In a long article on the young Barack Obama in the Chicago Reader, December 8, 1995, as he was launching his political career, I found something I had not known before:
"Obama took time off from attending campaign coffees to attend October's Million Man March in Washington, D.C."
But that doesn't mean Obama agreed with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who organized the Million Man March and gave the climactic numerology-laced tw0 hour oration. As Obama pointed out in Dreams from my Father (p. 200), Farrakhan's black separatist capitalism just isn't practical:
"If [black] nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."What Obama wants instead is multicultural collective action. He told the Reader in 1995:
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations." ...
"But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate. Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it if we can't find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage. ...
"Exhortations are not enough, nor are the notions that we can create a black economy within America that is hermetically sealed from the rest of the economy and seriously tackle the major issues confronting us," Obama said.
"Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent, and international economy. Any African-Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don't also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers--whites, Latinos, and Asians.
And don't forget, it takes a village to raise a child!
"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.
"Now we have to take this same language--these same values that are encouraged within our families--of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other--and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
Interestingly, while Obama is for the workers of the world uniting politically like in a Benneton ad, he's not crazy about blacks deciding for themselves to live among whites:
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. ...
Obama's 1995 dismissal of getting a job, getting rich, and getting out of the ghetto was a reflection of his first conversation with Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. in the 1980s, as recounted in Dreams from My Father. One of Wright's own secretaries at Trinity tells Obama she wants to move to an integrated suburb so her son will be safe. Obama then asks Wright (pp. 283-284):
"But wasn't there a reality to the class divisions, I wondered? I mentioned the conversation I had with his assistant, the tendency of those with means to move out of the line of fire. ...
"'I've given Tracy my opinion about moving out of the city, [Rev. Dr. Wright]
said quietly. 'That boy of hers is gonna get out there and won't have a clue about where, or who, he is.""'It's tough to take chances with your child's safety.'
"'Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be.'"
The economic subtext is that the jobs of both Wright as a South Side black preacher and Obama as a South Side black community organizer and proto-politician are imperiled by the right of blacks who can afford it to move out of the black slums and find a less dangerous place to raise their children. It's less fun being a "community leader" if your putative followers keep moving to Schaumburg. So, Wright and Obama implore their followers to stay put, even at the risk that their children will join gangs and go to prison or the grave.
So these two hyper-glib men's guilty consciences over their policy of self-interestedly persuading black parents to continue to expose their children to the dangers of gang-infested neighborhoods helps explain some of the anti-white paranoia that runs through Wright's and Michelle Obama's statements. For example, on 60 Minutes, Michelle explained: "... as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station ..." as if KKK snipers were cruising past the South Kenwood Amoco. (South Kenwood, where the Obama's mansion is, is only 1/3rd black, but North Kenwood's a dicey neighborhood).
Obviously, the main danger faced by black men is being shot by other black men, but that's too unspeakable to mention, so free rein is given to paranoid fantasies about The Man being behind black-on-black violence, as in Wright's Trinity church "Black Value System." Keep in mind that this quote isn't from Farrakhan, it's from the church that the Obama family donated $22,500 to in 2006:
Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.
Those so identified are separated from the rest of the people by:
1. Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
"But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change... exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, ... find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage. .."
ReplyDeleteSo this is what he means by "change"; dealing with the dysfunction of black society. Of course Obama and co. insinuate that this dysfunction is a result of their living under a white government. However, this dysfunction can be found all over Africa, whether the governments there have recently been white (South Africa, Zimbabwe), or only nominally white (Ethiopia, Somalia).
I wonder how many of the white babes who routinely faint when the change chants get going actually realise that all they are voting for are changes which would somehow benefit the black community. Of course at whitey's expense. And judging from South Africa, the net result will be that all the dysfunction of the hood will be exported to the rest of America.
That's a pretty cheeky thing to be selling under gullible people's noses. Kinda brings the chrome-mouthed cigar puffing used-cars sales guy to mind. I wonder if the NYT cares to inform us that this is the exact “change” that Obama has been talking about, and that they have been hyping.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI DO realise you have to harp on all this old-hat Obama nonsense in order to keep reeducating those obstinate NYT execs who secrretly read your blog, but can you at least interject the occasional interesting and hilarious post just to prevent us long-term readers from falling asleep? Pleeze.
