This is racism straight from the top!

[GetA2J]

Did not hear anything offensive. I heard weak pseudo-intellectual ramblings, but no racism.

What lines did you find "racist"?

Beginning at just about 1 minute: "African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don't have a recent immigrant experience to draw on. It's that unique African American culture that has existed in North America for hundreds of years, long before we even founded the nation."
Mr. Freeman I appreciate your honest question but, at what point do comments like this one that states that the African American community has some sort of exclusive claim on the American Experience cease to be racial in nature? Is it when it is preceded with comments of a visit to some South African country where few of the African Americans referenced have direct connections to?
I gotta tell you with a middle name of "Patrick", and a maternal ancestry including names like "Duffy" I should have some ties I presume to "mother Ireland" but I feel no yearnings to go there. I am more interested and more intrigued with visits to "MY" country's history. ...In Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and such. THAT is where "MY" American Experience comes from. Reading the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights gives me all the fundamental Roots that I desire!
I am willing, wait, even excited to share this unique experience with anyone who feels it with me regardless of their skin color or their last name but I do not believe that ANYONE has any exclusive claim or "MORE" fundamental roots than I do.
I do NOT consider myself to be an "Irish-American"! I consider myself to be an "American" with claims, or ties, or loyalties to NONE other than THE United States of America!
I would suppose that in some purist mentality the term "African American" MIGHT describe ANYONE with ancestral ties or "roots" if you will in the African continent independent of their skin color. However I am not convinced that is the "pure" meaning of the term when mr obama mentioned it in this interview.
Therefore it will be taken to be racist (by me at least) until "I" am convinced that it was meant with any different connotations.

 

[Phil502]

I was thinking about this a little.

Okay, by our standards, meaning regular guys call them like we see them, he did not say anything racist.

But..... by the standards of the left and most of the Democrats, he did. How about if John Mccain said white people are more American the illegal aliens because we have been here longer and have put more into the country then them or something like that. How would that go over?

 

[Archaic_Entity]

Beginning at just about 1 minute: "African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don't have a recent immigrant experience to draw on. It's that unique African American culture that has existed in North America for hundreds of years, long before we even founded the nation."
Mr. Freeman I appreciate your honest question but, at what point do comments like this one that states that the African American community has some sort of exclusive claim on the American Experience cease to be racial in nature? Is it when it is preceded with comments of a visit to some South African country where few of the African Americans referenced have direct connections to?
I gotta tell you with a middle name of "Patrick", and a maternal ancestry including names like "Duffy" I should have some ties I presume to "mother Ireland" but I feel no yearnings to go there. I am more interested and more intrigued with visits to "MY" country's history. ...In Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and such. THAT is where "MY" American Experience comes from. Reading the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights gives me all the fundamental Roots that I desire!
I am willing, wait, even excited to share this unique experience with anyone who feels it with me regardless of their skin color or their last name but I do not believe that ANYONE has any exclusive claim or "MORE" fundamental roots than I do.
I do NOT consider myself to be an "Irish-American"! I consider myself to be an "American" with claims, or ties, or loyalties to NONE other than THE United States of America!
I would suppose that in some purist mentality the term "African American" MIGHT describe ANYONE with ancestral ties or "roots" if you will in the African continent independent of their skin color. However I am not convinced that is the "pure" meaning of the term when mr obama mentioned it in this interview.
Therefore it will be taken to be racist (by me at least) until "I" am convinced that it was meant with any different connotations.

I don't think you're understanding what he's saying entirely. I mean, you do, but at the same time you don't.

See, most African-American people cannot trace their heritage back to anything other than a whole friggin' continent, they don't know anything more than that somewhere down the line they were brought here either by their own people or a white person, regardless of that fact they know nothing more. Their whole history started when they were here, here and not there.

You know you're an Irish-American, and chances are you can probably trace yourself back to anywhere from 1860's or the 1920's, my guess. You know you great-great-great grandfather traveled to America for some reason or another.

Regardless how much you feel the need, or desire, to go to Ireland is irrelevant to the situation. You are an American, yes. You were born, live, and will likely die here. Be proud of the fact that you can find wonderment and amazement in going to Washington and seeing those things that founded this country, and those things that made it what it is today. But respect, as well, those people who do feel drawn to their countries of origin. Personally, I'd love to go to Ireland and Scotland, see where my people were from. See the land we lived on. Drink the beer straight from the brewery. But that's me. Am I still American? Yes. Do I still want to go to Washington and see all the great things there? Go to Philadelphia and see the things there? Yes. Does the fact that I want to do both make me less American? No.

