Letters to the Editor
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Yet another tired commentary from a shallow white liberal reporter
Where does Salon find losers like Larry Blumenfeld?? Is there a mall or a web site that recruits paper thin white pundits like Blumenfeld and his ilk to pen empty garbage like this?
I bet Blumenfeld has never had any significant Black friends in his entire adult life, I imagine if I google this loser I would find a writer without any significant track record or serious journalistic credentials of note..
Let me think out loud for a second and put myself in Larry's head .." I will become a Obama specialist ( like walter shapiro) I can write topical nothing shit for depth threaten e-magazines and publications like Salon. I could earn my stripes by becoming a colored person expert since I am white and most importantly jewish I will have some race/religion based immunity to lean on if someone dares to question me on my limited knowledge of the Black middle class and Black folks in general..
Really Salon is this the best you can do?? I am slowly losing my faith here...Joan... please baby please baby, please baby, please baby, please baby.. lift off the exclusionary hiring ban at Salon and start hiring some real Black reporters and pundits...PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE baby, please baby, please baby please....
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@Thrasher: I agree, but at least it wasn't Debra Dickerson
This was a pretty bland accounting, agreed.
But thank the heavenly stars that Joan, she of the utterly deaf ear, at least did NOT assign this one to Debra "I'm Blacker and More Dysfunctional than Everyone Else" Dickerson to write this one.
Be thankful for small favors...
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AA= Yes you are correct!!
We were spared from that nitemare.....lol,lol,lol
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Errrr
Well, if he HAD had black friends, and said as much, or even alluded to that fact, then he would be accused of an entirely new raft of racial trespasses, such as using his "friend(s)" to justify/shield him from stereotypes.
I don't know. I didn't think much of the piece, but I don't think much of your critique, either. As far as that goes, he and most "white" reporters are in a no-win situation.
Just the facts, ma'am. Or man.
PS: I laugh at all this interracial "tension". Hang out with some middle- or high-schoolers sometime. It's less of issue every passing year.
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Obama and the black community
Except for Dickerson, the only pundits you see questioning the black community's affection for Obama are white. "Some have doubted Obama's broad-based appeal to the African-American community." Yes, some have. I live in Chicago, but no black person I know anywhere wastes time debating Obama's ethnic affiliation or his appeal. Those things are pretty obvious. One has to wonder whether non-black pundits are quick to point out how they believe Obama doesn't quite fit in to the black community because, perhaps unconsciously, they want to support Obama, but they feel he is not electable as a black candidate who aggressively reaches out to the black community. The more the press tries to alienate him from the black community, the more palatable to the majority he becomes.
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Anonymously: Simple minded comments do not advance the dialouge
of course the white media seeks to create a bridge between Obama and the Black masses that is no newsflash and contrary to your other impotent comments there is quite a lot of reservations about Obama in the Black press ( it requires of you and others to expand your scope and inquiry).
BTW you will never find any political capital or intell of value in margainal venues like the Salon regarding Black subject matters but you already know that ..right????
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Makes you wonder.
Is Bill Richardson under pressure to prove he's Hispanic enough?
Does Hillary Clinton have to prove she's female enough?
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Really????
"Except for Dickerson, the only pundits you see questioning the black community's affection for Obama are white."
Sorry, Anonymous, but you are WRONG.
A quick google search turns up:
La. Times - Louis Chude-Sokei's "Redefining 'black'- Obama's candidacy spotlights the divide between native black culture and African immigrants" in which he states: "Among African Americans, discussions about his racial identity typically vacillate between the ideologically charged options of "black" versus "not black enough" or between "black" and "black, but not like us." (Chude-Sokei sure looks black to me...)
New York Times - Brent Staples: "The claim that Mr. Obama has not lived the typical African-American life is closer to the nub of what bothers his black traditionalist critics. Their complaint goes right back to the race police of the 1960s who decreed that the only authentic black experience was one that featured hardship and crushing encounters with racism, preferably with an urban American backdrop." (Mr. Staples - black guy)
Guardian - Gary Younge - "Is Obama Black Enough - The Democratic hopeful Barack Obama could become the US's first black president. Yet, with his mixed-race background, Ivy League education and midwestern accent, one of his greatest challenges has been convincing African-Americans that he is 'one of us'(Yeah, he's a Brit, but black...)
New York Daily News - Stanley Crouch "What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me" (Can't find this actual article on website anymore... but quoted widely...)(Crouch? Yep, black...)
New York Times - Orlando Patterson - "The New Black nativism" excerpt: "The sad truth, however, is that Obama is being rejected because many black Americans don't consider him one of their own and may even feel threatened by what he embodies."
(Orlando Patterson - black man)
Whew! Is that enough to demonstrate the error of your ways?
On another note, it's nice to see that the racist and antisemite "Thrasher" is posting! Hi Thrasher! lol lol lol lol lol lol...
Sincerly,
Anonymous Too
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White pundits continue to fan the tired flames of "is he black enough"
In truth the only folks who are obessed with that empty saga are white reporters and pundits who rather than explore the potential of a national problem solver who is black instead seek to promote the tired "black on black" card...
The Walter Shapiro's and Larry Blumfeld's of the media world add nothing to a constructive dalouge and discourse when race is the subject matter both of course are aided and abetted by low end e-mags like Salon/Slate types..
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Anonymously: Nothing has changed still attacking me because I refused to be silenced by white jewish racism
BTW I still blush over your obession over my posts when I am in this forum.. It always amazes me how white jewish posters will always remind folks about anti-jewish themes and issues but get quite anal and defensive when a Black Icon like me dares to post about white jewish bigotry and racism..
Whenver I lecture on college venues about Israel and South Africa during aparthied or when I lecture about white jewish racism in the states during the jim crow era jewish professors and jewish students get so angry with me they hate it when I focus on thier racism and not the usual suspects (WASPS)..
But such is life for a Black activist.... In truth I enjoy the friction and the educational opportunities to educate....