|
To party
or not to party with the Democrats after these insults
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
Geraldine Ferraro, one time running mate of Walter F.
Mondale for the American presidency in 1984, describes Obama
as an accidental candidate and that were he white, he would
not have gotten to where he is now.
The point is either Geraldine Ferraro’s statement is a joke
or she is a virulent racist who has been hiding behind the
label of liberalism and the Democrat party for too long.
Either way, her statement should be an insult, a slap in the
face for the overwhelming majority of blacks who have for
generations been loyal to the Democrat party.
Obviously, Geraldine Ferraro is not black and did not attend
an Ivy League School as Obama did. But being black and
having been to an Ivy League is enough to start you
thinking.
Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law, one of the most
prestigious Ivy League universities, elected president of
the exclusive Harvard Law Review in 1990, charismatic,
brilliant and young would not be where he is now were he
white?
Why then do these young, ambitious white kids struggle for
admissions into such institutions if not for the fact that
these schools offer, comparatively, sure paths to leadership
positions in public or civic life more than many of the
others?
We can only attribute Ferraro’s anguish to Obama’s success.
Obama took the same path like the white kids, applied his
ambition and talent and has ended up very successful.
Truth be told, the leadership positions in the professions,
from Wall Street to the Supreme Court are chuck full of
graduates from Ivy League schools. A white "Obama,"
showing up from these schools as a serious presidential
candidate need not be an impossibility.
However, black leadership reaction to Ferraro’s statement is
another matter; the comparative silence it engendered from
this group is shocking. Had the same statement been made by
a white or Black Republican, the attacks on them would have
been instant, loud and sustained.
Compare this silence to the reaction to Trent Lott, the
former Republican Senate leader, in December, 2002 when he
made his intemperate remark about Senator Strom Thurmond of
South Carolina, during the latter’s 100th birthday
celebration. The opposition to him was vehement and abrupt
“Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) resigned Friday as Senate Republican
leader following two weeks of controversy over racially
divisive remarks,” a National Public Radio announcement
said.
What Trent Lott said was that: “When Strom Thurmond ran for
president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the
rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have
had all these problems over the years, either."
Suddenly, Trent was out of office. No apology or lament
could save his job from the wrath of the Black community,
and rightly so because the black leadership placed Trent
Lott’s statement in its proper historical context and
responded accordingly.
However, for Ferraro, the reaction has so far been hesitant,
less spontaneous and she is offering no apology either.
Granted she holds no official or government position, she
still serves as senior advisor on the Hillary Clinton for
President Team, which fact makes her statement even more
interesting if not curious.
Remember Bill Clinton calling Obama a kid? Then there is
Hillary offering the Vice Presidency position on the
Democrat ticket to Obama, even though she lags behind him in
vote and delegate counts and has no statistical chance of
regaining her lead unless it is given to her through
fraudulent means.
But that fraudulent means may be okay, because she is a
woman, white and fit to be president. However, Obama, the
Black candidate, is better suited to ride behind her. Put
that in a historical context and Rosa Park would still be
toiling on her way home on that bus in Alabama, after a
gruesome day at work, and she wouldn't have known why.
But here in this time and space, all one has to do is to
fold Ferraro’s view on Obama into that of Hillary and her
husband’s
to come to grips with the racist elements in her remark; the
insincerity of these individuals about race and the state of
being black in America is obvious.
And remember too that every time things got critical for the
Hillary campaign, some type of ugly controversy comes up.
Into New Hampshire after Iowa, where Hillary got the first
campaign shock, came a racist remark from one of her
advisors. On the eve of Texas and Ohio, the lie about
NAFTA, Obama and Canada was introduced to scare blue collar
and Hispanic voters. By the time the primaries of
Mississippi came into sight, which by the way Obama won in
spectacular fashion, there was Ferraro with her remark to
scare white voters and to get the campaign ready for the
next crucial stop in Pennsylvania – and naturally, for the
white vote.
“My comments have been taken so out of context and been spun
by the Obama campaign as racist," Ferraro said to ABC TV
when her statement became public.
For commenting on what Ferraro said about him, she went on
to accuse Obama of dividing the Democrat party; implying
that should Democrats go down in defeat in November, it
would all be Obama’s fault.
But what exactly was Obama’s response to her?
He said: “If you were to get a handbook on what's the path
to the presidency, I don't think that the handbook would
start by saying, 'Be an African-American named Barack
Obama.”
Contrast the above with Ferraro’s remark, "If Obama was a
white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a
woman of any color he would not be in this position. He
happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is
caught up in the concept."
Obviously, Ferraro’s statement is replete with color and
gender differences intended to attract specific voter
demographics. What needs to be pointed out to her is that
Black Democrats have been content to play the second fiddle
for decades for the same demographics until Obama showed
up. And now all hell must break loose because of this new
wrinkle?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, March 12, 2008
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
|
