Racism

H/T To Duke over at Migra Matters.

Image Credit : BarackObama.com at Flickr

Michael has the whole text over at The Daily Gotham. The speech is flawless but this quote resonates with me as also a fellow "biracial American" :

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Here's the awesome rant by Keith Olbermann on the matter of Clinton having yet another surrogate race-baiting for the upcoming elections in Pennsylvania :

I went over to Booman Tribune to see how they were dealing with the show and I'm there in several threads. Martin himself asked me why I believe that Ferraro's comments do enter David Duke territory because to him the words sounds stupid, not racist.

Well ...

I think the most salient aspect that ties Ferraro's words to Duke's is her claim that she was a victim of anti-white racism :

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.

"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.

[ Excerpt from, Special Comment : Wednesday 12 March 2008 ]

[ ... ] Senator Clinton:

This is not a campaign strategy.

This is a suicide pact.

This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the "commander-in-chief threshold"…

But -- he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.

But you'd only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.

But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.

Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough...

Now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign's initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her -- now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now "speak for herself" about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota...

If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.

Do you not see, Senator?

To Senator Clinton's supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness…

This is getting ridiculous.

I guess that to create a diversion from the Spitzer debacle, and to give racists in Pennsylvania a reason to get out the vote, Geraldine Ferraro "steps down" from her role as a member of Hillary Clinton's finance committee.

And just as other racist liberals, she raised the "intentions flag" : That their intentions are misunderstood, that their intentions are not what people say they are.

It gets better.

She goes down "in protest", arguing that she was being deprived of her First Amendment Rights and that they are attacking her to hurt Hillary :

Dear Hillary –

I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.

The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen.

Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do to make this a better world for my children and grandchildren.

Republicans routinely insult Blacks, Native Americans and Muslims, and even Jews. It is no wonder hate crimes are up during Bush's time in office.

The latest example of Republican anti-Black and anti-Muslim hate speech comes from a Congressman from Iowa. From an email I got from American Family Voices:

While the Democratic Party has yet to decide who the nominee of the party will be, the radical wing of the Republican Party is just beginning their opening salvo against Sen. Barack Obama.

We need your help today to stop these racist and bigoted attacks.

Congressman Steve King (R-IA) is known for his outrageous and disgusting comments. In the past he's been quoted as comparing immigrants to livestock, calling undocumented workers a "slow-moving terrorist attack", claiming that immigrants have murdered more Americans than the combined death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, comparing the abuses at Abu Ghraib to mere "hazing" and waging a war against "secularists" who want to "eradicate Christ from Christmas." Suffice it to say, this man is off his rocker.

Image Credit : Steve Garfield at Flickr.com

Some say Hillary Clinton found her voice and it's republican (h/t Oliver Willis).

Well, now we know why Hillary Clinton has gone into Karl Rove territory with her "he's not fit to lead" attacks against Obama : She wants to be on the top of the ticket.

This from CBSTV :

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hinted at the possibility of a Democratic "dream ticket" with Sen. Barack Obama.

Speaking on "The Early Show" on CBS, Clinton said "that may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket."

Clinton said the race between her and Obama remains "incredibly close," with just "smidgens of difference" between them in both the popular vote and number of delegates.

Unbelievable. She will do what it takes to be in the Oval Office, no matter the consequences.

If this is dirty politics at its worse, I don't know what is. And what's worse, the DNC is all behind the effort.

She won the popular vote by a sliver (4%).

Some people think that Rush Limbaugh's call to Republicans to go vote for Clinton may have something to do with it.

Early exit polling shows 10 percent of the voters in Ohio's Democratic Primary identified themselves as Republican, along with 22 percent who said they were independents. It was the same story in Texas: 10 percent of the voters in the Democratic primary identified themselves as Republican, along with 25 percent who said they were independents.

Funny, because I was being smacked around a week ago when I suggested that Republicans voting for Obama is a good thing. If they did vote for Clinton though, to throw off the race, we'll have hell to pay in November if she is the nominee.

Just as in Ohio, last minute voters went heavily to Clinton.

Just as in Ohio, gender wasn't an issue.

Race on the other hand ...

So Texas and Ohio were almost identical in outcome --although Clinton's winning margin was bigger in Ohio.

Yes, he does say that it looks like it was crucial in Clinton's win. He take the MSNBC exit polls and looks at the question "In deciding your vote for president today, was the race of the candidate". This is what he finds :

I'm not even going to go there describing the intentions behind the votes, but Matt should have included the data right above that question because it was asked twice but with 2 difference sets of answer choices :

Yet there are more exit poll numbers that just popped right out at me from the web page. For one, the numbers of minorities is minuscule.