Would Benjamin Netanyahu have been so bold to come to America in defiance of all protocol if Barak Obama were white? Is there some undercurrent of thought that because of his color it is all right to embarrass him. I’m at a loss to explain why he felt free to take this action.
His speech offered nothing new. He’s been telling us the same thing for ten years: “in one year Iran will have a nuclear weapon” He made the same argument before the United Nations in his speech last October. He’s lost much credibility among most world leaders because of his Chicken Little imitation; or is he now in the position of Aesop’s “the boy who cried wolf.”
He wants to undermine any chance of a negotiated deal. He hopes that he can force America to bomb Iran and kill countless thousands of Iranians. He wants us to be able to see photographs of Iranians like these from the Ukrainian conflict. He has the ultimate gall to come to America to humiliate our president.
Doing some reading of the state of blacks in America at the turn into the 20th Century made me wonder about that? The freedom they gained from slavery during the Civil War was made mockery off by the Jim Crow laws that came into existence. They greatly suffered through the days of “separate but equal.” They went off to war in both of our World Wars and came back to an ungrateful country. But they never lost their love for America and persisted on hoping for the day when they would have a similar life style as the whites and others .
The Civil Rights laws did much to eliminate official segregation but the underlying idea of black inferiority continues up to today. They do not share in the blessings of America like others. I know many will suggest it is their own fault; in many ways it is.
Take this little example. Stuyvesant High School in New York City is one of its best high schools. It draws from a population eighth grade students of whom 32% are black. It admitted 954 students in 2014. Seven were black. Not 7%. Seven, 0.0073%.
Stuyvesant is an exam based school. The students are admitted by score. The blacks are clearly not among the brightest. Asians who make up 13.7% of the school’s population comprise 72.5% of the student body at the school.
True, it is a black problem; but it is also true is that a black problem is an American problem. We cannot have 13.2% or 44 millions of our fellow Americans walking to the beat of a different drummer. I know it is a free country and people can do what they want with few restrictions; I also know that we’ve been up against this problem of under achievement by blacks no matter what government programs have been enacted. Perhaps it is time to do a team back and see if we can figure something else out to help our fellow Americans who need a little hand.
A friend told me of being in Naples, Florida. He remarked at how surprised he was at the extent of wealth there. He also noted that almost all of the people lived in gated communities and were white. He also observed that the people who did the menial work for them were black or Hispanic. They lived on the other side of Highway 75 and would be allowed on the rich side during the day light hours. As the sun went down they had to go back to their ghettos.
It occurred to me that history teaches such disparity in wealth and living conditions usually results in uprisings. I assume Naples is not unique to America; but then there have been no serious consequences to this obvious distortion of the American ideals that all are equal. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the blacks and Hispanics are being pacified by various Government programs that give them enough money to keep them under control. Which may me think that all those people who complain about Government handouts fail to understand their sinister purpose.
Being black in America is still tough. The HUD money spent over 50 years to integrated America has failed. The Ferguson, Missouri, police have been found to violate the rights of blacks. The black leadership that came after Dr. Martin Luther King have proven itself to be a woeful lot that has done nothing to improve the lot of their people.
When Netanyahu spoke, a significant number of black congressmen boycotted his speech. Did they do it because of their belief he wouldn’t have come here if the president was white? One talk-show host said the blacks who planned to boycott should be lynched.
I have no answers. Just black thoughts. I know that when we began our nation we knew that a nation divided against itself could not survive. Or, as Benjamin Franklin wrote and as Paul Revere put on the masthead of the Massachusetts Spy (shown above), we Americans of all colors and races must “join or die.”
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful article.
Thank you for supplying these details.
Matt, I’m sorry, but your post is incredibly disappointing.
First, if you have the historical masthead, then you should also go back to colonial times for political cartoons, when various political figures were compared to monkeys and worse. There was a traveling exhibit of this years ago which made it to the various historical and art museums. Political commentary dealing with presidents and political figures has never ever been tea and crumpets in the US, even since colonial times, and it had nothing to do with race.
Second, the foreign policy of the US has, for the longest time, been to keep nukes out of the hands of crazies. In 1994, when the US and others convinced Ukraine to give up its nukes, it was because they “didn’t know Ukraine” and thought that they were a bunch of crazies. Instead, it turned out that Russia, especially today, under Putler, are the crazies. Putler has already made statements which are very easily found that Russia has nukes and will use them.
Iran is also a bunch of crazies. Rasha, under Putler, supplies nuclear materials to Iran for the sole purpose of trying to stick a finger in the eye of the rest of the world. What rationale is there for the mullahs to pursue their “death to America” course, and if they are so busy praising Allah, why the hell do they need nukes?
Third, presidents of other countries have appeared in Congress, including very recently the presidents of Ukraine – Yushchenko and then more recently Poroshenko. What’s black about that?
Fourth, what in the world does the idiot Obama think that he will gain by allowing nuclear proliferation involving Iran?
Fifth, taking one or two examples and making vapid generalizations out of them is irresponsible. Black history is full of absolutely astonishing examples of excellent accomplishments by black people against all odds. To imply that we still live in some sort of Jim Crow system in this day and age is beyond belief and simply not credible.
And I am sick and tired of people making those claims. There are millions and millions of Europeans who came to this country with nothing – my parents among them – who did not have “affirmative action” or “black history month” or all sorts of other programs to help them. In fact, I grew up with the general perversion in the US among the media that my parents’ country did not exist. Being told one’s country does not exist is quite different from all the rightful steps taken when I was growing up to remedy historical wrongs against blacks – but nevertheless, those remedial programs were and are far more than my parents or millions of people like them ever got.
