Barack Obama’s Black Nationalism per Dreams From My Father
by Bill Levinson
This is the third installment on our series about Barack Obama and his open association with racists, anti-Semites, and Catholic-hating bigots, as well as his highly questionable campaign financing methods.
There are many urban legends and outright smears about Dreams From My Father and Michelle Obama’s thesis, such as “America is a nation founded on crime and hatred.” Our position is that, unless you can show us an independently-verifiable reference or page number, don’t show it to us at all. None of the smears and urban legends provide references of the kind one would cite in a scholarly paper or trade journal article. The quotes below all have page numbers, and they show that Obama is not qualified to represent Americans of all races and ethnicities.
I would occasionally pick up the paper [Louis Farrakhan's "The Final Call"] from these unfailingly polite men, in part out of sympathy to their heavy suits in the summer, their thin coats in winter; or sometimes because my attention was caught by the sensational, tabloid-style headlines (CAUCASIAN WOMAN ADMITS: WHITES ARE THE DEVIL). Inside the front cover, one found reprints of the minister’s [Farrakhan's] speeches, as well as stories that could have been picked straight off the AP news wire were it not for certain editorial embelleshments (”Jewish Senator Metzenbaum announced today…”).
Dreams From My Father, p. 201
While Obama does not praise this hate speech from Farrakhan’s magazine, he does not condemn it either.
Obama the Racial Unifier:
That was the problem with people like Joyce [a college classmate of Italian, African-American, Native American, and French ethnicity]. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounced real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. …The truth was that I understood [Joyce], her and all the other black kids who felt the way she did. In their mannerisms, their speech, their mixed-up hearts, I kept recognizing pieces of myself. And that’s exactly what scared me. Their confusion made me question my own racial credentials all over again. …To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.
“Dreams From My Father,” pages 99-100
Obama’s only problem with Black Nationalism has to do with questions of its effectiveness
It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions–between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.
If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq.
–Dreams From My Father, pp. 199-200
…I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites… (page xv)
Barry the Cokehead
I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though… (page 93) [http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/ByAlpha.asp?strTerm=B, “Blow” = “Cocaine; to inhale cocaine; to smoke marijuana; to inject heroin”]
The truth about the “Stand with the Muslims” piece from Audacity of Hope
Much as we dislike Obama, we deal in truth as opposed to smears and urban legends. Here is what The Audacity of Hope really says (with “stand with them” in context):
Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.
“The Audacity of Hope,” page 261 (paperback version)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and we agree with it. The United States’ treatment of Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War was shameful and dishonorable. Those citizens would have been within their rights to disobey, ignore, and treat with contempt the Roosevelt Administration’s illegal and unconstitutional relocation orders. It would be similarly dishonorable and shameful to treat all Muslims, many of whom came here to escape the Stone Age barbarism of their home countries, as enemies or even suspects.
Michelle Obama’s “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community”
The thesis is available from Politico.com as of August 14 2008, in four parts as a .pdf file. Contrary to the smears and urban legends that are in circulation, it says nothing about the United States being founded on racism or violence–a keyword search of a Word version found no such content. Michelle Obama does, however, proclaim her primary loyalty to the Black community while suggesting that there is a problem with Blacks who assimilate into the surrounding culture–a position shared by her husband in Dreams From My Father.
Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would use all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost. My experiences at Princeton have made me more aware of my “Blackness” than ever before.
These experiences have made it apparent to me that the path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society. [page 2]
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 2
Elements of Black culture which make it unique from White culture such as its music, its language, the struggles and a “consciousness” shared by its people may be attributed to the injustices and oppression suffered by this race of people which are not comparable to the experiences of any other race of people through this country’s history. However, with the increasing integration of Blacks into the mainstream society, many “integrated Blacks” have lost touch with the Black culture in their attempts to become adjusted and comfortable in their new culture–the White culture. Some of these Blacks are no longer able to enjoy the qualities which make Black culture so unique or are unable to share their culture openly with other Blacks because they have become so far removed from these experiences and, in some instances, ashamed of them because of their integration.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 54
Um, Michelle, wasn’t integration the goal of Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders???
