I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
This, to me, smacks of an immense degree of chutzpah.
In a fiery summons to an important voting block, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.
And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.
Obama's speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans -- and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.
"It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all," Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.
But he said blacks need to have faith in the future -- and understand that the fight won't be won if they don't rally to his side.
"I need your help," Obama said.
So he claims he listens to the complaints of the African-American community, If that's so, he should feel a deep sense of shame and obligation for having driven policies that have let Black unemployment soar from 12.6 percent in January 2009 to 16.7 percent in August 2011.
Instead, we got the 10-day Martha's Vineyard vacation, complete with its umpteenth round of golf of Obama's tenure, and his demand to "pass this bill now!" without having written a bill. The man who is arguably the laziest President in American history has no business haranguing people for whom he's barely lifted a finger in these terms:
"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."
Not that this admonition is one that Obama shouldn't have given: he just should have addressed it to a mirror.
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Jun '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
If there ever was a positive for Obama becoming president, it was because we broke the "color barrier". However, he has done nothing to address the problems of African-Americans. I haven't even seen him establish any kind of meaningful dialog with them at all. I don't look for it, but it seems to be a huge chasm. He's had the biggest chance in American history and he has done... nothing.
May '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
That's because, even though he is half-black himself, he is no different from any other Democrat: he is cynically using blacks for his own political power.
If Democrats were to actually want to sincerely help blacks, they would have to abandon all of their policies and priorities, focus on strengthening marriage and the black family, reducing the illegitimacy rate, allowing school choice, etc. They cannot do this. Their ideology comes first.
May '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
"Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'," ... and start hoppin' aboard the Cain Train (or the, er, Mitt Mobile).
Dec '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Or the Perry Ferry. Or the Palin... er, Bus.
Aug '11
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Remember when the flowers were blooming and the perfume was in the air? The seas were receding and the earth was cooling-- Obama was just elected our first black president! Wasn't he supposed to give those "shake it off, stop complaining" speeches to the black community to encourage them to apply themselves in school and in their families and communities? After all, the country just elected its first black president! Black people were suppposed to realize that no one could stop them if they just "took of their bedroom slippers and put their marching shoes on." Hard work and ethics really would see you to the top.
But now Obama's taken that very same language and turned it into the language of racial grievance. Obama, even though he's the president (technically) "The Man" has simply given the black community at large another "Man" to blame. And it wasn't just him, it is also the CBC. On their own, they've pretty much undermined the great rhetorical significance of the first black presidency. Is that too much to say?
Dec '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
I am hoping we'll soon read an opinion piece from a Black commentator advising Obama to "take off your golf shoes and put on your work boots."
Sep '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Interesting that Obama, a Harvard man, is dropping his G's just like under-educated Sarah Palin.
Sep '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
2008 Hope and Change
2012 Stop Whinin' and Complainin'
Oct '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
"Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining..."
This, from the man-child who reflexively blames Bush (and tsunamis and Springs) for all his troubles. Chutzpah indeed.
Aug '11
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
I thought the "take off your bedroom slippers" line was kind of offensive. Does he assume his audience just sits around the house all day in their bedroom slippers? To say nothing of the crying and complaining line.
May '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Well, he cheesed Maxine off...not good for him.
Apr '11
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Well, at least he is exhibiting the fairness he is always claiming. He's now lecturing the very group who helped get him elected and will have to be there for him to have a chance at being re-elected.
As Thomas Sowell said in one of his UNK interviews courtesy of Peter Robinson (and I'm paraphrasing) that a community organizer is never about bringing people together for bake sales and the like, but for pitting one group against another to get what you want.
If it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck..........No the answer is not a community organizer but it is also not a uniter and healer either.
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Stuart, I didn't see your post before launching off on my own tirade on the same subject just a few minutes ago. I read the story yesterday and then stewed over it on a late night drive to Michigan before waking up and writing my own thoughts. Didn't mean to steal your thunder, sir, though his comments were so outrageous that I'm not sure how many posts it would take to express the appropriate level of disgust.
Dec '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
No apologies needed, Dave. I fully enjoyed the level of righteous ire in your post.
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Stuart Creque
No apologies needed, Dave. I fully enjoyed the level of righteous ire in your post. · Sep 26 at 11:47am
You're very kind. Thanks. I just didn't want seem like a representative from the Department of Redundancy Department.
Nov '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
"Slippers" in the American black lexicon has charged meaning, both positive and negative. I was shocked when he invoked it. Depending on how it is received it may be regarded as either patronizing or downright insulting. In either case, slippers are a symbol of ease. In Negro spirituals they represent the peaceful rest found in Heaven from this world's hard labour:
Gonna buy me some golden slippers, yes lord when I get home (2x)
And when I get dem slippers of gold, gonna walk that heavenly road
Gonna buy me some golden slippers when I get home
But "slippers" also has an earthly connotation: a person who lies around all day -- it is a symbol of sloth. You've seen a black layabout portrayed in American film? Note how often the visual iconography around that character involves them wearing slippers. It's like the portrayal of white trash -- the requisite gaps in their teeth and scratching themselves as they talk.
Is this Obama's way of creating distance between him an Maxine W and her ilk? Discredit her with ad hominem based on subtle iconic language from the Afro-American lexicon?
Aug '11
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Maxine Waters and her ilk . . . are Obama's base.
Jun '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
Didn't the CBC recently say that if anyone but Oabma were President -- even Clinton -- the CBC and its adherents would be "marching on the White House" over this administration's sorry ecnomic policies?
This sounds like Obama has given them permission to put their "marchin' shoes on!"
go to it, CBC.
Dec '10
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
I agree that the phrase "bedroom slippers" was a slap in the face. Obama might as well have called his audience shiftless and no-account.
Aug '11
Re: I'm Not Sure Where Obama Gets Off Saying This
With every speech, every pronouncement, I have to ask myself what the President's strategy is. This isn't the first time he's criticized his base for not being sufficiently worshipful of him. (Nor the second, nor the third . . .) Sometimes I wonder if he's deliberately sabotaging his own re-election bid. But to what end? I've said elsewhere that I know he'll be the happiest ex-president ever! All of the perks and none of the work! But I cannot explain why he's using a scorched earth approach that will ensure none of his fellow Democrats get elected either.