Obama versus Tim Scott on the black experience in America
Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, is the son of a white woman from Kansas who gave birth to him in Hawaii. Afterward, he moved to Indonesia, returned to Hawaii, and attended a prestigious private school.
Barack Obama has decided to call out Senator Tim Scott for dismissing America as a racist nation. Tim Scott grew up in the heart of the Confederacy — Charleston, SC — and was raised in working-class poverty as the descendant of slaves and went to public schools.
Barack Obama is a descendant of Irish settlers on his mother’s side, and his father is from Kenya. Tim Scott is the descendant of slaves on both sides.
It is really notable that Obama and Scott are both from broken homes, but the one who got to travel the world and go to a private school in Hawaii wants to lecture the South Carolina descendant of slaves about race and opportunity in America.
Barack Obama, authority on American blackness compared to Tim Scott.
Because I’ve followed Obama for a long time and in some depth, I remember stuff from his history of which others may not be aware. The thing that comes to mind here is his failed attempt to unseat Bobby Rush. Obama learned from that effort not to challenge someone like Rush again, who could one-up him on blackness and call him what George Wallace used to refer to as a pointy-headed intellectual.
Rush, who retired from Congress only a year ago, was a House member when Obama tried to unseat him in the 2000 primary. Big temporary mistake of Obama’s, who lost to Rush by 30 points – and yet went on to become a senator in 2004. During the 2000 campaign, Rush said this of Obama:
“Barack Obama went to Harvard and became an educated fool,” said Rush during that year’s Democratic primary campaign, before soundly defeating Obama with more than 60% of the vote.
Obama spoke like the University of Chicago professor that he was. Rush spoke the language of the streets where he was raised, just west of the city’s glitzy Gold Coast neighborhood.
And this:
Every account of that campaign points out that Obama was tagged as “not black enough” for the South Side. State Sen. Donne Trotter, the third wheel in the primary, told me then, with a sneer, that “Barack is viewed in part to be the white man in blackface in our community.” Black nationalists grumbled about an “Obama project,” led by the candidate’s political godfather, former Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva. But no one appreciates how hard the man tried to earn his ghetto pass. At a rally for South Side teachers, held in a dim, tiny nightclub called Honeysuckle’s, Obama lashed out at the critics who were calling him too bright and too white…
Obama just couldn’t — or wouldn’t — loosen up. The dignified demeanor that had won him a state Senate seat in the university community of Hyde Park did not translate to the district’s inner-city precincts. His internal rhythm was set to “Pomp and Circumstance.” “Arrogant,” scoffed a South Side radio host. Even his body language signaled he was slumming…
Back in 2000, when I interviewed Obama in his cubicle-size office at a downtown law firm, he started the meeting by checking his watch. Then he dissed his congressional district, half-joking that he was more committed to the South Side than his opponents, because, number one, he’d moved there from Hawaii, and number two, he could have been raking it in on Wall Street.
“I really have to want to live here,” he said. “I’m like a salmon swimming upstream on the South Side of Chicago. At every juncture of my life, I could have taken the path of least resistance but much higher pay. Being the president of the Harvard Law Review is a big deal. The typical path for someone like myself is to clerk for the Supreme Court, and then basically you have your pick of any law firm in the country.”
So now snobby old Obama – who knows so much more about racism than Tim Scott – doesn’t like the fact that Tim Scott denies systemic racism in today’s America:
The former president last week criticized Scott, a rare Black candidate in the GOP primary contest, for comments he has made about race and racism in America, saying that voters had a right to be “skeptical” of claims made by minority candidates that ignore the inequality that exists in the United States.
“There’s a long history of African American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can make it,’” Obama said during a conversation with Democratic strategist David Axelrod on his podcast “Axe Files,” which was released last week.
“If somebody’s not proposing — both acknowledging and proposing — elements that say, ‘No, we can’t just ignore all that and pretend as if everything’s equal and fair. We actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.’ If they’re not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical,” Obama added.
Tim Scott responds that he considers Obama’s criticism a great compliment, adding:
“Whenever the Democrats feel threatened, they drag out the former president and have him make some negative comments about someone running, hoping that their numbers go down,” he said.
Scott has repeatedly argued that America “is not a racist country,” pointing to his own experience growing up with a single mother and eventually reaching the halls of Congress.
“Here is what the people need to know: The truth of my life disproves lies of the radical left,” Scott said Sunday.
The truth of Obama’s life also disproves the lies of the radical left, but don’t expect Obama to say it.
Leo Terrell, the civil-rights attorney who was a Democrat until his late sixties, denies (with accuracy and truth) that there exists any such thing as “systemic racism”, as does Larry Elder, who has been a libertarian conservative for much longer; both, of course, are far more legitimately “black” than Barry Soetoro, who, when young, objected to those students who identified as “mixed-race”. Recently, the great David Horowitz gave a talk (C-SPAN) in which he spoke of the growing prevalence of “anti-white racism”.
