I love to watch him code-switch like that. It just makes him seem so real and authentic. I’m really going to miss having him as President.
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Yeah well, being black and successful with multiple constituencies today means being able to code switch, but in his case, it’s also a good demonstration of how easy it can be for a good actor to dupe voters into believing in them.
That probe made the Mars run in 12 parsecs!
Apparently, someone at the WaPo has been taking Dr. Carson more seriously than I have…
But what makes Carson’s suggestion more than curious is that his campaign is absolutely studded with moments in which Carson has insisted that race is either without meaning – on the list of “silly” topics used to distract and divide Americans from more important issues. In fact, because Carson is a presidential candidate, race and the quantifiable experiences of disadvantage, discrimination and inequality that is closely tied to it for many black Americans rank on his list of things to be discussed almost never. That is what Carson has said throughout his campaign.
Sign me up!! What do I need to join this wonderful place?
How many parsecs to do th Kessel Run?
Can I get that movie please? Apparently Isaac Hayes died, so the soundtrack’s going to be a bit lacking, but I’m sure we could get someone almost as good.
Speaking as someone who is mixed race (not as evident now in adulthood) and was raised in a white family – and constantly heard “what ARE you?” on the streets – I think you’ve got it. What you and @8080256256 are saying, in different ways, is that Obama’s life experience has been that of someone of mixed-race, which IS different than growing up with the self-identity of “African-American”. You never quite fit in anywhere: in his case, he’s not “black enough”, but he’s also not white enough, either. It’s a different experience.
Carson is still an idiot.
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Whatever - it’s better than sterile pap.
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The statement is partially dismiss-able IMO. His intent aside and accepting that Obama was raised differently than either Carson or a typical African American, or a typical POC, it remains partially dismiss-able.
Obama didn’t go from his nursery to elected office without leaving the house.
Since he probably did leave the house occasionally, and probably didn’t restrict himself to the confines of his own neighbourhood, and probably did visit other cities and towns, thus traveling the roads between them,
then he probably got a taste or at absolute minimum a relatable view of the institutionalized, systemic racism and oppression that Carson is suggesting he was wholly sheltered from and that regrettably greatly shapes the life experiences of POC and particularly African Americans.
Well-spoken (white-spoken), educated, employed, wealthy, held in high esteem, community leaders, well dressed (white-dressed?) POC get their asses kicked by the cops quite regularly if newspapers are any indicator. So they also get profiled, pulled over, harassed by any and all authority, followed in stores, all of it. They get that deadening feeling, when you realize that a person turning toward you, or seeing you walking toward them on the street, makes automatic adjustments to themselves and their course, barely or not at all hiding that they are repelled by you and your very presence.
Obama probably went outside. Carson’s statement is shit IMO.
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and anyway, the Doctor told me that Unit wasn’t a problem.
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Credit where credit is due…Ben Carson is certain that, due to his efforts, Obama will not be elected to another term as president
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If memory serves, the Fox bloviator who originated the phrase was quietly removed(allegedly for other and pre-existing reasons; but it suggests that even Fox didn’t think that it was adequately well-formed crazy). The New Yorker cover intended to satirize the event was more or less consigned to ‘controversial’, with a side of “Geeze guys, we thought our readers were a little better at identifying sarcasm of that magnitude; but I guess not.”
Some of the poor souls from the truth-and-empiricism brigade produced a compilation of ‘assorted prominent people(mysteriously not black) using the same gesture in high profile situations’ that ended up including a wide assortment of people and occasions that had passed completely without comment at the time, more or less confirming that the whole thing was kicked off because the frothing pundits had basically been waiting all day for Obama to either pledge fealty to the Caliphate or make public his allegiance to either the Crips or the Bloods; and pounced like rabid postmodern deconstructionists on the first vaguely ambiguous signifier Obama emitted.
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I wonder if Carson understands that he’s not running against Obama, but other republicans?
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It had to have been fairly old people who believed that the fist bump was some sort of terrorist or gangster thing, because it had already filtered into dweeby white guy office dork territory before that Fox dingleberry made his very silly assertion.
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What about Obama (other than being elected president) makes him atypical for black politicians? What would a typical black politician be? I was under the impression that black politicians covered a pretty wide spectrum, in the US.
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Also, is there some set of qualities a typical white politician has?
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Someone who fits some critical mass of stereotypes, as perceived and defined by the collective white mindset.
Nope. The white collective is the great definer. Whatever others perceive and define about its members (a process, actually, that is necessarily more accurate than the opposite) doesn’t matter.
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