The bottom line is that Barack and Michelle Obama’s own statements demonstrate an obsession with Black identity (i.e. racist) politics, and that neither is prepared to represent Americans of all races, ethnicities, and religions.
Most of that stuff is so misrepresented and out of context here, though at least page #s are provided, so that’s good. Meanwhile, a much more serious concern is going totally ignored: Obama is clearly following the Jim Wallis/Tony Campolo/Brian McLaren playbook for interjecting and intertwining faith into politics to a degree previously unfathomable, far beyond anything of the Moral Majority of the ’80s or the James Dobson of the ’90s. Even now the DNC is having an Interfaith gathering with their convention with people involved in movements that again and again emphasize how Jerusalem is the obstacle to the world peace and strongly popularizing the idea that Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty isn’t even an option. Pro-Israel folks better wake up to the real danger. Christendom via it’s new push into politics (Campolo’s “red-letter Christians”, Rick Warren’s “three legged stool”, Brian McLaren’s Mt 25 network, etc) is legitimizing what the Islamic ummah can’t get done on it’s own.
Comment by soren — August 25, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
I absolutely disagree with you on this. We don’t know which are terrorists or not, so it is legitimate to be suspicious of the entire muslim community, at least the young males. Authorities at the very least must keep an eye on them.
Comment by Laura — August 25, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
The relocation was not unconstitutional; see the Korematsu decision for details.
Comment by Michael Ejercito — August 26, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Well, Dred Scott and Kelo are nothing to be proud of either (and Obama would nominate the same kind of “Justices” who delivered the Kelo decision). Also, the Wikipedia entry says the government provided false information to the Supreme Court (perjury) in Korematsu.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 26, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Soren,
What is misrepresented or out of context? I quoted the entire passages to avoid taking the objectionable parts out of context. In addition, I showed that the complete context of “stand with them [Muslims]” shows this one to be NOT objectionable.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 26, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
“Is black America Ready to Embrace Obama?”
The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.
He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.
What he isn’t, not a genetic drop of, is ‘African-American,’ the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn’t a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.
Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.
It’s something Hillary doesn’t understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.
Thus Obama has become the white liberals’ Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is absurd.
Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior.
His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any straight thinking American.
Pass this on to every straight thinking American you know!
Comment by Bryan — August 26, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
When,I ask myself, how much of Levinson’s obsessive distaste for Obama is purely conscious or unconscious racial discrimination, I am reminded of the occasion that he labelled a certain ethnic group as two-legged locusts and vermin (shades of Geobbels) . Bill, may I remind you that being anti-black and being antisemitic are two sides of the same coin.
http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=769
Comment by h peskin — August 26, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
I read his quote, and the fact is that the people in the occupied territories do act like two-legged locusts and vermin.
Comment by Michael Ejercito — August 27, 2008 @ 10:37 am
h peskin,
When rats get into grain stores and perform their bodily functions in the grain, they don’t know that they are destroying another mammal’s food. Their only motive is to fill their own stomachs. The Palestinians in Gaza, however, demolished synagogues that they could have converted into shelter, schools, or even mosques–that is, they behaved at a lower level than vermin by destroying simply for the sake of destruction. It may be noted that, when the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, they did not behave like Palestinians by demolishing the beautiful Hagia Sophia church. Instead, they converted it into a mosque, and it is now a famous historical site. When the Muslims and Spaniards were fighting for control of Iberia, churches and mosques that changed hands were usually not destroyed because of religious hatred, but converted to the victor’s religion. That is why there is so much Moorish architecture in Spanish churches. Even the Mongols and Huns, despite their fearsome reputation, were smart enough to loot before they burned a village to the ground.
