Zee Roh as Flunky

I have consistently tried to remind friends who still can't believe I'm a Republican, and who especially can't understand why I'm not in love with Barack Obama as President, is that I don't like perpetrators who are cherry-picked proxies.

And that's precisely who Barack Obama is.

What if, I've consistently asked, what if he winds up being (as is increasingly likely) an awful President incapable of winning re-election? What effect will that have on African Americans? Or the way the rest of America views us? Hmmm?

Beyond the micro-focus on things black, however, the Democrats haven't simply utilized Obama as a cherry-picked proxy. It has become their modus operandi across the board. They effectively used it to win a controlling majority in both chambers of Congress. But that kind of deviousness cannot last. Consider this post from LifeoftheMind:

To some extent this resembles the opportunity the Republicans had in 1980. The Democrats scored significant gains recently by running candidates who looked more conservative on some issues then the Republicans did. The track record of the administration and their votes in office give the Republicans an opportunity to reclaim those seats, or flip some of the Blue Dogs into crossing the aisle.

The President earns approval from 37% of White voters and 98% of African-American voters. [December 14, 2009 Barack Obama Approval Index]

This is the true tragedy of this Administration. A narrow ideologue, fronting for a group of foreign and white economic and political special interests, seized upon the credulity and loyalty of a segment of America. The gulf has never been wider and it will take decades to heal. The only hope is that a massive reaction builds within the black community in which Obama is seen as a product of white and foreign ideologies that have nothing to do with the experience of their people in America. It would help if the the first target of such a campaign would be [Eric] Holder, who sold out his community and his hometown of New York to advance these foreign extremists.

I couldn't agree more with the basic thrust. Although I don't know that it will take decades to heal this black-white divergence and I'm also not sure that the Democrats and the Obama administration are in full meltdown mode. But they are skeered, and the genuine, conscious hubris -- thank goodness -- is long gone. All that remains is the unconscious variety.

Unfortunately, that "massive reaction" in the black community is not likely to occur. Obama is going to be seen as a victim in ways they would never grant to George W. Bush. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. The imagery and language of the plantation South is used against Black Republicans but, in truth, the more accurate flow goes in the other direction.

Comments

[Everlasting Phelps]

The real problem is, people in general live by, "if you are going to do the time, you might as well do the crime." If racism from white people is going to be the mantra, then white people are very likely to say, "OK, if this is what it has come to, I might as well stop guarding against racism and just do what I want. I'm going to be called racist either way."

[Ree]

Poll Question: Should US pay for panty bombers skin graft?

http://bellalu0.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/should-we-provide-panty-bomber-with-skin-grafts/

[Alexis]

I think the backlash against the Obama phenomenon will not be primarily political at all. It will be cultural. Since Booker T Washington's Atlanta speech in 1895, there has been an unspoken agreement within American society to recognize the primacy of black popular culture. I'm pretty sure that is ending now.

I think black culture will become just another subculture within the United States, with black artists increasingly marginalized in American society. In the nineteenth century, American popular culture imitated France. In the twentieth century, American popular culture imitated American black culture. For all I know, this century will see the primacy of Japanese culture in the United States, with manga filling the shelves of bookstores.

Let's face it, having the fictional Huey Freeman (from Boondocks) as a neighbor would be rather like sharing one's bed with a bedwetter. He's a pill.

[Donald Sensing]

I did not vote for Obama. (I did not exactly vote "for" McCain either.) But there is no way to deny that a very large, perhaps decisive, number of white voters voted for him less because they thought he would be a good president than because they were enamored with the thought of themselves voting for a black candidate. I am hardly the first person to point this out.

I have been wondering for a few months exactly what you have written about here. Because of Obama - whose term is 1/4 over with really no prospect of improvement during the remaining three years - there simply will be no white "goodwill" vote for the next black candidate, including for Obama in 2012. Certainly another black Democrat won't get it and really I don't much think for a Republican one, either.

