Maybe this would be racist....um....actually I don't think so. Isn't the only racist thing here the fact that people like you think that showing a black man looking black is a negative thing?

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Pointing out that people see the world according to race: not racist.

Playing on racial fears to smear an opponent: racist

Yay freedom of speech, but those posts are beyond crazy.

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Maybe it's because I am a Canadian, but I would be extremely insulted if my news reporters made huge ordeals out of people insinuating that a politician is black, or a muslim, as is occurring in the States. It seems to tacitly reinforce the concept that these things are negative.

Also, given the broad use of make-up on TV, maybe Obama's skin has been lightened in his appearances and ads. We really don't know what his "natural" skin tone is. Personally, I care most about what he says, his policy views, his leadership potential, his intelligence, etc.

If this sort of thing happened once or twice, you might buy an innocent explanation. As it is, you're left with an indelible impression of the kind of people Hillary Clinton would staff the White House with. One more example of why she's a cancer the Democratic party needs to rid itself of.

No doubt yet another subtle racist plot by Clintonistas to point out that ...did you know... Obama has relatives who are African-African.

racist, racist, racist TV channel!!
And it made the point that he's related to foreigners too!

[insert "The Scream" painting here]

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/did_i_say_osama_i_meant_obama.html

'Did I say Osama? I meant Obama!' says Clintonite

by James Oliphant
Politico

A lawyer in a predominantly Democratic suburb of Cleveland relates this tale to The Swamp on the day before the all-important Ohio primary:

So last night around dinner time, the phone rings. It’s the Hillary campaign–official number, per the caller ID. The woman on the other end asks me if Hillary can count on my support Tuesday. I say I have not decided.

She asks what would help me decide. I say, “Well . . . maybe she can make Bill her vice president.” She does not know how to take me, of course, but has to assume I am serious. “I don’t think she can do that.” “Bill will have a significant role in major decisions, though, won’t he?” I ask. “Oh, certainly he will be very involved. Do you like Bill?” “Very much.” I reply.

She then launches into a two-minute spiel on all the very specific initiatives and proposals Hillary has put forth on health care, the war in Iraq, etc., etc. At the end of her spiel, she says, “And we haven’t heard anything that specific from Osama bin Laden.”

I say, “You did not just say that.” She replies, “I’m sorry . . . just a slip of the tongue.” She then thanks me for my time and encourages me to vote for Hillary on Tuesday.

HRC has been endorsed by 25 admirals and generals. You won't read about it here.

The latest polls in Texas show Obama going down and her going up. You won't read about it here.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/tx/texas_democratic_primary-312.html

see those purple and green lines crossing?

And Fnarf, on that Afghanistan thing? Why is that bullshit?? He keeps saying he will change course in fighting terror and shift the focus to Pakistan or Afghanistan but.....has he done anything while in the Senate to do that already?? What has he done?

He made a brave speech agaisnt the Iraq war. Good, he was right! Granted.
But did he then cause change?

No.

Did he try -- did he then go and be like MLK and create a movement? No.

Did he lead demonstrations all voer the USA and create a big internet based antiwar movement?

No.

Did he act like Kerry and lead an antiwar organization?

Never heard of it.

Did he organize the south side of Chicago against the war? No. Any part of Illinois ? No.

Did he become the antiwar leader in the USA for the last six years?

No.

What change has he brought about in the past anyway? What exactly did he win for those communities in the "shadow of shuttered factories" in the South Side of Chicago? Get any jobs back? Distribute coats in the winter? Build a new South Side Housing alliance that got 2000 new low income housing units? What? Anything?

Did he just give them brilliant speeches?

I guess we are just supposed to guess at it. Because he hasn't mentioned any particular accomplishments.

Same thing with working at a law firm. Big deal, they had some civil rights cases. What did he do ?
Challenge alderman district lines in Chicago to help the Democrat local machine or Axelrod or God forbid, folks Rezko liked?

Did he help those tenants in the Rezko buildings that had no heat?

Nope, he never heard of that problem.

did he work for African Americans unfairly disenfranchised? Challenge the felony conviction rules that lead to loss of voting rights? Any real accomplishments for civil rights or voting rights or to challenge discirmination?

We don't know because he has never mentioned anything he did specifically.

Hmm. Why haven't we heard about his long list of organizing achievements, or his wins in the courtroom?

That said, glad you deleted the insane ecce homo posts.

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

And what was interesting to me was that here you have a post that's about racism. And then I offered my perspective as a person of color. And what happened? My post got deleted. Irony much?

I can't wait until this primary ends and you all stop being such disingenuous pieces of shit. Or at least aim your knee-jerk partisanship at a Republican instead.

