"I can no more disown [Rev. Dr. Wright] than I can my white grandmother ... a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street..." -- Barack Obama, 3/18/08.
More and more, I am being accused of threatening America with disaster by being responsible for Hillary or McCain getting elected in November. Of course, my ongoing plot to make Hillary and/or McCain President consists of me sitting here in my underwear typing into my blog passages from Presidential candidate Barack Obama's bestselling 1995 autobiography Dreams from My Father.
Why am I doing this? Mostly because it's ridiculously easy to come up with relevant posts on the Presidential race by looking up what Sen. Obama had to say about his own life and transcribing it ... but virtually nobody else is doing it.
Here's a topical excerpt from pp. 269-271, which concerns Obama's life in Chicago when he was in his mid-20s. In it, Obama expresses the same supposed anti-black "racism" which he recently attributed to his 85-year-old grandma.
"That night, well past midnight, a car pulls up in front of my apartment building, carrying a troop of teenage boys and a set of stereo speakers so loud that the floor of my apartment begins to shake. I've learned to ignore such disturbances -- where else do they have to go? I say to myself. But on this particular evening I have someone staying over ...
"'Listen, people, are trying to sleep around here. Why don't y'all take it someplace else?'
"The four boys inside say nothing, don't even move. The wind wipes away my drowsiness, and I feel suddenly exposed, standing in a pair of shorts on the sidewalk in the middle of the night.... One of them could be Kyle. One of them could be Roy. One of them could be Johnnie."
Kyle, Roy, and Johnnie are all black male characters in Dreams from My Father -- in other words, as Obama's grandfather might say, the fellas in the car are black. Obama then proceeds to make stereotypical assumptions about young black males:
"I start picturing myself through the eyes of these boys, a figure of random authority, and know the calculations they might now be making, that if one of them can't take me out, the four of them certainly can."
The chapter ends:
"The engine starts, and the car screeches away. I turn back toward my apartment knowing that I've been both stupid and lucky, knowing that I am afraid after all."Shocking, isn't it?
Most of the effort that goes into my Obama posts consists of my editing out the excess verbiage with which Obama padded his endless autobiography. To make this incident readable, for example, I left out hundreds of intervening words of vintage Obama posturing about what a bad-ass he had been when he was the same age:
"One of them could be me. Standing there, I try to remember days when I would have been sitting in a car like that, full of inarticulate resentments and desperate to prove my place in the world. ... The blood rush of a high school brawl. The swagger that carries me into a classroom drunk or high ... That knotted, howling assertion of self ..."For the last two Februaries, political reporters from mainland newspapers have been taking expense account trips to Hawaii to research the accuracy of Obama's memories of himself as a high school desperado. The consensus of his prep school classmates' recollections has been that Obama was actually a very nice, cheerful, well-liked schoolboy.
And I also had to leave out most of the trademark Baroque O'Blarney philosophizing about the meaning of it all. Let me quote one sentence to show you why so few people ever finish reading Dreams from My Father:
"As I stand there, I find myself thinking that somewhere down the line both guilt and empathy speak to our own buried sense that an order of some sort is required, not the social order that exists, necessarily, but something more fundamental and more demanding; a sense, further, that one has a stake in this order, a wish that, no matter how fluid this order sometimes appears, it will not drain out of the universe."
I think this means that the Ivy Leaguer has just now realized he's on the side of the cops, not on the side of the crooks.
But getting his point across is not the point of most of Sen. Obama's verbal efforts. (In this respect, Obama is the exact opposite of Rev. Dr. God Damn America, who is a master at distilling his meaning down to an agitating phrase, such as "U.S. of K.K.K.") The candidate's goal is more typically to induce in the reader or listener a trance-like state of admiration of Obama's thoughtfulness. He's expert at implanting the idea, "Surely, such an intelligent person must agree with me. All we need to do to end these wearying partisan disputes is to turn power over to a reasonable man, a man much like, say, Barack Obama!"
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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41 comments:
Wow. And almost certainly another Steve first. You're so far ahead of the rest of the media, it's a joke.
