Apparently today is one of the greatest moments in American history: a black man will receive the presidential nomination for one of the two major political parties.
I do not feel like this is a special event. I do not feel, as a pundit said this morning on MSNBC, that "this is a moment." I feel like it is no different from any other nomination. I do not care one whit what color Obama's skin is.
I know that this is meaningful to a lot of people, just like it was meaningful for people when Lieberman and Ferraro got the VP nods, and when Kennedy got the nomination for President (and then won). Any time a minority group, especially a formerly oppressed one, gets "one of their own" into a position like this, it's a big deal for many people.
Not to me. Some people compare it to Jackie Robinson becoming the first black major league baseball player. But the comparison is weak because with Robinson, becoming the first was a difficult process: he was not widely lauded, he had to win over most people to the idea.
But with Obama, the fact that he is in this position means we've already become comfortable with the idea. If a ton of people were opposed to it, it wouldn't have happened. This obviously isn't the case with Jackie Robinson.
That Obama is the nominee is a signal that we've already gotten beyond race, whereas Robinson was a courageous attempt to get past race.
To use another baseball analogy, to me this is like making a bigger deal out of the parade for winning the World Series, than the World Series itself. It's anticlimatic. I do not care whether a black man is a major party presidential nominee, I care that a black man -- or woman of any color -- is ABLE to become a major party presidential nominee, and that was something that's been true for quite awhile now.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Posted by pudge at August 28, 2008 07:47 AM | Email ThisSemantics. And no, I do not think it is significant. It will almost surely be noted as significant in history books, but that doesn't mean I have to think it is more than a footnote.
Posted by: pudge on August 28, 2008 08:02 AMIf he's secured the nomination by being treated as a celebrity who gives glamorous speeches to fawning media applause, that's not particularly special because numbers of candidates have done so in the past. He outdoes most of those predecessors by means of slick staging (his 'temple' set for this Thursday's hyperchoreographed production is worthy of Leni Riefenstahl) - and yet he remains just one of their herd by the absence of specifics in his windbaggery.
Hopefully enough voters will see through the vapors and stage productions sufficiently to question the guy whose only claim to putting his cards on the table is his stubborn campaign to kill off the US military success in Iraq. Yes, it played well to his leftie 'base', but the country at large is far bigger than that.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on August 28, 2008 08:04 AMWhenever, I am sorry, I hear the word moment I go back to my little one when she used to say she had to have a "booowwwelll moment".
But, if when the annointed one said when he finally clinched the nomination, he said, "this is the moment when the seas began to fall and the earth began to heal", what is this "moment" then?
To be balanced, I know several blacks who see this as significant. Several decades later, we will be hearing about the first woman, the first gay, the first lesbian, the first Jew, etc. etc. When are we going to get over it and just elect the best irregardless of race, color or creed?
Posted by: swatter on August 28, 2008 08:28 AMYes, friends, it's really something when our nation can look past all of these issues and promote this man to be the leader of the Free World. Oh how far we've come.
Yet, when Obama loses the election in November it will be touted by the dems and the media that it was because he's black and America hasn't moved past its racial prejudice.
Posted by: Smoley on August 28, 2008 09:19 AMThe ones who pushed the polished speech reader have done everything to destroy that part of the message and use the race of the speaker from 45 years ago to pervert the message. Now we must elect him to prove not King's point, but the perverted message that is now defined as "King's word" that America is racist and therefore to proove it is not we must not judge by the content of Obama's character but just by the color of his skin.
The only history here is the desire to elect a dictator bitter about everything where he lives.
(BTW Obama thugs please send DOJ lawyers to my house not work, arrest me on the street corner and please only slash the tires on the older car)
Posted by: Col. Hogan on August 28, 2008 09:23 AMAt the end of the day, however, there is absolutely nothing to recommend that he be elected.
In fact, I would have been more thrilled to see someone of color nominated who hadn't drank the leftist kool-aid until he or she floated in it.
Steele, Rice... maybe even Powell. But Empty Suit and Stuffed Shirt?
No, thanks.
Posted by: Hinton on August 28, 2008 09:30 AMI'm having all too much fun watching this debacle. What a bunch of goof-balls.
Posted by: JDH on August 28, 2008 09:54 AMPresumably you are talking primarily to me, as the poster of this entry.
The majority of the media I consume is the network Sunday news programs and PBS NewsHour. I do not regularly view any "blogs" except for this one, and occasionally scanning HA and Effin Unsound. I do not listen to talk radio.
When I watch cable news, it's usually CNN, and then MSNBC or FOX, depending on which one has the least offensive programming at the time. Olbermann I will not watch, and BOR I only watch if he has a specific guest or segment I want to see. But even then I barely watch FOX or MSNBC, it's almost always CNN.
Being that we are all Americans I find this post especially unnerving.
Good.
