This is what Obama wrote on page 133 of Dreams from My Father: “Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt. … Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organize black folks.” He didn’t say he would organize all poor or disadvantaged folks, just black folks (his mother was white). Reagan and the vast majority in Congress were white folks and, presumably, he intended to turn them (Reagan's minions) around. That's 24-carat racism.
This is what Obama told his Hollywood millionaire friends in 2008 as he headed into Pennsylvania: “And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” That's about as racist as it gets. He indicated in 2012 that he would be more flexible toward Russia AFTER the election, tantamount to sellout of the U.S. (mostly white folks). Putin is probably still laughing.
Apparently, a woman taped (or so said) a phone conversation with Donald Sterling, Clippers owner since 1981, in which disparaging remarks by Sterling are recorded. Coincidentally, she's being sued by Sterling or his wife—nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Is this called “payback time?”
Sterling may not like black folks but the average NBA salary is right at $3.5 million, so he's doing right well by his players. One of them, Chris Paul (black guy), is guaranteed $83,074,518 by 2018. This doesn't mean that Sterling didn't use good judgment if he made racist remarks, although in the U.S. he has the same right as Al Sharpton and President Obama to exercise free speech and to do it publicly. Obama referred to his own grandmother (who raised him) as the “typical white person,” i.e., uncomfortable in the presence of someone unlike him/her.
The supreme irony lies in the fact that Sterling was scheduled to receive a second Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at a May 15th banquet, but the NAACP has reversed the decision. Sterling received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in 2009, also. Sharpton is scheduled to receive a Person of the Year Award at the same ceremony that Sterling would have attended. Go figure.
For folks like Obama and Sharpton, racism applies only to whites. Obama said a white policeman, who was only doing his duty in 2009, acted stupidly – without even knowing the facts, therefore, his remark was just racist. He referred to Sterling while on his current swing through Asia as being “ignorant,” but obviously didn't feel that to be a racist remark. Hypocritical arrogance like his and Sharpton's is ugly but says more about them than the people they insult.
Obama made his “flexible” remark when he thought no one would hear it, but the mike was open. Would he have put that remark on the Internet? Of course not. Sterling's alleged remark was made in a private conversation. Should that have been put on the Internet? Of course not. Yet, Obama wears Teflon but Sterling is dirty, like Reagan's minions as well as his Congress.
The most blame for these incidents should be applied to the media—all of the media that I have observed on both TV and in the paper. With the world going to hell in a hand-basket, the gossip-mongers in the media—both liberal and conservative—have gone ape over something so trivial as to be laughable. There's a touch of racial sensitivity in everyone—red, yellow, black and white—and it behooves the titillating media to shut its silly mouth.
There's been no harm done.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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