"When he was a kid, every morning his peers would lie in wait for him on the way to school, eager to beat him down because he was "acting white" by studying and trying to do well for himself. What is the white analog of that? Who gets beaten by white folks for acting black?"

No, an analog would be (for example) a poor white kid in Appalachia getting beaten up by his peers by studying and trying to do well for himself. Trying to be like the "rich" people. Or a poor Indian kid in South America. Or a poor ethnic Malay in Singapore. Or a favela dweller in Rio...get it? It always amazes...well, it used to amaze me that people can't ever see the analogues to this. By the way, the "acting white" thing, while it happens, is very overblown, and is one of the fave toropes of people like "old punk". I'll bet your black friend loves to tell all his white friends that story.

Bill Clinton's string of rape victims ...

No, only one rape victim (Juanita Brodderick), but an entire string of mistresses and misused women. After all, it was one of Bill Clinton's aides who gave the world the term "bimbo eruption."

These letters give a whole new meaning to rabbit trails!

Anyone, everyone is missing the point. There are many people (e.g., Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton) who profess to speak for all blacks, whether or not anyone actually asked them to. Any black person who disagrees or thinks differently (e.g., Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell) is called all sorts of vile names, mostly by blacks by sometimes by whites.

Ergo, blacks tend to think they're a monolithic group, all thinking alike and sharing the same tastes, hence anyone who treats them that way, rhetorically speaking, is merely fulfilling their wishes.

Some huge percentage of blacks (somewhere north of 90%) believed OJ Simpson was innocent despite the overwhelming evidence against him. Somewhere around 40% of blacks believe AIDS was created by the US government to wipe out blacks. (Wright taught that in his church.)

Why, when they so monolithically think alike, should they not be treated that way in discussion?

... Bill Clinton's string of rape victims and drug running operations, John McCain's black illegitimate baby...

You forgot Bill Clinton's black illegitimate baby. Google "Clinton" and "Danny Williams".

Cheers,

Kristol says in today's NYTimes that the real question is "Why did Obama stay with his church for 20 years"? I could not understand the controversy behind this, until I finally realized, it is a direct result of the mindset of people who just cannot respect those who disagree with them. They fail to recognize that just because Obama found Wright comforting in certain roles (as someone who explained the Christian faith to him) does not mean he had to accept his every view, including those on race, America and ways to govern.

Take almost any one of their "thoughtful" screeds about Islam and do a global search/replace from "Islam" to "niggers" and the text becomes instantly recognizable. This racist energy had for a long time been at least partly directed towards "the Communists" but now that it isn't it is pretty much clear that Islam is now the designated nigger.

While I appreciate that some right-wing criticisms of Islam are racist, the majority in my experience represent a fully legitimate analysis of an illiberal ideology. The problem is that the writers are hypocrites, not that they are wrong or blindly prejudiced. They are conservative, supremacist, homophobic, patriarchal Jews & Christians, who have the gall to criticise Islam for having effectively the same destructive beliefs.

Shame of Glenn Greenwald for promoting this soft think with his selection of that quote. It really takes gross intellectual dishonesty to equate criticism of Islam, an ideology characterised by specific beliefs, with the in-born, meaningless physical traits which we call ethnicity or race.

Maybe if the white man had not sloughterd thousands of indians or tricked the Africans into taking the big cruise. They wouldn't be so dambed parranoid about other races taking over thier ill gotten place in this country.

Signed: One white woman who still loves her white man.

"Well enough of this. KStone will accuse me of writing an essay."

Hey don't blame me for your verbosity! : )

She knows what she is about and what it could cost her in dollars and popularity if she embraced someone like Wright. Obama should take a few lessons from her on white people.

Rule #1: Always make us feel good about ourselves. Never make us feel small, small-minded, or racist -- even if we are.

Steele said Obama had two problems. His potential black support, and the angrier or the more philosphically aware that they were, the worse for him. White people and using white liberal guilt to appeal to them; he must not make them feel that they are not good people. Make them feel like racists or that he does not also belong to them, and they will turn on him.

I read a recent article that claimed that educated upper class black folks are waaaay angrier than poor black folks. (For the record, I believe poverty could piss anyone off.) There are many reasons for this. Were you in the thread when I had the exchange with TRenee that made her so upset? The subject was affirmative action. I sort of knew I was pushing her buttons, but in truth I was curious about her reaction. There are not many middle and upper class black people who have not benefitted from affirmative action. However, they struggle with the perception of others that they do not deserve whatever position they attain with that help. Bound to make anyone angry.

It is Shelby's contention that many black people want their black candidates to be black. They stuggle with the identity crisis that comes from moving away from that historic identity. Educated black people are far more likely to have read Cone and W.E.B. Dubois -- to have been politicized. If Obama acts too white he loses their support.

Shelby's book A Bound Man takes a critical at Obama's book and examines it from the standpoint that Obama wrote it, that of a biracial man searching for his identity. He said that Obama struggle as a politician would parallel Obama's struggle for identity. Reject his biracialness (his white mother and grandmother, his whiteness) and he would offend whites. Embrace his blackness and he wins blacks. Conversely, reject his blackness (Jeremiah Wright, BLT, the community) and his will lose black votes, while probably gaining white votes. It is a damned if you do and damned if you don't position.

I do remember what you posted about Dubois and double-consciousness. That is part of what has allowed Obama to come so far. He uses that to navigate the choppy waters between those two shores of white and black.

Most black people probably know this. Many here at Salon have no doubt read Steele's book. I have no doubt Obama has read Steele's book. That is part of what I mean by trying to have it both ways. I do think Obama is sort of a phony. I think he is his own creation. I actually understand this but I also resent it. My own style is distinctly non-political. I want to be myself and only myself. I don't want to have to please people. So sometimes I get pissed off at Obama.

About Hillary: I am really glad she has found a hairstyle that works for her. I don't imagine it is really possible for her to be herself in an open and public way. She is too sensibly defended. In her own autobiography, she almost never uses the phrase: I feel. She is a completely cerebral creature. She is not creative. She is not terribly imaginative, but she is, I believe, amazingly competent. She is as prepared as she can be with the experience she legitimately possesses (the Senate) and the life experience she has worked so hard to make useful to herself and to others. She is a Methodist to her core. Works matter!

We do need to understand our candidates on a personal and not just a political level. Take GWB. So much of what has happened can be read in two events: His animosity towards his father and his religious conversion.

Well enough of this. KStone will accuse me of writing an essay.