Saturday, September 19, 2009

It IS about race

"Let me say this clearly so there are no misunderstandings: some of the protests against President Obama are howls of rage at the fact that we have an African-American head of state. I'm sick of all the code words used when this subject comes up, so be assured that I am saying exactly what I mean. Oh, and in response to the inevitable complaints that I am playing the race card—race isn't a political parlor game. It is a powerful fault line in a nation that bears the scars of slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow, a mind-numbing number of assassinations, and too many riots to count. It is naive and disingenuous to say otherwise."

It is long past time to be speaking in code. Check out this crystal clear commentary in the September 28th edition of Newsweek. Thank you Raina Kelley.

In addition, how about this quote from Cornel West regarding former president Jimmy Carter on this topic: "President Carter has a crucial point to make. I think the important thing is, is that we recognize that white supremacy, race, is one factor among others. Obama was right when—President Obama was right when he said there’s an anti-government attitude. That’s true for any president, no matter what color. It becomes entangled with deeply xenophobic and racist sensibilities that we saw on the placards in the recent Washington, DC protest. So you’ve got race, you’ve got class, you’ve got resentment, even cultural resentment in terms of working people vis-à-vis elites. Obama is associated with Columbia, Harvard Law and so forth. All of these factors come together."

Hear more from Dr. West at this interview on Democracy Now.

This stuff gets me going...

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