This probably won't make the election stories, but I wish we lived in a world with people intelligent enough for nuanced articles including it.
I've been arguing with people for some time now that Obama is not Jesus, but just a rather-far-left politician with some black American affiliations. There are still a ridiculous number of worshipful Obama fans out there. It's scary, and should be scary even if you're a fan of the candidate. Democracies that work this way work badly.
I must say, Obama certainly does not sound like a typical black person.
Let me see if I get this right. Obama writes not one, but two autobiographies about himself before he really has accomplished much of anything in life. Both of those books deal extensively with his racial identity crisis. His wife, who is making in excess of $300K a year and skated into two Ivy League schools thanks to affirmative action, speaks down to America saying she's never been proud to be an American before this election. Then, we also find out he attends a church for at least 20 years run by a man who is openly and completely hostile to whites and blames them for just about every ill on the planet (We'll just ignore the gigantic list of positive accomplishments whites have). Now, people are finally starting to ask a few questions about the untouchable Obama and his suspect dealings with unsavory characters. Then he gives a "race" speech where he says, in essence, "White people need to do more. Feel the guilt and vote for me!" Yet, they say his critics are somehow obsessed with race? Give me a break.
Obama is a world-class hypocrite.
But maybe we are misreading Obama. I’ve read that in the 1960s, 70s and 80s there were comedians who ran for President to get publicity.
Maybe that is what Obama is doing. Viewed this way, Obama’s campaign is the largest, most expensive form of “performance art” in history. Of course, instead of a “drama”, Obama’s performance art is a very dry form of comedy. One could even say it has a Seinfeld ethos: Obama’s performance is the “campaign-comedy” about nothing.
After all, watching the fawning over Obama from the likes of Anderson Cooper and Chris Matthews and the insane ranting of Pastor Wright and all the illogical “defenses” of Obama from blacks like Eugene Robinson and Bob Herbert is like going from one surreal situation comedy to another.
There may be differences between Seinfeld the situation comedy series and Obama the comedy-campaign-performance art, but if so they are minor. Seinfeld was mostly about what was good for and about Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, whereas Obama is mostly about what is good for and about…Obama.
I ask you, just read this description of Seinfeld and ask yourself if it doesn’t sound like the Obama campaign, at least in substance:
The episodes of most sitcoms revolve around a central theme or contrived comic situations, whereas most episodes of Seinfeld focused on the minutiae of daily life, such as waiting in line at the movies, going out for dinner, buying a suit, coping with the petty injustices of life. Some viewers hold the belief that the world view presented in Seinfeld is somewhat consistent with the philosophy of nihilism, the view that life is pointless.
That picture of you sitting in your underwear, and then typing such great articles, really hilarious if you compare it to all the self-aggrandisement of the MSM.
For God's sake, Steve, please put on some pants.
I work at home a couple of days a week, too. It gets a little lonely, doesn't it? When a repairman visits, I trail him around the house and badger him with conversation.
My advice: Take a shower first thing in the morning, shave and put on some real clothes. This means... no sweat pants. Doesn't hurt to make a trip into town to buy a cup of coffee at the deli.
Dear Steve, buy a kimono.
A well-wisher.
The underwear thing--TMI.
Obama comes through your posts as an intelligent and sincere WHITE man, who by an accident of genetics, was born with pigmented skin. Looking at himself in the mirror, this white man mistakes himself for an African American, and dedicates his life to become one. But deep down he is dead afraid of real AA males, and probably he hates them all. And he tries to solve this conflict of identity - growing up story by writing a very long book, by which he demonstrates that he has not one drop of archetypical AA element in his tortured soul. Obama is not a fake AA, he is a case of mistaken identity.
PS: Obama is fascinating. I bet when he assumes his essencial whiteness, he will leave that fat AA Michelle and find a hot intellectual white girl, just as like his own mother.
Steve, the underwear comment was really funny, but it kinda distracted the posters from this really excellent article. I think its one of the best articles of yours so far.
