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Obama’s Racial Struggle (?)
Steve Sailer wrote an essay for The American Conservative that’s sure to raise some controversy.
Andrew Sullivan calls Sailer’s essay “stimulating� and “provocative� and comments: “The account of Obama’s alcoholic, absent, polygamous father is the kind of thing you keep in mind when considering the psyche of a possible president.�
No you don’t. Well, I don’t. Well, I do in a way I guess: it makes me respect Obama more. His father was an alcoholic, absent father, but look at how well Obama turned out. He’s one of the political revelation of the last year, he’s got a lot of potential, he wrote a best seller (#1 on the NYT best seller list), he’s rising in the polls, etc.
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12 Responses to “Obama’s Racial Struggle (?)”
If his father was an alcoholic polygamous ABSENT father means the exact same thing as if he had a Quaker, law-abiding ABSENT father. His father was not there, so simply put his fathers condition is utterly inconsequential to Obama himself. He was only in Obama’s life until he was two, and died when Obama was 21. If anything I could imagine that knowing of his fathers ways made him more wary of abusing alcohol of value his marriage more. Mind you, I doubt it, but any influence I think would be positive in that sense.
But even if he had grown up in a broken home, judging him on the basis of that would be incredibly unfair. Our current president was once an alcoholic HIMSELF, or at least had serious trouble with alcohol, and though I think he is stunningly incompetent, I don’t think his past as a drinker has anything to do with it.
Yup, agreed.
Bill Clinton’s father was an alcoholic.
Mike:
A few years back I had an Internet radio show, and did a show on race. I invited Sailer to appear but because I was not going to roll over on some of his nutty views, he declined. The man is more than a bit of a charlatan, and a closet racists- not of the KKK type, but of the ‘I’ll sit a few seats over on the bus cuz they smell’ type.
if one actually reads the Book, Dreams from my father without an agenda, it’s hard to see an angry, anti-this, ant-that guy. Critics or skeptics keep pointing to his TEENAGE friends(some white, some non-white) who doubt that Barack was struggling with his sense of self. Those same people never sensed that he wrote poems and article(he was on his schools editorial board) that were giving clues to his internal crisis. Those same people hardly knew that he was not as privileged as them, that he lived in a two-bedroom apartment, that both of his parents were not with him, that he had had an african father, an asian step father and was living with his white grandparents who he didn’t look like. They ONLY saw a smile.
It tells me that he wasn’t wearing his emotions on his sleeves; that even back then he was very mature. As a women in an engineering school class with only 2 other women(an Ivy League) I struggle with my choice everyday but I look like one of the boys to my mostly asian male friends and white friends. Nobody sees conflict in my eyes; if I wrote a memoir, they’d all be astonished.
meanwhile despite his conflicts he lived cheerfully, embraced the athlete identity and proudly held a basketball everywhere he went. At the same time he was writing for his school’s paper.
Cosmo: yes, that’s quite my assessment of the situation as well.
Smaller- and bigger-picture comments:
1. The cheap shots at Obama are pretty lame.
Why aren’t more critics concentrating on Obama’s record as a typical Crook County style Dim Party politician? Is it because he has next to nothing of a record that is open to criticism?
“Obama, in bed with union bosses”:
“Senator Barack Obama (D–IL) introduced S. 2201 in the Senate, and Representative Sue Kelly (R–NY) has introduced its companion bill (H. R. 4755) in the House of Representatives [delete the latter from hit pieces aimed at Obama] to limit the government’s ability to curb the excessive growth in controller wages.”
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm1078.cfm?renderforprint=1
“NATCA ran to its allies on the Hill and Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, submitted legislation substituting binding arbitration if Congress does not act. ”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060410-010027-9200r.htm
“The cowardly, union-boss-loving Obama didn’t even identify himself on HIS OWN WEB SITE.”:
“Yesterday, the union announced that three Democratic U.S. senators will propose legislation to deny the FAA the ability to unilaterally impose a contract. The give-and-take may ultimately affect the flying public. ”
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060127-faa_and_controller_union_wrangle/index.html
2. Why are these people attacking Obama when the guy is fluff,
adored only by the Naive Child crowd, and is an inferior candidate
to Hillary Clinton, who could achive much more that non-liberals
would fear? Conservative critics should be attacking Hillary and
going easy on Obama as long as it hurts Hillary’s chances in the
primaries. If they can drive a wedge between Hillary and Obama,
that would be the ideal, so Obama would not become the (obvious)
selection by Hillary for Vice President.
Seeing as he saw his father once while growing up, I don’t see how this has anything to do with his psyche. He was influenced by the people he grew up around like his mom and grandparents. sullivan is such a dolt.
There’s no controversy. Sailer is a racist. Overtly so. It affects everything he says on the topic. I have no idea why anyone listens to him. OK, some ideas, but they aren’t very nice.
I gather this is a fortaste of the kind of mud we’ll see flying around for the next 2 years.
I have sympathy with those who judt ‘tune out’ during the election season.
Makes me wonder whatever happened to Tommy- he gave me links to some of Sailor’s rants, and to “the Bell Curve”. I know I’m a liberal because it nauseated me to read them. I could never think of another race of people in those terms.
Obama is a breath of fresh air. He’s not crying racism, he hasn’t appointed Jesse Jackson as his campaign manager, he is a gift to us all- if we can bring ourselves to look past the old barriers. Maybe we can move past our preconceptions and evolve as a nation.
“Maybe we can move past our preconceptions and evolve as a nation.”
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Oh god, I hope so.