Since I can't go to sleep for the life of me and have been endlessly bombarded with "Obama" this and "Obama" that, I thought I'd take a few minutes to comment on the issue.
People are railing on Joe Biden for his "clean" black comment, and Biden swears he didn't really mean it that way. Guess what, he did! And to a certain extent, his inferences are true.
America's image of the, uh, antithesis of a clean black, or an "unclean" black, might be how our culture sees and some black people seem to glorify their own culture: Snoop Dog talkin ebonics with an almost flamingly gay amount of bling, a laughably stupid "grill", and his pants around he' ass (or something like that). Obama, who grew up with his white mother in Honolulu, has less fitness to be "black" than I do. It's no secret that folks in America look down on Ebonics and rappers, or what one would normally stereotype "black folks" as - look no further than the satirization of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on Saturday Night Live. Now America is truly overwhelmed that we've finally found a black person that's not really spiritually and culturally black, yet we're glorifying it as a huge advancement in civil rights. What's going on? Is this a convenient excuse to finally assuage "white guilt" by thinking we're electing a black leader when in fact subconsciously we know we're really safely electing a white sheep in "black clothing"?
He's half black and culturally white, and yet we're totally focused on the fact that were electing a black person - the lines are becoming incredibly blurred in America - we can't continue thinking like this. How much black is required before we can say it's an advancement in civil rights?
As I look independently of the fact that Obama is black, the following comes to mind:Besides Obama's slightly better than average oratory skills and his uncanny ability to recite these painfully cliche Hallmark revelations about the future, why on Earth should we elect this overglorified celebrity? He brings a next to nil amount of experience to the table, his policies are decidedly left of center and somewhat out of the mainstream, he's made the brutal mistake of associating with such ridiculous figures as Jesse Jackson, and he's beginning to reek of that decidedly vulgar CodePink stench.
You have a real dilemma within the Democratic Party for 2008. Normal trends would indicate that a Democrat has a real shot at winning the White House in 2008, however the slew of potential candidates throws a wrench into these trends and threatens to sink the Democratic Party, no matter how poorly the image of the Republican Party is at this point. When you have a woman, a black, and a blow dried ambulance chasing hicky Ken doll losing douche bag in competition for the prized spot on the Democratic ticket, there's going to be finger-pointing on all sides until all of them are dragged through the mud, bringing to light all their perceived "roadblocks".
For example, the primaries:
- You didn't vote for Hillary, you're a sexist.
- You didn't vote for Obama, you're a racist.
- You didn't vote for Edwards, you're...well, um, actually very smart.
The actual campaigns:
- Hillary's 12 pages of Wikipedia controversies
- Barack's unwholesome political values
- John Edwards...he's too much of a lame douche to make it that far
The voting booth:
- Hillary's got a vagina
- Barack's middle name is HUSSEIN? WTF?
- John Edwards...well his name isn't here...does he ever stop smiling?
A Democrat hasn't been elected into the White House for 32 years, save for Bill "lollipop" Clinton, who was pretty centrist and slightly right of center on a few issues. Once the hype dies down, I don't see a left-of-center non-white or non-male person getting remotely close to the White House, no matter how much of a beautiful speaker they are and how much exposure they are getting on yahoo.com.
I'd be more excited for Obama if he was more of a Harold Ford (Tennessee) Democrat - more of a dynamic moderate figure who didn't always embarrasingly tow the party line. I even like Hillary more than Obama, and that says alot.
If we're going to race-and-sex bait, I'll take Condi please. Apart from her difficulties with the current foreign policy, her politics are savory and her life inspiring. That's a true revolution.
(Feel free to disagree with me. I live for debate, and would like to stand corrected if you believe otherwise)
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