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We all understand, or should, that this is a racist attack on Obama, and goes beyond Obama. It's the typical tactic of portraying a black man as too black for white America. It was done to Jackson, it's being done here.
Obama started out "not black enough," which is what Americans wanted. Not all Americans, of course, but enough. He was black, but he grew up white, sounds almost white, has a white man's career, is, as Biden said, clean and articulate--understand I'm not saying that about him, just that white America could perceive him that way. White America (and by that I don't mean all white people) was comfortable with him. When Obama made his push for the black vote, he started becoming black, and that started scaring White America. Their "negro tolerance" was triggered, to use an old phrase.
These attacks on Wright, which came from the media and thus from the powers that be, were meant to make him more black. He's no longer the white black man that white Americans can vote for to assuage their white guilt while not really doing anything non-white. He's becoming the radical angry black man that white people fear--the one who will take over the country, avenge slavery and segregation, make us all wear bling, and make little Erica want to date black men (Reference to Emminem song, in case that's not obvious).
These attacks on Obama through Wright are racist, and are sickening. They are meant to play on stereotypes exactly the way Willie Horton ads did, exactly the way Reagan's "welfare queen" speeches did, or Pat Buchanan's "Take back our culture" speeches did. I'm in the strange position of wanting to see these attacks fail while still wanting to see him lose the nomination.
It puts the whole party in a difficult position, too. How should Clinton respond? If you know her history (not the one that says she's a golddigger, but the real history), you know Civil Rights has been one of her and her husband's driving forces throughout their lives. If she jumps in and criticizes Obama, she undermines what she believes in, but she might win the nomination. If she stays silent, she misses an opportunity to pick up votes, and also risks people accusing her of enjoying, or even orchestrating, these attacks. If she jumps in and defends him, she risks opening the wounds further while sinking her own campaign.
There are two big losers in this Wright fiasco. One is the Democratic Party, which is being pushed into a corner where any move gets them in trouble, and two, as always, as goddamned always in this country, the African American community.
I don't know what to hope for out of this. If Obama survives, I fear we are stuck with somebody completely unprepared for the job. If he falls, that says everything about this nation we've always known, always feared, and always hoped wasn't really true. I hope he survives this, and then loses anyway, and that just doesn't seem likely.
One thing I'd like to see. I'd like to see all my fellow Clinton supporters shut the goddamn hell up about Wright. I promise you, as you all already know, that Clinton herself understands, sympathizes, and probably even agrees with just about everything Reverend Wright says. Just shut up and quit trying to score points off of attacks we should all as Democrats, as Americans, as humans, be denouncing with all our strength. It's not worth winning at these costs. It's not winning at these costs. It's losing everything we want to win for.
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