Steve - great post once again. I predict your big break is going to come on June 11, 2008. You , Derb, Steyn, Nordlinger and Coulter are the only people I seek out on the web. The Corner has gotten so bad I quickly scroll through looking for Derb and Steyn posts. I also read Sullivan because his sight is very readable- he deserves some credit for that, and his hysterical rantings make me smile. I was SHOCKED he loved Obama's speech.
Does/did Obama really consider himself a badass? That's interesting- I'm sure around Harvard undergrads he probably was.
LMAO! If some trust fund baby from Connecticut had written that, people would laugh out loud at the living parody of a handsome, empty-headed, privileged white boy trying to sound substantive. It's like the pompous, connected Dan Aykroyd contrasted with the street-smart and savvy Eddie Murphy in Trading Places, except Barack Obama is cast in place of Dan Aykroyd. I mean really,
"So then as I stood on the sidewalk in my jammies I said to myself, 'Self, somewhere down the line both guilt and empathy speak to our own buried sense that an order of some sort is required, not the social order that exists, necessarily, but something more fundamental and more demanding; a sense, further, that one has a stake in this order, a wish that, no matter how fluid this order sometimes appears, it will not drain out of the universe.'"
Does he get paid for this?
A carful of black teenagers once smashed a bottle at my feet to let me know I was in the wrong place, i.e. on their territory. If I hadn't been in a public place - a gas station, where I had been forced to stop my car for servicing - it would likely have been worse.
Of course, if I were to let this doubtlessly atypical incident in any way affect my consciousness, I would be a racist deserving of denunciation.
I bet when he assumes his essencial whiteness, he will leave that fat AA Michelle and find a hot intellectual white girl, just as like his own mother.
Michelle is not fat, she's tall and thin. And Obama's mom was not hot, at least she doesn't appear so in the pictures I've seen.
Look, Barack Obasma is not a Leftist.
Barack Obama's number one economic advisor is a University of Chicago economist. Counterpunch has documented that Wall Street is providing massive funding to Barack Obama's run for the presidency.
Barack Obama is just another sleazy,megalamanic lusting for power,fame and forutne. He has much in common with Hilary.
Check out my comments over at Sean Carroll's blog Cosmic Variance. Sean Carrol-inherited Richard Feymans office at Cal Tech- is a CalTech professor of Cosmology and...a well known public supporter of Barack Obama.
It is a hot thread. It is the currernt Barack Obama thread. Take a look at my-Horace Grady- comments-55 and 56.
Steve I gave you and vdare a big thumps up over at Professor Carrols blog. Have a look.
If a carload of young males of any race is "pumping'" music *aggressively* loud near an apartment complex, you know their testosterone is up and they are ankering to display their budding manhood.
In this circumstance, ANY racial group of young men can be dangerous, even Asians or Whites. Its an act of *aggressive* rudeness on their part. What bewilders me is that Obama isn't street smart enough to know what to do in a civilized society. You call the police and give them a car description and plate number if possible while explaining the young men are blasting the bass at midnight in an apartment complex, which anyone knows is rude. Confronting them is humiliating to them as a group because they have to "back down" in full view of one another. Its much different that telling one kid in his new ride that his tunes are too loud and to roll up his window.
BTW---Its a pet peeve of mine that we get in these parts once in a while, of that strange phenomenon of kids who outfit their cars with ridiculous speakers and indulge in bass-HEAVY music that literally vibrates other people's cars. I'll never understand their pleasure in doing this, but they certainly are being intentionally provacative. Cops pull em' over for it now (thank God).
Ben Franklin: Some viewers hold the belief that the world view presented in Seinfeld is somewhat consistent with the philosophy of nihilism, the view that life is pointless.
I never watched much more than two or three minutes of Seinfeld at a time - I certainly never watched a complete episode - but how many children did the characters of Seinfeld make?
These were supposed to be 30- to 40-somethings, and I don't recall any of the characters having children.
For that matter, I never watched an entire episode of Friends either, but I'm under the impression that, over the course of its eleven year run, there was only one baby on that series, and, even then, only at the very end.
Boxers or briefs?
Which speaks to your own buried sense that an order of some sort is required?
It is the "A More Perfect Union" thread over at Professor Caroll's Cosmic variance blog where you find the debate about Barack Obama.