I'm not so sure, though, whether that will actually be a bad thing. We need to elect presidents based on the merits of their policies, their accomplishments and what Dr. king said - the "content of their character" - not the color of their skin. And if that is how future black candidates are evaluated by voters, so much the better, I think.

But the flip side is this: because of Obama, how many white voters will decline to vote for another black candidate no matter what his accomplishments, policies and character? That's the great unknown.

[gcotharn]

Donald Sensing said
"because of Obama, how many white voters will decline to vote for another black candidate no matter what his accomplishments, policies and character? That's the great unknown."

I just don't see an anti black candidate backlash. Such a thing seems very illogical - very different from where American voters' heads are at. Remember that Repubs, at various times, loved Colin Powell and would quite possibly have nominated him; loved Condoleeza Rice and would have given her strong consideration as a nominee; love and defend Clarence Thomas. Merit, baby! Merit. And a good life story of pulling yourself up via diligence and talent. He's not black, but conservatives currently love Bobby Jindal. Merit! Conservatives on the internet spoke out about Miguel Estrada, and advocated in favor of Janice Rogers Brown.

I'm confidant there will be no anti black candidate backlash.

[RattlerGator]

gcotharn, I hope you're correct.

Donald, I'm still trying to sort out my deep feelings about Obama. I am certain, however, that it is tragic (from my personal perspective) that he is the first black President. Growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii, I have no doubt he has something of a cartoonish (and patronizing) understanding of African America.

Like so many Harvard grads.

But hey, he's the first and there's nothing I can do about that.

Alexis commented on Huey Freeman and the Boondocks comics. I have to admit, watching it on Adult Swim, the collection of characters fascinated me and I thought it was a real breakthrough because (for better or worse) it did have a clearly authentic and representative black voice.

We just have so many more voices, with a much more complicated "love / hate / love" emotional attachment to this nation.

If Boondocks signals that some of those voices will be breaking through, free of the PC straight-jacket, great.

If Obama's election signals the end to the kid-gloves treatment by white people of serious delinquency in the black community (this is what I initially thought the rise of Obama signalled when he delivered that convention speech in 2004 but he has clearly squashed that wishful thinking), great.

In fact, I think this is the leading candidate for "Greatest Squandered Opportunity by Barack Obama." He could have hammered home the responsibility tip, something we desperately need (America, in general, and African America in particular), but he's just being a good "display" Negro (isn't he articulate!?!) and parroting the liberal white northeastern thing.

Maddening.

Most of all, disappointing. But that's life, that's reality, and the most unserious Presidential election of my lifetime has delivered the President we deserved for such an unserious vote.

Black, white or otherwise -- we need to do much better the next time around.

[Kerry]

During the OJ show trial, a friend remarked that he did now see a 'black' defendant, but a privileged, high paid athlete. It seems the Dems will be the ones gun shy in nominating another 'black' because their criteria for qualification was just that, skin color. They might be strung up by their own 'people of color'ideologies, and, refusing to abandon the statecraft of victimhood for character and meritocracy, spin like whirligig bugs on oil. If the Repubs nominate a 'particular skin color person', the particular skin color will be beside the point. But I agree with you RattlerGator. What in the world will black American's do with the/their, "I voting for the Brother" test of a candidate? Fool me once...fool me twice...? (I expect, as Vanderlun says, that people's teeth will catch fire.)

[Kerry]

Oops, "...did not see"

[Haden]

Thank you very much!
http://www.pdfqueen.com

[Oxy]

Pence: "Mr. President, is would you be willing to consider embracing -- in the name of little David Carter, Jr. and his dad, in the name of every struggling family in this country -- the kind of across-the-board tax relief that Republicans have advocated, that President Kennedy advocated, that President Reagan advocated and that has always been the means of stimulating broad-based economic growth?"

[Realestate]

Happy New Year! Happiness and success in 2011.