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NObama

Over 90% of black Democrats support Obama. So, asks Cinque Henderson in a must-read New Republic article,

What the hell is up with that other 10 percent? Are they stupid? Do they hate their own race? Do they not understand the historical import of the moment?

I can shed some insight on this demographic anomaly. In gatherings of black people, I'm invariably the only one for the Dragon Lady. I'll do my best to explain how those of us in the ever-shrinking minority of a minority came to our position.

And shed light he does! But before he even starts he lays his cards on the table:

I disliked Obama almost instantly. I never believed the central premises of his autobiography or his campaign. He is fueled by precisely the same brand of personal ambition as Bill Clinton. But, where Clinton is damned as ?Slick Willie,? Obama is hailed as a post-racial Messiah. Do I believe that Obama had this whole yes-we-can deal planned from age 16? No, I would respond. He began plotting it at age 22. This predisposition, of course, doesn?t help me in making the case against Obama, especially not with black people. But, believe me, there?s a strong case to be made that he isn?t such a virtuous mediator of race. And it?s this skepticism about Obama?s racial posturing that has led us, the 10 percent, into dissent.

First, he doesn?t like the fact that

Barack is the black person [white liberals] want the rest of us to be ? half-white and loving, or ?racially transcendent,? as the press loves to call him. And, since picking a candidate makes you allies with his other supporters, why would I want to be allies with educated whites whose glorification of Barack depends in large part on their implicit denigration of the rest of us?

But he dislikes Obama for reasons that go far beyond the fact that white liberals like him. In fact, he writes, ?once you stare past the radiant glow surrounding Obama and begin to study the exact reasons for his so-called racial transcendence, you can?t help but conclude that it is mostly hokum.?

Channeling Malcolm X

It is Obama's biography, we are told, that will govern his behavior. He was raised by a mother who supposedly didn't see color, so he doesn't see color. He was born into tolerance and multi-racial understanding, so he will practice tolerance and multi-racial understanding. Except, that is, when it's not useful to him....

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.?

But all that is prelude, in my view, to his most powerful reason for resenting Obama, a reason that will be familiar to those of you who?ve been following my Obama threads here.

As the son of a Baptist minister, I can attest that Wright is and was an extreme aberration from how the overwhelming majority of black Christians worship. In church, black people hear about Peter, Paul, Mary, and how to get into heaven. How to forgive. How to love. Not how to vote.

But here was Barack suggesting that Wright?s behavior was commonplace in black churches: ?I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.? He generalized Wright?s ridiculousness to distract from his individual choice to worship under a buffoon for two decades. I have a cousin who attended Wright?s church for three weeks and then left, never to return. She had no interest in hearing his nonsense from the pulpit.

Barack obscured the true nature of black religious life because, to do otherwise, he would have had to answer the question, ?Why are you a member of a church that is this racially divisive and such a sharp aberration to how the rest of black people worship?? When Barack beautifully suggested that the beliefs pronounced from the pulpit of Trinity in Chicago are not uncommon, he was feeding us garbage. But Barack needed to protect his reputation as a race-healer and unifier, so he told a lie about black religious life to help keep the glow of his own reputation alive. And now the evidence suggests that Barack didn?t, in the end, break with Wright over his outrageous racial claims, but over his suggestion that Barack is just a politician.

I?ve tried to say that several times, but for some reason I suspect the point will be more credible coming from a Hillary-supporting son of a black Baptist preacher.

Indeed, the only think in this article I disagree with is its support for Hillary.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).