Steve, Please don't delete this post, but I am asking "Why the one-man vendetta gainst Obama".
ReplyDeleteAs an English reader of your VDare Monday postings, which I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy, I do find your relentless attacks on Obama rather wearisome, if not slightly obsessive - I'm almost feeling sorry for the poor guy now, - What has he done to ofend you so much?
Well anyway, I greatly miss the usual 'red-meat' of your columns where you tackle all sorts of interesting topics.
The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out...
ReplyDeleteHas the right-wing's emphasis on the individualistic ideal increased because the government and all the demonization against "discrimination" gutted charities and other groups that were historically whites-only?
By the way, Steve, have you read this blog post (via John Robb) about Marc Andreessen's meeting with Senator Obama last year?
ReplyDeleteNo doubt Obama was trying to give what he thought would be the right impression, but Andreessen's no fool, and he's impressively impressed.
Obambi is just a jumped-up street corner preacher.
ReplyDeleteHe's just Father Divine in modern garb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Divine
Geez.
Keep swinging, Steve. This Obama coverage is the most useful and fascinating thing you can do at this moment. I find it all interesting.
ReplyDeleteOne of Benjamin Franklin's more cutting remarks about Alexander Hamilton, whom he despised, comes to mind when I think about Obama bin Laden:
ReplyDelete"Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason."
For whatever reason, possibly related to that form of Stockholm Syndrom that it is held to be more polite to call "white guilt," Mr. Obama, or Osama, or whatever his name is, is being regarded as some kind of rockstar by millions of squealing teenagers who are mostly not old enough to vote. Of course, he is in fact a nonentity, a puffed-up empty suit not objectively qualified to manage a Denny's, and a creature of the infamously corrupt Chicago Democratic machine to boot. Who did not know this?
Why anyone takes him seriously is beyond my poor powers of perception. And, no offense, Mr. Sailer, but I don't even take him seriously enough to want to read article after article telling me not to take him seriously. Are there no more relevant or, if not relevant, then at least interesting topics?
What does Steve have against Obama?? Better to ask,what the heck does Ferraro have agin him?? Geraldine seems to be outraged that Barry is even running! Like,what did this guy do?? He obeyed all the rules,he had a right to run for the Presidency...uhm,didnt he?? Steve has never questioned Obamas right to run,like these Democrats have!! As for Barrys idea that the more,uhmm,"together" members of the commumnity want to leave,and leave the "less together" members behind (we just had a brazen murder right outside a local H.S. here in Obamatown--i.e. Chicago--the mom of the guilty teen says he is a "good boy" ),I would rather see them living in somewhat better Black hoods thsan to move to white ones.I know thats bad to say,but countless hoods here,like in may other cities have been destroyed by integration.-Josh?
ReplyDeleteAnon -- as a sometime resident of New Orleans I can tell you that charities in New Orleans at least among Blacks were large and robust until the Welfare State. The benevolent societies did a lot more than just parade krews during Mardi Gras. There was retirement, health, savings, and other plans that were offered to Blacks.
ReplyDeleteOne thing Segregation did, was provide a startling unity under oppression to Blacks and their own institutions. Not just historically Black Colleges and universities, but all the institutions including insurance, banking, etc. that people need to live.
Unfortunately today there is no will or ability to provide those institutions. I understand the desire to recover those institutions, it's natural and human. But unlikely to happen when the "Black Value System" promoted by Wright prevents any sort of middle-classness as he puts it that provides those institutions. Thug rappers and angry black nationalists raging against Whitey(tm) and demanding handouts don't build banks, insurance companies, and other institutions.
A thought about Obama, not exactly related to this post, but sort of.
ReplyDeleteObama's reaction to the Wright mess reminds me of what happens when my wife is mad at me because something I said hurt her feelings: I am quite sincere in apologizing for "whatever it does I did" as I really didn't intend to hurt her feelings, I really am socially inept enough that I don't know what it was I did wrong, and I really do wish I did so I could prevent myself from doing it again.
