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Race - Should it matter?

Happy Days

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I've seen a few interviews with Michelle Obama. She is obviously an intelligent woman.

I watched the CBS 60 Minutes interview, however, and was surprised that she seems to think that black people can be shot going to a gas station. Why? And if so, does this mean that she's racist? Or would it only be racist if a white person said it? Please help me understand this interview.

YouTube - Michelle Obama On Her Husband's Security
 
Well, anybody can be shot going to the gas station. Even me, who's anglo-saxon/native american.

I don't think she's sounding racist, just sounds like an alarmist who's mind is stuck in the early 60's. She's also probably just concerned like how every other wife is when their husband runs for president/wins the presidency. But the clip the OP provided wasn't really long enough, I'm guessing there was more to the interview? I wanted to hear what Barak had to say about the topic, if he said anything about it at all. I couldn't really tell from the expression(s) he made whether or not he agreed or disagreed with his wife.

When she said she "doesn't lose sleep over it", I saw Barak cast her a quick glance, I don't know what went thru his mind when she said that. Then when Mrs. Obama is saying "that as a black man, he can be shot going to a gas station", Barak gave kinda like a weak smile, then looked down, and turned his head away from his wife. I don't know what all this means, but maybe we need a body language expert in this thread, like Bill O'Reilly has on his show.

One question I'd like to ask the Obamas is do they really think that the Secret Service would allow them to be shot?
 
"Then when Mrs. Obama is saying "that as a black man, he can be shot going to a gas station", Barak gave kinda like a weak smile, then looked down, and turned his head away from his wife."


I think he was thinking, "Oh crap, she's just disguished me as a black man and made the Presidential race about, well race!" Yup! Silly woman just opened up a can of worms, and I haven't heard a lot from her since. Has she been silenced?

So, was she wrong to do this? I don't think it should even have been brought up. It's irrelevant, right? Then why do I feel that they will make race more relevant if he gets elected?
 
I think he was thinking, "Oh crap, she's just disguished me as a black man and made the Presidential race about, well race!" Yup! Silly woman just opened up a can of worms, and I haven't heard a lot from her since. Has she been silenced?

Reminds me of the 04 election when Kerry's wife opened her big mouth and said the wrong things, possibly costing Kerry the election.
 
Reminds me of the 04 election when Kerry's wife opened her big mouth and said the wrong things, possibly costing Kerry the election.

Correct.
Ms. Heinz-Kerry mentioned in an interview that it was her understanding that Laura Bush "didn't work", an unfortunate choice of wording that resulted in millions of American housewives flying into an indignant frenzy, and newspapers nationwide featuring sanctimonious editorials about how housewives ought to be issued honorary PhDs in domestic engineering and how, if actually paid a fair wage for their labor, they'd make 27,556,829 dollars annually, etc, et al.
All of which was more or less moot, anyway, because Ms. Bush did work; she was a teacher and a librarian.
She does not currently work, but she is, after all, the wife of an independently wealthy man.
Her children are grown and no doubt there is staff onhand to see to the cleaning of the White House, so Laura Bush no doubt spends her time, like all first ladies before her, traveling with her husband, engaging in philanthropic pursuits, and entertaining.
She is 61 years old, after all.
Here in America, we do permit workers to retire at some point, and if they're independently wealthy, they may as well retire sooner rather than later.
 
Why would you work if you're rich? Nobody got rich working anyway. I would just play the horses and watch stocks all day. Why in God's name would you do anything else? Maybe if you were a CEO, but even then only to fuel another goal; such as an election.


Now, at the risk of sounding racist myself, I think it's fairly annoying how certain people of color use their skin as a rebound for more votes. These people are racists of the highest caliber. Anyone who can look you straight in the eye and :spin: their BS is a ... terribly immoral person. Though this isn't news to me ... I knew "how they do" once I started hearing Obama mention God every other word. Something tells me this goes all the way down the rabbit hole.


As for Mrs. Ketchup, anyone who had their hands on a conservative propaganda article about american aristocracy needs no introduction to any of this ... they really pinned her down with needles and nails when they started talking about Both his and her history's. Just google it ...
 
