Letters to the Editor
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Can pundits stop hearing making up "race" issues?
The chattering class - of which Salon.com has increasingly become a dues paying member - keeps the race issue alive. Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, pick, pick, pick, talk alot, pick -a - little more.
Let's face it, the "great conversation about race" that Senator Obama's patronizing, self-serving,sophomore essay was supposed to engender is really happening in some quarters. It is comprised mainly of seeing and hearing racism everywhere on one side and nowhere on the other.
Long forgotten is Ms. Obama's scornful Iowa lament that the "African American" is too timid to vote for - you know.
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I'll talk about race
Here's what I have to say about race:
We do not need to learn to talk about race so much as we need to get to a place in our society where we do not need to talk about race.
I, a Clinton supporter, will vote for Obama for many reasons. One of them is because he is of African-American decent. If someone votes for Obama soley because of his mixed background, that is totally legitimate as far as I am concerned. I am totally white, but if I were African-American I would have supported Obama and never blinked an eye. We have one of the worst presidents in our history who makes a laughing stock of himself daily. There is no better environment for Obama to overcome racial barriers to the whiehouse.
He says he can bring Democrats and Republicans together. He is going to have to start with Democrats. I wish him the best.
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YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME stackey-dackey
she is nto a social worker. She is a rush limbaugh sabotuer.
If she was a social worker you and I know she wouldn't say this. This kind of racist bs (go back to africa) would get her fired and she knows it.
We're dealing with fascist propogandists here. there is only one way to defeat them. Only one. irrelevance. Ignore the gop peanut gallery, it goes away. That is the only way.
you feed the trolls, you give them what they want. just a suggestion. :)
do you. She is a racist republcain from texas, who propogates on a democratic website using divide and conquer. That is all you need to know about her to know you are speaking to deaf ears.
they are fascsit propgoandist who do not believe what they say. Leave them to that esistance. Irrelevance is the worse thing you can do to these nazi's. they're used to having all the credibility and everyone care about what they say or think. Look at the media the last few months/years/decades. they used to being babied. Ignore them. nothing gets children angrier than that.
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I support Obama BECAUSE he is non-racial
I am not interested in voting for some black guy for president. I didn't support Jesse, Al, or any of those race-baiters.
I am interested in Obama because he is not black. he is post-racial. His candidacy is not based on his color. It's based on his ideas.
So, we do NOT need to talk about race. Nope, we need to talk about health care, the war, and jobs.
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what Obama should do
Obama has to do what JFK did. He has to go down to West Virginia and say "Yes, I'm black, but that doesn't mean I don't share your interests or that I won’t fight for you. If you vote for me, I won't continue the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of the rest of Americans. I won't continue a war that is costing us the lives of our youth and being paid for with a credit card that our children will have to pay off. I will stop this mess in Iraq which is depleting our military and being used as a rallying cry against us. Instead I will focus our efforts on rebuilding our economy and our reputation. That is where our true strength lies."
He has to go down there, meet the people, and erase their fears. He has to let middle class and poor Americans know, this is not a black or white issue, it’s a rich versus poor issue. Whites in West Virginia and Kentucky can't afford to continue letting some politician scare them with phony racial issues so that the people vote against their economic interest. Obama has to go down there and let the people meet him so they become comfortable with him.
When a youthful, eloquent Obama stands next to a bumbling old McCain supported by the likes of Limbaugh, Coulter, and O’Reilly, Americans will realize its time for our Viet Nam generation to let go. It’s time for the next generation to take its turn. The next generation can’t possibly do worse than we did during the last eight years. Our hopes for the future no longer lie within ourselves, they lie within our youth.
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@rufus11
I want to vote for a Democrat. I really do. But they have to give me a choice that is reasonable, not a charismatic figurehead whe doesn't even bother to read what his aides write down as his opinions and doesn't study for debates and doesn't have any experience. I will not vote for a Democratic version of George W. Bush.
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Appreciate Joan's fairness.
I greatly appreciate Joan's fairness in moderating these debates. I also think your insights are good.
I support Hillary and am dismayed and angry about the way she is being mischaracterized by the media and by Obama supporters. The Obama people are shooting themselves in the foot because there is no way I can support Obama after reading countless unfair diatribes against Hillary Clinton throughout this campaign. Also, I do not think that Obama is qualified to be president. I will not vote for him. Also, if McCain selectes Colin Powell, Obama is dead in the water.
The democratic party rules created a perfect storm this year and did the impossible, alienated the base of the party.
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@terry (barking up wrong tree with Joan)
I think Joan would agree with you that Barack is a guy who can talk about race, can talk about it in a way that accepts it is not simple...I think Joan would even agree that Barack might be an example- a really good one- of the kind of conversation she is hoping for....
But you should not expect Joan to do too much pointing to Obama as that kind of guy. Maybe later. It's not her way. People have TONS of different theories about this.
My suggestion is that you ask Joan (or us) specific questions related to the assumptions in this conversation. What typically happens around here is that everybody tries to this ONE conversation (about Wright, about Barack, about race) with all sorts of different premises...and then they get back at each other for such odd conclusions...
I read Joan's article and I see that she is concerned that the disparity in numbers we see in relation to the white vote is reflecting something very serious, something that MUST be resolved if Obama is going to win.
Look, I agree that those numbers need to be looked at and that there are important conversations to be had about race in the democratic party. That said, I need to know more about how Joan is interpreting those numbers and she really hasn't said. I get that she is worried and that her worry has to do with those numbers, but I don't yet see how, specifically, she is interpreting them.
For instance: Let's just pretend that Hillary had needed to pull out many months ago for some reason. Obama had already won his string of primary's so there was no question as to his support. I'm not sure if Joan is saying that with Hillary off the ballots, we would see really worrying numbers. If Hillary was on the sidelines for months telling people (including whites) exactly why they could trust Barack and if Barack was the option against McCain, I wonder if people see evidence that he white working-class would be very worried about him.
I think it's ok to give Clinton credit for getting votes, even if her white vote success is a combination of general enthusiasm for her competence and subtle shades of racism. it seems odd, to me, that we wouldn't primarily chalk up Barack's "problem" with the white working class vote as being a function of the fact that there is a well liked and well known white democrat running against him. Is Barack so wonderful that we should assume the white working class would have massively abandoned a popular white democrat?
I'm being sloppy, but my point is that either Joan is going to get into a conversation that really looks at what we don't know about those numbers...or she will start with a rather powerful set of assumptions that will certainly make her comment section light up!!!!!
If I read her article correctly, I can only imagine that Joan is fairly depressed about the general election...because I doubt she has much reason to believe that the democratic party will be able to have a mature conversation that figures out those numbers in the next few months while at the same time is focusing on all the crap that is about to get thrown at Obama. If Joan really thinks that Obama or Hillary can't win until this is figured out, I imagine she isn't very hopeful. Or....she has reason to think that we are about to see a social event take place that is unprecedented.