Lies, Damn Lies

Obama on race

You may have heard of this story in the US, where a black professor was hassled by the police in his own home and then arrested. The exact details are unclear, although it does seem unlikely that a white professor would have had the same treatment. I'm not going to go into it in too many details, but this certainly seems to be the story as writ. Obama made a comment that the police had acted stupidly, and that this may have been a race thing.

Apparently, this is a bad thing, and has caused much anger at the President, who apologised, and said he misspoke. So, the president of the united states can be black... as long as he joins in with the white majority in the US who pretend racism doesn't exist? The idea of a post-racial president is intensely stupid, and while I can understand people not wanting to elect a president who dealt with nothing but race, forbidding the president from suggesting there might be a problem of racism is pushing it too far.

There is obviously a problem of racism in the US, as indeed there is in pretty much most countries, for historic and economic reasons. Segregation really did not end that long ago, and pretending it did not is absurd. There have been some people claiming Obama hates white people, these people disturbingly get air time, when there is no doubt to my mind that they are hateful people. Its disturbing.

Labels: politics, rant

posted by Mr K @ 7:03 pm