Many here have stated that racism is the sum of prejudice plus a top-down power differential. I agree with the basic principle.

I don’t. I disagree that racism = predjudice + power. Racism is predjudice on the basis of race. What power the racist has to act on the object of his or her racism certainly changes the consequences of their racism, but a lack of any power to act on the object of their racism doesn’t make them non-racist.

Just out of curiosity, Ron, do you think it is just as wrong for people in wheelchairs to crack jokes about everyone else as it is for able-bodied people to crack jokes about people in wheelchairs?

The same thing goes for any “-ism” based on predjudice against someone on whatever basis. So my answer to this question is “yes”. It’s certainly understandable and human, but it’s wrong nonetheless.

You’re right, Obama’s not alone in this. It’s common to all racists.

On the contrary, the most racist people are actually those who are least likely to follow this unspoken rule. The average person I meet is willing to make jokes and generalizations about white people that they wouldn’t make about black people. KKK members have no such reservations. Your statement could be true, in the “all people have some racism in them” kind of way, but if your statement was yet another attempt to slime Obama, this time accusing him of being more racist than average, then make that claim yourself rather than pretending it follows from my comments.

From the tactics I’ve seen displayed so far in this primary season, Clinton takes the cake with her willingness to use race-baiting tactics. For McCain, I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to a man who once lost a candidacy due to the most sinister race-baiting ploy in recent memory.

Just out of curiosity, Ron, do you think it is just as wrong for people in wheelchairs to crack jokes about everyone else as it is for able-bodied people to crack jokes about people in wheelchairs? Many here have stated that racism is the sum of prejudice plus a top-down power differential. I agree with the basic principle. I don’t believe Black people are quite as disadvantaged as people in wheelchairs, but I believe the same idea applies to an extent - certainly for me, the comment “substitute [random comment about white people] with ‘black’, and you’d never say it” elicits agreement in some cases, a big yawn in others. What’s your take?

Well, I don’t think it’s acceptable. If it’s unacceptable to stereotype one race, it’s unacceptable to stereotype any race. It’s also just as inaccurate. You’re right, Obama’s not alone in this. It’s common to all racists. In fact, it’s one of their defining characteristics.

I can understand people who say “Obama is a presidential candidate, and should thus be more careful with his words”. I don’t consider “if Obama is so transformational and god-like, why does he make mistakes like other people? Whatever happened to hope?” to be a credible argument. I’m sorry your own candidate is not considered inspirational.

Rachel, I’ll go you one better. Veneration of biracial people is actually the common cover for polite, yuppie racism. Since they’re Not Racists, they must like some of the Others. Ooh, which ones, gotta pick fast… I know! The ones who have some white in them.

But making everyone interracial is not the same as getting rid of social prejudice against black people.

.

Let’s not forget that a number of Blacks (mainly descended from slaves), Native Americans and Latin@s are already interracial (or interracially descended if you want to split hairs) to begin with (and not always by choice), which also debunks that stupid myth.

1) a sign of progress… towards what?

both i, and my white friend, have independently had the thought that someday everyone in America will be brown, and that a beige interracial population will be the end of racism.

But making everyone interracial is not the same as getting rid of social prejudice against black people.

2) multiracial uniter myth

racism doesn’t get to decide who’s most effective at fighting it. MLK (obviously) didn’t have to be interracial to deploy civil rights effectively against it.

I was disappointed that he had to use his grandmother’s race as some sort of racial “proof” or assurance he wasn’t racist. What are we? 18th century dectives looking to his race for evidence of the rationality of his decision to support rev. wright? Yes, if a white person could sit in wright’s congregation, it means something. It means more if Obama can explain it to us, which he did, however hard it is so summarize another man’s body of thoughts created over 20(?) years time on a complicated situation in a context unfamiliar to many who don’t attend black churches.

– maybe pulling the white grandma card was more succinct.

No, he wasn’t. He doesn’t go to their church(es).

There’s a difference between “Robert Hayes, who has many objectionable opinions, supports John McCain for President” and “Robert Hayes, who has many objectionable opinions, has been a mentor to John McCain for twenty years.”

One is me liking him better than any of the alternatives (not much, in this case) - and he has zero culpability for anything that I say or do. (”I regret that Mr. Hayes believes the Albanian people to be subhuman monsters, and I strongly disagree with his call for their deportation to the moons of Saturn as slave labor. However, he has a right to vote for whom he likes, and I will take his vote if I need it in order to win.”)

The other is me and him being in a mutual relationship, in which case he DOES have to explain why he continues to take advice and counsel from an Albanian-deporting monster like myself.

I kind of don’t know that it’s fair to critique Obama for brining up his white family. Dude’s biracial, he was raised by the white half of his family. It informs his perspective. I’m not sure there’s any way to talk about being biracial and have it *not* sound like you’re ‘not like those OTHER black people’. Being biracial is not really a narrative of Blackness that anyone’s really been willing to talk about as being anything other than a tragedy until recently.

I guess I see where you’re coming from since the whole controversy basically boiled down to “See! He is like all those scary Black people!” So doing anything but saying that Rev. Wright is a total nutjob who he never liked and will never speak to again is pretty much saying “No I’m not!”

Biracial people have always had magical powers. It used to be that we were going to destroy civilization with our very births. Now we’re going to bring people to a magical land filled with ponies and racial harmony.

Was Obama there when Rev. Wright took off on America after 9/11?

I dunno. Was McCain there when the televangelists who back him took off on America after 9/11?

I’d say that you can indeed talk about a “typical” Black person. You can talk about how a typical Black person would have to deal with a bunch of racist bullshit, from being stopped by cops for no reason, to having trouble getting a cab in New York, to having to face subtle racism in the workplace. People do it all the time. In fact, Obama did it in his speech. Not every Black person has had to face every single instance of racism he mentioned in his speech, but it happens often enough to enough people that those experiences are “typical”.

Assuming that every single Black person has had the *exact* same experiences and reacts to it the *exact* same way is where you run into problems.

I don’t suppose you write comic books too?

They have viewed his mixed race heritage as something that bestows him with supernatural abilities, specifically the ability to transcend race and heal old racial wounds.

Oh, sure. A guy who writes comic books is complaining about bestowing people with supernatural abilities. Yeah, that’s real credible.

Speaking of which: I thought that Sen. Obama did a tremendous job of answering a question that no one asked; “Why is my pastor a paranoid racist?” He also did a tremendous job of ducking the question that was on the minds of just about everybody I talked to: “Why did I seek spiritual guidance for myself and my children from a paranoid racist pastor?” Was Obama there when Rev. Wright took off on America after 9/11? Were his kids there when Rev. Wright held forth that the AIDS virus was created by the U.S. government to destroy blacks in America? I don’t know. But even if he wasn’t, word about stuff like this gets around in a parish pretty quickly to the people who weren’t there. And I doubt these were two isolated incidents. Of all the black pastors in Chicago (for those of you who don’t live out here; lots), why keep going to a guy like this? How about taking your kids to listen to someone who does good work in the community and DOESN’T spread nonsense like this?