Most of these comments and the post itself are trying so desperately to see one of OUR American politicians as the 'other.' To demonize one of your own is shameful.
You're lying. I demonized not a single person or group in this post. I simply expressed disagreement that this is a monumental event.
The fact is that some people see his nomination as a milestone in American history because 138 years ago this particular man wouldn't have even had the right to vote, let alone run for office. That isn't a very long time. But that is an awful lot of social progress.
Yes, but my point is that this is a SYMBOL of the progress already achieved, and not in itself an advancement. He is not pushing us forward, he is benefitting from others having pushed us forward.
As for already having seen an end to racism in America ...
Straw man. No one ever said that.
This country continues to be divided racially and economically. I'm sad that you would discount anyone who has an interest in making that less so.
I didn't discount Obama any more than you discount McCain, and McCain has just as much interest in making it less so than Obama does.
Wanna try this all again?
No. What we see here is the opposite -- if you object to Obama, you're implicitly a racist. There's nothing brave about what he is doing, and if it is significant at all it is in a negative sense: that we will nominate any black man, regardless of how unprepared he is for the role, out of some sort of racial guilt we carry around.
I think it's all sort of sad, myself.
Well Pudge, I'll admit that my use of the word demonize was a little harsh for the verbiage that you personally chose for your post
Thank you.
However my interpretation is that you are suggesting that he is just one of 'them' trying to slip in under the radar and play into some twisted idea of white guilt as an easy way to get ahead.
I absolutely suggested no such thing. I do not believe you can possibly explain to me, using my own words, how you came to this conclusion. That thought never crossed my mind, ever.
I do think there's something to the argument that Obama is not well-qualified and may not have been nominated if he were not black. But that is not unique to skin color, and doesn't mean he won't make a fine President. Jimmy Carter got the nod not because of qualifications, but because he was the anti-Nixon. Ike was a damned fine general. Neither was well-qualified to be President.
I do not hold this against any of these men, that they were picked despite not being well-qualified. I do not begrudge Obama's nomination in any way, and far from any insinuation about "us" and "them," my point is that there IS NO "us" and "them." Yes, obviously, for people who never thought they'd see this day, it's a nice symbol. Most of the people of my generation never thought we'd never see this day, and so it is not very significant to us.
And that's the point: Obama didn't really do anything that all the other candidates weren't doing. He just happened to be black (and if anything, that helped him, not hurt him). So I don't see how celebrating that is meaningful.
I've got news for you, Jackie Robinson is just a symbol too.
Incorrect. Jackie Robinson actually fought the fight to push society forward to make other black men able to follow in his footsteps. Obama has done no such thing, not in any big way. That's not a mark against him; he was not in a situation to make that kind of difference, because the people who came before him had already done it. I think that says wonderful things about our country, that we have come so far in such a relatively short time, and is not a negative reflection on Obama at all.
But the whole idea that this should be celebrated, to me, implies that it could possibly have been any other way. And that makes no sense to me. I'm not saying Obama had to win the nomination, but I am saying that for at least several years, if not my entire voting lifetime (which goes back to the early 90s), it has been the case that a woman or nonwhite could become President, so I don't see how "this" is a particularly interesting moment.
Posted by: pudge on August 28, 2008 03:28 PMThis guy and his people don't deserve to be considered presidential.
Posted by: swatter on August 28, 2008 04:02 PMMaybe Bobby Jindal?
Posted by: iconoclast on August 28, 2008 07:49 PMHowever, I do think skin color may be just as little a problem for future candidates as it has been for Obama. The only overt racism I have seen in this race is the fact that 95% of what we mistakenly call the african-american community will vote for Obama regardless of his positions.
Well, that's an exaggeration, but one pudge should appreciate, and not nearly as inane as denying that Obama has advanced race relations.
Posted by: Bruce on August 28, 2008 10:47 PMIn terms of moving the country forward on the issue of race, absolutely. No question about it. Maybe you don't know how important Jackie Robinson was.
You think and sound like I do
Incorrect. I have quoted to you some of your greatest hits, and I have never said anything like those things. Nothing I said here was remotely racist, whereas many of the things you've said absolutely were.
Bruce: That pudge is not proud of this moment means he hates America.
I see nothing to be proud of. Sue me. Note that I supported Alan Keyes in 1996, and if he were nominated this year, I would not consider that worthy of significant note regarding race, either. Maybe it is because way back in 1996 I already knew a black person could become President, so I never saw skin color as a significant obstacle, so I see nothing to celebrate here.
not nearly as inane as denying that Obama has advanced race relations.
Fine. Show me how he his campaigning for / winning the nomination has advanced race relations, at all.
REALLY?!?! Wow, my eyes have been opened.
Supporting for Allan Keyes shows you are not nearly as smart as YOU think you are.
Howso? (I won't hold my breath waiting for a cogent argument.)