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At a Harris campaign office in Pennsylvania, former president Barack Obama expressed disappointment that black men (“the brothers”) weren’t adequately enthusiastic for Kamala Harris.
He contrasted two presidential candidates.
“On the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences,”
And
“And on the other side, you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person.”
Although Mr. Obama doesn’t use names, I assume he intended the audience to hear “somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences” as a description of Kamala Harris.
But none of that is true, so what the heck does Mr. Obama think he is saying?
Few “brother” black men in the United States have much background experience in common with Kamala Harris.
I suspect the struggles, pains, and joys that Kamala Harris has experienced are quite different from the struggles, pains, and joys that many American black men experience because Kamala Harris’s experiences have been very different from the experiences of most American black men.
Both of Vice President Harris’s parents were tenured academics. After spending her first few years of life in Berkeley, California, she spent most of her childhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada – a place quite different from where most American black men grew up. Unlike Kamala, few black men have attended college. (The college attendance gap between black women and black men is even larger than the gap between white women and white men.)
Early in her professional career Kamala Harris was carried into the halls of political power by a powerful benefactor. Few black men other than Barak Obama have had the experience of being carried into the halls of political power by powerful benefactors.
As to Mr. Obama himself, on what basis does he claim any connection with “the brothers” (black men in America) to justify his chastising of them? Mr. Obama’s “blackness” is based on a mostly absent Kenyan father with no connection to generations of black Americans living on the North American continent. Former President Obama spent most of his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia with his white mother and white maternal grandparents. Other than a year as a toddler while his father attended graduate school, Barack Obama did not set foot on the United States mainland until he arrived to attend a prestigious college. What background experience does he have in common with most black men in the United States?
In my own experience, the last company at which I was employed made much ado about the “diversity” in the law department because we had several black female lawyers. The two highest-ranking of those black female lawyers were the daughter of a professor at an Ivy League university, and the daughter of a medical doctor. They both grew up in “middle-class” Connecticut suburbs. One of the outside lawyers I often hired for contract work for the company was a white man who grew up in poverty in the hills of Appalachia. I (a white man) was the child of a consulting engineer who became a professor and grew up in the “middle-class” suburbs of California and Florida. So my own background experience had more in common with those black female lawyers than I did with the white man who grew up in poverty-stricken Appalachia.
I’m not entirely convinced that common background experiences provide a decent measure of political alignment. But if Mr. Obama is going to assert that common background experiences should influence your vote, then shouldn’t there be some actual commonality between the candidate and the people he expects to vote for that candidate?
Few black men have much background and experience in common with Kamala Harris. It therefore seems to make little sense for Barack Obama to assert that common background and experience should lead black men to vote for Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
Discussion (23)
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I think you're missing Mr. Obama's point. He's in favor of racial bigotry, not of considering backgrounds.
Obama has a simple point: Harris is part black. So if you're part black, you should vote for her.
That's it.
But he can't just come out and say, "Hey, I'm a racist bigot, and I think you should be, too!"
The mainstream media would ignore such things, but some right-wing blogger might try to make a big deal out of it. So Obama is forced to speak in code.
Barely concealed code.
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There was a mobile phone commercial during the Obama years that I thought captured him well, but it didn't intend to. The scene starts at a grade school play with a young student as Abraham Lincoln. He can't remember the Gettysburg Address. Camera pans to his dad and younger brother in the crowd. Back on Abe and he gets a text. Abe blurts out something like, "I love Susie Derkins." Pan back to the little brother laughing in the crowd. I thought of Obama because the boy didn't know the basics of American history and would say whatever the screen in front of him said.
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I have long thought that the Obama "birther" controversy was a proxy that developed because Obama didn't sound "American." He seemed unfamiliar with America as most Americans experienced it.
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Obama is telling Black males in America how they should act, think, and above all feel, and I think a lot of them are going to tell Obama just what he can do with his presumption.
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Agree. I believe those who think the reason he's kept his college transcript hidden is because he used the Indonesia connection to apply to college as a foreign student. More opportunities and scholarships probably, so why not twist the truth a bit. He is also lazy and not bright, so it could be the grades, but I can see that possibility too.
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