White Guilt, Obamania, And The Reality Of Race
Race is
so important in American politics that it has even
propelled a
Chicago politician less than two years removed from
the
corruption-plagued Illinois state senate into the
limelight of the upcoming Presidential race.
Yet we still aren`t supposed to engage in
honest public discussion about it.
VDARE.COM is not in the business of endorsing
candidates. So let me note that
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) strikes me as no less
(and no more) credible a candidate for President than
the
rest of the
usual suspects.
Still, VDARE.COM can play a useful educational role
by mentioning some of the unmentionable reasons behind
Obamania.
Obama is
constantly compared to
Tiger Woods. But he differs in two ways. First, his
list of accomplishments in his chosen profession is a
lot shorter than the
golfer`s. And, second, Woods rejected Nike`s
suggestion that he identify himself as solely black to
maximize his marketability in America because he did not
want to
reject his mother and more distant non-black
ancestors. Woods declared himself "Caublinasian,"
his childhood term for his Caucasian, black, American
Indian, and Asian ancestry.
In contrast, like
Oscar-winner
Halle Berry, Obama identifies as black although that
requires symbolically disowning his white mother and
maternal grandparents—despite the fact that they did far
more for him than the Kenyan father who abandoned him
when he was two.
Obama
writes: "I ceased to advertise my mother`s race
at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by
doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."
That sounds quite self-sacrificial…but, oddly enough,
it sure hasn`t hurt his popularity with whites.
The brutal truth: Obama is a "wigger".
He`s a remarkably exotic variety of the faux
African-American, but a wigger nonetheless. He has no
ancestors who were
slaves in the U.S. Moreover, his upbringing by his
white mother
and Indonesian stepfather in Indonesia and by his
white grandparents in
Hawaii, where mixed-race children are
close to the norm, was almost wholly divorced from
African-American life … except for what he could see
and aspire to on TV.
Even genetically, Obama, whose
East African descent is apparent in his
unusual features, has only a distant relationship to
the
West Africans who are the ancestors of almost all
African-Americans. (Here are photos of Obama with
Jesse Jackson and with the rapper
Ludacris, both of whom have conventional West
African features.)
But details like these just seem to make this nominal
African-American that much more attractive to whites.
So why are so many whites, especially in the media,
excited about promoting Obama for President in 2008?
The Barack Attack phenomenon is similar to the
Colin Craze of 1995. Of course, General Powell had
better qualifications. He`d been intimately involved in
managing a successful national enterprise, the
Gulf War of 1991. And he had articulated a
thoughtful, cautious policy for when and how to conduct
military operations, the
Powell Doctrine, the wisdom of which subsequent
events have
only underlined.
Supporting Obama for President, like supporting
Powell a decade ago, is seen by many whites as the
ultimate in White Guilt Repellent.
It`s important to understand, however, that White
Guilt is very different from, say,
Catholic Guilt, which consists of
straightforward feelings of personal moral failure.
In comparison, I don`t recall ever meeting any white
person who personally felt guilty for the
troubles of African-Americans. But I`ve known
many whites who want to
loudly blame other whites for
black difficulties.
Some whites at least heap guilt upon
their own ancestors, but
many who publicly proclaim the reality of White
Guilt aren`t averse to noting that their own forefathers
arrived at
Ellis Island long after slavery was over.
In other words, White Guilt is just another ploy in
the
Great American White Status Struggle. Minorities
are merely props for asserting moral superiority over other
whites.
Finding and punishing Guilty Whites has become a
national obsession. One notorious current example: the
framing of the
Duke lacrosse players by
Durham district attorney Mike Nifong (with the
enthusiastic assistance of the
New York Times) in the endless hunt for what
Tom Wolfe called
"the Great White Defendant."
So, many whites want to be able to say, "I`m not
one of them, those bad whites, like
that guy on Seinfeld. Hey, I voted for a
black guy for President!"
Plus, I suspect there`s an even more hidden reason
many whites wish Obama is elected President: They hope
that when a black finally moves into the White House, it
will prove to African-Americans, once and for
all, that white animus isn`t the
cause of their troubles. All blacks have to do is to
act like President Obama—and their problems will be
over!
It`s a seductive vision. And it plays right into our
national dream that
race is just skin deep, that it`s all in our heads,
that the solution for all racial conflict is simply
thinking right thoughts, etc. etc.
Of course, electing Obama President won`t actually
have that effect on black behavior—any more than
electing
Tom Bradley mayor of Los Angeles for five terms in a
row from 1973-1993 prevented
black rioters from burning down much of the city`s
commercial districts in 1992.
The unfortunate reality: there is no panacea for
race. The roots of racial differences in America stretch
far back into the history and
prehistory of
other continents. Symbolic gestures won`t make them
go away.
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]


