A Black "DC Fem" Speaks
I think that means "Washington, D.C. Feminist," but that's just a guess. Here's her comment on my blog item about Obama throwing his granny under the campaign bus:
Why is it always OK for older white people to be racist? This notion that Obama threw his grandmother under the bus by mentioning her in a speech about race in America is ridiculous. He brought up her racism to remind us that we all harbor some resentments and that some people (like his grandmother) are able to transcend those and wholeheartedly embrace people who don't look just like them.People continue to accuse him of maligning Granny and Geraldine Ferraro keeps insisting that she is the real victim here and everyone sympathizes and feels sorry for them. But this loud mouthed pastor said some truly prejudiced things and people are acting like he's Hitler. Why is there never any slack cut for old black people? These are the folks who lived through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. Sometimes they shoot off their mouths and say things that are truly ignorant and divisive. In the black community, we tolerate their tirades because of the systematic racism they endured in their lives. And we realize that the time has come to rethink that tolerance.
That, to me, was the point of Obama's speech. That there is plenty of blame to go around but we need to move past that. Those of us in the black community need to stop letting our elders say whatever they want to and apologizing for it because of their unfortunate life experiences. And white Americans need to come to the table with the realization of white privilege in America and the willingness to listen (really listen) to what's going in the black community. Maybe then we will finally end the two America's and just have one the way it should have been all along.
No, the government did not create AIDS to kill black people -- that's ignorant and ridiculous. But they did infect black men with Syphilis to study it's effect on human beings. Anyone who doesn't believe that can look through Bill Clinton's records to see the day where apologized on behalf of the government for that despicable act. So unfortunately, because of the true experiences of one group of people, you can manipulate a few gullible members of our society into believing that even worse things have occurred. The way Republicans have manipulated so many into thinking that unregulated free market economy is the greatest thing in human history. Now that your house is in foreclosure, do you still believe that?
Posted by: DC Fem at March 21, 2008 7:29 AM
Here's my reply:
There's are so many distortions in what you wrote above, I don't know where to begin. Also, I haven't had coffee yet, so I'll just take on a few:Was she even racist? Or did that idea suit Obama's needs vis a vis his need to slink out of the Wright controversy. I've blogged before about his, uh, memory issues, vis a vis his "forgetting" that his sister got off a Greyhound bus from Africa and didn't come off a plane.
I was talking to my boyfriend last night about the idiotic idea that it's racist to avoid some questionable character on the street. I live in a neighborhood where there are some, let's say, ruffians. If I see a young, thuggish looking guy in a hoodie coming down the sidewalk toward me, black, latino, or white, I'm going to feel a little scared, and I'll walk in the street like I'm going to get my car. Furthermore, black men are in prison disproportionate to their number in the population. Jewish people have also had a tough time throughout history. The prison isn't filled with guys named Moishe, Max, and Schmuel. Tell me that you're about to cross paths with a young, thuggish looking black guy on the streets there in DC and you just walk past him like it's an old lady carrying a bouquet of lilies home. (Or a young thuggish looking guy of any race.) It's prudent, as a woman, to be street smart and to be "better safe than sorry."
Furthermore, Jews, throughout history, have plenty more than blacks to complain about, and while some do have a persecution complex, they aren't sitting around saying "The Holocaust is the reason we can't make it in the world." And neither, frankly, are my friends who are black and who are achieving things.
Furthermore, I don't see people high-fiving Geraldine Ferraro. She's been pretty roundly criticized.
I don't think racism by anybody is nice. I experienced anti-Semitism as a kid -- kids chasing me around, calling me dirty Jew, etc. And then I went to college at the University of Michigan, where I was thrilled to be in an environment where not everybody was white, like where I grew up, and I sat down at the end of a lunch table of black girls one of my first days in Alice Lloyd dorm, and they looked at me like I just squatted and left a turd in the middle of the floor of the lunch room.
What Obama did, if his granny was even "racist," was wrong because you don't reveal private people's private conversations or actions publicly. Note that there are no photos of my boyfriend on my blog, and if I refer to him, I just call him "Gregg." I am a public person, and he is not. While it's not a secret who he is, and it's pretty easy for anyone who reads here to figure out his last name and read about him, I didn't need him to even ask me before I decided that I would not "take him public" in his association with me by posting photos of him.
The point of Obama's speech is the point of every speech by each of these three sleazebags who are running: To get elected.
PS What are you actually DOING to change things besides leaving blog comments? I see lots of wind from people like Wright, but how about starting a program like I have. I go talk to kids at inner city schools to demystify making it. My next talk is next week (although we're waiting to hear back from a teacher on Spring break so it may shift), and I'll be there after that on April 16th, and I'm starting to bring in other speakers, too. My goal is to do one talk a month, although I got sick in January, and that screwed things up a bit.
Oh, and I'm whiter than a sheet of typing paper, see above, but Jesse Owens came and talked to my elementary school class, and I was very influenced by a woman my mother knew, and decided that kids in inner city schools would be helped by positive role models who show the step by step process of doing something cool and meaningful with your life.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at March 21, 2008 8:19 AM
And then another reply from me with the bit I forgot:
Forgot this bit. Corrections to your quote follow:The way Republicans have manipulated so many into thinking that unregulated free market economy is the greatest thing in human history. Now that your house is in foreclosure, do you still believe that?
1. We don't have an unregulated free market, but if we did operate in a more capitalistic way we'd probably be doing much better (George Bush is the biggest big Democrat we've had in office in a long time, starting with that prescription drug bill he signed that will break us all...and handouts for Bear Stearns are the antithesis of free market capitalism).
2. My house isn't in foreclosure because I was taught by my dad never to sign anything without reading and understanding it first. If you can't understand it, you get somebody who can understand it (a lawyer) to read it and explain it to you until you can.
I don't own a home because, much like all those people who took out those insane loans, I can't afford one (at least, not in the community I want to live in). I'm what's called a Personal Responsibilitarian, a term I made up. I'm also a fiscal conservative. Don't spend money I don't have, and all that. Shocking concept, I know. And if I do buy something, I buy in bulk from Costco, if possible, and I buy my clothes and jewelry slightly used on eBay, on the 75% off rack at the designer resale store, or on clearance in January and August at Loehmann's. I use my credit card like a debit card, and pay it in full every month. And I bought my first new car ever, which I paid off at a rate of about 30% over the rate I was supposed to pay on my loan, to build my already excellent credit. If do someday buy a house, the loan officers will be chasing me down the street and begging to me to go with them.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at March 21, 2008 8:28 AM
Oh, and I'll pile on a comment from Crid, who got it exactly right, and in about one-tenth the number of words:
DC Fem, follow the fucking links.Amy's item ("Obama Rats Out His Racist Granny") is deceptively titled: OBAMA'S GRANDMOTHER WASN'T A RACIST, and the (revised) anecdote by which he implies that she is horribly twists the facts.
*That's* what you need to know about this guy. That's how horny he is for the White House. Maybe American voters need this extremely weird racial psychodrama in their lives... I personally don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong. Nonetheless the fact that he's willing to pander this way doesn't make him more admirable.
Quite the opposite. He's not into the truth, and he's not into his own loving flesh and blood.