Comments on: On Ridiculous Expectations

By: mattc

mattc — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:48:59 +0000

On this note, it’s amazing at how hard Obamacons, centrists, independents, and anti-Bush voters are trying to force Obama into a mold he does not fit (finally the answer to our pants-sagging prayers!!!). It is doubly amazing how much Obama has ceded in the face of this public pressure. Rev. Wright, lapel pins, bombing Pakistan, etc…all issues you would be more impressed with Obama on had he stood his ground. Or at least I would think he has some stones.

The guy is a quintessential moral relativist – there is NO WAY he would ever lead some phony revolt against current urban-afro-hip-hop culture. Remember, Jay-z is on his IPod!!! Get that dirt off your shoulder Barack!

By: KXB

KXB — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:37:50 +0000

If anything, it appears that blacks themselves are the most realistic in what an Obama presidency can achieve versus what it symbolizes. They do not discount the symbolism, but Obama becoming president does not make the black illegitimacy rate suddenly plummet.

If anything, it appears that foreign audiences are the most naive. They seem to believe an Obama presidency means an immediate pullout from Iraq, reduction of greenhouse gases, and open borders. Of course, Clinton was a global darling, while we were still bombing Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, and enjoying a tech stock bubble that sucked in capital from other markets.

By: Roach

Roach — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:45:20 +0000

Blacks as a group have major problems. Americans are both frustrated, sad, and angry at the fact that this persists. It’s wishful thinking, but it’s not obnoxious so much as it is desperate.

By: conradg

conradg — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:04:59 +0000

Well, John Kennedy did get people to stop wearing hats, so maybe Obama can de-bling the hip-hop nation.

By: John Beeler

John Beeler — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:23:11 +0000

Especially since Obama's not an American black person.

By: vanya

vanya — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:28:06 +0000

Can anyone imagine the same sorts of arguments being made about Hispanics if Bill Richardson had somehow become the nominee?

Yes. Easily. For better or worse Scots-Irish are viewed as “real” Americans, they don’t need to assimilate. So Webb is a particularly bad example. Both Blacks and Hispanics are viewed by the majority as groups that need to “get their act together” and are believed, erroneously of course, to be malleable to the direction of whatever “leaders” the media choose to recognize.

By: AL

AL — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:52:03 +0000

It may be that the arrival of a candidate on the scene is so tied to the rise of a group that people convince themselves that such influence is possible — that the candidate has changed his people, rather than a changed people producing a different kind of candidate from what they’ve produced in the past.

Kennedy was such a marker of the rise of US Catholics or Pierre Trudeau of French Canadians that people jumped to the conclusion that they caused the changes that they symbolized. If Jimmy Carter had been a more successful President people would be saying that he opened doors for Southerners.

Behind all of this may be the idea that once you’ve arrived, you can let go of a lot of defensiveness, resentment, and victim behavior. Perhaps it works better with groups that still remember their immigrant past, rather than with those who’ve been here long enough to be considered native.