Well, the campaign season has started (if you can't tell), and our "wonderful" MSM is showcasing why their overall ratings are trending downward.
As an african american I'm just amazed at the media's continued attempt to lump the "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" vote into one group. The idea that we are single issue voters pisses me the fuck off. Yes, there are issues that affect all people, but there are also issues that affect just african-americans, and have affected us for along time because America refuses to deal with them. And while I don't expect a president to know everything about the african american culture, as the expression goes -- you should know a little about a lot, rather than nothing about anything.
The attacks on Obama have increase to an absurd level. The media doesn't want to talk about his plans and policies he has proposed, so they revert back to using republican talking points -- the current one being:
Is Barack Obama black enough to get the black vote?
That question was posed to Obama on CBS'60 Minutes. He handle it well, but the background insinuation, by the anchor, was that the african american vote is a group vote, therefore you need a "black issue" to corrale ALLLLLL the black vote. The media also tries to compare and contrast him to people like Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson in an attempt to portray Obama as a "safe" black that whites can vote for. As if it is somehow not mainstream to advocate issues that are prevalent in the african american community. As I always say -- if America has a cold, Black America has pneumonia. And just to reference my statement, in the intro, about knowing a little about a lot, if you remember the 2004 Vice Presidential debate, the moderator asked both Cheney and Edwards to speak to the AIDS epidemic in the black community WITHOUT SPECIFICALLY REFERENCING AFRICA. Neither could, and both violated the condition of the question, which was not to reference Africa. Cheney started quoting monetary figures about the amount of aid Bush sent to Africa, and Edwards started talking about charitable groups, he works with, doing work in Africa. The question was an attempt to see if either them had a grasp of domestic issues.
There are issues, that african americans care about, that do deserve to be on the table of any debate:
- Why are there longer jail sentences for crack vs. cocaine
- High rates of police brutality, and black men being sent to jail for crimes that warrant the punishment of community service to atone for their crime
- Young african american kids being placed in "remedial" classes because they act out in class (ie. Jamal laughing in class, doesn't mean Jamal can't read, or do math)
- Rates of HIV+ married black women is increasing, mainly because of married african american men on the DL -- the men are at the very least bisexual, if not gay, but the religious community within the black community makes it hard for these men to come out. So they get married to project their "manhood", all the while sneaking around.
So when I heard Glenn Beck refer to Obama as "...he's very white in many ways..." and then later (when he realized he had dug himself a hole) he said Obama is colorless. Jaw dropping doesn't describe the half of it.
...He is -- he's very -- he is -- he's colorless. He is colorless.
What Glenn Beck was insinuated was that he's articulate, bright, clean, etc. without actually saying those words -- acting white. And the fact that Beck wanting to be able to say it without being called a bigot is astonishing:
BECK: And I thought to myself: Gee, can I even say that? Can I even say that without somebody else starting a campaign saying, "What does he mean, 'He's very white?' " He is. He's very white.
He goes on to say:
BECK: -- OK, until he starts talking about race issues and he says things, like on this 60 Minutes piece last night, he said, "When I hail a cab." And I thought, "What?" And then all of a sudden, I noticed his color.
What Beck is trying to say here is -- I'm not the one race baiting, I don't notice Obama is black until he speaks about black issues. Obama is the one bringing race into campaign, not me -- WTF?
So let me get this straight...
In Beck's world, Obama can only win the presidency if he remains colorless when it comes to cultural issues, odorless when it comes to Democratic issues, and have no taste toward talking about personal issues. The only thing that meets the colorless, odorless, tasteless test is -- air. And Beck has been blowing alot of that lately.