Real Talk on Obama, Individualism and Being Fooled

If you take a position on the Iraq war or health care, you will attract reaction from people who say you’re crazy, but they will be responding to what you actually said and, more or less, to how you actually meant it. The same is not true of race. Text that deals with a difficult racial issue is like a Rorschach ink blot. People project onto that text—project their own experiences, anxieties, angers; all the emotions that go into thinking about race, which means all the emotions that exist. You can weigh every word of your text. You can rewrite it until you think there is absolutely no way that a fair-minded person can fail to understand what you said. And they will not only fail to understand it, they will accuse you of saying exactly the opposite of what you said.

--Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve

It’s a concept that is applied equally and leads in multiple directions.

Warning: when reading the following, please note the use of words and phrase like 'some,' 'sometimes,' 'not all,' etc. Warning Two: if the rock didn't hit you, don't yelp.

Ever since some previously somnambulant people began to notice truths which were self-evident to the awake about presidential candidate Barack Obama, his mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and their adherence to Black Liberation Theology (in addition to the candidate's faithful adherence to classic socialism/communism, elitism and Identity Politics), one can notice the sense of blind outrage in the tone of some white observers, most curiously in the tone of those who are conservative. Sometimes that outrage is not only directed at the candidate, but at all black Americans. It’s as if black Americans had collectively sworn some Oath to forgive all white Americans--as if they needed forgiving--but because Obama, Wright and their ilk exist, that phantom Oath has been violated. To some, this ilk somehow represents all black Americans and in order for us—all black Americans, that is—to be trusted again, we must repudiate the haters and their ideology.

All over the conservative Internet, I’ve seen comments like this one:

I'm not giving [black Americans] a pass any more on anything. They have to rise up and demand Obama's refutation of the evil preacher. [SNIP]

I will demand they act like adults and clean their own house of the hatred that we don't tolerate. If they don't dissociate themselves from Obama, the Apologist of hate, then they are throwing their lot in with him, and for that they will have lost my good-will.

Why was that individual giving any racial group of Americans as a single entity a pass on anything in the first place? And who died and made this individual or anybody else the giver of passes? That went out in 1863.

My citizenship is a right, not some privilege issued by anyone. I am allowed to love and hate whom I please as long as I don't step on another's toes. And I don't have to answer for anyone to whom I did not give birth. Tolerate this.

In turn, however, neither I nor any other person/group has the right to offer another person/group any absolution for the sins of their fathers--if those sins exist--nor make anyone feel guilty about sins not their own.

Someone asked what my rant on principles was about; this was it. Some conservatives talk about individualism but when it comes time to apply the concept under adversity—under conditions where the concept of individualism isn’t reciprocated--it’s too damn hard. So when the Obamas and Wright and James Cone--who aren’t even conservatives--espouse Black Liberation Theology; when the relatively few other black supremacists, narcissists and conspiracy theorists spout their hatred, such people automatically become the responsibility of 30 million other Americans who happen to be black also. Why? Nobody serious asks white people to repudiate the darlings at places like Stormfront and Loose Change nor should they. (It's as if some of you thought that white people had a lock on lunacy. On the contrary, Crazy and Evil are equal opportunity employers.)

Haven’t conservatives been telling liberals to dispense with the Group Identity Politics, to embrace Individualism? Well, Conservatives, heal thyself!

People who didn’t really buy into individualism or who found it easier to treat blacks as a monolith because most blacks themselves do so, bought Obama’s cover—the “good looks,” the stentorian, MLKish voice, the Harvard education, the Hope, the Change, the Post-Racial narrative—even when his autobiography told a different story. Those who believed the hype included a goodly portion of white conservatives, who “wouldn’t vote for him, but could hang out with the guy.” Hah! Obama wore Shelby Steele's mask of good guy; a black dude who didn’t seem to be angry at white people—if one was looking at the accouterments and not reading and listening too closely. But scratch his purty surface and he's all hugged-up with the bad guys.

His dissembling suggests the difference is only between the blacks who hate you and show it and the blacks who hate you and lie about it. Of course that's not the case, but the question then becomes how, exactly, do you tell which blacks hate you and which do not? If Obama is lying, then who isn't?

My answer:

You trust individuals after they have proven themselves. Anyone who trusted Obama--or trusts any other human--on faith is a fool.

(Sorry, WO. I'm not trying to pick on you, but your question was instructive and I think that you're getting it.)

Too many people used a different standard to judge Obama's character--perhaps a messianic one. To some Obama represented Group forgiveness. But not only does this demigod have Play-Dough feet, he's allied with the other side. That’s why the anger is so fierce in some of these quarters; it’s the anger of betrayal.

Error is spread around equally. As I said, a good deal of the black population views itself—and whites--as a monolith and will get mad at you and hurl epithets at you if you don't subscribe to this point of view. :::cough::: (And the odd thing with some of the black supporters of Obama is this: some behave as though no other black American will get a shot at the White House for a hundred years if Obama loses. I contend that the same could be true if Obama wins, but that's beside the point.) But if the principle of Group Innocence or Group Guilt is wrong, it’s wrong, no matter if it’s a majority view or not. Let them get mad. Do you conservatives believe in conservative principles? Then apply them to everyone without apology. Group Innocence and Group Guilt are not conservative concepts.

So when I tell some of you white conservatives that you haven't been following your conservative principles when judging this man, Barack Obama, could you do me a favor and not twist what I’m saying, not turning it into some cudgel of White Guilt that I’m allegedly beating you over the head with? I'm not looking for your apology because you don't have anything to apologize for. You've fallen short and missed your own mark. Welcome to the human race.

Now that you’ve been rudely awakened, perhaps those of you conservatives who actually have principles—rather than commodities—will revert to using them and start leading with your eyes open. That’s not a Black Thing or a White Thing. It’s called the Law of All Jungles. (Heh.)

And be thankful that you are awake. Some aren’t so lucky.

AFTERTHOUGHT: To those who thought Obama was a crypto-Muslim, I'm not all that mad at you anymore. You knew that some type of game was being played. You just didn't have enough experience to sniff out which one.

(Thanks to brotherbrown)