SKIN COLOR AND OTHER AMERICAN DELUSIONS

What could possibly be more racist than electing a man to the Presidency just because of his skin color?

Perhaps pretending otherwise? 

After all, that's exactly what we did, bypassing a number of substantially more experienced and qualified candidates, one of whom happened to be a woman.  What fun, it seemed.  We can still have change without Hillary.  Hail sexism!

So today is MLK Jr. Day and at the risk of being condemned as a racist, I would suggest that the Obama presidency is not the fulfillment of King's dream but rather a parody.

We did not elect the most qualified candidate regardless of his skin color, we elected the least experienced candidate because of his skin color.  How does that honor Dr. King's dream?

And the net result of this national tragi-comedy may be that because of racism (and sexism), American progressivism will fade into memory for generations to come as November 2010 and 2012 seem increasingly likely to deliver a Christian Republican return to power.

Working hard to prove he can be just like a white man, our African American President turned his back on virtually every promise he made to progressive voters, now pandering his ass off to please conservative moderates, conservatives and right wing extremists.  How did we all fall for that?  Oh, right, blinded by the black.

From this mockery of health care reform to the wholesale betrayal of gay America, the Obama Presidency's promise of change seems to mean little more than the name plate on the White House mailbox.

The scary truth about American racism was recently yet again spotlighted by a sad CNN poll.  The vast racial divide not surprisingly exposed by the recent Obama approval polls tells us a number of things in an America wallowing in fundamentalist religion and jingoism.  First and foremost it reminds us that our national grasp on decency, common sense and reality continues to slip away at a precipitous rate.

Do black and white Americans truly see a man's job performance through radically different and yet discerning and informed philosophical and political eyes--or are black Americans not paying much attention to job performance and focusing primarily on the color of Obama's skin while progressive and liberal white Americans are struggling to sustain a democratic agenda without seeming to be racist?

The polls do have a "silver lining".

Even blacks are starting to see through Obama's game.   And while African-Americans remain extremely supportive of President Obama, their enthusiasm has dramatically dropped.

Obama's presidency appears to have made blacks more optimistic about race relations in America, but less than one in five believe the new president has ushered in a new era of race relations in the country.

More than nine in 10 blacks questioned in the poll approve of the job Obama's doing in the White House, far higher than 42 percent of whites who approve of his performance as president. But when asked how they personally feel about Obama's presidency, only 42 percent of black respondents say they're thrilled, with nearly half of those questioned saying they are happy but not thrilled. The 42 percent who are thrilled is down from 61 percent when Obama was inaugurated.

"African-Americans are still big fans of the first black president in U.S. history, but the thrill is gone," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.  According to the poll, 51 percent of African-Americans say Obama's presidency has brought some improvement in race relations in the U.S., but only 18 percent feel it's the start of a new era. Another 23 percent say they've seen a real change in race relations over the past 11 months and 7 percent say things have gotten worse.

"Whites take a dimmer view of Obama's effect on race relations, with a third believing that the new presidency has not changed race relations in the country and 15 percent of whites saying that Obama has made race relations worse," Holland added. "Not surprisingly, whites are less supportive of Obama, although for a notable number of whites, their negative view of the president is due to the perception that he's not been liberal enough."

One major assumption that could be made based on these poll numbers is that whites voted for Obama's agenda while most blacks voted skin color.  At the end of the day, we have all (black and white, gay and straight) been hoodwinked by another politician who wants to be reelected regardless of the promises, policies and people trashed along the way.

And we were all guilty of racism.  Blacks voted for Obama because he is black and progressive whites, gay and straight, voted for Obama because as a black man he represented the dream of MLK and promised to deliver equality and humanity to an America drowning in the muck of the Bush years.

At the end of the day skin color has nothing at all to do with who Obama is as a man or a President--and only those of us who are not racists seem able to realize that disappointing truth.

At the end of the day, we have just another gutless Democrat doing nothing but selling us down the river to Plantation owners.  All ironies in that statement intended.

Comments

[Alex from germany]

The most experienced candidate would have been McCain, woudn't he?
I'm an outsider, but Obama was the candidate against the Iraq war while Ms. Clinton was main undecided. Obama was more of a promise to change, Clinton more of the same establishment even though Democrat.

[Richard Jeffrey Rothstein]

There were many more experienced and anti-war Democratic candidates, including Hillary.  Like most Americans, you bought into the great Obama speeches--all of which have proven to be empty words.

[paul]

As usual, I agree with you whole-heartedly on the anger while thinking that you go overboard on the Hilary bandwagon. Democrats will never fight for us, they're only the lesser of two evils. She wouldn't have done any more than Obama, and if the roles were reversed I bet Obama would also be the most gay friendly Sec of State we'd ever had with all of those harmless governmental policy directives, because the bar's set pretty fucking low. Politicians are politicians, doing whatever they need to to stay in office.

[DCS]

I tend to agree with Paul but I would go further to simply ask - When was the last time America the most qualified person to be president? Certainly not in our life time. As far as I can see the winner of the presidency has always been a compromise candidate.

[DCS]

Sorry meant to say When was the last time America ELECTED the most qualified person to be president?

[Alan down in Florida]

"At the end of the day, we have all (black and white, gay and straight) been hoodwinked by another politician who wants to be reelected regardless of the promises, policies and people trashed along the way."

AMEN TO THAT - BROTHER RICHARD