Oh, you’re just mad because I laughed at Madonna.
Regards,
Shodan
So what’s wrong with the “halfrican American” comment?
Pardon me for being totally out of touch with American racial problems, but I honestly don’t see anything racist about the OP’s use of this semi-sarcastic, but truthful adjective. *
Here’s a black leader who said something similar:
“How does he(Obama) identify himself?” asked Rev. Martin, who was pastor to the late Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. “Will he continue to be an African American, or will he become some kind of new creation?”
Washington Post cite
Google the words “black enough” +Obama and you’ll see hundreds of similar quotes.
Barak is obviously half-Afro American and half white American. Why deny it?
It may make him a good leader for a country that needs to heal racial wounds.
Nobody used the N-word about him, and nobody has said anything racist (like, for example saying Barak is unsuited for the presidency because he is Afro American).But the fact that his parents are both black and white is a major part of evey news story about him**, so why can’t Dopers mention it in a Pit thread?
*(Disclaimer–Though I’m American born, I don’t live in the USA, so I may be hopelessly naive and unaware of current social taboos.)
**( Do you ever read anything about the mothers and fathers of the other dozens of candidates?
I must say I’m disappointed. There is a difference between coining a phrase to describe one’s own ethnic background and using that term to dismiss the qualifications of a candidate.
Maybe Shodan is really Kenneth Eng.
Call me crazy, but I don’t find “Halfrican-American” to be all that offensive. I just feel so unable to tap into the outrage. Can someone explain why it’s so bad? Harping on Obama’s race and interracial parentage to the exclusion of other things is bothersome to me. But just the term “Halfrican-American” as a cutesy way of calling someone biracial? It doesn’t touch me.
Shodan sucks, though. That can not be said enough.
In response to the OP. Anyone who thinks the Dems have this race on lockdown is a blinking idiot. As much as I don’t want to feel this way, I worry that the Dems will be taking a big gamble by nominating HRC or BO. Neither one could ever pull in enough votes for a landslide victory, even if they were running against the Anti-Christ, so we may be in for another nail-biting nightmare of an election.
Many African-Americans have a fair amount of White blood. (No, I don’t mean lymphocytes.) And quite a few have Native American ancestors. We removed mulatto, quadroon & octoroon from our vocabulary long ago. The “one drop” rule still applies.
“Halfrican American” came from Rush Limbaugh.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701240010
If you’ve been away from the USA so long that you don’t know about Rush Limbaugh, I’m filled with envy. But don’t ask “what’s wrong” about the fat druggie’s rants.
I guess Giuliani was controversial before 9/11, and a lot of New Yorkers didn’t really like him. It wasn’t so much his policies as it was his general attitude…he was seen as imperious and dictatorial, as well as kind of a “glory hog”, and his outspoken defense of the police after the Louisma, Dialo, and Dorismond incidents rubbed people the wrong way.
I never understood why anyone found George Bush charismatic. When he ran for Governor, he impressed me as a half-bright fratguy. As others have noted, his intellectual capacity appears to have declined since then.
And I’d never have a beer with him. He impresses me as the type who’d be a mean drunk.
Both Kerry & Gore impressed me as highly intelligent guys who took their jobs seriously. I actually like that kind of guy. (Don’t tell Tipper.)
Do you really not comprehend the difference here?
If you don’t, then i might have to shift from being annoyed with you to feeling sorry for you.
if the intent was really just a cutesy effort to refer to his biracial heritage, and if it were offered in a friendly and generous spirit, i would agree with you.
But Rush Limbaugh, who has made the most of using this term to describe Obama, is doing it in a derisive way, in order to imply—nay, to state outright—that Obama is somehow inauthentic, not a real African American, not someone that African Americans need feel any identification or empathy with.
This is an excellent piece on what’s wrong with Giuliani.
True. I wasn’t so much offering it as a “Dems should have drafted McCain” statement, as evidence that evidence of his centrism was, at one time, more than just about his rhetoric.
Maybe not convincing to you, but hopefully there’s enough there that you can see how other people might have bought into it for reasons other than terminal cluelessness.
Not to mention his treatment of his previous wife, Donna Hanover. Next to Rudy, Bill Clinton is Husband of the Year.
You are a worthless excuse for an American in 2007. There is no other way to say it.
No one has the election wrapped up this far ahead of time. Each of the front running candidates is lugging around a huge amount of baggage. I would still give the edge to whatever democrat runs due to Iraq but it is up for grabs. It’s going to be interesting.
For what it is worth, I would think the same people that dismissed Bill’s getting it on with a young Intern in his employ, should be able to dismiss Rudy’s affairs with adult women. He also did not have any of those nasty rape charges following him around. Why is the cousin thing so big suddenly? I like Rudy, but I know there are real things he did that are far more worthy of bashing.
