Comments on: Hosannas spiked with contempt

By: Yemi Kuku

Yemi Kuku — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:48:17 +0000

Listen Gaiter…at the end of the day…a vote for Obama is a vote for a better president. Nothing more. Nothing less. Yes, we can look at what motivates some white folks in voting for Obama as troubling but those who’s vote for Barack is rooted in the “matthewsian” perspective of race are only a further example of America’s racial pathology…again, at the end of the day, Barack Obama-the policies, the message, & candidate is a better option than what’s on the table right now.

By: tillie

tillie — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:53:24 +0000

I think Mr. Gaiter has well placed contempt for the pundits, especially Chris Matthews. I had not watched very much of him until this election. Now I am on the “Who-is-this-shallow-moron?” team. I was an Edwards supporter and the inane comments that I heard from his mouth, mostly about Edwards’ hair and good looks of all things, only reinforced my opinion that this guy is brain dead. And to think for awhile I confused him with Russert. But the white, mainstream perception of things is consistently skewed regarding race, in my book. Just listen to the rich white woman with a facelift asking how Michelle Obama dare have less than perfect pride in her country. “Walk a mile in her shoes, lady!” Yes we are certainly in the post slavery era, but discrimination and racial bias exist now. There are still entire counties in this country that advertise they prefer whites only — watch PBS “Banished.”

By: Hosannas Spiked With Contempt : BigMouthFrog

Hosannas Spiked With Contempt : BigMouthFrog — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:11:48 +0000

[...] On Obama [...]

By: CarlosVasquez

CarlosVasquez — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:53:45 +0000

Give me a break, Elizabeth! Nobody is suggesting amnesia, and nobody is suggesting that there aren’t important lessons to be learned from the past. The point is whether you choose to view everything through the prism of race, to the extent that you imagine that a white person’s votes for Obama is an attempt to cleanse their “guilt,” or whether you think there are times that race doesn’t, and shouldn’t, matter. Do you want to tell me how Mr Gaiter’s “deep” conversation about race, where every white person’s motives are viewed in the worst racial terms is constructive in any way at all?

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:50:04 +0000

A refreshingly honest and passionate piece of writing Mr. Gaiter. Many of the comments here simply prove your point. I am amazed at the lack of depth in the mainstream “conversation” about race in America today, the deliberate amnesia, the convenient wish to move on. Of course America will move on. The crucial question is, in what manner will America move on? With its memory intact and integrated into social and cultural life, or with half its memory bank deliciously (for some) wiped cleaner than clean? America can be a tiresome child sometimes, wishing for an innocence it never had, not because of anything like original sin, but by virtue of being human and thus, that almost impossible blend of motives for good and ill. I say “almost impossible” because I have hope for the future, but several of the responses here are a (temporary) blight. Honesty such as yours, Mr. Gaiter, your willingness to keep this issue squarely before us in your body and spirit, are remarkable.

By: Mitchell P.

Mitchell P. — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:07:58 +0000

The idea that by supporting Obama, white people feel cleansed of guilt for their ancestors’ treatment of blacks, seems far-fetched to me. People support Obama for a wide variety of reasons, most not having to do with race.

Don’t worry, Mr. Gaiter. I can vote for Obama, and you can still be “the scars on a black slave’s back… the genius of music and speech… blind rage… [and] the tears at the sound of Abbey Lincoln’s voice.” The only difference is that we’ll have a better President.

By: CarlosVasquez

CarlosVasquez — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:41:30 +0000

From Rosa Parks autobiography:

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

By: jim sleeper

jim sleeper — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:26:36 +0000

Galter writes, ” A tired pissed off woman refuses to give her seat to a white man and faces as a result arrest and bodily harm— and Sleeper, a white man, dares to say she did it for him; that she did it because she was a good little mammy who knew her job was to serve white folks, this time cleaning their moral toilets instead of their porcelain ones.”

Rosa Parks was the secretary-treasurer of her local chapter of the NAACP and did what she did because she had trained and prepared to do it. More power to her for that, and for the way she did it. Go clean your own moral toilet and do a little research before you do. Jim Sleeper

By: hanna ingber win

hanna ingber win — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:25:45 +0000

excellent column, mr. gaiter.

By: CarlosVasquez

CarlosVasquez — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:05:57 +0000

Leonce, you wrote, “Colorblind” just signifies your desperation not to see me because, you see, I am your shame— and my glory. I am all of it.”

Maybe for some, and I certainly don’t mean to diminish the terrible crimes that were committed against blacks in this country, but I think for most it’s more that they don’t want to see you that way because it’s largely irrelevant for them. I never bought into the original sin idea that Christians are peddling, and I don’t buy into it on this account either. I suspect that the majority (or close to it) alive in the US today are like me and don’t even have descendants that lived in the US when slavery existed (and that includes whites as well as blacks). Half the population in the US today was born after the civil rights movement, for crying out loud. For most, I think, striving for color blindness is not so much to erase a guilt they don’t really feel, but to find a way to move forward constructively.

I haven’t seen Matthew’s original comment in full, but it could be that what he meant by not finding “a better opening-gate, starting-gate personality than Obama as a black candidate,” was that here is a black candidate without a chip on his shoulder.