Ketchup Queen said:
And tonight, as I have done throughout this campaign I would like to speak to you from my heart. Y a todos los Hispanos, Los Latinos; a tous les Americains, Francais et Canadiens; a tutti Italiani; a toda a familia Portugesa e Brazileria; to all my continental African family living in this country, and to all new Americans: I invite you to join our conversation, and together with us work towards the noblest purpose of all: a free, good, and democratic society.


That was it. You never saw her again on the campaign trail.


As far as Michelle Obama and the Politically Corrected (Cultural Marxist) minions on the left and race go, anyone who rejects Obama's less than thinly veiled promotion of class envy and social re-engineering can be conveniently be called a racist. It doesn't even matter if the critics may be black, because they'll just be explained away as subservient Uncle Toms. That's the sad reality about the VALID civil rights, women's right and labor movements of years past & the present. All of these causes were just and legitimate (and still are to a certain extent) at one time, now their leadership is mainly comprised of socialists who use the perception of anyone opposed to what they say or do as being racist or sexist or whatever as their most valued tool.

Group think 101.

Blacks are only allowed to speak about race, if you oppose a black leader who espouses socialism; you're a racist. See how it works? The same holds true for women's issues. Only feminists have a say. Anyone who opposes the feminist take on things is simply a slave to a masochistic patriarchal order.

The best thing we Americans can do is recognize, define and reject such attempts to meld failed past policies social re-engineering with civil rights women's rights or human rights advocacy. An ideology needs to be able to walk on it's own two feet to be legitimate, it shouldn't require fear, shame and race-baiting to help it along.
 
Why would you work if you're rich? Nobody got rich working anyway. I would just play the horses and watch stocks all day. Why in God's name would you do anything else? Maybe if you were a CEO, but even then only to fuel another goal; such as an election.


Out of boredom maybe?
 
the silenced majority, please explain to me how someone can be a "cultural marxist". That makes about as much sense as being a "cultural capitalist." Marxism is primarily an economic system dealing with how an economy should be run. The only real suggestions to culture is as to where culture affects the implication of this economic system. Most of the more detailed societal parts were added by later thinkers like Lenin, Mao, and Trotsky. Cultural Leninism might make a small amount of sense, but seeing as we don't have nobility to shoot here or kulaks to disenfranchise, it's a moot point at best. Care to come up with a new buzz-phrase?
 
the silenced majority, please explain to me how someone can be a "cultural marxist". That makes about as much sense as being a "cultural capitalist." Marxism is primarily an economic system dealing with how an economy should be run. The only real suggestions to culture is as to where culture affects the implication of this economic system. Most of the more detailed societal parts were added by later thinkers like Lenin, Mao, and Trotsky. Cultural Leninism might make a small amount of sense, but seeing as we don't have nobility to shoot here or kulaks to disenfranchise, it's a moot point at best. Care to come up with a new buzz-phrase?

I'd be glad to, however I'm short on time now: here is the gist of it
 
Right. An article with no real facts, obviously completely biased (comparing free, open campuses with North Korea) making broad accusations with very few quotations or facts. Give me something a bit more concrete that doesn't look like you wrote it yourself.
 
"Then when Mrs. Obama is saying "that as a black man, he can be shot going to a gas station", Barak gave kinda like a weak smile, then looked down, and turned his head away from his wife."


I think he was thinking, "Oh crap, she's just disguished me as a black man and made the Presidential race about, well race!" Yup! Silly woman just opened up a can of worms, and I haven't heard a lot from her since. Has she been silenced?

So, was she wrong to do this? I don't think it should even have been brought up. It's irrelevant, right? Then why do I feel that they will make race more relevant if he gets elected?

Do I think she was "wrong" to say what she said? I think it was just un-necessary. The race of a candidate shouldn't ever matter. Who picks their candidate based on a feature of them anyways?

Oh yeah, pick Obama cuz he's Black!
Pick Hillary cuz she's a Woman!
Pick Giuliani cuz he's Italian!
Pick Romney cuz he's a Morman....

That's just foolish! Anyone that has to make a big deal about their [insert race/religion/ancestry here] must be lacking substance to begin with, so they have to give people an "excuse" to vote for em... PAH! I vote for quality, integrity, and... um... other stuff. But race and all that never enters the inner debate within my brain.
 
