Obama delivered his most recent smack down message at the house
of worship where Dr. Martin Luther King preached, Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta. In a 2000+ word speech, Obama never
uses the word racism, only uses the word race once and never
uses the word discrimination. However Obama acknowledges ""
the
insidious role that race still sometimes plays on the job,
in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal
justice system." That statement appears to be an acknowledgment
of racism in American institutions. But he was very indirect
with his criticism of white institutions. First, the words
"insidious role that race" and not racism signals to whites that
problem is not conscious or overt and he is not accusing them of
racism. Second, he limits even that ambiguous statement by
qualifying it with the word "sometimes" to be sure that the
white community understood that he is not calling them racist.
He was not so circumvent in then spanking the black community
over homophobia, anti-Semitism and mistreatment of immigrants.
"We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of
embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times,
revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have
seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in
the fight for opportunity."
However, he doesn't mention sexism, colorism or anti-black
racism.
I am coming to view Obama as a very clever, gifted racial
politician. Obama uses racial politics to both endear
himself to blacks and to whites. He gives the black community
enough hope that they are blindly ignoring that he has used the
black community to endear himself to whites and is now overtly
endearing himself to gays, jews and immigrants or more
specifically Latinos. He endears himself by sending the message
that he will use every opportunity to "discipline" this unruly
child whose family he is a member of - the Black Community.
Yet, as far as I can tell, he rarely, if ever, uses the
opportunity to so directly discipline the other half of his
family - the white community - for their racism and sexism.
Why is that?
Obama ended his smack down with a reminder to black people of
their true role in this society - to be their for white people.
He spoke of a elderly black male organizer for his campaign who
saw himself involved in the campaign, not for his family, not
for his community, not for his grandchildren, but for a young
white woman organizers who was there because of her mother's
problem with health care.
Another "Driving Miss Daisy" moment! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_Miss_Daisy)
