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Tu freakin quoque, %$#&@#^$%&!^

By streiff Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Racism — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As we watch the Obama Hope-and-Change fraud collapse in on itself a garden industry is springing up with the purpose of psychoanalyzing those who are critical of Wright.

The criticism of Wright, we learn, is a function of our own prejudices and has nothing to do with Mr. Obama’s politics, statements, business associates, wife, friends, or pastor. You, too, associate with unseemly people. You, too, possess offensive beliefs. You, too, have said things which would lead to your public pillorying if you were running for president. You certainly have no right to criticize Mr. Obama. If you are critical of Mr. Obama, it is because of your own prejudices.

Read on.

In today’s Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby in Wright and Ridiculous weighs in on Wright and Obama.

Start with Obama's turbulent preacher. Yes, Jeremiah Wright says some disgraceful things. But can anyone explain how that changes Obama's qualities as a candidate? Is anyone suggesting that an Obama administration would view AIDS as a government plot to kill African Americans? Or that it would govern from the perspective that the United States is a terrorist nation? Obviously an Obama administration would do no such thing. Which makes the storm over the preacher an absurd digression.

The Wright affair tells us that Obama bonded with someone whose political views are sometimes toxic. But as a young man trying to make sense of his mixed heritage, Obama looked to Wright for spiritual guidance, not political tutorials; as a community organizer, Obama focused on Wright's admirable social work, not his resentment of the white establishment. Indeed, Obama's own views on race and politics were diametrically opposed to those of his pastor. […]

If Obama clearly does not share Wright's views, of what precisely is he guilty? Of befriending someone with repugnant opinions? Anyone who condemns Obama on that basis should examine his own circumstances. Real human beings present one another with complex social choices: The dependable work buddy may be unfaithful to his wife; the salt-of-the-earth neighbor may despise Hispanic immigrants. How many Obama critics have themselves been friendly with someone with misguided views? What about Bill Clinton, who counted the one-time segregationist William Fulbright among his mentors?

This, of course, is little more that tendentious bullhockey. Mr. Mallaby is asking us to assume that Obama doesn’t agree with Wright. But one has to ask why, other than from reasons of race mongering and political expediency, one would continue to not only frequent the church where this man preached but to seek out his company. How could Obama possibly seek spiritual guidance when “trying to make sense of his mixed heritage” and not imbibe of Wright’s political philosophy. From what we’ve seen of his sermons and read from his church newsletter the two seem inextricably intertwined. I’m sure a lot of Europeans were attracted to the various fascist movements in the 1930s because they made their members feel good about themselves, provided social benefits, and even made the trains run on time. That is hardly a defense for having joined them.

Whether or not I have disreputable friends and opinions is hardly germane. I’m not running for president, neither are the unnamed “Obama critics.” The fact that Bill Clinton received a bye for accepting the mentorship of a die-hard segregationist or a pass for throwing the wood to every vaguely animate and questionably feminine object he came into contact with hardly excuses the either the actions or the lack of attention paid by the media.

Shankar Vedantam in a piece called The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind continues the theme that we, not Obama, are to blame for the criticism directed at him.

Obama may find it especially hard to shake the associations that white voters have formed between him and Wright because both men are black. Social psychologist David Hamilton at the University of California said this is because of a phenomenon known as the "outgroup homogeneity effect" -- on average, people tend to feel that those from other ethnic, cultural and political groups are quite similar to one another, whereas they know that people from their own groups are quite varied.

To break the mental associations that white voters have between him and Wright, in other words, Obama will probably have to work much harder than if politician and preacher were also white.

This also explains why black voters seem to have little trouble distinguishing Obama's views from Wright's views -- people rarely have trouble seeing that people from their own groups can have a wide range of views.

Extraordinarily missing from this analysis is the factual background (the length of membership in the church, the relationship with the pastor) and the odious nature of the comments made by Wright. Obama wil have as much difficulty shaking the association with Wright as a politican would have shaking a similar association with Lyndon LaRouche. The idea that Wright would sound less a conspiracy nut if he were white is simply silly.

In a sidebar to The Candidate, the Preacher, and the Unconscious Mind entitled The Willie Horton of the 2008 Campaign? Vedantam goes on to posit that the reason Wright has hurt Obama is that he has transformed a mild mannered inoffensive candidate into something white America fears: “a black guy.”

Conduct a thought experiment: Imagine that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to presidential candidate Barack Obama and preacher with controversial views, was not an outspoken black man but a white woman who penned her controversial ideas in a scholarly journal. If Wright's views were the only thing that mattered, his race, sex and public style ought to make no difference. Assuming she held the same views and shared a lengthy history with the presidential candidate, a white female scholar ought to damage Obama's popularity in the same way the pastor has done recently.

There is no way to conduct such an experiment in real life, but Arizona State University social psychologist Steven Neuberg believes that Wright has damaged the biracial Obama because, in his public persona -- as much as in his views -- he activates unconscious fears and racial stereotypes that many voters have about angry black men. Black leaders who are popular with white voters invariably find ways to put such fears to rest, Neuberg said.

"Like Colin Powell but unlike Jesse Jackson, the cues that suggest there is someone out there who may want to do you harm are not there" with Obama, Neuberg said. "It is the reason Powell could have won eight years ago and that Obama can win. His bearing is non-threatening."

"What this Wright guy has done is tagged Obama as a black guy," Neuberg added. "He is more aggressive and attacking, and that engages in people's minds and that makes race salient."

This is silly on its face. We aren’t talking about an academic writing in a scholarly journal. We’re talking about Obama’s long time pastor and mentor. If a white male candidate had sat for twenty years in a pew at Matt Hale’s Church of the Creator and identified Mr. Hale as a spiritual advisor he would never have been a top tier candidate.

Obama’s problem is not Wright it is Obama.

The relationship with Wright continues to dog Obama because it fits neatly into the narrative that is forming. Obama is a political opportunist who sucked up to Wright and frequented his church because they gave him the requisite patina of black authenticity to succeed in politics in Chicago. His cavalier tossing of Wright under the bus without even waiting for the cock to crow three times validates the opportunism and at the same time gives the lie to the “new type of politics” professed by Obama because we can’t believe that he attended that church for that long without espousing or acquiescing the views of the Rev. Wright.

This story goes to the heart of Obama’s candidacy. And it is not our racism that is asking the questions.