White Privilege

Clearly this election has undertones of that and no one has dared to bring up this topic. To clear things up, I'm probably one of the few blacks who read the postings and comment on them on the Slog.

Example #1. Hillary went into the primaries thinking that she could easily be coronated as the democratic nominee w/o doing much work. She didn't think Obama, a black man, would be so appealing to so many people. She was expecting to use the fact that she's a white female that's been in the White House before to secure your nomination and the election w/o much effort.

Example #2 - A friend and I were having this discussion regarding white privilege. I summerized white privlege as this: Whites have the privilege of making mistakes that people easily look past and don't care about. Whereas, whenever a black person makes the slightest mistake no matter how clean of a slate or how much hard work they've done in the past, people will use that against them and not forget. This also happens in the workplace. How does it coincide with this election? Well when Obama says something negative that's true towards Clinton, the press is all over him. This happened at the beginning of the primaries until people started calling out the media for doing this. Now, they're doing it to Clinton as well. However, Clinton has gotten away with a lot more.

Also Barack's history. People are looking for the slightest thing to crucify him on. However, the press has never brought up all the scandals the Clintons were in during the 90s as well as when she was practicing law before she was in the White House.

It's not his job to get out his achievements? How much money has he spent? Yes, I do know that "yes we can" but what did he do in Chicago before Harvard?

Google Hillary Whitewater and get 196 hits twenty years after the event.

What community work? What did he accomplish? Did he help with housing?

I always knew of course, that the fact that I am brown matters in American. But I never realized that the shade of brown I am matters so much as well.

I have a picture of me standing next to Obama. We are the same skin tone, but the flash and the lighting turned him darker in this picture and me a shade of orange.

I never thought that mattered.

Not really.

I never thought that I would be on liberal blogs where a whole line of conversation would be about how a lighter Obama is somehow *better* than a darker Obama.

For me, this isn't about the race. It's not about Clinton and whether ads are racist or not.

This is about the subtle implication that even liberal people think, or think other Americans think, that lighter people are better.

And it's making me so profoundly sad.

So someone please explain to me why dark is "bad." Someone explain to me who these people are who KNOW Obama is black, and would be dissuaded from voting for him by seeing him look darker in a campaign ad?

Because I can't imagine those people exist. If they do? Then I'm really, horrifically sad that this is the country I have called home my whole life.

But if those people don't exist? Then I'm really sad that a bunch of people who I thought were sympatico with me, are continuing a meme that lighter skin is better.

Did he just give them brilliant speeches?

unPC, you need to do your own research. You're asking us to do it for you because you're either lazy or in denial, and then you act like you're being "hard hitting" or something.

I'm sure Clinton had some great accomplishments as a member of the Walmart board of directors.

but i have heard people use all of these in negative ways. and some, unfortunately, hold more sway than others.

i have heard sexist rants, and subtle sexist insinuations. i have also read racist rants, and -- more than one -- people mention the actual skin tone.

as offensive as it is to have heard it, on more than one occasion i've heard people say, "well, he's not that dark" (not referring to obama). it is horrifying.

i've also had friends who have not been taken seriously because of their sex. had rice thrown at them because of their race. and i have been assaulted by someone who wanted to beat up a gay man.

if yes, i guess i am really shocked and upset.

if no, then my question is, why all the insinuations by liberal blogs that Obama is less palatable when he's pictured a little darker than when he's pictured a little lighter?

Let me put this in Slog terms. Let's say Obama was gay. And say that sometimes he acted very slightly more queeny than others. Oh everyone knew he was gay, and it was never a HUGE distinction, but sometimes he acted slightly more queeny.

Wouldn't you be offended if people claimed that showing Obama's slightly more queeny side is bad? Like, oh Obama, he's all right when he's gay and talks about sports, but when he talks about musicals, well I mean, I don't have a problem with it, but other people DO!

The problem is that by saying some Americans think its bad if you are dark, therefore a video depicting Obama as darker is worse than a video depicting Obama as lighter is PERPETUATING THAT MEME that lighter is better. You are entrenching racism by doing that. You are continuing to attach a stigma to darker skin.

I don't know. I mean obviously we can't all hide under a rock and not address racism and skin color. But I find the response to this purported racism slightly more offensive than the actual purported racism.

and yes, if a gay man were running for office, and an add from an opponent featured a clip of him acting especially effeminate, i would think they were trying to appeal to the large body of ignorant people who still discriminate based on orientation, race, and sex.

i certainly hold a low opinion of some bigoted people. but i hold a lower opinion of those who would pander to them.

but it was already brought up, so i commented on it. yes, some people judge based on skin tone. and some people judge based on sex. some people judge a woman negatively is she "acts like man", or positively for the same reason. it's all messed up. ignoring it is one approach. but if pressed, i will have to answer that i do believe there are people out there who are wrong but are influenced by skin tone.

the problem is not that critics believe this will help Clinton

the problem is that the Clinton campaign not only thinks it will help Clinton but they actually went and did it themselves.

and I keep hearing comments about something being unfair about the black vote going so overwhelmingly to Obama. But that part of the electorate didn't start that way. the Clinton campaign's not so subtle efforts to inject race were transparent to African-Americans and their break to Obama at that point have been affirmed regularly by the Clinton campaign ever since.

