This isn’t going to make the Rev. Wright story go away:
We thought we heard this, but we wanted to go back and listen to the clip of Sen. Barack Obama on 610 WIP this morning to be sure.
610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know (pause) there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”
So how am I supposed to take that ? Is he implying that it’s natural for a “typical white person” to harbor suspicions about black people ?
The follow-up statement didn’t help:
We gave the Obama campaign a chance to respond to this post. “Barack Obama said specifically that he didn’t believe his grandmother harbored any racial animosity, but that her fears were understandable and typical of those often shared by her generation,” said Obama’s PA spokesman Sean Smith, who added that Grandma is 86-years-old. He might have meant that specifically, but that isn’t what he said, especially as he spoke of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, in the present tense.
So old white people distrust blacks ?
The only way this is going to go away is if Obama just stops talking about it.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
“Is he implying that it’s natural for a “typical white person” to harbor suspicions about black people ?”
Um… yes, and it’s absolutely true. Any white person who tells you they walk down the street in a city at night and see a group of young black men approaching, and feel the exact same way as when a group of young white men approach… well quite frankly they’re not being completely truthful. It’s programmed into us.
That does not mean “typical” white people believe that black people are even more likely to be criminals, let alone in any way inferior. It simply is programmed into us and difficult to avoid racial profiling in our own minds.
Obama’s challenge to us all is to rise up and acknowledge these things. The african american community needs to take responsibility and cannot continue to blame society for its problems. But we cannot have this discussion if we repress everything and pretend that race does not have any role in our day to day lives. As Colbert says “I don’t see race, but they tell me you’re black” — a true laugh.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Apparently you don’t know any old white people.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
ahhhh..he’s right…..
most white people ARE scared of black people..
you are either stupid or just plain ignorant if you dont see that..
March 20th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Do you actually know any older white people? Barack is not so far off the mark. The younger generations, I think, are most capable of acknowledging the culturally (and biologically, fwiw) ingrained racism that we all accept as “normal.”
March 20th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
He’s not stupid or ignorant just another Republicon
March 21st, 2008 at 1:26 am
Sen.Obama should be held every bit acountable as every white person who has lost their job, been demoted, forced to resign or been released from their duties because they said something racist in the media. No matter how mild the staement.
Equal and fair.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:56 am
[...] could renounce he own Grandmother — that would be the one he described shortly there after as a typical (bigoted) White person. Only a few short weeks ago, after Wright made another bizarre public appearance, Obama finally [...]