“Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him.
‘They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?'”
Anybody who has ever worked in a affirmative action work environment has seen this Obama campaign technique a million times. A member of a minority community is caught in some kind of error or malfeasance and the immediate response on their part is the cry of ‘racism,’ thus seeking to shift the blame on the person who revealed their error. This moves the focus off of their error or malfeasance and makes the issue the motives of the one who revealed their error.
The ‘post-racial candidate’ who is supposed to take us beyond race has now officially introduced race into the campaign. With this injection of race we see how Obama and his handlers intend to use race to their advantage. You can be sure that each and every time a effective and legitimate criticism is raised against Obama that he is going to hang his blackness out on the American Media clothesline for all to see and scream that the opposition is being racist. And when he doesn’t scream it, he will imply it with all the subtlety of a meat grinder. For the next nineteen weeks we are going to hear more versions of affirmative actions cries of racism then there are versions of the Bible.
I believe the reason that the Obama campaign is pursuing this is threefold. First, Obama has some real problems on this front has as already been established by his associations and by some quotes, that if examined closely, and taken in conjunction with his black nationalism associations reveal his problems. By bringing up the race issue in the way he has, he theoretically de-fangs his opponents from going after him on this score. Second, by raising this issue Obama continues to frame himself as the victim and his opponents as the victimizers. In our culture the poor victim always has a political advantage. Third, by raising the issue Obama takes advantage not only of the politics of pity, but also of the politics of guilt. For several generations a large percentage of Americans have been manipulated by a false guilt about race relations. A large percentage of Americans, buying into the false race narrative of this country seem to think they can atone for their sins of the past by voting for a black guy.
In this political climate Republicans would have to be brain dead to try and make Obama’s race a political issue. This reality reinforces the idea that Obama is the one injecting race into the campaign in order to try and take an issue away from Republicans (his associations with Black Nationalists and other radicals) and in order to smear his opponents with a charge in our culture that is worse then the charge of molesting children.
Will the Republicans meet this challenge directly? Will they call the racial bluff and tell Obama and his handlers to shove his race baiting plaints up his affirmative action post-racial sphincter? Will the Republicans turn the table and expose Obama’s racial campaign?
Only when hell freezes over, melts again, and refreezes.
No, what the Republicans will do out of fear of politically correct backlash will either stumble over themselves giving long and involved explanations insisting that they weren’t being racial, thus giving justification to the accusation, or failing that they will apologize for their insensitivity. Instead of saying that Obama is being racial by constantly injecting race they will roll over.
Having seen this technique successfully used frequently in the affirmative action workplace, I would say, from a tactical perspective, it is a brilliant move on the part of the Obama campaign.
The Great Messiah is sadly mistaken if he thinks the GOP will take the bait. I wrote a similar essay as yours. Keep it up!