So I actually believe that Obama was completely sincere in his first response: that he didn't think his church was all that controversial. Aside from Indonesia, he has spent his life in private schools, Harvard, South Side Chicago, and the University of Chicago. Academia and the ghetto are the only parts of America Obama really knows well. As a result he has never spent any significant amount of time around anyone who would dare to call bullshit on the likes of a Wright.
So now he's probably sincerely puzzled as to what the fuss is about, and the "I apologize for anything controversial" thing isn't just Clintonian parsing: Obama now knows that he doesn't have the cultural knowledge to predict what parts of Wright's sermons the rest of America will react badly to until they do. He's in uncharted (for him) territory and he knows it. The name of that uncharted territory is "normal people," with Hillary's working-class white/Asian/Hispanic base as the prime example.
Why not just save words and flat out say you don't some fancy-pants black guy to be president because he will make black people rule and put all us good and decent white folks out on the street.
ReplyDeleteAnd also he will pass a constitutional ammendment that black guys are entitled to 2 of our white daughters. Then we'll become the United African States, and he'll wear some crazy African tribal dress in the white house, while white folks tend to his horses and dogs.
Also Islam will become the national religion, and all the stars on our beloved flag will become crescent moons.
Isn't that what we're really afraid of?
Once you are utterly sick and tired of saying your own message over and over again, that is when you *may* be just starting to get ideas through to people's (I think I read that on vdare somewhere). This maxim has definitely applied to Sailer's insights on Obama.
ReplyDeleteSteve keeps "attacking" Obama for reasons somewhat related to the reasons the media are promoting him. Not quite a converse, but sorta; the media refuse to report on Obama because they want him to be president, and are afraid of criticizing a black; Steve reports on Obama as much as he does because he's doing the job the media should be doing. Is that about it, Steve?
ReplyDeleteI have to say, it takes a hell of a lot of commitment to racial solidarity to voluntarily keep living in a high-crime neighborhood, sending your kids to a low-achieving school, etc. I'm impressed by that level of commitment on the part of the people that do it, even though I think racial solidarity is an amazingly silly thing to spend that commitment on.
ReplyDeleteWas Obama really handing out advice along those lines himself? Or just reporting what Rev Wright said? I'm having a hard time imagining him telling some lady "Well, I live in a reasonably nice suburb with my wife and kids, but *you* should stay here in the 'hood, so your kids will get a lousy education before they drop out and join gangs. Oh, hey, I gotta get out of this neighborhood before dark, see you later!"
Isn't that what we're really afraid of?
ReplyDeleteMmmm. Nope. In fact I'm not afraid of an Obama presidency. I commented somewhere (I think it was here) that I have moments when I take a break from regarding them as all equally loathsome, and think of Obama as the least loathsome. Of course, this is all from a WN's perspective so what do I know?
My opposition to Obama has more to do with the media than anything else. I positively hate the media, and they despise me. They're clearly wetting their pants for Obama, to the point where they're willing to lose money to support him, so there must be something really wrong with him.
Last Anon -- a black guy who embodied "tough" masculinity and a general conservative approach (think Dennis Haysbert on the Unit) would win in a landslide.
ReplyDeleteObama is not that guy. As Derbyshire points out at NRO, he is part of a community that thinks itself not American. That defines itself as Tibetans define themselves as not Chinese, not American.
It's not asking too much to have a President who considers themselves American. Obama manifestly, in all areas, flag pins and disdain for the flag, Wright, his Church, etc. considers himself not American. He defines himself as not American and opposed to America.
For that reason, he will lose. The way McGovern, Kerry (Global Test), and Gore lost.
Presidential politics is easy. The most pro-American (policy almost doesn't matter) candidate wins. Simple.
For whatever reason, possibly related to that form of Stockholm Syndrome that it is held to be more polite to call "white guilt," Mr. Obama, is being regarded as some kind of rock star by millions of squealing teenagers who are mostly not old enough to vote.