Nowadays, we have Obummer playing Santa Claus, with his “stash of cash,” as one woman put it – Other People’s Money is always just so fine, playing directly to a very large number of persons to whom a welfare state handing out money to “minorities” has great appeal. Quite a contrast to when Kennedy said – “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
Obama has proven himself to be an idiot in foreign policy – and that has nothing to do with his being half-black.
Black people are talented, accomplished, intelligent, hard-working.
Directing political commentary against Obama has nothing whatsoever to do with his being black, and I’m sick and tired of that old canard.
Dave,
Your naiveté shows itself in your comment about “progressives”. A first year civics student realizes that the left have given themselves that name so that people like you will look at people on the right as regressive. Example: pro choice. Anyone on the other must be anti choice. Pro-life wants the opposition to be looked at as pro death. Way too simplistic. The rest of your post was too thoughtful for you to fall for that!
Poor Example. Pro-choice vs. Pro-life doesn’t really leave much room for a gray area, you either support a woman’s choice to decide to have a child or you don’t. It is black and white. This is an example of a social conservative attack on women’s rights to control their bodies, which they won in Roe v. Wade. Pro-life vs. Pro-choice is one battle of ideologies that is a part of the conservative, regressive, position against gender equality.
Slainte, Declan.
NC, Gus and John,
Nice comment and summary of matters.
Racism is a bogus defense. As most claims of anti Semitism and Homophobia are baseless. Criticism of Israel or Netanyahu are not anti Semitism. Criticism of Gays trying to deny Constitutional Rights to the Irish aren’t Homophobic. The vitriol against Bush was every bit as intense as it is against BHO. If there is one proven failure over the last few decades it is Progressive policies. How have they worked in Greece, Cuba, Detroit and Zimbabwe? Dukakis was a progressive. How did he do? Reagan was a Conservative who won the Cold War while Progressives were trying to undermine his efforts. Reagan created twenty million jobs while cutting inflation and interest rates. Progressive policies of BHO, Dukakis and Carter produced only stagflation and malaise. Family incomes and purchasing power went up under Reagan. They have declined under BHO. Reagan put the Mafia in jail. BHO and Holder let them out. Reagan embraced the Culture of Life the Progressives the Culture of Death. Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell are Conservatives. Clinton, Richardson, Sumner, Spitzer, Epstein, Weiner and Torture are Progressives.
Like I said, rose colored glasses.
I think that the unprecedented level of vitriol and opposition to this President’s policies, regardless of whether they make sense or not, has at its core, to do with racism, or at least xenophobia. Those on the right who claim that Barack Obama’s policies don’t represent the “Real America” or go against “core American values” seem to be looking through rose colored glasses while they read their history books (which are often missing a few pages). It’s because he has a funny sounding name, and his father is not an American. Notice that Ted Cruz doesn’t get the same sort of backlash, because although he has a Hispanic last name, he speaks with a nice little Texas drawl, wears cowboy boots, and looks white. What they strive for is to go back to the age when the demographics skewed white, minorities knew their place, and gay people stayed closeted. I almost feel like many in this country are trying to help the USA break the shackles of ignorance and finally resolve decades and centuries of inequality, but the old guard who would suffer politically and economically would do anything to stop it. In fact, they are trying to go even further by demonizing New Deal policies and Civil Rights movement legislation like what the Supreme Court did with the Voting Rights Act. Many of the reddest states in this country have the most people on social welfare programs and work for the lowest wages. Are the conservatives really working for those who voted them into power, or are they merely conjuring up fear in the working lower class so that they can remain in power to serve their true constituency, the Corporate Aristocracy that is mostly white? Yes, I will admit there are some high profile GOPers that are minorities, Cruz, Rubio, Ben Carson, Colin Powell, but I bet much of their political motives are to protect those corporate donors who supply their campgain coffers with $$$. The left is often called and in my opinion accurately “Progressives”, why are the “conservatives” not called what they really are, “Regressives” (at least the social conservatives anyway)?
Dave:
Nice comment and summary of matters.
The real insult to Barak Obama as a man, as a politician, and as President Of The United States is to condescendingly place him beyond the pale of legitimate and constructive criticism of his actions by political opponents, citing that racism is the opaque lens through which they, Universally, peer. This does him a real disservice. It is perhaps a paradoxical effluent of what is referred to as ” White Privilege.” I quibble not with Barak Obama grousing about his being perceived, by some, in a racist way. He is a Black Man in America. He has his Story. He has every right to his own experience. As I have to mine. As you have to yours. There is a Sovereign Spirit in each person’s life. Some may call it the ” Life-Illusion “‘ each has. It is really perhaps that we are all much more alike than our vaunted racial differences portend. We each have different experiences . I honor Barak’s experience and expect reciprocity from any fellow human in this regard. I read THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X when I was fourteen. Do I think Eric Holder is derelict in his responsibilities as AG to ALL AMERICANS by his pedantic insistence on it being the moral primer ALL AMERICANS should read as he awkwardly exits office, YES. Does this mean I am a racist because I am a white man and he is a black man … Welllllllll … NO.
Mr. MATT , with all due respect , must it ALWAYS be about race ? Benjamin Netanyahu was invited by the leaders in Congress to address the body and he accepted. What does President Obama’s race have to do with it ?
Gus:
I only ask the question whether it would have happened if Obama were not black. Doesn’t it seem strange that the only time in our history such an event happens is when we have our first black president? Is seems he has not been accorded the respect that everyone else who has held the office has been given.