Update II: Commenter and blogger Gayle Miller mentions actor and author Joseph C. Phillips, who I agree is better looking than Obama. 
I reviewed Phillips’s book, He Talk Like A White Boy, for National Review Online.
FrontPage interviews Phillips.
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I usually avoid blogging about black “golden boy” Democratic politicians like U.S. Senator Barack Obama because I know I’ll be accused of “player hating,” but I can’t let the hype parade pass without comment.
Barack Obama, the “He speaks so well!” up and coming U.S. senator, no doubt has a bright future ahead of him. But why, I’m trying to figure out, are we reading about his presidential aspirations a mere two years into his first term as senator?
I have a few ideas. First, Obama is “articulate.” No big deal, right? Well, for a black person, it seems to be. At least that’s how I perceive it. Back in 2004 when I was still working a day job at a heavily Democrat-voting organization, the word “articulate” was uttered frequently as white co-workers described Obama’s big speech at the Democratic convention. It wasn’t so much what he said, as I discovered when I read the text of his speech, but how he said it.
In “Barack Obama Goes To Boston,” I gave you my impressions of his speech. He’s a liberal who doesn’t like to be called a liberal. His speech contained nothing breathtaking, groundbreaking, or worth the hyperventilating hype that resulted from it.
As far as I could tell, Obama was just another infanticide-supporting liberal who white journalists — not black people, mind you — declared the “great black hope.”
Second, Obama now has a book to sell. With a fawning and easily infatuated leftist media, liberal authors don’t need to waste money paying publicists. Every major newspaper and magazine is a publicity machine, cranking out the kind of copy that would cost the author an arm and a leg if he/she had to pay someone to write it. I should be so lucky!
The man owns the current issue of TIME magazine. I mean, come on! He hasn’t done anything in the Senate to distinguish himself. He’s just…black.
Nobody’s sent me a review copy of Obama’s semi-autobiographical tome, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, but I know what’s in it. For instance, he’s the product of a white mother and a black father, and he grew up fatherless — like so many American blacks — after his father abandoned him and his mother. He’s done some things he’s ashamed of, like using cocaine. He cleaned up his life, obtained a law degree, went into politics, and — voilà ! —he’s currently the only black U.S. senator.
Curiously, Obama speaks praisefully of his absent black father, but I haven’t read or heard much about the white mother who raised him. [Note: His first book was about his Kenyan father. Is a book about his Kansas-born mother forthcoming?]
Anyway, I don’t know if his presidential aspirations are real or whether the media or his publicist invented it to sell his new book, but there’s no way a first-time senator two years into his term would get this much press if he were white.
Just my assessment, folks, based in part on life in general and personal experience. For instance, I’ve been called articulate, a word seldom used to describe white bloggers. And as loathe as I am to admit this, my blog’s success is owed in part to my race. I believe and write things most people wouldn’t expect me to believe and write.
If you didn’t know me and saw me walking down the street, you’d guess that I was a typical, Democrat-voting D.C. resident. But when I open my mouth, all previously conceived notions and expectations are thrown out the proverbial window. Being outspoken and atypical is a novelty that draws people in. Being a decent writer who expresses ideas in a way that defies stereotype keeps ‘em coming back.
So I’m not “hating” on Obama. Just as there are plenty of young white politicians more worthy of praise than he is, there are white bloggers more worthy of praise than I am. I try to keep things in perspective, blog from the heart, and provide a much-needed alternative to the liberal hype. If I can do that and still look at myself in the mirror without shame, it’s OK with me.
Update: A commenter writes: “The excerpt from his book in Time is all about his mother. She was a huge influence in his life and he was very close to her. There was basically nothing about his father in the excerpt or article. I also saw him in Oprah last week and I believe he talked about his mother there, but I did not hear anything about his father.”
Another commenter writes:
LaShawn, as usual, you make really good points. (I do have to disagree that you get more attention because you’re black; maybe, and no one can know for sure, but you do write a good blog that is substantive and I think it would garner the same attention even if no one knew your race.)
As far as Obama’s blackness and the “articulate” label, yes, I do think that people ARE surprised when a black person excels at speaking standard English and doesn’t sound like a fire-and-brimstone preacher. On the other hand, you know, many white candidates now are NOT articulate either. I feel like we have lost something in this generation when it comes to elocution, verbal style, and critical thinking ability or debate skills.
Obama blogging: Thanks, K-Lo!
The Webutante says: “Indeed, he voted no on reauthorizing the Patriot Act. His position on the war on terror is enough to make anyone cry. Obama has voted: No to private gun ownership. No to mandatory sentencing and the death penalty. No to prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Says he would have voted no to authorize going to war in Iraq.”
Angela Winters, black moderate says: “[H]e is a junior senator, people. He’s two years old in political years because the local stuff in Illinois doesn’t even begin to compare to the juggernaut of D.C. It looks to me like the media has just decided to fall in love with him all over again and set him up for something he probably isn’t ready for just to watch him fall…” (Via Booker Rising)
Big Lizards, Wizbang, Blue Crab Boulevard, Huh?…
