[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
So first, someone try to explain to me the theory behind the Rick Perry/dark cloud/racism! theory. I mean let’s lay this out. So the left thinks that there are anti-black racists out there who either 1) support Obama, or 2) won’t actually bother to vote against him. So Perry had to allude to Obama’s race, because, I guess they forgot he was black? Is that how the theory works?
I mean let’s talk realistically, here, folks. There is a percentage of white people who just hate black people. I don’t think it’s a very large percentage, but it’s there. So does Rick Perry need to do anything to appeal to them? No, he just has to exist and not be black. So why would he have to even allude to Obama’s skin color to win those people over? He’s already got them sewn up.
Meanwhile, of course, we see this example of real racism in the election:
During a sometimes-raucous session of what’s being called the “For the People” Jobs Initiative tour, a key member of the Congressional Black Caucus told an audience in Detroit Tuesday that the CBC doesn’t put pressure on President Obama because he is loved by black voters. But at the same time, Rep. Maxine Waters said, members of the CBC are becoming increasingly tired and frustrated by Obama’s performance on the issue of jobs. Even as she expressed support for the president, Waters virtually invited the crowd to “unleash us” to pressure Obama for action.
“We don’t put pressure on the president,” Waters told the audience at Wayne County Community College. “Let me tell you why. We don’t put pressure on the president because ya’ll love the president. You love the president. You’re very proud to have a black man — first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you’re going after us.”
The problem, Waters said, is that Obama is not paying enough attention to the problems of some black Americans. The unemployment rate for African-Americans nationally is a little over 16 percent, and almost twice that in Detroit. And yet, Waters said, the president is on a jobs-promotion trip through the Midwest that does not include any stops in black communities. “The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president too,” Waters said. “We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired, ya’ll. We’re getting tired. And so, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. We want to give him every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community. We don’t know that.”
Does anyone doubt that this is all because of the race of the people involved—black people not holding Obama accountable because he is a black man?
Now, look, I gave most African Americans a mulligan on the last election. I understood that after 400 some odd years of ugliness towards them that they were entitled to believe that the day had finally come where a black man 1) who was qualified to be president 2) might actually win the office. They were obviously right about the second part, and wrong about the first one. But that decision—to believe Obama was more ready for the job than he evidently was—was a deviation from Martin Luther King’s dream. They were judging him not by the content of his character—which demonstrated that he was not ready to be president—but by the color of his skin. It’s wrong, but it’s human.
But just how long is this going to go on? Can’t we all agree that black people are proportionately speaking just as likely as white people to make a good president, but not the idiot presently in the White House?
And at the same time, how is this whole fake dog whistle episode is not racial discrimination? After all, would this be done to a black man?
For instance, as much as liberals are freaking out about Perry’s religion, Obama sat in a racist church for twenty years and the media barely batted an eye. He took the title of one of his books from a racist sermon, and again barely a reaction. Blatant racism—or at least tolerance of blatant racism—was excused from Barack Obama, and yet Perry is defamed with selective editing in order for liberals to claim he is a racist. There can be little doubt that they wouldn’t have tried anything like that with Herman Cain.
Update: By the way, the Rick Perry black cloud thing was so lame that even Jon Stewart didn’t bite. But who did? Erstwhile stalker, Ken Ashford! I’m not going to link to his tripe, because maybe that is giving him what he is really fishing for, but you have to admire the chutzpah in this line:
And even if the fact that Obama had black skin was a FACTOR for SOME black voters, that doesn’t amount to a repudiation of King’s dream.
Well, “repudiation” is perhaps a strong term, which is why I used the term “deviation,” but no amount of twisting and turning can change the fact that those voters were doing precisely what Dr. King told them not to do. But it’s nice to see him endorse the idea that we should judge people by the color of their skin.
And of course he then implicitly embraces the black cloud dog whistle theory:
Here’s the problem with Aaron Worthing (and there are many). The only “blatant racism” he specifically acknowledges seems to exclusively exude from black people (and Worthing apparently has an odd definition of “blatant”). He never seems to see it in white people. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.
This in criticizing a post that specifically acknowledges the existence of white anti-black racism. So here’s your trivia question for the day. Is Ken so deluded he failed to notice that text? Or is he so deluded that he thinks his reader wouldn’t notice his blatant lies about what I said?
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