As far as Rudy prior to 9/11, his popularity had drop in the city and even if the did not have term limits, he may have lost the next election. However, Rudy polled extremely high in democratic leaning NJ & Connecticut. He polled fairly well in the moderate Upstate NY and on Democratic Long Island. His popularity outside the city for cleaning up the city, gave him a free pass for any less savory things he did. His successful crusading against organized crime was very big with any law and order types.
Loach, I know you are a police officer and obviously you are from Jersey.
What is your opinion on Rudy?
Jim
It isn’t race-baiting, it’s satire…as stolichnaya has already said. It’s intended to poke fun at those who are so eager to elect a black man president that they care little for his qualifications and/or ability and only want to elect him because he’s black. By pointing out that Obama’s only half-black, it’s sort of like pointing out to these people that even if he’s elected they’re still not going to get what they want anyway. Sort of a way to say “nyah, nyah” to the impassioned do-gooders who care more about style than substance.
But what’s stupid, stupid, stupid is RTFirefly’s assertion above–which has gone strangely unchallenged on this board allegedly devoted to fighting ignorance and challenging unsupported assertions–that we (and by “we” I mean the good ol’ USA, of course :rolleyes: ) have “fucked up the world!”
How fucking silly. Get over yourself…unless of course you can prove we’ve fucked up 190 or so countries. In actual point of fact, we haven’t “fucked up” any country with the exception of Iraq (and any country in which a war is going on is by definition fucked up).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: far more people are living good lives and free lives in this world as the result of the US’ existence than would be by far otherwise.
It’s all well and good that the cold war is over and that communism/facism isn’t the threat that it once was, but if it weren’t for this country and its strength and the lives it has sacrificed abroad in an effort to keep other people free, an overwhelming majority of this planet’s population would be living under communist or fascist dictatorships. I will grant that to some degree this sacrifice has been self-serving–as it would do us little good to be the only free country on the planet–but that takes nothing away from the fact that far more people are living freely and well as a result of the fact that the USA exists than would ever be the case otherwise.
I will step aside now so that all those here who have been indoctrinated by their post-sixties college/university educations and/or hippy parents to revile anything and everything about the US can post their anecdotal comments about this or that relatively minor thing we’ve done somewhere in the world that didn’t go well. No one and no nation is perfect and things don’t always turn out like one would hope, but my point still stands that far more good has been accomplished by the US than by any other country in the world.
Just IMHO, of course.
I didn’t dismiss his qualifications - I described them in the same post. Basically, he has almost none, and is relying on the fact that he wrote a book, gave a nice speech a couple of years ago, and…uhhh…errr… Did I mention he wrote a book?
Plus he’s so “clean”. 
No, you are confusing Rush with Stanley Crouch, Debra Dickerson, and some other folks of a different hue from Rush.
But really - y’all don’t expect to be taken seriously on this sort of artificial outrage? you with the face makes this rather clear -
See what I mean? “There is nothing particularly offensive about the term, but by golly anyone who uses it should be attacked”. Yawn.
Face it. The race for 2008 is just started, and Obama has never gone thru anything like what he is going to go thru. And I realize completely that you all would dearly love to spare him from the rigors of campaigning by trying to label anything besides credulous adulation as racism. Ain’t gonna work. He’s going to get the same treatment as everyone else. You folks will do it to any Republican who gets the nomination or close to it, and I will try to take up the slack for the Democrats. :eek:
Ah well - at least you give me hopes for next year. 
Regards,
Shodan
Yup. He wasn’t well liked. 9/ll was the best thing that ever happened to him financially as well as professionally. The guy became a millionaire after 9/ll.
A weak campaigner? Bush? Granted, a lot of his campaign moxie depends on an uncritical (to say the least) audience, but he’s never been a slouch at rallying the faithful. There has to be some sizzle there, because there sure as hell ain’t no steak.
And it’s hard to believe at this point, but in 2004 the public had not yet turned against the war. That happened in 2005, around the time Cindy Sheehan was doing her thing (though the two probably don’t have much to do with one another). It was the one-two punch of that turn at the Katrina bungling that cemented Bush’s craptacular approval ratings.
Our last two candidates were lifelong public servants with stellar records who came up short in the charisma department, and the Republicans have been telling us ever since what horrible candidates they were.
Obama and Edwards are at least as qualified as Bush was when he took office.
Context is all. In Shodan’s case, it was a gratuitous swipe at Obama because of his ethnic background. Obama’s race (or mixed race) had nothing to do with the discussion until **Shodan **brought it up-- and it was clear that it was meant to be derogatory.