Letters to the Editor
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White Jewish Guy Rewrites Black History
"Serious" Presidential Candidate?
I guess if Walter Shapiro says "serious," then it's official.
Get out your red pens and history books, children. Time to rewrite the past of the party! Be a good comrade and forget about all the previous African-Americans who, with whole heart and solid mind, tried to help America become a representative democracy.
It will be news to Jesse Jackson (and the MILLIONS who voted for him) that he wasn't "serious." Shirley Chisholm must have been planning a big practical joke on us all.
Shapiro proves, yet again, that a Democrat is just as capable of a Republican in making bone-headed racist statements. Jackson and Chisholm weren't "serious" enough for Shapiro because, like most Democrats then, he thought the black help ought to stay in the kitchen or some other back room. Certainly not out in public reminding the Democratic Party of its lily-white Senators, mostly white Congress, and nothing-but-white Presidential nominees.
By performing the honorable and necessary role of gadfly, Jackson and Chisholm made party power-players like Shapiro work for their money, and they embarrassed the party by pointing out the omnipresent racism in America, even within the Democratic Party. Shapiro's criticism (which appears to be this week's meme for Democrats) demonstrates that same racism is alive and well in the Democratic Party today. If Jackson and Chisholm weren't "serious" enough for people like Shapiro, it was because they wouldn't "shut up and play along." Jackson and Chisholm were "serious" about their issues, but in a stunning and GOP-worthy display of cognitive dissonance, Shapiro anoints them as "not serious" because they wouldn't play the party game. They weren't "serious" because they were so "serious."
Obama is "serious" because he's "safe" - his story, accompanied by violins and a narrative voice, plays well with the white audience, and he's fresh enough not to have a track record of trying. He's a clever power-player himself, currently making his best shot for the VP slot - a job which is assuredly his as long as he plays along and doesn't start making uncomfortable speeches about race. As long as Uncle Obama toes the line, his party masters will happily allow him into the field.
BTW: While we're looking at history: when did Salon become a mouth organ for the DLC?