My family came here around the 1760's, if I remember correctly. It could have been slightly before then. My family fought in the Revolution, and again in the Civil War. I'm about as inherently American as it gets. Are African-Americans more American than me? No... but at least I know where I came from. I've seen the will of my ancestor that came over here with his sons. I've seen the plantation my family owned, the church they attended, their headstones. Most African-Americans are lucky to know anything about their families before the early 1900's.

I understand what he's saying. Is he saying it in the best possible way? No. But does that make it racist? No. Not unless you consider me racist, too.

 

[p22gal]

nicely said!

 

[Kirk Freeman]

See, most African-American people cannot trace their heritage back to anything other than a whole friggin' continent, they don't know anything more than that somewhere down the line they were brought here either by their own people or a white person, regardless of that fact they know nothing more. Their whole history started when they were here, here and not there.

Yes, mostly, unless you are a recent African immigrant like Louis Awerbuck.

I know that my family comes from Devon. However, to use an analogy if I knew only that my ancestors were from Europe then things become murkier and as Obama says perhaps I would identify myself as American, rather than English-American. [where is my Union Jack smilie?]

Obama never said (good grief, I'm defending Obama, what has become of me?) that African-Americans occupy some upper tier of Americanism, when we all know that it is occupied by English-Americans (relax, inside joke). He said that because of historical circumstances that African-Americans more strongly identify themselves as American.

I see no racism here. Note that this does not mean I support Obama's insipid Alinsky-inspired radical socialism. If Obama started talking like Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams, I would be knocking on doors to support his campaign.

 

[Bubba]

I actually thought he was doing very well before the "fundamentally American" crap. I took what he said to be a big "grow up" to American minorities that feel they are isolated from the mainstream culture. To paraphrase him: "If you think that you are African and that contemporary America is trying to hold you down, try being African. Then you will truly realize that we Americans are about as equal as we're ever going to get."

I found the drivel after that as racist as it was intelligent; which is to say, not at all.

 

[Phil502]

Yes, mostly, unless you are a recent African immigrant like Louis Awerbuck.

I know that my family comes from Devon. However, to use an analogy if I knew only that my ancestors were from Europe then things become murkier and as Obama says perhaps I would identify myself as American, rather than English-American. [where is my Union Jack smilie?]

Obama never said (good grief, I'm defending Obama, what has become of me?) that African-Americans occupy some upper tier of Americanism, when we all know that it is occupied by English-Americans (relax, inside joke). He said that because of historical circumstances that African-Americans more strongly identify themselves as American.

I see no racism here. Note that this does not mean I support Obama's insipid Alinsky-inspired radical socialism. If Obama started talking like Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams, I would be knocking on doors to support his campaign.

I get your points, they are logical points.

How can anyone measure who identifies more with America?

Afrikan-American is a common term now why the hyphen? Dual identity?

When I was a young man, my Uncle, a WW2 vet, was wearing his army jacket, it had his name on it. A woman who he was talking with looked at his name on the jacket and said "I see you are Polish." My Uncle replied "no I am American and there are very few of us left."

I guess even when Obama is missing his telepromptor any BS can come out.

 

[Archaic_Entity]

Well, regardless of his inability to speak when he's impromptu, that doesn't make his message racist. I think that's the only point that most of us are trying to make.

I, by no means, support him or his office, but we can't just blanket everything he says as evil. Believe it or not, he's not evil--so far as we know.

If he's truly racist, if he's truly going to do evil things, we'll see them soon enough. No need to grasp for straws especially if that's all it is. We'll get there soon enough.

 

[TopDog]

I don't think he said anything racist. I also view what he said from the perspective I believe he was speaking from. That African Americans go to Africa and realize how American they really are. I don't see that as being racist.

 

[flagtag]

I got the impression that he was a bit disappointed/surprised that there wasn't more of a "connection" for him there.

I think he expected to find a "pull" to his roots there, and realized that there was none.
I think most, if not all, African-Americans would find the same thing if they went there. They would be a "stranger" to their own people. Or THEY would not feel the connection that they were taught to beleive there should be. It would be a "foriegn land" to them. No connection.

For so long, they have been taught that a part of them "belongs" there because of the way their ancestors left there. But it's just not there. It could be any other country.