ReplyDeleteIt's not really guilt. It's better understood as a kind of intra-White racial oneupmanship. It's Whiter people trying to show they are better than merely White people.
The Good White people want to "rebrand" America to the world as a non-racist, liberal, open wonderful place that has banished the White racist, barbarian-cowboy NASCAR, lynch mob, Walmart America from the halls of power.
Obama is here to redeem this nation of it's Original Sin - White People. The fact that he is a black male born of a White woman makes him even more precious and symbolic.
So guilt is the wrong emotional motivation. Moral arrogance and a smug sense of being one of the Good White People, of being fashionably correct while looking down on the dirty White racist rubes is what motivates these Whiter White people's support for Obama.
Seems some people are pulling all sorts of info off of YouTube now.
ReplyDelete"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out..."
ReplyDeleteObama isn't criticizing leaving the ghetto (as Wright surely would), but rather he is criticizing blacks who leave their communities and never give anything back.
Steve Sailer: Obama flew to D.C. to attend Farrakhan's Million Man March
ReplyDeleteI guess this was before his credit card maxed out.
"Paranoid fantasies about the man" eh? I would honestly agree with you and laugh along with with you even were it not for the simple fact that that is pretty much what happened here in 'perpetually shit on' Africa. Why make whole nations out whole or atleast culturally similar kingdoms and tribes when you can hack them down the middle and force them to live together with their polar opposites. Take Nigeria for example. I would love to meet the genious the "right side of the curve" genious who came up with idea of forming the country such a way that Christians and Mulsims have to share the same rook with near equal population numbers. Given the West vs Middle-East tussle that his happening in the world now, you can probably guess that we are just having LOADS of fun over here.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
MAybe you are right about about African Americans being overly paranoid but giving my recent experiences in North America where I literally got a first hand taste of what its like to be 'black' over there you'll have to forgive me for not sharing 'your' overly glib sentiments on the matter. I liken the the experience to not realizing you are tall until you find yourself at anti-tall people rally in Shortsville.
And don't even get me started on sites like Youtube. For all your talk about black resentment towards whites, most of innappropriate and downright infantile 'anti' commentary on that site happens in one direction: From whites (or atleast non-blacks) to blacks. Given your assertions about black intelligence and the indisputable wisdom (so says I) about 'idiots on the internet' it seems strange that such commentary would be balanced so.
Not that I'm sayin' somethin' or nothin', homie.
Aaaanyway, I was gonna say something else but I forgot what it was so I'll get back to you on that when next I come for my next 'let's to totally dump on the black people' dose.
Till then, toodles.
anon. said
ReplyDeleteWhy not just save words and flat out say you don't some fancy-pants black guy to be president because he will make black people rule and put all us good and decent white folks out on the street.
And also he will pass a constitutional ammendment that black guys are entitled to 2 of our white daughters. Then we'll become the United African States, and he'll wear some crazy African tribal dress in the white house, while white folks tend to his horses and dogs.
Also Islam will become the national religion, and all the stars on our beloved flag will become crescent moons.
Isn't that what we're really afraid of?
DC under Marion ("dat bitch set me up!") Barry.
The "Chocolate City" under Nagin.
South Africa.
Zimbaube.
The ruins of Detroit.
Ask a Zimbaube farmer your question. Be prepared to endure his response.
The kind of thing you sarcastically make fun of actually does happen in majority-minority areas, if the minority is black. It's no joke.
Black rule is ruin.
Last Anon -- a black guy who embodied "tough" masculinity and a general conservative approach (think Dennis Haysbert on the Unit) would win in a landslide.
ReplyDeleteBut white Lefties love Barackin' bin Obama precisely because he is rather androgenous and soft-spoken -- a nice clean house Negro. An undomesticated manly black fellow wouldn't do at all. ...Too threatening.
Furthermore, some of you nostalgic old whities may not comprehend the possibility that Obama, just as he is, may win in 2008.
... fancy-pants ... house Negro...
Why not just save words and flat out say you don't some fancy-pants black guy to be president because he will make black people rule and put all us good and decent white folks out on the street.
