Consider the irony today: A Black man is the agent of change and unity in a country with a long history of racial torture, exploitation and discrimination. Sadly, the acolytes of a White woman who wants to become president at all cost, with a reckless husband, introduces race-baiting and division into the campaign.
[Black Star News Editorial]
Senator Barack Obama has found his voice again.
Last night in the Democratic Party presidential nomination debate in South Carolina, Obama forcefully made it clear that he won’t anymore tolerate Hillary and Bill Clinton’s negative personal attacks against him, including race-baiting by her campaign.
Obama recalled how he had started out as a candidate of unity who had brought on board new voters; the young, more men and women, Blacks, Whites and Latinos.
Obama wanted to go back to that theme; but the Clinton’s had distracted him in recent weeks, he said.
Clinton tried to reprise the attacks against Obama last night but the audience made it clear that enough was enough. The Senator was the only candidate that was booed, loudly, at least twice, including when she referred to one of Obama’s past clients as a “slumlord” and when she said he never takes “responsibility” for his votes.
The Black Star News was one of the first newspapers to publish an editorial critical of the Clinton’s race-bating tactics on December 19, 2007; The Washington Post quoted from our editorial and other media focused on the issue thereafter.
We denounced the Clinton’s when their acolyte, Billy Shaheen, said electing Obama as the Democratic Party’s nominee to run against Republicans was too risky. Since Obama had admitted to drug use in his youth, in his book, the Clinton acolyte had opined, might Republicans, in the general election not want to know whether Obama had been a drug dealer as well? A few weeks later, BET founder Bob Johnson hinted at the same slur. Clinton was on stage with Johnson. All she had to do was repudiate the remarks on the spot; she did not.
Such an ugly strategy from the campaign of a woman whose husband said he too had experimented with drugs, but disingenuously claimed he had never “inhaled” the marijuana he had messed with. We ask: Might these same Republicans in the general election not also want to know whether Bill Clinton had been a drug peddler as well in his youth? And given the way he used his cigar with a certain young lady in the oval office….? We wonder why the Clinton’s would open such a Pandora’s Box of worms.
If Obama was not determined to maintain a respectful campaign, one of his acolytes might have suggested that given Senator Clinton’s baggage –Bill Clinton– nominating her as the Democratic candidate is tantamount to handing the keys to the White House to the Republicans.
Senator Obama’s message of unity has been embraced by a wide electorate. He is garnering very significant votes from Whites. He won Iowa’s caucuses with 39%, beating Clinton by nearly 10 points, in a state with a Black population of only 1%.
Obama lost narrowly to Clinton 36% to 39% in New Hampshire, a state with only 0.8% Black population; and, again lost 45% to 51% to Clinton, in Nevada, in a state with only 8% Black population.
The Obama phenomenon is a good thing for these United States of America. It heralds possibility of fundamental changes in this country. The end of politics as usual.
Moreover, Obama already has changed the social landscape. Whites are re-evaluating all the poisonous stereotypes about Blacks that they had been fed by popular media for the longest time.
Consider the irony today: A Black man is the agent of change and unity in a country with a long history of racial torture, exploitation and discrimination.
Sadly, the acolytes of a White woman who wants to become president at all cost, with a reckless husband, introduces race-baiting and division into the campaign.
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