Right. An article with no real facts, obviously completely biased (comparing free, open campuses with North Korea) making broad accusations with very few quotations or facts. Give me something a bit more concrete that doesn't look like you wrote it yourself.

You know, there's no real point in arguing this with you.

I find the one's who take umberage to the phrase are usually the one's to which it most closely applies.
 
I'd be glad to, however I'm short on time now: here is the gist of it

I'm sorry, but that article is totally insane.

1) It assumes that people want to be offensive, and that they are being held back by oppressive laws, when in fact there are very good reasons for political correctness.
-On university campuses, in order to promote an environment where students don't have to worry about being hassled by other students about their race, sex, or sexual orientation, and can instead focus on learning.
-In general life, calling people things like "N*gger" is rude, like saying that someone's an @$$hole , and so people avoid it because they have no desire to make other people uncomfortable.

2) It (the article) states many "facts", but it offers no source for any of them. It also shows itself to be biased strongly towards conservatism, from the very first sentence. Indeed it distinguises conservatism from other ideaologies when it states that all ideaologies are totalitarian, without offering proof for either statement (that all ideaologies are totalitarian, and that Conservatism is not).

3) It says that people are "serving jail time for political thought", and cites hate crime laws as an example. This is not true, people are serving jail time because they comitted crimes motivated by their hate. Sometimes they get extra time for it, but they are not in prison becausee of a harmless thought that they had, they are in prison for a criminal action. (source: wikipedia.com/wiki/hate crimes)

4) It uses hypothetical examples to support its point, instead of real-world examples. For example, in the fifth paragraph, the author details the thoguht process leading from political correctness to historical revisionism. He does not support this with examples, but just assumes that the ridiculous train of thought takes place regularly.
-The closest it comes to real examples is in paragraph nine, where he actually mentions Shakespeare's works as well as the Bible, but fails to give any specific exampls, and slides back into hypotheticals.

5)It spends most of its time talking about German Marxists (and for some reason the author feels the need to tell us that they were all Jews) and repeatedly says that they were linked to political correctness. Yet, in the second-to-last paragraph, where he seems to be bringing it all together, he does not do this. Instead he launches into a long monologue about how hippies are bad. Again, offering no proof.

This is an example of what my debate teacher wold call bad speaking. Hypothetical examples, incomplete logical processes, and no sources.
 
really, why should a person's race or religion even be relevent? like because of their skin color or their religion they would be less desirable or less able to handle the job of whatever office they are voted into.
 
really, why should a person's race or religion even be relevent? like because of their skin color or their religion they would be less desirable or less able to handle the job of whatever office they are voted into.


Well quite. That was actually the point of the thread. Michelle Obama was the one who thought the color of her husband's skin was relevant enough to mention.
 
Happy, I think what Michelle Obama meant was that other people saw her husband's skin color as relevent and an issue and those people would do something about it, not that she herself cared.
 
Happy, I think what Michelle Obama meant was that other people saw her husband's skin color as relevent and an issue and those people would do something about it, not that she herself cared.

How dare she suggest that racism exists. What a racist.
Let's not vote for her husband, since she had the nerve to suggest such a thing.
 
How dare she suggest that racism exists. What a racist.
Let's not vote for her husband, since she had the nerve to suggest such a thing.

Not sure if you're being tongue in cheek here, 1069, but whether MO was racist was actually one of my questions. I love the way these debate boards work. :)
 
I'm sorry, but that article is totally insane.

This is an example of what my debate teacher wold call bad speaking. Hypothetical examples, incomplete logical processes, and no sources.

Sheeeesh! I suspect as he is "short on time", he simply gave you the first of 51,000 search results from google for "cultural marxism". Did you and Hobo not get "the gist" of what "cultural marxism" means? Do you also think its a "buzz-phrase" made up by silenced majority?

I read it. Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, Felix Weil, Horkheimer and the Institute for Social Research or Frankfurt School. "Critical Theory"
Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse and "Eros and Civilization".
Its all there for anyone who needs more "gist". Maybe add Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson and Terry Eagleton.
You studying to become a teacher? Might try and tone down the urge to go forth and destroy with your mighty red sharpe.
 
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