But scholars say Obama’s critics ignore a lesson from American history: Many white Americans don’t like angry black men.
Oh good Lord, what a crock. Americans of all ethnicities love Samuel L. Jackson’s ferocity. Will Smith is arguably the biggest star in Hollywood, and he gets angry in every movie. Michael Jordan’s triumphant scowl is legend. OJ Simpson was… wait, scratch that one.
Angry black rappers sell millions of CDs. Perhaps a hundred million Americans watch angry black men battle on the basketball court — and brutalize on the gridiron. That cheering sound you hear after a (usually white) quarterback is sacked isn’t millions of white people shrieking in terror.
But wait, that’s just the tip of a monstrous iceberg of stupidity bearing down on the unfortunate reader:
During a news conference last summer, Obama casually said that police acted “stupidly” when they arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates in his home for disorderly conduct after a confrontation with a white police officer.
Obama’s comments infuriated many white people, and even some black supporters. Obama had to have a Beer Summit to calm the public uproar.
“He flashed genuine anger,” says Ambar. “At that moment, when he touched on the issue of race, he spoke frankly and passionately about what he felt and it got him into a big deal of trouble.”
Oh, I see — Americans were upset because white people are racist, not because Obama’s comments were premature, idiotic, and wrong. It wasn’t because the white police officer was quickly proven to be possibly the least racist cop in America — a guy who actually taught courses on diversity — and Skip Gates had acted in a manner that was eminently deserving of arrest. No, no, anytime people are angry at Obama, it’s because they’re racist. (Like the Tea Party!)
But this is CNN, so the stupidity doesn’t end with moronic race-baiting. No, we also learn FDR was a great champion of capitalism.
Ambar, from Lehigh University, doesn’t think so. Obama doesn’t share Roosevelt’s elite background, which inoculated him from charges of being anti-American. Roosevelt came from a prominent, and wealthy, American family.
“It’s easier to do it if your name is Roosevelt,” Ambar says. “No one questions your love of capitalism or your patriotism.”
Roosevelt is the guy who imposed unprecedent wage and price controls, attacked business leaders, and generally enagaged in the most damaging government intervention in American economic history, turning a recession into The Great Depression. If he loved capitalism, capitalism should have filed a restraining order.
Just as gushing oil lurks below the Gulf’s surface, all sorts of ugly, racial undercurrents exist beneath the surface of American politics, Baick says
No, they’re right on the surface. Most of them are on display in the people who wrote and contributed to this article.
————-
I have a dream. My dream is that one day people will learn to judge others on the content of their character instead of endlessly obsessing over race. It’s time to stop this ridiculous, destructive racial Balkanization of America. It’s time to stand up to those who would divide us along arbitrary lines for their own selfish ends and say “No more.”
We’re not black or white or Hispanic or Asian — we’re American.
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So, the discussion is over. They have no logic, no merit, no point, only “racist”.
How pathetic.
Surely there’s something more intelligent to say.
I don’t know what more you’re looking for, Dishman. It seems pretty clear to me that, at least in this article, CNN seems to feel that if you’re angry with Obama it’s because you’re racist. Not because you have an actual, legitimate, gripe with him on policy and character.
They’re also engaging in revisionist history embraced by progressives that FDR somehow saved this nation during the Great Depression – when the reality is he made it worse.
That said, if you think there’s something more intelligent to be said, well, you don’t say it.
Please, Professor Dishman, enlighten us.
Kevin,
I think Dishman was just agreeing that it’s pathetic CNN can’t say anything more substantive than “racist.”
Dave has it right.
It’s starting to seem that Obama supporters have nothing left but the bogus charge of “racism”.
I did not catch that. As you were.
Right back at ‘em. Note that racism is a specific kind of bigotry. So far, the worst type of bigotry appears to be tribal and nationalist hatred, like Jew hatred and Tutsi hatred, and especially class hatred, at least in terms of deadly effect. Racism, by contrast, has been much less deadly. Emphasizing racism as a motivation when racism is a small problem (see Turkey, where Mein Kampf is a bestseller as a place where bigotry is a big problem) is, itself racist. Not within orders of magnitude as bigotted as believing that the U.S. was harvesting organs in Iraq with Israeli help.
The truth is that racism is not a big problem here – because we have been beating on it for a while. There are places – Gaza and Turkey come to mind – where bigotry appears to be racheting up to deadly levels.
Based on world patterns, I’d say that the class hatred and especially the Jew hatred the local left stirs up is probably the most dangerous type of bigotry in this country, and yet they are blind to that problem.
Yours,
Wince
Let’s be accurate. Hamas is at or beyond Nazi level genocidal Jew hatred. Read this.
I can’t get excited about the paltry and miniscule levels of bigotry expressed as racism in America, when we have genocidal bigots in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East. Churchill and Roosevelt were wise enough to cry wolf about Hitler, while many progressives were praising him. We were sorry for the Germans because of the Treaty of Versailles. We let that blind us to the horror of Nazism. We are sorry for the Palestinians because of the 1948 and 1967 wars, among others. We let that blind us to the horror of Hamas.
People are being fooled again. The Jews and Israel are not the big problem. Hamas, the other anti-Jewish bigots such as the Turks and their flotilla, and the useful idiots, such as the peace activists who, like their 1930′s counterparts are blind to the bigotry they enable, are the big problem.
We need to stand firm against the Turks and Hamas. We should start by changing our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, moving our carriers to the East Mediterranean and stating we will enforce the blockade, including sinking any Turkish warships which accompany another flotilla. The Turks should pay a 200 million dollar indemnity to Israel ot be kicked out of NATO.
Lord knows the Turks were no help in 2003. As NATO members they aren’t much use any more.
Yours,
Wince
Hey, for the record, the LAST emotion I would associate with Obama’s “police acted stupidly” comment would be “anger”. Honestly, is there ANYONE that comments here that thought Obama expressed anger when he made those comments ?
Ridiculous.
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