Thursday, April 3, 2008

Obama as the first black president?

Bill Clinton. We've been calling him that for years. He's apparently been hearing it. Because he has approached his campaign against Barack Obama in the manner of a person who has no fears of being misunderstood and slapped with a race card violation . Now he is accused of just such an offense. Maybe he got too familiar and forgot to respect the painful lens through which African Americans often hear criticism. Or maybe he knew he was flirting with danger, but felt he was well enough loved to be given a pass. Or, and this is radical, maybe he was battling an opponent without regard to ethnicity , not as a Black contender around whom he must tread carefully so as not to stir up any thoughts of race. But surely Bill Clinton is savvy enough to realize that the race card is always hovering above the table, if not actually in play. Perhaps it was a calculated tip of the hand to remind voters of the pitfalls that await a Black candidate, if not to remind them that Obama is African American. Whatever his intentions, Bill Clinton has been branded as the campaign criminal who "injected Race into the race" , so everthing he says and does might now be judged with a pre-concieved bias instead of on it's merits. Maybe he really is Black.

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