"Is America ready for a black president?"

[TeddyKGB]

"I say, why not? We just had a retarded one!"

- Chris Rock, a few minutes ago on Saturday Night Live

:D

[TheConstantGardener]

1. Yeah he made this same joke on Bill Maher

And it's just as true now

[rebel with a cause]

2. Saw it , loved it.

Mccain was too old eight years ago. giullani is a pit bull, good to fend off burglars but when there is no burglars he will eat your children when your not watching.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. but... but... but...

Chet Van Buran isn't black enough, or so i'm told.

[rebel with a cause]

13. I have walked away from posts like this, not wanting to cause waves,

and I do not know if this was posted in fun or if you are serious but......I have something to say about the way people perceive Barack and other people of mixed heritage.

We like to talk about us all being the same. There is no such thing as race; it is only a concept created by man in order to set up a hierarchy of humans where one group is placed higher than another. We are taught these things but evidently we still don't accept it. And it also becomes evident that we cannot place all the blame on white supremacist, when people of mixed ethnic heritage are treated as outsiders in both their parental family groups.

Barack is too "white" to be "black" and too "black" to be "white". How stupid is this! The truth is that no matter how "white" he talks, dresses or even behaves, his skin tone is brown and he will always be identified by the "white" world as a "black" man. And no matter how the "white" world identifies him, the "black" world will always identify him as the son of a "white" woman. He is one of what was, and probably still is, called a "yellow skinned" man. This is prejudice in the "black" world, and it is just as wrong as that in the "white" world.

I'm seen as "white", and I speak out because I am the mother of bi-racial children (who are adults), actually they are tri or quad racial children (who are adults). They have always been caught in between two worlds, the one that I am part of and that of their fathers. In the "white" world they were called every racial epithet there is, and the "Latino" world they were gringos. Like Barack they grew up not belonging in either world really, but having a part of both. Even though they were raised in my world, they feel more like they belong in their fathers because they look more like the people in that one. This is probably how Barack feels. Like my children, he has a foot in each of his worlds, but he has made a world of his own where he is his own person and for any one to say he is not "black" enough or he is too "black" to represent us, then I say maybe they are just too hung up in their own world to see how there are other worlds that are not labeled "black or white" exclusively.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. Chet Van Buran

Chet Van Buran is a name given to a friend of mine in University by a professor who used to be a Black Panther and deemed him not black enough to be in his class,

This is what I wrote on this subject previously:

Unfortunately the leadership of many groups has difficulty when it has to move beyond the fringes of society and when members of that group seem to have already advanced without them. I feel alot of the Black leadership has that problem.

I went through school with half a dozen African Americans, who grew up in the suburbs of Orange County, all of whom went on to university and on to professional careers. They get the "you aren't one of us" every day of their lives. One of them who really seems to anguish over this thinks it is part generational and part ghetto mentality. They are too young to have made a name for themselves in the civil rights era like most of the elder black leadership and in their generation are faced with what he called "Justification by Poverty"

The real issue in America isn't race - it is class. It is just a whole lot easier to opinion makers to cultivate an us vs. them mentality when they can make it as simple as race. On one level it makes sense that poor and activist blacks might not relate to somebody who might as well be "Chet van Buren" but rejecting him just because he might not be deemed black enough without a seconds though of what he stands for seems superficial to me.

[rebel with a cause]

16. Thanks for clearing up what that meant.

I still stand by what I said, although you might be right about the class thing also. My experience with people of color and how they judge their own based on their skin tone makes me think it is a bit more complicated than just one issue. My children were called "yellow skinned" by members of the African American community, and that related to their skin color, and I have heard other light skinned AAs called the same thing and they were of the same class. I have also had women with darker skin say they are rejected as ugly because of their darkness. They will say it is okay for a man to be dark, but a woman should be lighter. I have also heard women say they will not marry a darker man because they don't want to take a chance on having daughters that are dark. I am not saying this is everyone in the AA community, but it is out there. I would compare it in a way to my daughters seventh grade class in a 99.99% white school, that was made up of girls with all different hair color. When their eighth year of school began I was surprised to see every girl in the class was now blond except for my daughter and the daughter of a well to do banker. It stayed like that for the rest of the school years.

