Race and Barack Obama
Shirley Sherrod is the black lady who was fired from the U.S.D.A. after they and the White House both failed to properly investigate or get the facts before jumping to a conclusion. I read in today's news that Mrs. Sherrod says that she would love to discuss race with Barack Obama.
As liberals have discovered, Mr. Obama certainly is not a liberal or progressive. His words are pretty good, but his actions are often those of a wanna-be Republican. Environmentalists have found that Obama is not at all an environmentalist. In some ways the wildly ignorant Bush II was a better environmentalist. Obama has openly supported nuclear energy and drill baby drill.
On health care normal middle class Americans have discovered that Obama is not at all what he pretended to be. His immediate disavowal of “single payer” and even the much weaker “vigorous government option” made sure that the results of health care reform would be a gold mine for the health insurance companies, physicians, hospitals, and drug companies. This was not universal health care, it was cost containment which allowed the industry to continue making obscene profits.
Black leaders have been reluctant to criticize Obama in public, but in private they sure do. His track record on civil rights so far has been far less than optimal. Certainly less than white presidents like Lyndon Johnson.
When Americans talk about a black person or an African American, they are generally referring to someone whose direct ancestors suffered through the horrible indignities of racism, the lynchings, the civil war, and U.S. Government sanctioned segregation. People who grew up hearing the stories from their parents and grandparents. Mr. Obama's family didn't go through any of this. His genetic father was from an upper class family in Africa, not the ignorant and intolerant American south. Obama was raised by a white family in Hawaii. He has a law degree. Racial prejudice is just not something that Mr. Obama has much experience or expertise in. So his level of empathy is really quite low.
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