How much weight does the Lavendar Mafia carry in our media? CNN is in the tank for Obama. CNBC is also. MSNBC and AP is also.
FOX is not in the tank. foxnews.com is another story. ABCNews apparently will stand up to Obama.
"Conservative" Drudge has been soft on Obama for the entire campaign. And now Drudge does showcase linking to all sorts of left wing bloggers. Miami Beach Drudge.
I haven't seen a primary or presidential poll of gay male voters. Can we assume it would skew 95% Obama?
Saturday Night Live just did a skit saying the media is in the tank for Obama. The bias is obvious, over the top and egregious. Endless gay friendly magazine covers also makes one question whether there is a strong Lavendar connection to the Obama Media enterprise.
In 2008 the absolute lack of neutrality and presence of evil in the mainstream American media is revealed. Shove the smooth and handsome NeoBlackPanther candidate down the "typical white" throat at any cost.
No offense Steve, but if you're finding this stuff, isn't the oppo team in the Clinton campaign finding it too? Aren't they feeding it to the media? If so, is the media not running with it? Or are they hanging on to it? Maybe they're waiting for the right moment to unleash the sh#$storm, or figuring out how to do it without it blowing up in their faces, a la Geraldine Ferraro last week. Or maybe once the PA primary is over, the racial calculus of the nomination process will change again and this will fade away.
Wright= George Jefferson
Obama = Lionel
In this circumstance, ANY racial group of young men can be dangerous, even Asians or Whites. Its an act of *aggressive* rudeness on their part.
yeah, yeah, yeah. we know all that.
Statistics please on Asian youth playing loud music and who have raped/murdered while under the influence of excessive testosteron? Not talking about WWII. Ditto whites.
You don't get away with comforting ToKillaMockingbird statements like that around here.
I've seen this on other Blogs. Ace of Spades. Hotair. So while Steve is noticing it, so have OTHER bloggers. All conservative. All willing to point out the hypocrisy of Obama.
McCain or Hillary would sure as hell be better than Barack Hussein Obama. His latest -- the "proletariat must control the means of production." No kidding. He said it. Pure Marxist garbage that has been proven NOT TO WORK for more than 80 years. Along with angry Black Nationalism.
I'll take Hillary or McCain.
Steve isn't torpedoing Obama, Barack Hussein Obama is doing that all by himself. [Jessie Jackson said the same thing about fearing young black men and feeling relieved if it's young white men, and Chris Rock has a routine about him at the ATM feeling relieved when they young men are white, asking for his autograph.]
Hanson notes that Obama has no social knowledge of the average white guy, so comes across badly because he projects clueless white radicals that he hangs out with onto the working/middle class.
But no Steve is not torpedoing Obama. I saw this YESTERDAY at Ace of Spades.
What bewilders me is that Obama isn't street smart enough to know what to do in a civilized society. You call the police and give them a car description and plate number if possible while explaining the young men are blasting the bass at midnight in an apartment complex, which anyone knows is rude.
You're the one that's not street smart. In most cities nowadays, the cops aren't going to do anything about such complaints.
If the police do something, one has to worry about the thugs taking their revenge on you if they figure out who reported 'em. However, I agree that reporting them is better than not reporting the loud punks.
Confronting them is humiliating to them as a group because they have to "back down" in full view of one another.
Oh boo hoo hoo, we certainly don't want to humilate anyone. Might lead to loss of self esteem, harming what other wise be a stellar performance in AP Physics class.
In addition, calling the police may do the boys more long term harm than confronting the miscreants personally, if officialdom keeps records of such misdeeds.
Its much different that telling one kid in his new ride that his tunes are too loud and to roll up his window.
One big mean kid can also be intimidating, so what is the difference, really?
Sure HotAir and some others have noted some of these things, but neither HotAir nor Ace of Spades has cited Obama’s own book on Obama’s own fear of young black men on the street.
So, unless anonymous has a link, he/she/neocon is wrong to give credit to them more than to Steve. The irony is that there are liberals who support Hillary who have noticed Obama playing the race card and lying about it.
