... she's as cute as a junebug, isn't she? And this is not even video -- you're not getting the play of expression, and the irresistible laugh. And best of all, she's a complete -- though very lovable -- idiot:
Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals Are Abandoning ObamaWait for it...
Melissa Harris-PerryElectoral racism in its most naked, egregious and aggressive form is the unwillingness of white Americans to vote for a black candidate regardless of the candidate’s qualifications, ideology or party...
The 2004 Illinois Senate race between Obama and Alan Keyes, two African-Americans, was a unique test of the persistence of old-fashioned electoral racism. For a truly committed electoral racist, neither Obama nor Keyes would have been acceptable—regardless of policy positions, biography or qualification—because both were black.
One way to determine how many people felt this way is to measure the “roll-off.” In presidential election years, a small percentage vote for the president, but then “roll off” by not casting ballots for state and local offices. A substantial increase in roll-off—larger than usual numbers of voters who picked John Kerry or George Bush but declined to choose between Obama and Keyes—would have been a measure of the unwillingness of some to vote for any black candidate. I tested this in 2004 and found no increase, statistical or substantive, in roll-off in Illinois. Faced with two black candidates, white voters were willing to choose one of them.
.... The 2008 general election was another referendum on old-fashioned electoral racism... not only did white Democratic voters prove willing to support a black candidate; they overperformed in their repudiation of naked electoral racism, electing Obama with a higher percentage of white votes than either Kerry or Gore earned....
The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.Well, maybe not such an idiot, after all. One sells one's product as best one can. This is making something -- not a silk purse, okay, but something; a modest career, perhaps -- out of a sow's ear.
It seems unlikely that many disillusioned recovering Obamaphiles will be shooed back into the Obie camp by the insinuation that they might otherwise be some refined, third-order kind of racists. But you've got to give a girl credit for trying.
Tears of mirth came to my eyes when I saw dear earnest high-scoring Melissa posing it as a question of 'competence'. Obie is surely as competent as two-term Fatback Bill, and surely more competent than one-term Peanut Jimmy.
(One wonders how far back her assessment of relative competence goes. Lyndon Johnson? Franklin Roosevelt? How one would like to see all these report cards, filled in by Professor Melissa, ex-Princeton.)
But okay, a very competent fella, Obie -- a guy who has done, in a thoroughly workmanlike fashion, what he was hired to do. So why should he be deprived of a second term? Isn't that his right? Where's the indignation?
Well, Melissa. All these things are over-determined. Granted the refined third-order racism of the white liberals, you might also want to consider that they persuaded themselves he was anti-war; and he proved to be pro-war. They persuaded themselves that he would roll back the police-and-torture state; and instead, he turned the screws tighter. They persuaded themselves that he would get us out of the Depression; and he has, if anything, deepened it. Even white liberals can learn, up to a point, from experience.
But credit where it's due; Melissa is giving it her all. Win one for the Gipper, Melissa!
Comments (19)
BTW I owe Jack Crow big-time for pointing me to this superlative example of Harrisperriana. Melissa jumps the shark!
Posted by MJS | September 23, 2011 12:02 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 00:02
Carapace-Laceup's smiley intervention notwithstanding, I do detect racism in a general Republican unwillingness to acknowledge that the current White House occupant is, in fact, a Republican. Oh, the inhumanity!
Posted by nercules | September 23, 2011 1:10 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 01:10
All credit to you, good sir. I could not have done with that raw material what you did. Kudos.
Posted by Jack Crow | September 23, 2011 7:07 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 07:07
I couldn't have done with that raw material what you did, Mr. Smith. The credit is to you.
Posted by Jack Crow | September 23, 2011 7:16 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 07:16
yes, melissa is cute cute cute
[sometimes borderline 'hot']
but
older blacks will vote for obie
no matter what he says/does
[all the more need for melissa]
at least that's the story i've
been told and seems to hold up
in cspan comments
Overdetermination describes Freud’s unconscious as a “thought factory” in analogy with an inexhaustibly productive team...'
Overdetermination describes every one on earth's unconscious connection with everyone else and their unconsciosness of the real connection - not quite Jungian 'thought factory'
By C. G. Jung - The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere. Mythological research calls them "motifs"; in the psychology of primitives they correspond to Levy-Bruh's concept of "representations collectives," and in the field of comparative religion they have been defined by Hubert and Mauss as "categories of the imagination." Adolf Bastian long ago called them "elementary" or primordial thoughts." From these references it should be clear enough that my idea of the archetype - literally a pre-existent form - does not stand alone but is something that is recognized and named in other fields of knowledge
what with all the slip 'n slide, interesting week.
Posted by juan | September 23, 2011 7:19 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 07:19
I was unaware of the different types of racism. Is electoral racism in the DSM-IV?
Posted by Paul Alexander | September 23, 2011 10:46 AM
Posted on September 23, 2011 10:46
Heh. Sorry double post. The first one didn't show up when I checked back.
