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Who cares whether Obama has dark skin?
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[Deleted User]
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What a nutty world. Most of us PAY to have a dark tan.
The world is crazy.
The world is crazy.
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[Deleted User]
Posts: 2,232 [Deleted User]
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I'm as white as a ghost, ffs, really p*sses me off:o
seems important to loose_change
What do you think?
Would you like a good tan?
I know I would
It probably won't be though.
Apparently it is, and not because of the OP either.
I was chatting to a friend's American mother-in-law when we took our kids out together, I just idley went "go on then, McCain or Obama?". She's from the deep south, so I expected a "McCain" reply. "Neither" she said, "besides, I don't think America's ready for a black president. Some lunatic will kill him".
That is the sad truth of the whole matter
Yes, it's (unfortunately) probable that the chance of being killed increases with the 'wrong' colour of skin, but as history has shown, colour is not the determining factor.
America is one of the few countries in the world where winning a political debate can be a negative thing in the polls, so it certainly won't be fought on the basis of policies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1x81XODP-o&feature=related&fmt=18
Now whether it's representative is a different thing but it's still funny/worrying depending on how you want to look at it.
I find it interesting because Obama is not the son of a black American but a white American. He is the son of a black African and the slavery and civil rights story of African Americans is not actually part of his own heritage. His father was a student in America who subsequently left and went home. Yet a lot of African Americans associate Obama with that struggle. He has not personally experienced it. Hillary Clinton has probably faced as much prejudice in the USA because she is a woman as much as Barrack Obama has because he is mixed race.
as some people mentioned above, there is a chance some nutjob will try to kill him, but god i hope not, i'd like to think that we as a race have moved on since those days.
c'mon obama!
Did I not see somewhere that he is a half caste (not sure if that is the right statement, if not I do not mean to offend), so why is he defined as black?
I asked that of some Americans on another forum I visit. Basically, it comes from history when America didn't have its own culture or identity. People would adopt the culture from where their families came from, hence the terms 'Irish-American', Italian-American', 'African-American ect.
The mixed-race thing is related to that. Mixed-race children are expected to choose one half over the other as part of their identity. And when you have dark skin you really don't get a choice. Everyone else decides you're 'African-American' for you.
I'd say it's even a bit simpler than that. Groups who have been discriminated against are usually defined by how they differ from "normal people" and in that instance any small deviation from normality is enough to result in that person being deemed abnormal. That's why a man who has sex with a hundred women and one man often goes down in society's eyes as "gay" and why a person of "mixed race" (meaningless term if ever there was one) is usually deemed "black" or "African-American", but never "white" or "caucasian".
That's one of the main reasons why I resent the idea of homosexuality. The term takes its whole meaning from the desire to marginalise a group of people and there's very little basis for making this separation once you remove the prejudice aspect. We don't split people up into distinct groups with respects to their preferences for food, or music, or art, so why do we do it with sexual preferences?
Generally, in America there is no shades of grey!
Well to be fair, it is very much a first time ever kind of deal. If he gets elected, he'll be the first non-white person to lead the biggest country in the world. Considering it hasn't been 45 years since the Civil Rights bill signed by JFK in the USA to stop segregation (and 40 years since the second version signed by LBJ), they've come a long way in a short time!
Yes well the world's gone like that in general which is one great step we've taken through the 21st century.
But I just find in general that it's the democrats who appear to bring up issues of race more than the republicans do. It's almost like they boast they've got a black candidate, which is wrong in itself obviously.
It'll stop to almost nothing now.
The fact that it was 45 years to the day since the I Have A Dream speech cannot possibly be ignored, on the day that a "black" man makes history in becoming the first black presidential nominee officially. Of course, the Dems picked that date on purpose, but still. It is historical, but from no one it'll become a back burner issue unless a Republican makes a faux pas somewhere down the line.