Robert Henderson, Special to AR News, April 10, 2009
Part I, available here, described how Barack Obama has agonized over his multi-racial identity. Part II, available here, explored his deep resentment of whites, including his white mother and grandparents.
Mr. Obama’s ethnic interests are selective. He worries constantly
about the “brothers and sisters,” but shows little concern for any
other group. He mentions Latinos briefly but always in the context of
how they have linked their cause to that of blacks. There are also a
few token waves at various types of Asians.
The one group whose ethnic interests he never considers is whites.
He shows no awareness that they have any ethnic interest, at least none
they have any right to defend. Early on in AOH (pp. 36–37.) he makes
this claim:
The victories that the sixties generation
brought about—the admission of minorities and women into full
citizenship, the strengthening of individual liberties and the healthy
willingness to question authority—have made America a far better place
for all its citizens.
Better for all? The “victories” of the sixties ushered in
racial preferences that deny opportunities to whites. They brought
about an immigration policy that is reducing whites to a minority. They
required whites, especially men, to bow the knee to all sorts of
insults about their motives, their history, and their very legitimacy.
But whites, of course, have no interests, so all this is invisible to
Mr. Obama.
Sometimes his obtuseness to white thinking is astonishing. In AOH,
he writes, “The process by which I was selected as the keynote speaker
[at the 2004 Democratic Convention] remains something of a mystery to
me.” (AOH p354.)
A mystery? How can it not have occurred to him that he was chosen
for one reason only: he was that great rarity, a black senator. One
wonders whether Mr. Obama actually believe what he writes about race or
simply uses race as a means to power.
Political Adversaries
When Mr. Obama’s ran for the Senate the Republicans put up a black
candidate, Alan Keyes, to oppose him. Mr. Obama claims that “one
Republican colleague of mine in the state senate provided me with a
blunt explanation of their strategy: ‘We got our own Harvard-educated
conservative black guy to go up against the Harvard-educated liberal
black guy. He may not win, but at least he can knock that halo off your
head.’” (AOH, p. 209.)
Whether or not that was the strategy it certainly flustered Mr.
Obama. First, he could not play the race card. Secondly, he had an
opponent who was not afraid to attack him personally. Here is a sample:
Alan
Keyes, deployed a novel argument for attracting voters in the waning
days of the campaign. “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama,” Mr.
Keyes proclaimed, “because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way
that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.” (AOH p. 209.)
Mr. Keyes was probably referring to support for abortion
rights, but Mr. Obama does not say. But perhaps most cruelly, Mr. Keyes
played the reverse race card as it were:There was no doubt
that the man could talk. At the drop of a hat Mr. Keyes could deliver a
grammatically flawless disquisition on virtually any topic. On the
stump, he could wind himself into a fiery intensity. . . . He accused
me of taking a “slaveholder’s position” in my defense of abortion
rights and called me a core, academic Marxist” for my support of
universal health and other social programs—and then added for good
measure that because I was not the descendant of slaves I was not
really African American. (AOH p. 210.)
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