Obama on Obama as an organizer

"I can't say we didn't make mistakes, that I knew what I was doing," Obama recalled three years ago to a boisterous convention of the still-active DCP. "Sometimes I called a meeting, and nobody showed up. Sometimes preachers said, 'Why should I listen to you?' Sometimes we tried to hold politicians accountable, and they didn't show up. I couldn't tell whether I got more out of it than this neighborhood."

But, he continued, "I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area. It's as a consequence of working with this organization and this community that I found my calling. There was something more than making money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public service."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg

It's like, kind of how I want Obama to be like, I am not a Muslim but you know what? This whole thing is ridiculous because there ISN'T anything wrong with being a Muslim. People who think Muslims are un-American are wrong. The fact that I'm not a Muslim doesn't make me BETTER. Should not make me better. Should not make me more palatable.

You know what I'm saying?

If Slog or Americablog wants to talk about racism, then let's talk. But let's talk about it with more depth. Actually, I thought the Daily Kos post did the best job of this. They discussed how many campaigns darken the image of opponents (be they white or black) and talked about is that okay or no?

Fnarf's point was as usally wonderful because it contributes to the discussion of racism. Infrequent also made some great points about this. But the original Slog post was a little offensive to me because it was kind of like, "Oh my god, Obama looks darker in this Clinton ad! Clinton is racist! Augh!!" without any substance about why darker is bad. Or why our thinking darker is bad is bad. Ya know?

I am *proud* Obama is my skin tone. Everyone here knows I'm a Clintonite, but as an ethnic minority, I am inspired to see an ethnic minority may become president.

It's great that having a black candidate and a female candidate means that this stuff is coming up. I just wish we could deal with it with more depth.

"do you honestly think there are people out there, who (knowing as we all do that obama is black) would be swayed to not vote for him because he was portrayed in a darker tone in a campaign ad?"

Arduous,

Probably not on any grand scale. However, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are shades of gray in how black one is considered and how this blackness is interpreted by a largely racist society. It doesn’t take a grand survey of American culture to see how darkness is represented as more alien, and therefore more threatening, in many explicit and implicit ways. Most scholars of race in America note this, even my students acknowledge this, and there are a wide range of historical factors which have created this situation (which to unpack would indeed require a grand survey).

However, one should note that race (and racial structure) is never really about skin color, but always about power. Remember that American blacks were once called ‘smoked Irish,’ and that there are plenty of ethnic whites who would not be considered White in the TV newscaster / Bill Cosby way. This is because, in the popular consciousness, white is a synonym for power and to be white means to fit into the cultural expectations of the bourgeoisie. It is not only a question of skin color, but of how one wears one’s skin. One can be physically white and not considered generally white (rather Albanian, Red Neck, etc) just as one can be black and have generally (but not totally) freer movement in the white world because they are of and mirror the mannerism of the ruling class. Obama has this down (many other black politicians do not) and a few gradients on the color scale shouldn’t matter too much in this case.

It may be a racist situation, but it’s certainly not racist to point that out. That’s the difference between analyzing the situation and endorsing it.

I have been accused of "acting white" many times and have been called derogotary statements like a coconut. This doesn't have to do with my skin color, but rather the way I act. (Conversely, I have been subject to a lot less racism than other minorities because I do "act white.")

So what you say really rings true to me. I think, and I could be wrong about this, but Fnarf, now that I think about it, I don't think making Obama darker has that great an impact. I think darker does equal scarier when you have no information about a person. For example, the place where I am most suspect is at airports.

But when you DO have information about a person, then hue matters less. (See Bill Cosby who is pretty dark skinned but who is seen as more burgeois/"white-acting.") Then I think Johnnie is right and it is more about how they are perceived as acting.

Which means that my analogy about a gay politician was actually a bad one, I guess.

I'd also recommend, for arduous or anyone who is interested, the book How the Irish Became White, which is a pretty brillant study of race in America.

I offer my perspective on things and you delete them. Pretty fucked up for a "newspaper" to restrict speech.

When did you guys decide that the first ammendment was something that was in the eyes of the beholder?

Who appointed YOU God?

I have a perspective, it just isn't one that YOU think is valid.

Well eat the corn outa' my shit.