Archive for September, 2009

Jimmy Carter’s race statements are right, but at odds with Obama’s Plutonian race strategy

Posted by Amok in blog, diversity, news, politics on September 16th, 2009

When Jimmy Carter says it’s about race, I believe him to be as true as his boiled peanut recipe.

But Carter’s bluntness in his comments to NBC that the animosity toward Obama is race-based, is much too direct for Obama’s current style, and could upset the president’s momentum.

Obama is too cool for direct. Apparently, his race politics are way too subtle for the country.

The way Barack Obama has become a winner in politics is by diffusing the race issue and making it seem irrelevant.

In the Obama universe, issues don’t revolve around race. In this political solar system, race isn’t at the center like the Sun.

It’s more like Pluto.

It really is the formula to Obama’s success, and his new politics of bringing the country together. That’s not to mean he’s a Clarence Thomas , or that he forgets the importance of ethnicity and race in public policy.

It’s just that he knows race bogs down everything . It’s polarizing. And it prevents him reaching the kinds of compromise that helps one effectively lead an entire country.

So he sidesteps it.

Obama’s compromise on race is to show up, make it obvious he’s a black president, but not to dwell on it. For Obama, race is more the subtle subtext and not the raging headline. It was his secret to his campaign and his success.

And it throws the GOP off-track. They don’t know how to deal with a 21st Century Race politician.

When the GOP can’t argue the facts, as in health care, or when it can’t stem the support for the president on real issues, then it goes ad hominem and race is the old standby. The whole birth certificate issue and the Islamic middle name issue are nothing more than racist attacks on Obama.

Of course, all the stumbling around on race is based on how most people don’t want to admit racism is happening or even in existence. It plays to the moral conscience of both the white perps and the white liberals, who think they are perfect. Aren’t we all better than that? We’ve gone beyond race, right?

Well, not exactly.

So when Maureen Dowd writes her NY Times column about essentially saying, “Damn, we got racism here;” And when Jimmy Carter, our Southern gentleman, starts talking from the heart about racism at play in the policy debate, well then, by gum, we have racism.
What are we going to do about it?

I’m starting to see the wisdom of the Obama strategy. He’s just figured out a way to deal with race so he can get things done. The answer. Don’t deal with it.

It’s a tad zen-like.

By comparison, those who know the old politics on race are like cold warriors. Maybe we should try to do as Obama and ignore all this and try to press on, hoping that policies and people can change, and that by focusing on the bigger picture we can all be led to a new place together. Does that sound too grandiose or Lincolnesque? So be it. To do otherwise, is to bog down in the past, polarize, and get no where. Didn’t Obama show us that?

Maybe this is another one of those times that race bubbles up in Obama’s path, like the Rev.Wright affair. That means one sure-fire prescription could work now: A little speech therapy to put everything back into order in the Obama political universe, where race is minor.

As I said, race is not the Sun, it’s more like Pluto, making the strategy absolutely Plutonian.

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Amokwatch: Serena, Kanye, Joe Dub—outbursts galore, and race is the subtext; And guess who’s missing? The Asian American victim; Also, a quickie review of Leno

Posted by Amok in blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics on September 15th, 2009

They all went amok in a bad way: Serena, Kanye and Joe Dub.

And we’ve heard from all the perps and their victims and supporters on all sides, except one.

Who’s speaking about  the Asian American woman, the linesperson who dared to speak out and correct the foot fault of Serena Williams at the U.S. Open?

No one.  Because no one cares about her.

Poor Kim Clijsters who just had to sit back and let victory drop into her lap, they care about her. But the line judge? We’ve heard nothing. A name of “Shinno” has come up on the web. But there’s no sympathy for her.

She’s the invisible victim.

If anything, there’s been a little back pedalling on the outrage toward Serena. Now people are saying it’s just Serena’s passion for winning.

I heard one blowhard talk host talking about how in such a championship situation that it was a  ”chickenshit” call by the line judge.

