It's Wonderful That The USA Have Elected A Black President But It's Unfortunate That It's Obama

There are certain things, that as a white man, I simply cannot say.  So, under the circumstances, I will simply quote Chris Rock, from his new monologue Kill the Messenger : "White people say Obama speaks to their values.  Black people say: He's black, I'm black, I'll vote for him."

Well, not quite.  Even Chris Rock felt he had to clarify that statement: "We're gonna vote for him because he's black AND qualified .  It's not as though we're voting for Flavor Flav."
 
Indeed, Obama is doubtless the most qualified black candidate for the US presidency in that nation's history.  Who then, can blame African Americans, most of whom are still suffering from America's legacy of slavery and segregation, for voting at least partially based on racial grounds?  Certainly not me. 

To many, an Obama presidency represents a turning of the page in America's history: to the extent that the first 43 presidents were white males, symbolizing that demographic's dominance, having a first black president symbolizes an important breakthrough for African Americans.  At the very least, it sends the message that even the highest office in the land is available to them, and that none of their ambitions should be tempered because of something as silly as their skin pigmentation.

Accordingly, a large chunk of the electorate of all ethnicities, as well as the media, has been absolutely enthralled by Obama.  Indeed, such is the devotion of "Obamaniacs" in the media that they have explicitly, and without shame, dropped any pretense of objectivity and taken on the role of mounting a parallel Obama campaign, dutifully ignoring any negative story about their candidate while aggressively pursuing anything which may hurt the Republican ticket.  Some have even suggested that not voting for Obama is racist, a tactic once (rightly) considered desperate and intellectually dishonest.
 
It has therefore been very difficult for the public to decide for themselves whether, in the words of Chris Rock, Obama is indeed "black and qualified".  I can assure the reader that Obama is in fact black - well, actually he's half-black.  The difficulty lies in the second part of that statement: is he qualified or half-qualified?

Unfortunately, according to the little information about Obama that we do have, it is unlikely that this president can offer his country more than a fuzzy feeling over its ability to elect a black president.

Some of Obama’s past is actually well known, such as his 20 year association with demented and racist preacher Jeremiah Wright, according to whom the AIDS virus was concocted by the United States government to commit genocide against blacks.  How much does Wright represent Obama’s views?  Well, enough so that the title of one of Obama’s books, The Audacity of Hope, is taken verbatim from the title of one of Wright’s sermons.
 
Perhaps even more disconcerting however, is Obama’s association with Tony Rezko, a convicted felon who developed affordable housing in Chicago.  As an Illinois State Senator, Obama pushed for subsidies to developers of affordable housing, and his friend Rezko got his share.  None of this is particularly shocking until you consider that the affordable housing under Rezko’s care was left to decay until it was slated for demolition.  In a classic case of political corruption, a friend and campaign contributor of Obama received public money, while the people the money was meant to help were left out in the cold – quite literally. 

Obama also sued financial institutions for compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).  What is the CRA and why does it matter that Obama used it to sue banks?  Originally intended to prevent the racist practice of “red-lining” (whereby banks refuse lending for entire neighborhoods), the CRA mandates that banks take-on a number of sub-prime loans if they are to seek to expand through mergers, acquisitions, or branching.  While the CRA also mandates sound banking practices, in reality the sub-prime loans were purchased by Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae as part of meeting their own “affordable housing” quotas.  The result was that banks were strongly influenced into taking on sub-prime loans by the CRA, and that the risk from such loans could be passed on to Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.  The rest is history.

So, having elected a man involved in a racist church and cronyism and the current financial crisis, what should Americans do?  Well, at the very least, they should HOPE that he’ll CHANGE.

Post Script: In between the time this article was written and now, Obama has managed to infuriate the far left of the coalition which brought him to power by making appointments which suggest that Obama is a more pragmatic and centrist politician than his past associations do.  For this, I am extremely thankful, and if this is indeed a sign of things to come, I look forward to seeing the Daily Kos and moveon.org crowd grow more and more disappointed by the man they thought would take them to the progressive promised land.

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