Obama Wins! - So What's Next?

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Now that you mention it, Martaug, it's a funny thing how there's no end to the comments when we screw-up, but when we get something right there's an odd silence from some places.

 

Yep, i'm just waiting for the comments in years to come when someone says
"man!, i can remember when the stock market was doing great & hit 14,000 pts back when BUSH was president"

 

Yes, but it was 8000 when he left.

 

That depends on his platform. I'm more likely to take issue with what he intends to do in office as opposed to what he intends to do in his bedroom. Remember that I disagree with Clinton's adultery too.

Because there is no logical reason for it to be unthinkable. The race card can only be played so many times before it loses meaning. Likewise, the Gender card can only be played so many times before it too loses meaning. Splunge even goes so far as to suggest that sexual identity will follow the same principle.

You're right, I don't get it because racism is stupid. I just think that Obama's skin colour is too much of a distraction at a time when the country needs to focus on matters at hand. Worse yet, the colour of his skin upstages the fact that he was a great candidate. He beat out other prominent Democrats to win the nomination, then the best the Republicans felt they could muster against him. I just don't think that's a good thing.

You could say the American people did the same thing here.

I'll give you the fact that he will be taught in history classes, but I think that the emphasis on skin colour still trivializes the man himself. I get a bad feeling about that...

 

Yes, Obama will go down in history as the first Black President but IMO the fact that the fact of his skin color seems so important to so many people is something we should be ashamed of. It indicates to me that we have not progressed very much in the last 40 years.

 

Don't you think that's being a bit harsh Nakia? 40 years ago, the idea of having a black president was unthinkable. The fact that he won the election indicates that the majority of people do not have a problem with skin color. I think it would be more appropriate to say "we have not progressed as much as we could have in the last 40 years". There is always room for improvement, but your statement seems to belittle how far we've actually come.

 

Sorry, Aldeth, this one time I don't quite agree with you. I am off to New York so don't have time to give a proper answer. We haven't come as far as you think. Prejudice has gone underground. I'll get back to you on Tuesday when I return.

 

Fair enough - although I did not mean to imply that prejudice and racism no longer exist - I was merely saying that they are not as common as they used to be. The KKK (as far as I am aware) is still around.

 

I would also add that underground racists likely weren't the people voting for Obama. Racism has definitely gone underground. This doesn't change the fact that it is far less common - or at the very least - far less severe than it once was. The fight is far from over, but we've definitely come a long way. I see no harm in recognizing that.

 

It makes his achievement that much greater. If I had told anyone 4 years ago, after the election of GWB, that a black liberal Democrat would be our next president, they would have fell out from laughing so hard. And when was the last time Canada had a black prime minister? How about Germany? Sweden? France? The enlightened English? It was here, dude, in land of the "unenlightened" according to even some on this board. I guess the US is leading the way once again. It just pains you, Gnarff, (and some others) to have to admit to it.

 

Hey, what's with the Canada bashing? We may not have had a Black Prime Minister but we have had a woman one (if only for a short time), as has England, India and even Pakistan, IIRC. I admit that the US has every right to be proud of its tremendous progress from a slave holding nation that was hanging negroes* as late as the 1960s to a country that is presided over by a negro* today, but there's no need to try to belittle other countries or make them out to be less "enlightened" than the US.

*my apologies for the use of the word, I just hate using long PC ones like "person of African heritage and/or descent."

 

Yep, you are proving my point more and more. I'm not "belittling" anyone, but instead pointing out that we have done something that some other countries have not. So suddenly, I'm bashing? I'm belittling?

While Gnarff was busy "belittling" the progress America made on Tuesday, you were busy making excuses for him. Now, I ask a single question, which points out that America has made exactly the progress you "mentioned" (that before we were a bunch of backward, "negro hanging" rednecks), and you feel slighted that I remarked that we have achieved something out of the ordinary.

As I commented yesterday to Martaug, America seems to draw a lot of criticism, (and some very long posts), when it does something wrong, but when we do something right, there's a one sentence post congratulating us, accompanied with a rather lengthy qualifiying note of how it's not really that much of an accomplishment.