Just as in Rhodesia and other formerly civilized parts of Afrika, yes.
"Of course, he is in fact a nonentity, a puffed-up empty suit not objectively qualified to manage a Denny's"
ReplyDeleteA Harvard educated lawyer and US Senator not qualified to manage a Denny's? Please tell me where you live, I'm a great connoisseur of fine restaurants and I feel my life will be incomplete without a trip to Denny's there.
"you don't some fancy-pants black guy to be president because he will make black people rule and put all us good and decent white folks out on the street.
And also he will pass a constitutional amendment that black guys are entitled to 2 of our white daughters..."
Maybe it's just me, but some of this stuff might be hard to pass, what with roughly 450 out of 535 US lawmakers white males and all.
"Geraldine seems to be outraged that Barry is even running!"
Hey, don'' that boy know his place?
"Once you are utterly sick and tired of saying your own message over and over again, that is when you *may* be just starting to get ideas through to people's"
Yeah, either that or you get confined to a rubber room.
" guess this was before his credit card maxed out"
OOOh, you mean to tell me a guy making $55 grand accidentally charged up to the limit on his credit card eight years ago? CHRIST, THERE'S NO WAY HE SHOULD EVER BE PRESIDENT! Lucius, I should know by now the futility of trying to battle your considerable intellect. I surrender.
"I positively hate the media, and they despise me."
Yes Svigor, I saw Andy Rooney speak about you during his 60 Minutes monologue last week. Here are the excerpts for those of you who missed:
"Ever notice how this guy Svigor who keeps posting nonsense on isteve.blogspot.com is an idiot? I have...."
And that pales in comparison to what Britt Hume had to say!
Yeah, it happened amongst those brilliant 'white' people in the Middle East also, how has that worked out?
"Steve keeps "attacking" Obama for reasons somewhat related to the reasons the media are promoting him."
I counted 9 posts in a row concerning Obama. In the words of the great P.T. Barnum:
"I don't care what the newspapers say about me, as long as they spell my name right."
svigor: I find it entertaining that this is pretty much my take on Obama, as well, despite starting from rather radically different premises.
ReplyDeletedyork: No, I think you're reading this wrong.
In US middle class white culture, the civil rights battle was mostly won, IMO, by making overt racism = lower class, disrespectable. At least my experience with my parents' social class, and to some extent my own, fits this. Overt racists are seen as lower-class losers. Issues of race were somehow made into issues of identity, not factual belief.
You can see this in the way people will appear proud to denounce _The Bell Curve_ without ever having read it, while being horrified at the thought of having that book in their homes. You can see it in the way people who are "outed" as racists for believing some non-PC thing (like that crime and IQ statistics say what they say) will apologize while saying things like "that's not me" or "I'm not that kind of person."
I think this is especially powerful for my parents' generation, most of whom were actually brought up to be at least somewhat racist. They're like a bunch of gay Southern Baptist men, feeling guilty for what they think and feel, and terrified that the neighbors might find out. And that makes them very easy to manipulate, very willing to spin news a certain way, avoid discussing certain topics, treat black intellectuals like mascots instead of colleagues. Think of how often prominent anti-gay activists eventually come out of the closet--it's the same phenomenon.
I am just shocked,shocked that you quoted out of context and didn't include the full quote from the chicago reader article
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/archive/barackobama/
(btw i also hate that liberal msm they always distor things unlike the conservative blogosphere, fox and talk radio)
you cited:
"But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate. Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it if we can't find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage.
"Exhortations are not enough, nor are the notions that we can create a black economy within America that is hermetically sealed from the rest of the economy and seriously tackle the major issues confronting us," Obama said.
"Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent, and international economy. Any African-Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don't also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers--whites, Latinos, and Asians. We must deal with the forces that are depressing wages, lopping off people's benefits right and left, and creating an earnings gap between CEOs and the lowest-paid worker that has risen in the last 20 years from a ratio of 10 to 1 to one of better than 100 to 1.
"This doesn't suggest that the need to look inward emphasized by the march isn't important, and that these African-American tribal affinities aren't legitimate. These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."