America elects its 2nd black president!
Not to take anything away from Mr. Obama, but remember, Bill Clinton was the first "Black president" - or has everyone managed to forget that?Forgive me if I'm not quite ready to worship at the altar of Obama. The race was not supposed to be about race, remember? The entire point of the civil-rights struggle was to get past the era of thinking of people primarily by their skin color, to ensure that the rights and guarantees of the constitution apply equally to everyone. Lest you think otherwise, take a look at the primacy of the rule of law in our country, and if you still want to declare America a "racist" nation, do a simple comparison between America and everywhere else. There is a reason that people all over the world flock to America to realize their dreams, and they do so because they know that the institutions we have and the freedom and upward mobility we offer are to be found in similar degree nowhere else on the planet.
All that has been cast aside in an orgy of new racialism, the notion that people are to be viewed according to however much people distantly related to them suffered at the hands of another group. This is the same thinking that allowed us to define the "Us" and "Them" that we have been hearing denunciations of for as long as we've been alive - and yet now, it's not only okay, it's fashionable.
Was there absolutely no suspicion that something had gone wrong at the notion that blacks would be almost homogeneously voting for Obama? In all the approving commentary, self-congratulation, and non-stop analyses of voting patterns, did no one point out that blacks voting in lockstep for Obama was no different from whites voting en masse for McCain? A Jamie Foxx can state that in a choice between a black man and a white man that he'll be voting for "The brother" - what if a white man of any stature had publicly stated that he'd vote for a white guy over a black simply because of race? The firestorm of denunciations would be deafening.
A small group of pundits, celebrities, and others wondered aloud at the fact that Obama's color had no doubt helped his meteoric rise, and when they did, they were quickly shouted down; apparently, some truths are still too much to bear. Thus we are stuck with a conumdrum: The election was not about race - except when it was: it was about race in that it demonstrated how far America has come in its struggle for equality, but it was not about race when Obama promoted his post-racial bona fides, dismissed any notions of his skin color being related to his ascendancy in any way, and merely demonstrated how hungry Americans were for hope and change, no matter how vague such change would be.
By contrast, the election was about race when black voters loudly proclaimed their support for Obama, and their overwhelming unity of opinion on this matter. The election was about race when it came to America's "Downright meanness", and how "They" kept "Raising the bar" to keep Obama from power, according to Michelle Obama. The election was about race when Obama pointed out that he didn't "Look like all the other presidents on the dollar bills", and warned early supporters about what his opponents would say - "...and did I mention he's black?"
But then, once more, the election was not about race when the news media tried to force itself to name Obama's accomplishments, and suddenly he was a man who had "Transcended" race, whose calls for harmony and unity were heard by men, women, and child of all backgrounds, orgins, and ethnicities. The election was not about race regarding Obama's faithfulness to Trinity Church, with its fire-breathing pastor Wright - here was a man who denounced "White" America, who proumulgated the old myth about the government inventing AIDS to oppress blacks, and who called on God himself to "Damn" America. But the philosophy adopted by this "Church" was easily and breezily declared irrelevant by Obama, who told us that such goings-on might seem "Jarring to the untrained ear", as though Wright were not even speaking in English. No, nothing about race here; move along, said the news media, offering up tortured rationalizations to support Obama's careful distancing.
What did "The Issues", in fact, have to do with the race? Very, very little, it would seem, though Obama and his supporters always delighted in stating that such matters were in fact the epicenter of the campaign, especially when shady characters such as Wright, Fleger, Ayers, Khalidi, and others threated to cast a pall on the party. All the expected sober and judicial analysis of Obama's unbelievably expansive and expensive plans was nowhere to be found in the old media, cast aside in the wake of a feel-good vote for "Hope and change": National health care? Obama's got a plan. International affairs? Obama will call for "Talks", and "Reach out to our allies". (Why did no one think of that before?) But no, none of this mattered, because Obama's personal charm and ability to run a presidential campaign were all we needed to know to elevate him to leader of the free world. Gargantuan tax increases? Nope, no waste in the federal government that needs to be eliminated beforehand - we'll figure that all out later.
Clearly, policy was the least of anyone's concerns, which takes us back to what the election was about. If you listen to his supporters, it was about race only when it was detrimental to Obama, and not about race when it favored him.
So which is it, now that the one has been anointed as our savior? Was it about race, or was it not? If it was about race, then now that America has redeemed itself, will the "Oppression Studies" be wound down, and will Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson concede that their "work" is now totally irrelevant? Will the news media stop trying to discover new Ku Klux Klans, and taint the rest of us with whatever shrapnels of 19th-century thought it can find? Or will the left continue to try and have it both ways? That's a "Race" you can bet on with full confidence.
p.s. - don't forget to check your pay stub after the inauguration; you'll see two new federal withholding items: The "Hope" tax, and the "Change" tax.
posted by ET @ 11:40 AM
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