I have spoken to Barack about the fact that children of mixed racial couples have a special problem when it comes to being accepted by those in the community. I told him that some, like my children, are looking to him as a role model and watching to see how the world treats him. When there are attacks like the ones where people say he is not black enough, my son takes it very personal. Some people will say that it is the people's fault who go into a mixed marriage and have children, but I say this is an idiot talking. Most of us are not products of one ethnic group.

My heritage is mixed, and I suspect that there is more mixing than we even know about. My ex husband came from a country that encouraged the mixing of groups, in fact what they encouraged was the "whitening" of their people. We are unsure of all of his family line, but I know that he has European, Caribbean Indian and African. There is a good possibility that he also has Asian, Middle Eastern, and possibly other groups represented. There are twelve children in his family and they range in appearance from a sister as fair as I am to those with brown skin tones. I think it is time that people give up this concept that we should all fit into one category of whether we all belong to one group or another, because although we may belong to an ethnic group most of us do not have genes that come from only one geographical group categorized as a race.

[BeyondGeography]

4. His Giuliani line was better

"He's like a pit bull. You want him in the house if a burglar shows up, but, in the meantime, he just might eat your children."

[dEMOK]

5. America's ready for inspired leadership...

...wherever it comes from.

I saw Obama's speech at the convention in '04. He was friggin' brilliant and inspiring. I am concerned with his inexperience; but if he surrounds himself with experienced independent advisers -- he might make the grade.

I like Biden allot. He's one sharp cookie, with a great deal of experience in foreign policy; but he has a knack for talking too much & undermining his own efforts.

An Obama/Biden ticket just might do the trick in '08. I'd vote for it.

[BlooInBloo]

6. He's hosting? Sweet - I might stay up for it.

[ninkasi]

7. We will not become an enlightened society

until the question of whether we're ready for a black/woman/Latino/gay president is considered a really stupid question. I don't care which group any candidate falls in, as long as that person is able to do the job well. My own question is this..considering the huge amount of damage done by Bush, Poppy, Regan and Nixon,why aren't we asking why on earth anybody would even consider voting for a white male as president?

[loyalsister]

8. Awesome quotable post!

"We will not become an enlightened society until the question of whether we're ready for a black/woman/Latino/gay president is considered a really stupid question."

"considering the huge amount of damage done by Bush, Poppy, Regan and Nixon,why aren't we asking why on earth anybody would even consider voting for a white male as president?"

And, a very good question. :thumbsup:

[rebel with a cause]

9. I said a long time ago that we should never elect another

Texan to be president. My apologies to anyone from Texas, but look at the ones we have had from there and you will see why I said that, and bush (even though he is not really from Texas) tends to prove my point. Of course, I can't throw stones because here in Illinois we claim Lincoln but in reality, Reagan is really the one from here. Lincoln was born in Kentucky and grew up in Indiana, came to Illinois as a young man. Reagan was born in Illinois, grew up here and went to California when he was a young man. But I think I will just keep claiming Lincoln and let California take the blame for Reagan. ;-)

[liberal hypnotist]

11. Are we ready for an honest president?

Can we take the truth. I agree, color, nationality or gender is irrelevant. We need a human who will serve the people and not corporate interests. Power to the People- whatever color or whatever whatever.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Because white folks are the voters. Duh.

[madokie]

10. I only want to make sure the next president is sane

I can live with dumb but insanity is impossible. One thing about boy wonder we will always have an example of how it can go wrong now, no getting out of it.

[Raven]

12. Absolutely! Pink, blue, green...whatever

will get us back to being a decent country!

[BlooInBloo]

18. Yah! No matter what freakish color a person might be.

Because being black is freakish - just like if a person were pink, or blue, or green.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

14. We're ready for an honest, intelligent, and diplomatic one.

I don't think either race or gender will be an issue if they meet those requirements.