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jamscal
jamscal HalfDork
10/11/09 4:17 p.m.

Sir Thomas Browne:

"There are many canonized on earth, that shall never be Saints in Heaven."

Duke
Duke SuperDork
10/11/09 6:37 p.m.
Datsun1500 wrote: Isn't he 1/2 white? When did he become only black?

He's black enough to be perceived as NOT part of the Cheney/Halliburton/Trilateral Commission/Evil Rich White Guy conspiracy, but white enough to get elected.

The perfect mix - he gets to be all black when it's politically expedient to be (for whoever it is needing expediency), while not being black enough that anyone other than the lunatic racist fringe dares to disapprove of him on that basis.

Xceler8x
Xceler8x GRM+ Memberand Dork
10/11/09 7:00 p.m.

Where I come from Obama would be classified as black no matter if his mama was Snow White. I'm just talking from my own experience here. In my city he'd be called high yeller, a redbone, or a mulatto depending on what era you lived in. All those terms are fancy ways of saying "A black guy with some white blood." His outer appearance is what most would use to ascertain his ethnicity.

I doubt any racists would reconsider insulting him if they saw him on the street.

"Hey, that feller ain't all black. Let's go hassle the darker one we saw earlier."

~TOPIC~

Duke has it right. Being a hybrid of white and black has it's advantages.

RX Reven'
RX Reven' GRM+ Memberand Reader
10/12/09 10:58 a.m.
ignorant wrote:
Xceler8x wrote:
Jensenman wrote: It strikes me as funny how much Bush did behind the scenes to try to ease the suffering in Africa but of course that wasn't a good enough reason to nominate him for a Nobel. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/georgebush.usa
Good link Jensenman. That information leads me to believe that the committee mostly had a problem with Bush's "My way or the highway" style of international action. Awarding the Nobel prize to most all of Bush's opponents (Gore, Obama, and to a lesser degree - Carter) seems to be sending a message. Maybe they'll award one to Clinton for peace AND love?
Hold on.. Yes bush did good work in Africa. However, He launched all that crap to help save his face internationally. None of it was done with a clear conscience or a kind heart. It was selfishness pure and simple. He realized his legacy, what most would remember, was destruction so he tried something different. He started really playing up his work in africa near the end of his 2nd term when noone, not even his parents, liked him.... It was if he wanted to tell the world... "Look now.. I'm not an evil doer... I'm a good doer-er..."

So, Obama gets a prestigious award for what we hope he may one day do and Bush gets his actual accomplishments ignored for what we theorize his motivations were…nice.

aircooled
aircooled SuperDork
10/12/09 11:36 a.m.
Datsun1500 wrote: Isn't he 1/2 white? When did he become only black?

There are a LOT of "black" people with some amount of "white" in them. If you look at the black people in Africa, you will see that they are in general a LOT darker in skin color in general to the "average" black person in the US. They are still generally considered "black", even if they are pretty light. It does get confusing and silly at some points, but basically if someone can differentiate them...

You may have heard of the term "octoroon". That was one of the old terms used to describe racial ancestry (how much black). Octoroon would be 1/8 black, I suspect it would be hard to tell at that point. Of course, back then, the primary purpose of classifying a person a black was to figure out if you need to deny them the rights of a "real" person.

Reference:

In the late 19th century southern states, legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to establish racial segregation. They were generally based on the idea that a person of any African ancestry would be classified as black, known as the one-drop rule. In the case of Homer Plessy, a Louisiana man of one-eighth black ancestry was prevented from sitting in a railroad car reserved for whites.

oldsaw
oldsaw Reader
10/12/09 12:00 p.m.
RX Reven' wrote:
ignorant wrote:
Xceler8x wrote:
Jensenman wrote: It strikes me as funny how much Bush did behind the scenes to try to ease the suffering in Africa but of course that wasn't a good enough reason to nominate him for a Nobel. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/georgebush.usa
Good link Jensenman. That information leads me to believe that the committee mostly had a problem with Bush's "My way or the highway" style of international action. Awarding the Nobel prize to most all of Bush's opponents (Gore, Obama, and to a lesser degree - Carter) seems to be sending a message. Maybe they'll award one to Clinton for peace AND love?
Hold on.. Yes bush did good work in Africa. However, He launched all that crap to help save his face internationally. None of it was done with a clear conscience or a kind heart. It was selfishness pure and simple. He realized his legacy, what most would remember, was destruction so he tried something different. He started really playing up his work in africa near the end of his 2nd term when noone, not even his parents, liked him.... It was if he wanted to tell the world... "Look now.. I'm not an evil doer... I'm a good doer-er..."
So, Obama gets a prestigious award for what we hope he may one day do and Bush gets his actual accomplishments ignored for what we theorize his motivations were…nice.

Some people suffer from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) for which there is no apparent cure.

BDS is usually accompanied by CDS, making recovery doubly dangerous to stable mental health conditions.

Xceler8x
Xceler8x GRM+ Memberand Dork
10/13/09 1:10 p.m.

I read this today and HAD to post it.

On the Nobel Prize for Occasional Peace

Matt Taibbi said: On the Nobel Prize for Occasional Peace It’s hard to believe, but there have been sillier moments in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize than this recent fiasco involving Barack Obama — it’s just so hard to remember them when you’re rolling around on the ground and spitting up greenish foam in a state of shock, as most of us were this past weekend as the news of Obama’s amazing award rolled over the airwaves. The Nobel Peace Prize long ago ceased to be an award given to people who really spend their whole careers agitating for peace. Like most awards the Prize has evolved into a kind of maraschino cherry for hardcore careerists to place atop their resumes, a reward not for dissidence but on the contrary for gamely upholding the values of Western society as it perceives itself, for putting a good face on things (in Obama’s place, literally so). Even when the award is given to a genuine dissident, it tends to be a dissident hailing from a country we consider outside the fold of Western civilization, a rogue state, “not one of us” — South Africa from the apartheid days, for instance, or the regime occupying East Timor. You never, ever get a true dissident from a prominent Western country winning the award, despite the obvious appropriateness such a choice would represent. Our Western society quite openly embraces war as a means of solving problems and for quite some time now has fashioned its entire social and economic structure around the preparation for war. Continued... (The rest is at the link above.)
poopshovel
poopshovel SuperDork
10/13/09 1:56 p.m.

DO think it's kind of silly that he got it.

DO NOT really care, as it has zero effect on me, or the United States for that matter, as far as I can tell.

Congrats. Get back to work.

RX Reven'
RX Reven' GRM+ Memberand Reader
10/13/09 1:57 p.m.

Yah, and nobody on either side of the political fence could understand why President Obama kept dragging his feet over making a decision on Afghanistan.

Mr. President, please, please make the call…our guys are getting hit hard and the enemy is gathering strength…either pull us out or send reinforcements immediately.

Um, hold on, I’ve got to lay low until the Nobel Peace Prize recipient is announced, um, is this mike on…opps.

Xceler8x
Xceler8x GRM+ Memberand Dork
10/13/09 2:02 p.m.

Sorry, should've clarified.

This post above is by an author who is an unapologetic lefty who criticizes the whole process. I think he does a good job at pointing out the absurdity of the award and the basis used to designate it's recipient. He's a lefty but not above pointing out the B.S. in the whole situation.

914Driver
914Driver SuperDork
10/13/09 2:22 p.m.

http://blog.timesunion.com/derosier/the-prize/1908/#comments

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