Is He Saying What I Think He's Saying?
Obama recently spoke to minority journalists in Chicago. ("When Obama walked on stage at the McCormick Center, many journalists in the audience leapt to their feet and applauded enthusiastically after being told not to do so." Who told them not to?) He said this:
I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.
Let's leave aside the huge amount of deeds that have already been offered. We get that Obama finds them insufficient. The question is does Obama approve the concept of reparations. It's sure easy to interpet his remarks as a yes. I really think he should make his stance clear. Better, I think journalists (whether they give him standing ovations or not) should ask him to make his stance clear.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:09 AM
10 Comments:
Hey, neat, I can address both points in your final paragraph with one quote:
Mr. Obama was especially eager for his charges to understand the horrors of the past, students say. He assigned a 1919 catalog of lynching victims, including some who were first raped or stripped of their ears and fingers, others who were pregnant or lynched with their children, and some whose charred bodies were sold off, bone fragment by bone fragment, to gawkers.
“Are there legal remedies that alleviate not just existing racism, but racism from the past?” Adam Gross, now a public interest lawyer in Chicago, wrote in his class notes in April 1994.
Strike as non-responsive.
Obama just said, twice, that the Republicans will try to scare the voters because he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
The crowd lapped it up, of course, because they always love it when someone says how evil and intolerant Republicans are.
So does anyone still have the nerve to claim he's not playing the race card?
Really? I think it's clearly indicative of his thinking -- he's interested in exploring methods of remedying past discrimination. My guess is you'd never get a straight answer from him on reparations, because he's aware they'll never happen, but doesn't want to appear to be agreeing with your view that enough has already been done to remedy the effects of past discrimination.
Anon, you're crazy, he was just referring to how young and handsome he is.
Nah, just kidding -- that's playing the race card.
I've read your first comment three times now, and I just don't see how it has anything to do with the post. All I see is a guy who has spent a lot of time thinking about our past racism, and I think everyone already knows he's done that. The question is, now that he's said he wants deeds, not words, what does that mean? (Studying past racism even more than it's already studied falls under the category of more words to me.)
"he's aware they'll never happen, but doesn't want to appear to be agreeing with your view that enough has already been done to remedy the effects of past discrimination."
Where have I ever said we don't need to remedy the effects of past discrimination?
You don't go far enough. He didn't say deeds, not words, in general. He said deeds, not words, referring specifically to "reparations".
It true he was speaking off the cuff. He'd probably never be so blatant if he was speaking from a prepared text. But I think this gives us a glimpse into his thinking, and an idea of the kind of stuff we'll get if he's elected.
LAGuy said:
Where have I ever said we don't need to remedy the effects of past discrimination?
You've never said it explicitly, but you've given a broad hint at that position before. I can't find the post, but I recall it broadly as me asking what was done to remedy the harm of slavery, and you suggesting that the dead of the Civil War were enough. Following on that, "the huge amount of deeds that have already been offered," led me to believe it. If I've read too much into those, I apologize.
Let me make my position explicit. I do feel we need to remedy the effects of past discrimination. However...
1) I don't like it when people speak slightingly of the tremendous efforts that have been done in the past to fight discrimination, or feel they must always remind us of how far we have to go--everyone should be able to admit the huge debt we owe to those in the past, and say it without qualifiction.
2) I believe many of the remedies put forward by the present-day civil rights establishment--remedies Obama apparently supports, and strongly--are disastrous. They don't work as promised, have highly negative unintended (I hope) consequences, and distract us from far better solutions.
I wouldn't be quite so sure about Obama for your second point. From the same article I quoted in my first comment:
"Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: the Reconstruction-era amendments that were rendered meaningless by a century of resistance, the way the triumph of Brown gave way to fights over busing, the voting rights laws that crowded blacks into as few districts as possible. He was wary of noble theories, students say; instead, they call Mr. Obama a contextualist, willing to look past legal niceties to get results."
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