So, it should be obvious, but what Steve is doing is the real work providing evidence of Obama’s dishonesty and double standards.
Actually, in black neighborhoods old folks really will go out onto the street to tell young thugs to pipe down. Or to stop selling drugs in front of their houses.
It's PC whiter people who are the most terrified of young dark skinned thugs and allow them to run roughshod over our cities.
His latest -- the "proletariat must control the means of production." No kidding. He said it.
Are you on crack? No American politician has said anything remotely like this since at least the Palmer Raids.
Or do you read this at Ace of Spades YESTERDAY too?
Sailer secretly hates Obama. That is why he is so obsessed with him. Can Steve write about anything else except Obama?
My wife and I left a "changing" neighborhood in a northern rust belt city when the boom box cars got to be too much.
Living around black people in large numbers, there is only so much "muthaf***a" this, and "ho" that, and "n*gg*r" this and "b*tch" that that a decent person can take.
I found myself reflexively rolling up the minivan windows whenever cars full of young black men rolled up to the stop light because my daughter (4) was too young. I really didn't want to explain the sexual habits and language of African-Americans.
We moved. Left some nice black and white friends, but eventually realized that even the nice blacks are not really bothered by the filth and profanity.
And, no, calling the (black) cops about noise and profanity in a predominately black neighborhood does absolutely nothing.
David Davenport,
First, in a apartment COMPLEX with hundreds of apartments, the carload of kids is not going to figure out which person got on the phone and alerted the police to their loud music on Private Residential property.
Second, Barack Obama wouldn't spend the night in such a lousy place that the police "no longer respond to such complaints". He's never been in that kinda hood' as a tenant.
Third, and most importantly......................
surely in your life you have figured out that confronting AN ENTIRE GROUP OF YOUNG MEN would be more dangerous than confronting ONE of them. If you confront a group of young men, their leader (and there is always one or two alpha males who are "leaders" in a group like this) is going to have to "lose face" in front of the others and back down. Believe me, he isn't going to want to do that, it flies in the face of a bazillion years of evolution of anthropological behavior of upper primate males in group circumstances. You are more likely, and not less, to get violence as a response confronting a group of males instead of one.
Of course, you could just buy ear plugs and accept the fact that there is nothing you can do about the loud music outside your apartment day-in and day-out. Or you could move to a gated community, which seems to be the solution more and more of America is taking, even when they really cant afford it-at least in my parts. To exist in these places, one only has to make a lot of money and does not have to worry about being street smart, which is as it should be.
I think Steve is the only one to actually read Obama's book. It sounds like the kind of thing your editor gives you, then you go out for beers with your friends and swap weak insights regarding what you picked up from skimming at a page every ten seconds or so.
All this Angry Black Man angst is very much expected of any politician who wants the support of the Cornell West crowd, and wasn't Obama a professor?
"Look, Barack Obasma is not a Leftist.
Barack Obama's number one economic advisor is a University of Chicago economist. Counterpunch has documented that Wall Street is providing massive funding to Barack Obama's run for the presidency."
Indeed, according to accuracy in media, Obama has received $5 million from that arch-globalist snake, George Soros. Then again, so has Hillary.
I never watched an entire episode of Friends either, but I'm under the impression that, over the course of its eleven year run, there was only one baby on that series, and, even then, only at the very end.
Basically, two. The character Ross had a son with his first wife before the series' storyline, and a daughter with Rachel toward the end. At one point in mid-series Phoebe carried triplets as a surrogate mother, and Chandler + Monica, who couldn't have children, adopted twins in the very last episode.
There were no children in Seinfeld, although most of the 30-40-year-old (!?) characters had intimated at various times that they might have children in the future.
In both shows' defense, small children are shark-jumping fun-killers to any show that isn't family-themed.
A few "thoughts":A)"The blood rush of a high school brawl...coming to class drunk...the howling assertion of self..." I think here that Obama was referencing MICHELLE's youth!!! B) Obama's story of confronting black youths never happned,IMO. He made it up. This Harvard bag o' bones is facing down 4 BLACK youths in a car,in the hood??? More likely it was 4 black youths in a Radio Flyer wagon.C)A kimono? One word:NO! _josh?