The Palestinians were also given greenhouses in which to grow food, and they destroyed these as well. They admittedly stole some things from the greenhouses for self-enrichment (like thieves in the U.S. who rip copper pipe out of houses, and copper wire from electrical transformers), which elevates them to the same behavioral level as a rat that spoils an entire bag of grain while eating only a handful of the food. A thief in the U.S. who destroys an electrical transformer to get the copper wire also is behaving like a rat, because what he destroys is worth ten or more times what he steals. Even so, the rat is at a higher moral level because it does not understand property rights, while the thief does.
A behavioral choice is not a race. The Palestinians, who are ethnically Caucasian (white) and Semitic (related to Jews) chose to behave at a lower level than locusts and vermin (destroying for the sake of destruction, as opposed to eating or even stealing), so I stand by my description of their behavioral choices. In fact, my description is a disservice to locusts and vermin for the reasons described above.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 27, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Bill Levinson: Your use of the image of the enemy as vermin, rats or locusts is not new. Before you destroy the enemy, dehumanize him, depict him as an object of total revulsion:
DOES THIS SEEM FAMILIAR, BILL.
Michael Sunstar, a fellow character assassin often uses the term Ape, Gorilla, as an image to describe Obama.
Bill, I guess that is politics, isn’t it?
Or is racism still live and well in the good old U.S.A.?
Comment by h peskin — August 27, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Bill Levinson: The vitriol pouring forth from your anti-Obama rants have the ear marks of old fashioned racism.. You are not fooling anyone into thinking you are a Jewish patriot. Racism is racism and any real Jew would find this to be very distasteful.
Comment by celia — August 27, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
Celia wrote,
Your comment (like that of many Obama supporters) is projection of Obama’s own behavior onto others. It is Obama who chose to surround himself with racists and anti-Semites, thus empowering racism and anti-Semitism. I read that the Russians do this all the time: accuse others of doing the exact things that they do themselves.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 27, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
Obama supports a total handgun ban, even going so far as to vote against a bill allowing homeowners to assert self-defense if they used banned handguns to defend themselves from an attack by an intruder.
Obama defended infanticide, voting down a bill that would require medical care for babies born as a result of a botched abortion, even though the bill contained Roe neutral language.
Obama said that ICE immigration raids terrorize communities, even as illegal aliens kill people like Tony Bologna.
We will never let you forget that.
Comment by Michael Ejercito — August 28, 2008 @ 9:49 am
Yes, but according to Celia’s standards, it is OK for Obama to do these things because he is Black. Any criticism of his behavior is racist.
My position is that excusing Black people from the same standards of behavior we expect from Caucasians, Asians, and so on is among the most racist things anyone can do.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 28, 2008 @ 11:53 am
Color ain’t got nothing to do with it. I’d say Obama’s transparent.
Comment by Shy Guy — August 28, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
Levinson: Given what has happened during the the last 8 years it is inconceivable to me how anyone with one of iota of intelligence could back the candidate of the incumbent administration.
I have been a public accountant and management consultant for the last 40 odd years.I often view matters in terms of cost-benefit comparisons and bottom line analysis.
Lets just recall the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, in 2000 off the coast of Yemin. This is a,futuristic, top of the line battleship (cost-700-750 bil U.S.) the weapon used in the
bombing…………………………………..a dinghy(cost12-15k. U.S.)
9/11 perpretrated by Al-Qaeda.Weapons used- box cutters (cost app $25-30 fed and state taxes included.
RETAL IATORY COSTS 3 Trillion and counting
Comment by h peskin — August 28, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Shy Guy: When you write that colour has nothing to do with Obama attacks. Just read this by Sunstar.
NOW START EATING YOUR WORDS-Shy Guy
Comment by h peskin — August 28, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
Levinson: Your hatred of Obama coupled with your forgiveness of Henry Ford for his overt antisemitism is a certain indicator- you are a racist. And you might not be all that aware of it.
