On Nov 6, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Stefano Mori wrote: > > On 2008-Nov-06, at 19:50, Patrick Coskren wrote: > >> More accurately, it demonstrates that the attempt to make it about >> race failed. > > With race though, it can also be about culture, and so if I see > someone behaving in a racist way, I wonder what it is that they are > actually reacting against. If Obama actually spoke like a guy from > Kenya, or if he actually dressed like a Muslim (to go with the name), > then that would bring out much more resistance. Instead we have a guy > who can really speak English, and compose his sentences, and is more > of a Western intellectual than most Americans. I knew a lady from > Jamaica, and she talked about Jamaicans in a way that, had her words > been coming out of the mouth of a white person, would have sounded > very racist. But it was the culture she despised, and she herself was > black, but essentially British. I really don't see it as a huge > milestone--it is more symbolic I suppose. Will Smith and Morgan > Freeman have been model cool wise smart authoritative guys on screen > for years, and their films have been blockbusters. References to his > Pastor can easily be confusing culture with skin colour. See, a place > like South Africa wasn't just divided by skin colour--the whites and > blacks actually had very different cultures.
There are those in the US who, no matter what your patterns of speech or modes of thought see you only based on your skin color. While there are cultural aspects that lend themselves to racism in this case the attempt was to use those stereotypes to race bait. They did not work for a number of reasons. Among them is that Obama does not fit into any stereotype but also I'd like to think that the majority is not really racist. --Larry _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
