Re: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama" Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT

[Michael Bailey]

 Michael Bailey  wrote:

> he's done a lot of good research and makes good connections.
> He draws some distinctions that make pretty good sense to me.
> At no point does he stand behind black conservatives for being black.
>


hee hee, poverty of thought, poverty of expression!

"he's done a lot of good research and makes good connections"

real descriptive!
the book's a collection of essays and articles of varying depth and,
if you like Reed, quite a treat.
In contrast to Carter who alienated Washington systematically, Obama
has really tried to work with both parties.
Is it wrong to suspect some of the hysterical obduracy of the
opposition is due, not just to them being unable to adjust to the end
of the Bush era, but also to racism?
Is it paranoid to take note of news trends?

"He draws some distinctions that make good sense to me"
resolute standing-behind-Clinton and abandonment of Obama in the same
quarters is one of them; attention to "party lines" as they relate to
racial issues among liberals and feminists is another...

"at no point does he stand behind black conservatives for being black"

("merely for being black" would be better...)

actually he is readier to accept Long Dong Silver, er, Clarence
Thomas's version over Anita Hill's than I would be, and a just a tiny
bit more accepting of some of what I would tend to call "macho
bullcrap" from various quarters than I like, but that's sexism not
racism (and I don't see him as a "vector" of sexism, but more of
someone who has seen and suffered unjustified charges of sexism and is
maybe over-ready to see certain other, less-unjustified, charges as
unjustified)



-- 
"Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind.  The
second is to be kind.  And the third is to be kind." - Henry James