Comment by palworthy — August 28, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
Peskin: I often think that you are an arrogant sunavobitch but with your post 15 you are right on the mark!!
Comment by larry gordon — August 28, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
I appreciate your kind words Larry, but I was not quite on the mark. For U.S.S. Cole I quoted a cost of 700-750 bil-I should have wrtten mil. Some difference eh?
Thanx, you are too kind.
Comment by h peskin — August 28, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
1. My name is not Michael Sunstar, nor do I ever post under such a name. And I have commented in the past about his rabid and hysterical Lulu.com pages. Lulu indeed! So what exactly do you think you’re pointing out to me that I don’t know already?
2. Were you stupid enough to think that I meant that there are no racists in the world? Are you stupid enough to think there are no black recists in the world? In fact, just look at who Obama has “thrown under the bus” so far and you’ll easily find them. But as I previously said, you have eyes but you don’t see.
3. If someone black describes McCain, say, as the abomible snowman, can we accuse him of racism, too? I would have no problem comparing Obama - or McCain for that matter - to King Kong or Dracula or Godzilla, if I thought the shoe fit. With apologies to Bigfoot.
You’ve once again failed reading comprehension 101. You offer piddly portions.
Comment by Shy Guy — August 28, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
Palworthy wrote,
If Henry Ford were running for President, “The International Jew” might well affect my vote (adversely) despite my admiration of his other accomplishments. Henry Ford has, however, been dead for more than 60 years.
Barack Obama has done things every bit as reprehensible as “The International Jew” by empowering and enabling racists and anti-Semites of every stripe (e.g. Al Sharpton), and that will affect my vote the same way “The International Jew” would affect my vote.
Oh yes–Ford apologized for “The International Jew.” Obama’s friend Sharpton never apologized for the Tawana Brawley scandal, Crown Heights riots, or Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Meanwhile, Obama’s other friends in the National “Jewish” Democratic Council whitewashed content every bit as vile as that of “The International Jew” if not worse.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 28, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
h peskin wrote,
2000 would have been on Bill Clinton’s watch.
Comment by Bill Levinson — August 28, 2008 @ 11:00 pm
Peskin, I took a look at Sunstar’s posts mentioning King Kong. In his first post, he says:
“This is not Martin Luther King Junior’s dream come true! This is Louis Farrakhan’s dream come true! HUGE DIFFERENCE!”
Now reading his posts in context, it is obvious that this was NOT a racial taunt.
Speaking about “eating your own words”, Peskin, put on your bib.
You’re right. It would be cheaper to sit on our hands under our asses and let the Islamists take out the Sears Tower and the Empire State building.
Comment by Shy Guy — August 28, 2008 @ 11:06 pm
After 7 years of fighting in Afghanistan there is little improvement to show for the billions invested and lives expended. To quote an old and familiar refrain, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.If you don’t accept my word ask Levinson, who ought to know something about efficiency. Where is the return on the investment? What happened to the bottom line? Oh yes it somehow got fucked up in Iraq. But lets not get into that.
Levinson: Yes Cole occurred on Clinton’s watch, but the response is what counted. That was a Bush fiasco. Since you guys don’t seem to know, let me clue you in. Bush, Cheney and company have done such a great job-they have become toxic entities in this election, radioactive. If a Republican candidate wishes to get reelected, he or she ought not to come within 100 metres of the President.A kind of restraining order. But let’s not get into that.
Now let us invade Russia, the new enemy d’jour. Anyone for Iran? Pakis?
Comment by h peskin — August 29, 2008 @ 4:19 am
Yes, the civilized world should have let the Taliban prosper and continue its attacks on us infidels. After all, everything is measured in money.
/sarc
Comment by Shy Guy — August 29, 2008 @ 6:59 am
A lot less lives and dollars were expended in Afghanistan than were expended in WW1, let alone WW2.
Comment by Michael Ejercito — August 29, 2008 @ 10:22 am