Hey, what is sports without rules? You don’t give out mulligans when its for real. When the Giants strike out do you say strike three was b.s., give us strike four?

No, the line judge was right. But this isn’t about rules. It’s about race.

Let’s play substitution. If a line judge looked like Serena or Kim Clijsters and made the call, do you think Serena would have felt she could get away with that b.s. outrage?

She was being a bully, plain and simple. She felt she could get away with it, because the line judge was looked to be Ms.Meek Asian Book Worm. She stereotyped us, had it in her head that it was OK, and let out her venomous wrath without any respect.

Do you think Serena would have done that to a black judge? A white judge? One who didn’t appear to be meek and readily dominated?

If you don’t think race had something to play in the dynamic, your head’s in the sand. Asian Americans just don’t get the respect they deserve in general. And in little things like this, it’s out there for all the world to see.

Just ask yourself where is the line judge, and why isn’t there an outpouring of sympathy for her after she made a fair and correct call and engendered the wrath of Serena?

Why isn’t she on Jay Leno’s show?There was an Asian stand in on a joke. But no one said let’s get the Asian victim. Why?

KANYE NOT TOO SWIFT

As for Kanye? His move the other night was reverse Joe Wilson.  Wilson is the segregationist  who can’t accept that a black man is president in the modern day and calls Obama a “liar.” Kanye can’t accept that a white chick like Taylor Swift is up there  winning the hip-pop and hip-hop culture’s VMA?  What irony for those who remember the day when MTV refused to play black artists. But now Taylor Swift, the 19-year old cross-over country act who draws them in with chick pop gets out of the white country ghetto and under Kanye’s skin.

But he’ll bounce back. He nearly cried on Leno last night.

LENO OUTSMARTS THEM ALL

When Leno was just a sub on The Tonight Show, I used to freelance jokes to him. I never was paid better per vowel.

So I’m a bit partial to Leno, though I am a former Poonie like Conan. But what struck me was how Leno has outmaneuvered, outpoliticked everyone in the big game of showbiz “Survivor.”  When he left the 11:30 slot, he got the 10 pm slot. For those of us who have watched “Letterman” earlier in some markets, the format can work. A lot of people don’t want to stay up late anymore.

Leno drew 18 million at 10 p.m. last night. And now you can bet all the expensive 10 p.m. dramas will be worried. Dollar for dollar, Leno’s show will prove to be cheaper per rating point, and more profitable.

OK, now for the show. Was it funny? It makes you smile. That’s it.  Leno’s brand of corn sells. And it works. If he has good guests and good gets (Kanye West’s silence about his mother was as good a get as possible last night),  then Leno will soar.

And then everybody will go to bed at 11 p.m.

Too bad for local news. Too bad for Conan.

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Dowd on Wilson’s outburst: I guess it takes a white person or two to recognize an act of racism

Posted by Amok in blog, diversity, journalism, news on September 13th, 2009

Any other claim from a person of color gets automatically dismissed as more of that old, tired reverse-racist grievance politics.  It’s usually accompanied with a scornful response like “Grow up, you old race dinosaur. Get a life. Get real. We have a black man as president. Join the 21st century.”

Insisting that the racist tendencies of America are still operating on all cylinders gets you that kind of reaction.

And then, because the racism is so obvious, and no one hears your cry, one tends to accept it as the reality of the new America.  Save the wails for the extreme cases. Crying racism about the norm just doesn’t make it today.

That is, unless a white liberal columnist like Maureen Dowd  finally gets it enough to wake up her white readers in the New York Times about a certain Southern congressman’s outcry during President Barack Obama’s health care address last week.

Said Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) to the President: “You lie!”

The president didn’t of course. Not like George W. Bush ever did.

But Wilson’s charge has since made him a hero and darling to those who share his same segregationist values. Wilson is a Son of Confederate Veterans, who fights for the rights to wave the Dixie flag and decries the truth of segregationist Strom Thurmond’s bi-racial child as a smear.

