clinton campaign mirror continues: blame others for what you yourself are doing.

Today it's the talking points that Obama brought up race when it was Clinton who stuck her foot in her mouth, then kept making it worse; and the temerity to claim that the Obama camp is trying to find racism, when the old Clinton mantra used to be that if you're not for Hillary Clinton, you're a sexist.

Frankly, I'm having a harder and harder time telling the difference between Hillary's campaign and a Republican campaign.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. retracted criticism -- I did refer to the campaign without meaning to.

[rodeodance]

5. i will remind you that it was Obama who allowed the toxic stew to fester by coming in

days late to say that what Sen. Clinton said was NOT racial. He could have stopped it -but he let it stew.

.....Today it's the talking points that Obama brought up race when it was Clinton who stuck her foot in her mouth, then kept making it worse;

[chimpymustgo]

7. Rookie mistake that may be a fatal flaw. He and his supporters have knocked him of his pedestal.

THEY played the so-called race card, by crying foul and whining - usually where NOTHING existed.

[Orangepeel]

9. well, Karl Rove said he was lazy

I guess that was a republican trial balloon to see if questioning his work ethic would fly in the absence of any evidence

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/2008/01/karl-rove-goes-all-karl-rove-on-obama.php

[Hello_Kitty]

10. I don't construe every comment from the Clintons as racial, just the ones that are

"Shuck and jive", "how do we know he wasn't dealing drugs", "his Muslim heritage", and Hillary's MLK one definitely fit the bill. I don't consider Bill's "fairy tale" comment to be in that category along with a few others. But the ones I cite are similar to "gangbanger" "criminal element" and "welfare queen" in that the intent is for you to think of a person of color.