Pardon me for once again wading into the racial waters — after all, doing so is notoriously unhelpful to the Tea Party movement (at least, that’s what I’ve been told, and so I apologize for my part in destroying the country by taking the focus of Paul Ryan momentarily) — but it seems to me that Mr Obama’s dubious descriptor for racial makeup, in addition to being decidedly fraught (especially for someone who fancies himself post-racial), creates quite the opportunity for those who’d like to see left-Democrats truly prove their post-racial assertions. Because what Obama argues, essentially, is that we are MOST OF US, as Americans, “mongrels” in a sense — meaning that most of us are, as Americans, racially-mixed, separated only (it follows) by the signifiers of “race” that become dominant in our appearance: skin color, hair texture, lip and nose typography, eyelid makeup, etc. Those rather arbitrary (by genetic standards) signifiers, then, are the only things separating us — save the fact that such things have been historically overdetermined.
Let’s rehearse his exact words:
“We are sort of a mongrel people. I mean we’re all kinds of mixed up. That’s actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it.”
The fact that “we” — meaning blacks — “just know more about it” is a testament to historical race-consciousness here in the U.S.
But one must ask, precisely who is it now that is so desirous of keeping us race-conscious? Is it those who advocate for a color-blind society? Or those who continue to divide us into “identity” groups and grant set asides to preferred members of preferred groups?
President Obama has admitted that the differences between whites and blacks, save for how we’ve treated race in the past, is essentially not “racial” at all. And so the question becomes, if this is really what the President believes, why is it so important to him — and the left in general — to keep past treatments at the forefront both of a national conversation on race and in every piece of new legislation, if not to continue a type of divisive classification that he himself doesn’t believe to exist at any level other than the social level he and his fellow-travelers continue to keep foregrounded?
The time is ripe to confront the President with the editorial position of someone like Democrat Jim Webb. Because if we are all mongrels, why is it that some mongrels appear to be more equal than others — and the left seems to be perfectly at ease with such a thing?
if ur not a mongrel/ why are my sneakers always chewed up?
and a shoelace is always hanging from ur mouth?
inquiring minds want to know
Just wanted to talk about something you mention at the beginning of the post, Is Race a Distraction from Paul Ryan?
In my mind there is the Jeff project, punching back against bad or non-interpretation. Whichever hook works to expand on that, great. Likewise, there is the Breitbart project, destroy the liberal media. Again, whichever daily news peg can be used towards that goal, great.
I find no dissonance with this stance (pro-Jeff and Breitbart projects) and hoping to see fiscal matters (with Ryan as an occasional proxy) regarded as important as our current budgetary problems now require them to be.
Nau-nauing the
blackBeing fetchers, so to speak.In fact, to the degree that language is interpreted honestly and the progressive media is diminished, the better chance we have to fruitfully address the economic, fiscal and monetary issues.
So, it’s sorta, to my mind, that I don’t expect a hammer to work as a screwdriver and vice versa, even as both help to build my house.
Actually, I think that this is most helpful to the tea party by moving the Race Card discussion away from them and onto Mr. Breitbart, Mrs. Sherrod, the NAACP, and the administration. It is no longer the unsupported allegations of tea party racism, it is now a discussion of a video, what it shows, and the reactions of the NAACP and the administration, and now the actions of Mrs. Sherrod. The longer the discussion the harder it is to concentrate on the original planned storyline and the more the question goes ‘what are these people working so hard to hide’?
All of a good thing, I think.
When Obama says “we” he means black Americans … when George Bush or Bill Clinton said “we” they meant Americans … post racial con artist …
For my own part I don’t think of PW as congruent with the Tea Party or Parties, either in object, interest or concern. I do think that the nation’s interests will come to closely concern dismantling our socialist welfare state though, an object the Tea Party seems to have in mind.
Seems, I say, since so far the Tea Parties are focused primarily on the tax side of the question, which is, according to Burke anyhow, just what one would expect, given the origins of the freedoms we’ve come to take for granted. But I assume eventually the other side of the equation must be addressed, and that it is there that matters will get sticky, as people begin to work out the implications of taking control of powers currently given over to the government. And Ryan, though he has done serious, earnest work on the beginnings of solutions to those problems, makes only a beginning to the conversation.
It’s just that the better the proposals toward future policy are worked out and understood, the better chance they’ll have of carrying the day.
I’ve no problem discussing race though. I assume it’ll all tie together in the end.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m really not sure what his intent was with this statement. I highly doubt he is interested in ended the racial divide, since he uses it as a lever so often. If that’s the case, then my conclusion is that this is just something to further his “beyond race” narrative while meaning nothing in actuality.
“We are sort of a mongrel people. I mean we’re all kinds of mixed up. That’s actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it.”
Because of the SCIENCE! Right? Right?
Shirley Sherrod was questioning Barack Obama’s racial and national origin make up, suggesting he has insufficient connection to the plight of decendents of freed slaves in the South. Maybe that is what prompted it?
And Obama knows discrimination from his wife’s oppression in getting the cold shoulder from those white co-eds at Princeton.
When he said “we just know more about it”, who is the we?
I’m not a mongrel. I’m British!
as a proffessor of mongrel studies
once said
grrrr
i didn’t mind him smelling me/ but when he tried to touch me
thats when he gave me a backward f
– I think its correct that Bumbblefuck was responding to Sherrod’s recent comments.