Wilson has a difficult time with the truth.  But his outburst made Dowd realize a truth:

In today’s column, “Boy, oh, boy” Dowd wrote: “I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.”

Welcome to the ethnic truth, Maureen. Those of us who write primarily for the ethnic media have heard the drumbeats loudly before Wilson’s shout.  Hopefully your readers will snap to, as you have.

With race as a subtext, Wilson shows that  health care reform led by America’s first black president is made to order for those who yearn for the second coming of the civil war.

 

 

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Health-care Rx:Obama’s Speech Therapy

Posted by Amok in blog on September 10th, 2009

Whenever it seems like his back his to the wall, or the when “the sale” is in jeopardy, Obama’s prescription has always been the same: Give “the speech.”

That’s the way it was in campaign mode. And even after winning the presidency, it’s never let up for Obama. When the Rev. Wright stories appeared to sink his chances last year, an eloquent speech on race in Philly set the record straight. In January, a thoughtful inaugural sought to quell partisanship and indeed brought the country together. That is, until he set his attention to health care.

Now when health care is more polarizing than even race, Obama turned to his rhetorical gifts once again to forcefully lay it our for the people.

The speech was emotional and direct in the way it pared down his plan to the big picture essentials. Not the details,necessarily, but the larger view. A government-run not for profit insurance option for those without coverage, a public option, is still the most polarizing thing on the table. But what’s to fear? Competition is good. There’s a reason existing health care companies don’t want the uninsured. If  government competition can force companies to lighten up their restrictions or improve their efficiencies to see the uninsured as a profit center, than that’s better than a bailout. And more people get insured.

The speech also exposed the partisan bickering and ad hominem  for what it is. Save that b.s. for football season.

On the stuff that matters, Obama was authoritative, presidential, and appealed to the best in all Americans.

Now is the time to get the best wonks from both sides of the aisle and get a deal done.

If that really happens, chalk one up to Obama’s speech therapy.

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Van Jones: Latest victim of the Right’s Nouveau McCarthyism

Posted by Amok in blog, diversity, journalism, news on September 6th, 2009

The new partisan parlor game in Washington is a devilish one, all about sucking the life out of the Obama administration one aide at a time. Unfortunately by targeting Van Jones, a man with an unfailing belief and passion for the environment and the creation of a green agenda for America, the right has only succeeded in forcing out a bright, competent person of color who could have done a lot of good for this country.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html

When I first met Jones in the late ‘90s, I was naturally impressed. On New California Media, a television program I hosted and produced on PBS and cable outlets in the state, Jones was a frequent guest. He was a Yale law grad and the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, and when I needed someone to comment on community issues, Jones knew his stuff and his rhetoric. His was passionate,intelligent and smooth. I figured politics would be a natural progression. But when his focus turned to green and the environment, while I was surprised, I saw it as a good move for him politically. And more his style.

Green is everybody. Green is the world. Green is the future.

For any person of color, race is always an issue. In environmental issues, race is often a key dividing line between who gets to go green and  who stays toxic.  People of color are all too often shut out and dumped on when the talk turns to green. So Van going green made a lot of sense. But I also felt that going green gave him a sense of liberation from tired old race politics. Van was no child of ’60s. He was now. Going green gave him some real stuff to chew on in the coming years.

So isn’t it ironic that what comes back to haunt him are statements and positions from his activist past.  None of it is relevant. Anti-war stuff?Crude references to Republicans?  But all of it can be made to be a distraction as Jones pointed out in his resignation statement. And once the right finds a small hole to exploit, it bores in and makes it seem like the Grand Canyon. What would have come next? Van Jones with Paris Hilton? Breaking pita bread with Muslims? In the absurd political world of the right, it’s all fair game in the effort to find things that will destroy an administration one person at a time.

If good people like Van Jones can’t fight these kind of tactics, then public life in the age of the politics of personal destruction is simply not worth it.

Van Jones’ resignation is a loss because he represented the hope that a lot of young people saw in the Obama campaign. Maybe that’s the right’s grand plan. Kill the hope.

 

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