I stayed up late to watch the American Elections on Tuesday night, I wasn’t exactly sure if I’d regret it or not but in the end really enjoyed it. Dimbleby was hilarious… well Gore Vidal was hilarious and Dimbleby was a pompous ass. Americans in turns were amusing and annoying. Then Obama got elected, made a speech and I and the Jellicle went to bed.
It was good to watch,much better than I expected – I half thought that I’d be bored, not sure I’m political enough to get into throwing election night partys – I know DS Luke et al had one and the Ex-Gardnerian apparently attends them regularly, but on Tuesday I think I got to watch something historic. It does matter that Obama is of African American descent because we’re only just a hundred years after the abolition of slavery, we haven’t got to equality yet and this is a milestone, same as Hilary or Palin would have been a milestone.
I thought his speech was rather clever, there were JFK, Lincoln and Martin Luther King references abounding, there was even a Civil Rights song in there. It was a thing of beauty and delivered rather well.
Do you think it matters that Obama, while African American, is not actually a descendant of slaves?
No, the racism that is inherant in the US does seem to be a product of slavery, the fact that Obama himself isn’t a ‘product’ of slavery doesn’t make him any less the target of racism.
I don’t think racists think about the slavery aspect at all. It’s the anti-racists who tie it in with slavery.
The racists think that a black man shouldn’t be president because black people are a) lazy, b) unintelligent and c) intrinsically criminal.
Oh, and they’ll rape a white woman if left in the same room as her. (The first black guy to serve in the White House, during the Eisenhower era, had to be supervised if he was in a room with a white woman.)
But where do these attitudes come from Archie? What are they handed down from? Parents teach children to be racist and were taught by their parents, now I know that there is some science behind the idea that a certain amount of racism is innate, however notions about black people I am certain come from the 16th and 17th century and these ideas are just handed down socially.
Racists can have surprisingly complex self-justification:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/30/us-elections-barack-obama
Contains an interesting quote from a man voting for Obama who wouldn’t vote for an African-American descended from slaves.