One can do a google search and find a plethora of racist images of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and yet this is what’s fuelling outrage? Listening to the interview and context, Obama’s use of the n-word made sense. It was about how, while there has been much progress in race-relations, much more needs to be done. It was blunt, it got people talking, though I’m worried a lot of the media coverage misses the point, trying to turn it into a gaffe-of-the-week and not recognizing the depth and seriousness of the problem Obama was talking about.
Blacks are literally being gunned down in city streets in America, deep inequalities persist. A few feel-good gestures are not enough, that’s what Obama was getting at. What’s especially ironic is conservatives, who have engaged in dog-whistle politics against African-Americans for decades, choose to get outraged over this.
The right wing is great at manufactured outrage, LD. It's their way of not confronting the real issues that beset the United States.
ReplyDeleteLorne, you're quite right. It is sad that many folks in the Southern U.S. and the right wingers elsewhere still live in 1800's.
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