Thursday, November 13, 2008
Obama's election and black America
On Friday night at the Princeton football game, we saw a group of black women, decked out in black and orange, dancing joyfully in the front of the student section. I could not remember seeing that before.
Then, Wednesday morning in the new Dunkin' Donuts on Harrison Street, I saw two older black men greet each other with big grins, and one said to the other "a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders." It transpired that he was talking about Obama's election.
I do not get so many glimpses inside the African-American community, but those two little anecdotes make me think that there is a lot to this column. I hope for the sake of our country that every word of it is true.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
10 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Nov 13, 06:57:00 PM:
There's a Dunkin Donuts on Harrison Street? Is that in Princeton Shopping Center?
Oh, and I'm glad the men were gratified by the election. I only hope they are equally gratified by the Presidency.
Now, back to that DD...
By 
Larry Sheldon, at
Thu Nov 13, 07:43:00 PM:
I gather that blackness is the only thing that matters.
Too bad Thomas Sowell didn't run.
We could have had a good presedent who I understand is black.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Nov 13, 08:08:00 PM:
Who said "blackness is the only thing that matters"? I quite famously voted for the other guy. I fully expect Barack Obama's policies, as enacted by Nancy Pelosit and Harry Reid, to be bad for the country. But that does not mean that his election is unfortunate in every respect. My point is a bit different -- if we have to suffer through the New Deal and the Great Society rising like the living dead, then would it not be great if we at least got the dividend of greater social confidence in the black community?
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Nov 13, 08:10:00 PM:
Oh, and the Dunkin' Donuts is indeed in the Shopping Center, on the Harrison Street side, a few doors past "Main Street" if you are heading south from McAffrey's.
By JPMcT, at
Thu Nov 13, 11:49:00 PM:
I fail to understand how the fact that a man was elected because of the color of his skin is a GOOD thing for race relations in this country.
I also wonder how confidence in the black communtiy is going to get any better with a man who runs on a platform of government handouts and wealth redistribution.
Man, a lot of people are going on and on about how this is such a great thing. I am amazed and appalled.
By , at
Fri Nov 14, 08:01:00 AM:
The men in question don't seem to think he was elected "because of the color of his skin", but despite it. Given the history of race relations in humanity I suppose that's a victory in a sense for people focused on race. These men are of a minority race and the history of the minority's relationship with the majority is one long raw deal. Like TH, I'm happy this election has made a difference in their views.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Nov 14, 09:18:00 AM:
"this election has made a difference in their views."
That's the crux of it.
Achieving the Presidency is the ultimate hurdle for minority communities in this country. Maybe now they will see what I've seen for years: that modern 'institutionalized white racism' is a myth.
By , at
Fri Nov 14, 02:09:00 PM:
You don't get it..........any failing, real or imaginary will be blamed on WHITE oppression and racism and race relations will PLUMMET. Dear God, don't any of you get into Trenton? Has Palmer made the residents there experience "greater social confidence?"
Or is it a place where the thug will tell you "You gots no shot white boy, Dougie ain't gonna send the man after his homey......"
Or like Philly, where lovely John Street told the assembled masses..."The brotha's are in charge now".
The fraudelently elected Obama will be the WORST thing for race relations..........
By , at
Fri Nov 14, 07:03:00 PM:
FEETS OF CLAY, DON'T FAIL ME NOW!
I grew up in a northern Rust Belt industrial city, and to this day, 2008, it is still one of the most segregated places in America, and the social distance between blacks and whites is very great. There's almost no overlap in neighborhood makeup or in socialising outside of work.
I have a public contact job, and many of my customers are African-American. I noticed right away on November 5th an ease in their demeanour. They seemed more self assured, but not in a grandiose way. It felt more like an unspoken reproach had been taken away, leaving them as finally, IN THEIR OWN MINDS AND HEARTS, no longer second class citizens. One of my black coworkers and I were discusing the election and he said his father, who is 80 years old and grew up in the deep South, was deeply moved by Obama's election. If there was no inborn feeling of reproach on the part of my fellow Americans who are black, then there would not have been the depth of emotion at the election. Thre is a concept in communication theory that the meaning of a message is the behavior that it produces. If Obama's election produces a sense of relief and validation, then for the people who are relieved to feel validated, they must necessarily had been feeling distressed and undervalued.
Was I ever guilty of indifference to this sense of reproach in my fellow Americans? Yes. Racial prejudice is real. Subtle and unspoken superiority and entitlement still motivate many whites. I know because I have seen it in myself in the past and I still see it in family members and neighbors who are prejudiced. I think a lot of sympathy votes went to Obama from decent whites who are appalled that racism still exists in America and wanted to vote against racism. I met some of them early on in the campaign who told me "we are ready in the United States for a black President", and to them that meant: it's time we SHOULD have a black President. Of course, had the truth been told about Obama, he would have lost the electiont, in spite of the sympathy vote, but as long as the truth was withheld, that sympathy made decent whites disinclined to dig for the unpleasant truths so many of us found on the Internet.
I was horrified by the election (Odinga, ACORN, the missing birth certificate and college records, voting against BAIPA but it was "above my paygrade", etc., ad nauseum), but this weight being lifted off people is a real phenomenon, and I think it can be positive when people feel better about themselves.
Was it necessary to elect Obama to achieve this relief? No; Clarence Thomas' and Colin Powell's and Condi Rice's successes could have developed this effect if the corrupt liberal media had allowed or celebrated it. But this quiet joy is a real thing that has finally happened, and good can come of it.
However, Obama got where he is through affirmative action on the part of the corrupt media, and to the extent that (what I predict will be) his stunningly inept performance shows him to be a corrupt nincompoop, he will bring tragic disillusionment for the same African-Americans who see him as their standard-bearer and a bellwether of race relations in the US.
When that day comes, if white and black Americans who voted for Obama can honestly admit how foolishly they acted, and McCain voters can refrain from taking cruel advantage of that disillusionment, we may take a step closer to becoming a post-racial society, if the United States still exists by then.
Decades of botched immigration enforcement, corruption in the media and the liberals' long march through the institutions have shifted the balance of electoral power away from conservatives so decisively that the only hope to prevent Europeanization and loss of our Constitution is to change the demographics of the Republican party to INCLUDE sensible blacks and Hispanics who will be traumatised when Obama's feet of clay fail.
By JPMcT, at
Sat Nov 15, 12:37:00 AM:
Kudos to the above comments.
Obama would never in a gazillion years become president were he not black.
So now even the media, who single-handedly delivered to us this Version 2 of Jimmy Carter, muse daily on his transition and his policies because "we really don't know much about him".
The STUNNING stupidity of it all is riverting!!
I really don't wish him success, because I know that the policies that he espouses will be disastrous for my family and my country.
I just hope that when he fails, we realize that it was his ideology and not his race that was responsible.