All of a sudden, Obama's a "great candidate," according to Gnarff, while several months ago he was the worst thing that could happen to us (according to Gnarff previously). Yeah, we call that the ole "Texas Two-Step" here.

 

That's a bit misleading, LKD. While you are technically correct, Kim Campbell was appointed (not elected) PM when Brian Mulroney resigned. When an actual election was held a few months later, the Conservatives were defeated, and she was no longer PM.

And for the record, I think that the U.S. has done a great thing by electing a black president.

 

No matter how it happened, she was Prime Minister for 6 months.

Chandos, you know I'm not an America Basher by any stretch of the imagination. I'm capable of being critical of America's actions but I'm not rabidly anti-American. I also have made no bones about the fact that I think Obama is a great man who will do a great job as president, though he won't be able to work miracles with the current situation. But your comment here:

just seemed to me to be over the top. Particularily the "enlightened English" part. As I said, America has achieved something great and is not in my opinion "unenlightened" but neither is it that significantly superior to the rest of the world, some parts of which have achieved milestones that the US has yet to get.

edit: to recap, every time a country like India elects a female leader of the country, you don't see them saying "when was the last time the Americans elected a woman President?" And if someone does sy it, it's seen as somewhat bad taste.

 

You mean the English who still often refer to us as "colonists." I don't think you are an American basher, LKD. I do, however, believe that you make excuses for Gnarff. Look, and you know this, you understand rhetoric very well yourself - he starts by commenting that "racism is stupid." Well, welcome to enlightenment, Gnarff. All of us on this board feel that racism is wrong, so he's just really stating the obvious to the rest of us. But his real point is that Obama, as the first black president, is "no big deal." THAT'S his real point.

And I'm not slighted by his comments for myself, as an American. But I'm offended for all the black Americans who are estatic that there is a black president. It's really them who Gnarff is slighting. Have you turned on your TV and actually listened to what they are saying? Have you seen their faces? Many of them have been the victims of the "stupid racism" that Gnarff comments on. You would think that if he really believes that, he would at least recognize that it is a "big deal" to them (since it's obviously not to him).

We may have other black presidents and leaders in the future. But for those, who have been the victims fo what you describe happened to them in the past, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event - maybe for many lifetimes to come.

 

It is hard to elect leaders from very very very small minorities. Asking why Sweden haven't had a black leader is kinda like asking why the US has not had a Cypriotic president. Chandos reaction here though kinda highlights a bit of what I touched in my previous thread. Say anything negative about Merkel to Ragusa or Reinfeld to me (or any of the politicians in opposition) we would most likely agree, even if we voted for them. You guys really still believe. All I am hoping for in a leader is that he/she is not a complete lunatic and will now and then make a smart or prudent decision.

I do agree a bit with what Gnarff is saying, the fact that it is such a big thing that Obama is black is not really a good thing. I even think that Obama himself could sign up on that. We have not had a female prime in Sweden but even so it wouldn't be a very big thing, we will most likely get one in the next election (will probably vote on her party, do not like the person) and sure it would be noted but it would not be a big thing. For me personally, and it should be more for more people it is a bigger thing that Obama might be, he might be the real thing. He might try to reform the US and the world, make it a better and more equal place. He might let reason and intellect guide his decisions instead of fear and faith. That might be a big thing but we won't know that for a few years.

 

Then perhaps you can explain why so many blacks are saying it?

And, Joac, you know my feelings about GWB. I have spent the last six years agreeing with you and Ragusa about what the US has been doing for the last 8 years. As a matter of fact, it was you who got me to start posting here, because of your remarks about Bush. So they can blame you for having to put up with me for the last 6 years.

 

I get what you are saying, really I do, Chandos, but people should be more happy that they have someone with integrity in office rather than be obsessed about the colour of his skin. However, I have sufficient empathy to realize that a black person who's been stepped on will likely be focussing on the skin color.

 

Now that much I will agree with - blacks comprise a far greater percentage of the US population than they do in any European country. We also have a large Latino population. The total minority population in the US is probably many times greater than any nation in Europe. I know Europe has some immigration issues as well, but they are much more homogeneous by race than the US.