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Carving Black Defiance in Stone
How ironic that just as the Jeremiah Wright flap is dying down, we find yet another instance of America insisting that its black folk be happy. Or, failing that, demonized and rejected.
The long awaited, hotly fought for Mall memorial to Dr. King has encountered a hitch: the Chinese sculptor commissioned for the project (and didn't that piss Negroes off!) has submitted plans for a statue which is "too confrontational" and makes King look more like "the head of a socialist state than a civil rights leader". King's not smiling (weird, since that's how we all remember him.) so King is Stalin. Please.
You see, folks, as planned, King looks like a judge, intense and determined, when he 'should' be looking all delighted, like most of those who were assassinated for being a harsh critic of a country which abused him and his people. That's why all our renderings of Washington and Jefferson show them playing hopscotch and break dancing to harpsichord music, right?
It's not like they were up to anything serious. The Root has the lowdown.
Though few will pick up on this tidbit, it goes a long way in showing, post-Wright, what America demands of its minorities—forget the past, shut up about the present, or find your patriotism in question. Sorry, but we reject that playing "don't worry, be happy" in our minds all day is the price of mainstream inclusion. What's going on here isn't even Psychology 101: the statue reflects "a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries."? Saddam Hussein, Lenin and King?! White folks, please.
I'm tempted to just snicker and enjoy your discomfort at finding your wonderful selves, however implicitly, criticized but given what the white reaction to Wright has revealed, I think blacks find themselves reminded anew how tenuous our rights are to too many. Check out The New Republic's deconstruction of the racist anti-Obama email chains sullying the internet as well as the racism all too evident in West Virginia.
We remain determined to speak and petition for redress of our grievances but I have to say—y'all are scaring us right now. Which we know is exactly the point.
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Nice message.. Thanks..
The Afro-American vote is more racially aligned than the white vote. A higher percentage of Afro-Americans admitted in exit polls in Kentucky to having let the race factor influence them.
There's simply a cliché in the air that whites are racists and blacks aren't. Look at the coverage of the Kentucky results and check out how many news articles mention the racial influence in African American voting and how many insist upon the same racial influence -- which percentage-wise is less -- among white voters.
This biased news coverage bodes ill for democracy. No one can possibly believe in the spontaneous enthusiasm for Obama with such skewed reporting.
"There's simply a cliché in the air that whites are racists and blacks aren't."
Have you ever actually heard anyone say that?
It's hard to explain why a black racist would vote for a mixed-race, culturally white, candidate.
The Wright flap does tell us a lot about race in America, and isn't good. I'm a white atheist, so Wright doesn't speak to me, much less for me. But I am nearly alone in thinking that what he has said in his sermons and speeches is not actually very controversial.
People don't listen to what Wright actually says. He has his own way of speaking, and it is actually pretty engaging. But nearly everyone (including many/most black people) have written him off as a "crazy [deleted]" based on a few endlessly-repeated snippets.
I disagree with much of what Wright said, obviously. But his views are well within the norms of political discourse. I shouldn't have to remind people that "war without end" is considered mainstream these days, so everything Wright has said, combined, is hardly worth noting.
Right on JG! Very well stated. I could not hope to say it any better.
Astounding! Are you telling me that some of us white people are aware that Dr. King's statue is being placed on the mall? Amazing! How many?
May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said Barack Obama would be a ``terrible'' U.S. president whose election would bring higher interest rates and a loss of international confidence in the dollar.
``I don't normally get involved in politics, but this time I am,'' Icahn told an investors conference in New York last night. ``I don't think Obama really understands economics.''
If Obama is bad for the rich ruling class, how are you going to vote? He did not say that Hilliary was bad for the rich, only Obama.