Critical Diversity Theory. Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) is a systemic past, present, and progressive problem. While it is not a wicked solution (e.g. human rites, clinical cannibalism), it has roots in ethical/religious doctrine that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, and intrinsic value. Throw another baby… “burden” h/t Obama on the barbie, it’s over?
In a nation that practiced systemic racism how do we account for a black POTUS, a black VPOTUS, two black Secretaries of State, a black SecDef, a black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, multitudes of successful black athletes, a black pastor who has streets and other landmarks named after him, and successful black intellectuals like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. None of this would have happened in a systemically racist country.
The plight of inner-city blacks that we see in this country is a product of Democrat policies in major cities where blacks suffer in mediocre/failing schools and lack the police protection that would allow minority businesses to thrive and the addictions to drugs to be a minor/non-issue. Improved schools and improved law enforcement could solve many problems for black Americans.
Barack was born on third base and resented that he couldn’t claim victimhood. Even as POTUS he claimed he was discriminated against and still has his racist chip on his shoulder. He was cunning enough to recognize that being a race hustler could pay off. And he worked that con even though he didn’t fit the mold like a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.
In a free society, it is assumed that one will make the most of the talents you were born with and the knowledge you accumulate to take care of yourself and those who depend on you. In such a system there will always be some who don’t work hard enough, or don’t accumulate enough knowledge, or make bad decisions and end up on the bott om of the society. Not wanting to end up there is a reason why so many people get up and go to work.
Our society has forged a safety net that helps those who are in poverty. All people who receive this help should be thankful. I grew up in a society where there was no welfare, no Medicaid, no Social Security. Even in those days, people got help -from family, from neighbors, from churches, and some charitable organizations. There was no Big Brother to care for the poor.
Tim Scott knows this. Tim Scott took the gifts he was given by the Creator and worked his way up. He knows that upward mobility is there for those willing to work at it no matter your race or religion. Obama knows it, too. But Obama would rather work the race card scam and keep his fellow blacks down and out in the inner cities.
Obama has done damage to race relations that may last a generation or two.
“Barack Obama, authority on American blackness compared to Tim Scott.”
Sounds familiar. Among the Irish, there is the well to do Biden teaching Kevin McCarthy about blue collar life. Among the Italians, the well connected and wealthy Andrew Cuomo lectures Ron DeSantis on immigration and fairness. Etc, etc, through all the ethnic groups.
In a way, it is heartening to see Obama do the same to Scott. It means the blacks are living a normal American existence, after all, that they are our fellows rather than aliens among us.
If I were Obama I would have sat this out, but apparently he really does believe that his ideology gives him greater insight into African-American life than actual African-Americans have. One doesn’t rise to the top in politics without having similarly exalted opinions about oneself.
The Democratic Party, though, depends on racism and White Supremacy. It’s their master narrative. The civil rights narrative and talk of forever endangered rights has been applied to women, and LGBTQ, and other people of color, and even the environment, so whenever a Democrat talks about anything it tends to be in those terms.
Still, BHO should have known better not to go after Scott personally. He comes off sounding a little like Glenn Kessler who attacked Scott for talking about his childhood poverty when an ancestor of his had once owned much farmland (Kessler’s family owned or ran Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest corporations in the world).
“Systemic racism” isn’t racist prejudice. It’s another way of saying inequality. If you want an activist government redistributing wealth, “systemic racism” is what you talk about. Bigotry may wane, but so long as there are wealth differences between ethnic groups, Democrats can frame their plans as opposition to racism.
From http://jonathanlast.com/american-narcissus/
A reader passes along this fantastic bit from a 2004 Ryan Lizza profile of Obama in the Atlantic:
I couldn’t help noticing, when we sat down to talk in the dilapidated storefront that houses his Springfield campaign headquarters, that the blue-pen drawing he’d doodled on his newspaper during fundraising calls was a portrait of himself.
Jonathan Last’s full November 2010 article about Obama, “American Narcissus,” is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20110216121757/http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/american-narcissus_516686.html [click through to two following pages]
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“…it’s not a wicked solution…”
It’s plenty wicked.
Though some might prefer “evil”.
Take yer pick.
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“…a generation or two.”
Gosh, I wish I could be so optimistic….
(Since I believe that the theme song for the Democrats is, “Racism yesterday, racism today, racism tomorrow, racism FOREVER…”
Catchy, ain’t it?! By the way, because it’s FOREVER, it excuses—promotes, rather— anti-white racism—REPARATIONS!! you understand—which of course includes anti-WHITE-SUPREMACISTS OF COLOR…)
Reminds one of Schicklegruber’s “I DECIDE who’s a JEW”…
“Systemic racism” is sociological phlogiston.