Posted by Jack Crow | September 23, 2011 12:04 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 12:04
I share not
The Melissa thang
Where's the bod baby
Under all that wrapping ?
My guess unlike say the local stacked prude
She bundles to conceal presences she wishes were absent
and perhaps absences she wishes were present
Cute heads cute froggy voices are for low brow hormonal stage blenders
I recall the phrase "body of a women ...mind of a child "
animated the sweat glands of a certain exemplar of the breed
Posted by Op | September 23, 2011 12:08 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 12:08
Lady M
Strikes me like the three eyed frog in the Simpsons
If you recall that episode
She and her deformities
were produced by
drinking and bathing
In
The radio active iodine enriched polywater
of identity politics................................ For a couple generations
Posted by Op | September 23, 2011 12:14 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 12:14
Jackart is not produced like the shell of a snail or the pearl of an oyster
This is a product of fathers formative years
As he haplessly soaked his soul in deeply gothic river side upper Dixie
The sensual croaking of the mal-formed and instinctually confused
Resonates with him
Like a chapel bell
Posted by Op | September 23, 2011 12:20 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 12:20
"But credit where it's due; Melissa is giving it her all. Win one for the Gipper, Melissa! "
For a certain large portion of guilty white liberal elites the old "Is it because I'm black?" routine works quite well.
The woman knows the waters she's trolling.
Posted by Drunk Pundit | September 23, 2011 12:57 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 12:57
Dp:
The one up stunt pales in impact with time
Shame soon turns to anger
Even liberals have anger even if it's stuck up their asses
You can't shame em for 40 years
The race card is now no longer a face card
It trumps nearly nothing
it's more like throwing down
a five then a Jack
Yup not even a ten !!
M here is trying to rehabilitate the spade 5 into a Wild card again
By giving it a new name address and phone number
When whitey merit class
Calls that number or show up there at that address
and it's the damn
same old same old.....
Identity politics died in the 2008 election
With the ohfrankenbummer as the monster and the HIl as his ritual bride
Maybe class politics long in slumber here
may rise from it's dirt bed and haunt the tower titans sleep
Posted by Op | September 23, 2011 1:55 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 13:55
"For a certain large portion of guilty white liberal elites the old "Is it because I'm black?" routine works quite well."
I don't think so, Drunk. It's too wearying and so utterly beside the point.
"Maybe class politics long in slumber here
may rise from it's dirt bed and haunt the tower titans sleep"
OP, I think we'd be so much further along in the class war had McCain won. Personally, I began observing a lot of disaffection among the job class during the W years. Obama dampened it on two fronts: sapped left enthusiasm and gave the white job class a black-left demon. In a comment on another post, you said something like, we need an unbroken GOP rein to stir class consciousness. Oh, how Johnny Mac woulda gotten us there....
Posted by chomskyzinn | September 23, 2011 2:52 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 14:52
Chomzkyzinn notes his disagreement with something I wrote:
"I don't think so, Drunk. It's too wearying and so utterly beside the point."
Well, in fact you are correct. It is too wearying and so utterly beside the point. However, I work in a professional environment with a lot of white liberal elites and by my observations they sure seem to bend over backwards to prove how sensitive they are to racial and cultural issues.
Maybe things are different from where you sit.
Posted by Drunk Pundit | September 23, 2011 7:08 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 19:08
OP sez:
"Maybe class politics long in slumber here
may rise from it's dirt bed and haunt the tower titans sleep "
Better late than never.
Posted by Drunk Pundit | September 23, 2011 7:09 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 19:09
CZ:
Sometimes I feel the same. On the other hand, when Republicans are in (nominal) power liberal-leaners will mostly dedicate their efforts--such as they are--to electing Democrats since hypothetical Demcrats are easier to advocate for without self-deception than actual ones in office. So unfortunately I don't think there will be an expedient--simply, a lot more people will have to wake up to the two-party fraud before things can start moving.
Posted by Peter Ward | September 23, 2011 7:22 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 19:22
DP, white libs I know --- and I know plenty of 'em --- who are dissatisfied with Nobama the "Middle Class Warrior" would more likely resent Professor Lacewell-Perry-PerryLacewell-Perry's insinuation. The lady is playing her weakest hand. It reads like parody.
Posted by Chomskyzinn | September 23, 2011 9:15 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 21:15
Peter, I hear you, but was mostly thinking about flag waving whites seeing through the cant and the scam, seeing how they've been had. OP is right: they still think it's their country.
Posted by Chomskyzinn | September 23, 2011 9:20 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 21:20
doesn't appear overweight op -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704055204576068412135002514.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6#project=SLIDESHOW08&s=SB10001424052748703667904576072480033086882&articleTabs=slideshow
as for the ins and outs 'thang', got me.
Posted by juan | September 23, 2011 11:40 PM
Posted on September 23, 2011 23:40