…of Obama. Cinque Henderson makes the case:
It’s worth remembering that the majority of blacks still think O.J. Simpson is innocent. And, in times like these, when a black man is out front in the public eye, black people feel both proud and vulnerable and, as a result, scour the earth for evidence of racists plotting to bring him down, like an advance team ready to sound an alarm. Barack needed only a gesture, a quick sneer or nod in the direction of the Clintons’ hidden racism to avail himself of the twisted love that rescued O.J. and others like him and to smooth his path to victory, and, therefore, to salvage his candidacy. After Donna Brazile and James Clyburn started to cry racism, Barack was repeatedly asked his thoughts. He declined to answer, allowing the charge to grow for days (in sharp contrast to how he leapt to Joe Biden’s defense a month earlier). But, while he remained silent about the allegations of racism, he gave speeches across South Carolina that warned against being “hoodwinked” and “bamboozled” by the Clintons. His use of the phrase is resonant. It comes from a scene in Malcolm X, where Denzel Washington warns black people about the hidden evils of “the White Man” masquerading as a smiling politician: “Every election year, these politicians are sent up here to pacify us,” he says. “You’ve been hoodwinked. Bamboozled.”
By uttering this famous phrase, Obama told his black audience everything it needed to know. He was helping to convince blacks that the first two-term Democratic president in 50 years, a man referred to as the first black president, is in fact a secret racist. As soon as I heard that Obama had quoted from Malcolm X like this, I knew that Obama would win South Carolina by a massive margin.
Read all.
[Update a few minutes later]
Ruben Navarette, Jr. helpfully explains to us white folks that if we don’t vote for the Messiah, it can only be because we are racist:
Some want to know why it isn’t racist when 70 percent of African-Americans vote for Obama but it is when 70 percent of whites vote against him.
The answer has to do with history. Over the decades, black Americans have had plenty of opportunities to vote for white people for president. And they have done so. But this is the first time that white Americans have a chance to vote for an African-American with a shot at the presidency. And what are they doing?
Many are responding quite well. Obama won the votes of many, to borrow a phrase, “hardworking white Americans,” in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. But, elsewhere, as Obama said in a recent interview, people may need to get their head around the concept of an African-American even seeking the presidency, let alone winning it.
I guess some of us just aren’t responding as “well.” But we can’t have legitimate reasons to not vote for him, because obviously, there are none. We just can’t stand the thought of a darkie in the White House.
Despite the fact that many who won’t vote for Obama would have no problem doing so for Colin Powell, or Condi Rice, or Michael Steele, or J. C. Watts. But then, maybe they’re not authentic black folk.
This reminds me of the nineties, when I was told by the left that I didn’t like Hillary because she was a “strong woman,” and I was threatened by that. By a “strong woman,” did they mean like Maggie Thatcher? Or Jeanne Kirkpatrick? Or any other number of women who I’d have been happy to vote for, because they weren’t power-hungry harridans who wanted to run my life for me? No, it could only be sexism.
As I’ve said in the past, when John McCain wins the election, it will be because the nation is either racist, or sexist, or (if by some miracle they’re both on the ticket), both.