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My suspicion about BO and Mooch is that they were never particularly well-grounded and they’ve been subject to so much flattery over the last 20 years (and, to a degree, during the 20-odd years previous) that they don’t know who they are anymore. See Mooch’s employment history over the period running from 1991 to 2008, which is not that of someone subject to operational measures of performance. See Obama’s political career. There you see well-timed dirty tricks, massive fundraising, the collapse of the distinction between the media and Democratic Party press agents, and the schemes of various people in tech and finance. His remarks in response to Scott are absurd. He no longer recognizes what is absurd.
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I grew up in a society where there was no welfare, no Medicaid, no Social Security. Even in those days, people got help -from family, from neighbors, from churches, and some charitable organizations. There was no Big Brother to care for the poor.
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Unless you’re a centenarian, no you didn’t.
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Subsidized services and income transfers accounted for a much smaller share of gross domestic product in 1928 than they do today. They were certainly present. These included public schools (primary, secondary, tertiary), state sanatoriums, state workhouses, city hospitals, state asylums, state orphanages, federal veterans’ hospitals, and veterans’ pensions. The Depression saw the advent of relief payments and unemployment compensation.
It means the blacks are living a normal American existence,
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It says something about the political culture. Doesn’t mean much about the common life generally.
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Many blacks are leading a normal existence. Many are not. The nexus of interests and passions in and around the Democratic Party is generated by people who are bound and determined to do nothing effective to reduce the level of abnormality among those who are not. Indeed, they’re committed to making the whole world increasingly unjust, abusive, and bizarre.
For a professional writer, Erickson sure mangled this sentence: “Barack Obama has decided to call out Senator Tim Scott for dismissing America as a racist nation.” I presume he meant something like, “Barack Obama has decided to call out Senator Tim Scott for his dismissal of the idea that America is a racist nation.”
Art D.: “Unless you’re a centenarian, no you didn’t.”
Born in 1933. Not quite a centenarian. None of the social safety net had yet been enacted. I remember when my grandparents got their first Social Security check in 1951. Social Security began in 1935, but the average life expectancy then was 61. So, not many people actually collected.
Food Stamp Program of 1964, Medicaid and Medicare of 1965, LBJ’s War on Poverty of 1964, Earned Income Tax Credit of 1975, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families of 1996, etc.
All occurred in my lifetime. I remember when doctors posted prices for various services in their offices. I remember our local doctor trading his care for services that his patients could provide. I remember the local churches raising money for people who were temporarily out of work. I remember hospitals putting people on payment plans to pay for expensive surgeries, etc. It was not a bad system and it required people to be more responsible than they are today.
You know a lot, but you don’t know it all.
None of the social safety net had yet been enacted. I remember when my grandparents got their first Social Security check in 1951. Social Security began in 1935, but the average life expectancy then was 61. So, not many people actually collected.
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I take it the years 1933-40 were a part your youth. The median age at first marriage for men of the 1933 cohort was about 23 years, so the world you grew up in would have extended from 1933 to 1956.
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By ‘the average life expectancy’, I take it you’re referring to the life expectancy at birth, which was once strongly influenced by infant and early childhood deaths. In 1940, about 60% of white men of the 1875 cohort were still alive and such people had a life expectancy of about 12 years.
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Food Stamp Program of 1964, Medicaid and Medicare of 1965, LBJ’s War on Poverty of 1964, Earned Income Tax Credit of 1975, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families of 1996, etc.
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The programs of the Office of Economic Opportunity were dismantled over the period running from 1973 to 1981. There’s a residue in HHS. Federal intervention in housing markets and primary and secondary schooling were disagreeably enhanced during the Johnson years, but neither publicly provided primary and secondary schooling nor public housing nor ‘urban renewal’ were innovations of the Johnson Administration. (‘Urban renewal’ is largely gone and public housing has been largely replaced with voucher programs).
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Federal nutrition programs, foremost among them SNAP, are inadvisable. They’re dwarfed by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (As late as 2019, SNAP beneficiaries received about $4,300 per household per year).
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TANF replaced AFDC. As we speak, the TANF rolls have about 2 million people on them. The AFDC rolls were at their peak around 1992, when they had 12 million people on them. AFDC was founded in 1935 as an appendix to Social Security, though it wasn’t of much consequence during the period running from 1935 to 1958.
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EITC, like SNAP, is dwarfed by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The average household which benefits receives just north of $2,000 a year.
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The big and abiding innovation since 1940 has been Medicare, Medicaid (NB Medicaid partially replaced state asylums), and Social Security Disability.