It has been the habit of those of the liberal persuasion to assign racism to only white people, never to those of any other race, such habit configured graphically in the "mainstream media," for instance, including especially the coast papers and ABC/CBS/NBC and their cable outlets. The trash-talking of white people as virtual cannibals vis-à-vis those of color has become a cottage industry, and the sponsors of these garbage-spewers go along because, after all, profit is the theme and self-flagellation a redeeming virtue anyway.
In an interview with Steve Kroft of CBS "60 Minutes," Michelle Obama indicated that she didn't worry about assassination since Barack Obama, being a black man, could be shot just going to the gas station. The ugly context of that statement is that of racism. Most U.S. citizens are white, so her husband, she seems to think, is at the mercy of white racists, who would be called "white supremacists" by Ms. Obama's minister, the Rev. Doctor Jeremiah Wright, who is on the record as claiming that white racists/supremacists invented AIDS and inoculated the black community with the dread disease.
Much has been made about Hillary Clinton's comment that the '68 campaign ran into June, at which time Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated. She was simply offering a time-frame for previous campaigns but the mainstreamers made the remark into a veiled threat perhaps suggesting that Obama had better not make any trips to the gas station. This turned Clinton's remark into one of racism…ugly, but no uglier than Ms. Obama's actual racial slur, in the first place, which came well before the Clinton remark.
Michele Obama's comment leads into this statement, made in her speech at the University of South Carolina: “Because sometimes it’s easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance… That’s America. So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?” This, in turn, leads into the Barack Obama wisdom offered at some Hollywood bash that people like the folks in Pennsylvania (typical whites noted in his racism speech in Philadelphia, with his grandmother as a paradigm?) are paranoid religionists grasping their Bibles and hunting down immigrants. Since most of the people in S.C., the U.S., and Pennsylvania are white, it's racism again.
Some folks might term these examples as "reverse racism." They would be right. This is enhanced by Michele Obama's previous statement that the U.S. is a mean country, another echo of the Rev. Dr. Wright, who said the U.S. should be damned by God, and connected the nation's meanness with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, operations that actually ended the worst war in history. Barack Obama, notwithstanding any claims to the contrary, knew about the reverend's reverse-racist remarks and reacted by pushing the minister out of his campaign circle.
This sort of racism is not just the garden-variety type. More accurately, it could be termed elitist reverse-racism. In other words, the Obamas (Michele putting everyone on notice through her activities that she's a main player), display elitism in its most pronounced form, not pretty. The mainstream media don't call this stuff elitist racism because Obama speaks from the mountain and must soon part the waters leading to CHANGE as he does the Moses thing, leading the whiteys out of their wilderness of ignorance, as Michele Obama would put in, citing her South Carolina speech.
The elitists, after all, are the ones with the wisdom to identify CHANGE and point the nation toward it. The elite racists (or reverse-racists), as seen in the Obamas, are those sagacious ones who can drag the whites (okay, everyone, to be fair) into the 21st century, perhaps kicking and screaming, to be sure, but acknowledging the elitist superiority. Perhaps this CHANGE has been described, but, if so, the description has escaped this corner. So far, it has been more of a rhetorical gimmick than anything else…sort of like the famous Howard Dean SCREAM of 2004, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
It's no accident that Barack Obama has made a supreme effort to engage the youngest of the voters. He has a winsomeness that is attractive, can make a good rehearsed stump-speech (though stumbles badly off-the-cuff), and is relatively young at age 47. His charisma can carry him with the young, who have neither the knowledge nor experience to separate truth from fiction nor personal appeal from genuineness, but do love the notion of CHANGE, just for the heck of it. By contrast, John McCain is labeled a hopeless anachronism, though not appearing as such to the smartest of the youngsters, despite his having both the knowledge and experience to run the country.
So…this column might be termed as one greatly evincing a certain racism, even elite racism. That's for the reader to decide, of course, but level heads should consider the elements of elitist reverse-racism…not pretty, but out there. For instance, is Obama so thoroughly disconnected from Wright that he won't attempt to inculcate reparations, an objective near to the reverend's heart? To do so would point to the quintessential elite reverse-racism…make the whites (most of the taxpayers) ante up to whoever can make a claim, thus admitting a guilt never operative…but appropriate for financial considerations.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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