– She basically accused him of being non-authentic, so he needed to use the ole “we’re all the same” approach, which in itself, must have had Progs everywhere changing their diapers.
maybe he means mongrel like when your mom abandons you to whore her way across the Pacific
Didn’t Hitler say America was not threat because it was a mongrel nation?
I do not really disagree with the proposition that race is mostly a bunch of hogwash (and that we are all mongrels). But if we are all mongrels, why keep talking about it? What is it that makes Obama come back to the topic?
Ouch. I am not Obama and that stung a little.
All this talk of men’s pedigrees reminded me of one of the better parts of Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons:
Mongrels?
HYBRIDS!
Purebreds (of all species) are notoriously screwed up from all the inbreeding. I mean, check out Carlos II of Spain. Guy was a genetic train wreck.
Bring on the intermixing!
Says one with English, Welsh, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German heritage.
From what I remember of leftist race theory, you’re an admixture of white, white, white, white, really white, and Nazi white.
My favorite dogs have almost all been mongrels.
From what I remember of leftist race theory, you’re an admixture of white, white, white, white, really white, and Nazi white.
As long as none of it’s Hapsburg. :D
My favorite dogs have almost all been mongrels.
On account of mongrel dogs being more healthy than the inbreds. WAY healthier. They say that any dog with a blue eye prolly has a bad genetic mix.
Speak for yourself, you son of a bitch.
Of course that wasn’t what he wanted to commit to. But his assertions commit him to it — or else show him up to be a hypocrite of enormous size.
— Which, I argue, should be exploited — particularly in light of Ms Sherrod’s crusade to bring back the rhetoric of 60s Black Nationalists.
I always kind of thought that this was a bit of PC over-exaggeration so that people would draw the analogous conclusion that it applied to humans in the same way. The main health problems plaguing purebred dogs, IMO, is the intense inbreeding for purely cosmetic purposes – like the enormous underbite of the comedic looking Olde English Bulldog, as opposed to the muscular, athletic English Bulldog bred before Bullbaiting was outlawed. Dogs bred for their working ability, even with some inbreeding (“line breeding”), tend to be fairly healthy – e.g. German Shepherds with working titles. Mongrels are fine though, but lots of times you can’t tell from a puppy what you’ll end up with.
“Like man…” toke “Like what we need, man” toke “Is like a great big melting pot, like.” toke “Cus we’re like mongrels like” huge toke. “Know what I mean man.” toke “Hey, get you own shit, honky!”
Sen Leahy joins Nancy Pelosi in the game of “let’s act as though power won’t change hands”.
– sdferr – yet one more log on the bonfire of the tree frog left.
– I have a feeling, after the tree frogs have been defrocked, 2012, the year, will be a most interesting time of discovery, with a lot of legislators saying “holy shit, they did THAT???”
I agree, J.G., but he is apparently allowed his hypocrisy. I’m pretty sure it’s expected that he doesn’t mean what he says. So, he might again slide away from this, though it appears that it is getting a little more difficult to be Teh One these days.
Buttons thumbs up on your 11:58.
What’s this WE shit?
There are 2 gene sequences that decide if we are white or black. I personally am more black than Barry is, based (according to Toni Morrison) on genetic predispositions…
Remember tha First Black President?
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Large penis? Check!
Spotty parenting? Check!
Horn dog? Check!
Well built? Check!
Bad credit? Check!
If only I had never owned a farm I could tap into some sweet FDA repairations action!
I’m not white, I tell ya, I’m high yella’!
From Wiki:
“Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.[14]”
Skip Arkansas for another southern state, and I don’t play the sax and I’m in!
Hilarious mockery Mr W, or studied offering of help to a fellow citizen?
I vote nicely disguised mockery myself.
The mockery was disguised?
I think, only because I anticipate many people choosing to denounce Kristol over the next few days.
Sellout! Bastard Neo-con! etc.
[Sigh] Yes, we are all mongrels. I’ve recently learned that new DNA evidence shows we have even interbred with humans [shudder].
Oh, and that’s Mousterian to you, mo’ fo’s….
di, sure, pick on the Spanish Habsburgs…
When we were kids we had a poodle that was crazy smart, and I found a lost and almost starved beagle hunting dog in the woods once that was really sweet but dumb as a fucking post, my two experiences with pure breds.
My favorite dog ever was a doberman/pit bull cross a neighbor found as a just weened puppy cowering under her porch during a thunderstorm, I later found she was an exiled accident from a nearby puppy mill. Amazing personality and smarts. If it is possible for a dog to have common sense, this one did.
puppies are crazy evil/
u always have to make excuses for them
White, really white, and Nazi white … great line.
does my coward make me look phat?
The mongrel ploy is his response to the talk about the “ruling class” that the Codevilla has stirred up. Wrapping himself in the tricolor while his underware’s embroidered with crowns.
one with English, Welsh, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German heritage.
You’re just a simmering stew of historical grievances waiting to bubble over!
Wrapping himself in the tricolor while his underware’s embroidered with crowns.
Hey, worked for Napoleon III!
It’s funny, my first response to that “we just know more about it” thing was somewhat trivial – I thought of Genealogy. I mean, yeah, you never see honkeys at a genealogy convention or studying their ancestors. Almost nothing is known of our heritage, it’s so sad.
I *must* ask a swarthily-complected person to help me.
It’s funny that even when Obama says something offhand that’s disarmingly sympathetic, he has to screw it up before he’s done.
Insty linked to this Volokh piece, which, wowie-zowie, does it bring the national race conversation home, in spades.