"I bet when he assumes his essencial whiteness, he will leave that fat AA Michelle and find a hot intellectual white girl, just as like his own mother."
His mother left her wife for an intellectual white girl?
You're the one that's not street smart. In most cities nowadays, the cops aren't going to do anything about such complaints.
The "most cities" part I don't know about. I will say I lived in a number of Southeastern U.S.A. small cities and mid-sized cities over the past 15 years, and - yes, I will "go there" - the more diverse they are, the less willing to do ANYTHING the cops are. In my current city, the NAM contingent is 16%, and cops are very, very serious about little noise complaints. The complainant is always respected, believed, and catered to, and order is kept. Heavenly. (The nights must be relatively slow?) But in, say, Jacksonville, Florida, the cops are angry at any complainant, and are aggressive partisans of the complained-of. If you seek relief of them from a noisy party at 3 AM on a weeknight, then YOU are the problem, and are told so. One cop informed my wife and me that our tormentors were just "a good black family having fun." A stereotype on his part, albeit an edifying one? Sure. But, he was the Wright color so he and his brethern got a pass, as they always do.
One strategy when the officers of the law are unresponsive or hag-ridden by NAMs is to give them something more in their debased line, such as reporting that you've seen drugs being smoked on the offender's premises, and "lots of cars pulling up over there, day and night." It's a good bet drug activity is indeed going on with loud aggressive partiers - at least, they very probably have got the stuff on them - so you won't be wrong often. And as for vehicular activity 24/7, that's nearly always true these days. Gets the constabulary protecting normal people with normal concerns for a change, anyhow. And NEVER leave your name. Vengeance killings are common among certain NAMs. You don't want your severed head to end up in a mailbox.
If anyone objects to my suggestion, then I would like him or her to consider the only real alternatives, as I see it, to the lawlessness in situations in which the police do not keep order. The alternatives are for the civilized people to move away (often at significant short-term cost to themselves), thus abandoning the area to the bass-thumpers and the weeds; or enforcing justice themselves, directly. Are these alternatives preferable?
(Giulini's strategy of coming down hard on minor offenses is the way to reclaim neighborhoods; the way to lose them is to do the reverse.)
Finally, if Obama is elected, where do you plan to spend Election Night? Despite its seeming outrageousness, that is not an idle or joke question.
Just found your blog. Thanks for reading Dreams so we don't have to.
Saw this posted elsewhere, haven't verified it:
page 40-41 - dreams of my father:
“Men take advantage of weakness in other men. they are just like countries in a way. the strong man takes the weak man’s land. He makes the weak man work in the fields. If the weak man’s woman is pretty, the strong man will take her”. …
“which would you rather be?”….
“Better to be strong”… “if you can’t be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who’s strong. But always bteer to be strong yourself. Always”…
I suppose the 'someone who's strong' here would be Kennedy, Dean, Brazile, etc. In Chicago, it was Emil Jones, and before that Michelle Robinson's father, Mayor Daley, etc.
Fits with some things he's said about his Chicago agitator days: accumulate power so you can threaten the Have's to give what you want. (See "Unlikely Political Education of Barack Obama" from TNR.)
It even seems to be working in the nomination process: some Dems are getting scared of riots in Denver if a ruling or vote goes against Obama.
David- great idea on getting cops to take your complaints seriously- a white lie doesn't hurt anyone. I do the same- twice I've pretended to be an off-duty cop to defuse a potentially explosive situations on DC's Metro ...and once filed a complaint about crazy kids marauding our neighborhoood- I threw in that i think they were shouting anti-semitic language. Amazing how much better the response is from the police.
I threw in that i think they were shouting anti-semitic language. Amazing how much better the response is from the police.
You win (the complaint is investigated), the cops win (easy night), the SPLC and ADL win (more "anti-semitism is on the rise" statistics to cite in begging letters) - hey, what's not to love?
"I think they might be planning to burn a cross on someone's lawn. No, I didn't see a cross, I just have a fear they might be planning to do this."
Pavlov said all this long ago.
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