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Why are you saying that I "allegedly live in Gotham" and that I think it is cool that al-Qaeda's #2 insults the president-elect of the "nation [I] allegedly live in?" Do you doubt my citizenship?
Look, I think that to people abroad, Obama does come off as an Uncle Tom. Now, their definition might be a little skewed. They are referencing his capitulation to white people and the majority of Jewish people who tell him that he has to pledge unqualified allegiance to Israel if he wants to get elected. If you see film of the Iranians protesting the US during the hostage crisis, there were big banners in the audience that read "American Blacks Rise Up Against the US." People who are oppressed by the US abroad find our willingness to cooperate with the government in spite of the way we have been and still are treated confounding. Look at it this way: The US district Court saw it fit and proper to adjudicate Holocaust survivors' law suits against Swiss Banks despite those incidents having taken place on another country's soil. But, if I filed suit against a company or family whose assets are tied to profits from the slave trade, the suit would be dismissed. Asking for reparations for slavery is considered an extreme position. So, yes, Obama could come off as an Uncle Tom to people abroad. They are not taking into account Obama's heritage, so the point still remains.
Regarding Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, I do not have much to say about black men who would never give a woman like me (a black woman) the time of day. They are no civil rights icons to me because they think women like me are not worthy of marriage or dating. I do not think that Mandela's freedom had any material impact on the lives of blacks in America. Rates of incarceration still went up, drug use got worse, crime is worse, gangs are more entrenched in our neighborhoods, we have not closed the income gap, and we do not have access to good education. So no, I do not think his freedom and subsequent election was good for blacks in the US. But, if you can see a way that it was, I would be interested in hearing it.
