Posted by
Jason on Sunday, March 23, 2008 4:19:39 PM
There are competing explanations concerning the statement made by Presidential candidate Barack Obama, referring to his grandmother as a "typical white person." Some see it as an adverse gesture toward whites, citing that a reciprocal comment made by a white referencing a "typical black person" would certainly be seen as such. This observation is most likely true. Others, however, claim that Obama was simply trying to bring light to the generational factor by juxtaposing the sentiments harbored by Reverend Wright with those also held by his grandmother. I believe this was actually the official justification provided by the Obama campaign. There are several problems with this assessment.
For starters, on the one hand you have Wright, who made public incendiary rants, and who claimed, among other things, that the government assumed a campaign of genocide and hopelessness upon an entire race of their own citizens by afflicting them with HIV and introducing drugs into the black community, and on the other hand you have the private feelings of an old woman who may, as Obama assures us, feel slightly intimidated by black people she passes on the street. The former scenario is hands down, infinitely more serious than the latter and it would be foolish to somehow lump the two as products of one cause. Secondly, the comments made by Reverend Wright were not just racial,they were a deliberate hateful excoriation of the United States. He depicted America as a historical menace and a modern menace and energetically proclaimed that 9/11 was no less than our "chickens coming home to roost." These comments are not primarily the product of racial generational influence, they are the product of a frame of mind that continuously presents America as morally inferior, regardless of the circumstance. Thirdly, I think it's unfair to consider generation as the only or even the primary attributer to racism as it stands. To do that, perhaps we should look inward at the situation as it is, and address whether our own policies are helping or perpetuating the suffer of certain groups within our society.
I've also heard some posit that Obama's statement was a slip of the tongue that would not have happened if he wasn't expected to respond so quickly. I can buy that, but in order to give the benefit of the doubt to Senator Obama, we would also have to assess whether the same niceties are enjoyed by the other two presidential candidates. Senator McCain has recently been attacked relentlessly on statements he made about Iran and Al Qaeda, and Senator Clinton has been nothing short of lambasted by the media since she stepped into this thing. I have not heard outcries on their behalf as woeful as the ones coming in defense of Obama. Senator Obama should not be countenanced any more than any of the other candidates, especially concerning the seriousness of the issue and the power of the office he is running for. He's running with the big leagues now, he has a middle name that we should not be afraid of and the only way we're going to get past race in this country is if we have leaders that are not so eager to exploit racial tensions for their own gain.