Leave it to the White Right to rat out their co-complexionists.

George F. Will, perhaps the smuggest, most self-assured racist in the pundit pantheon, says (white) America is suffering from "race fatigue" - the "I don't want to hear about it" disease.

Whites find comfort and solace in Barack Obama, who understands "the unbearable boredom occasioned by today's stale politics generally and the perfunctory politics theatrics of race especially."

Tired of hearing complaints about injustices that, Will maintains, don't exist? Take an Obama pill - it'll absolve you, says Will.

Believing he is presenting a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of "race neutrality," George F. Will actually provides insider testimony on what is behind mass white enthusiasm for Obama.

For them, he represents the hope that this one Negro will absolve white guilt, or he at least won't ask anyone, or any entity ( government) to take responsibility for racism.

Though he is black, Obama reassures America and its rulers that race is no longer an issue.

Obama: The White Man's Sambo

Sometimes as Black people we get a better idea of what Black leaders are about, by listening to what our enemies have to say about them. Enter George F. Will, conservative columnist for the Washington Post.

On the next to last day of 2007, Will penned a column entitled, Misreading Obama's Identity. The Miami Herald reprinted it, titling the piece, "Obama; Dealing with Race fatigue." The Herald's title was more enlightening.

While many black people are confused about who and what Barack Obama represents, yet see him as the "hope" that he writes and talks so much about, the exceedingly white George F. Will is certain he knows the man.

To Will and his ilk, Obama represents the hope that this one Negro will absolve white guilt, or he at least won't ask anyone, or any entity ( government) to take responsibility for racism. Though he is black, Obama reassures America and its rulers that race is no longer an issue.

"He represents radical autonomy" explains Will. Reading between the lines, he's saying that Obama is one of "them," but he is not beholden to "them."

According to Will, "He [Obama] has chosen his racial identity, but chosen not to make it matter much."

"George F. Will contends that Obama's candidacy will actually free America from having to deal with race."

Will argues with his fellow conservative, Shelby Steele, who contends in his book, A Bound Man: Why We are Excited about Obama and Why He Can't Win, that Obama can't win, because his candidacy asks America to complete its maturation as a society free from the constraints of race.

While lauding Steele as "America's foremost black intellectual," the bow-tied right-winger contends that Obama's candidacy will actually free America from having to deal with race.

Will describes Obama as "a model of blacks' possibilities when they are emancipated from ideologies of blackness." So, according to Will, being "black" is an ideological choice.

George F. Will imagines himself an "Emancipator" of blacks from themselves - an insane proposition. We don't oppress ourselves, or choose to be discriminated against. We didn't make up our history, or the countless socio-economic indicators of the legacy of that history.

There is no such thing as an ideology of blackness. Even Negroes who don't want to be Negroes but have black skin, nevertheless are confronted at some point, with the fact that they are black.

Even Tiger Woods gets reminded occasionally that he is black, -- which is why a sportscaster could say that his black behind should be "lynched in a back alley." Even Obama has had his "experiences." He can run, but his skin won't let him hide.

According to Will, Obama's success refutes the theory of "social determinism" which, in Will's twisted mind, is the idea that "blacks are comprehensively and systematically held back by an oppression that is prevalent even - perhaps especially - when not apparent."

In other words, blacks are making it up. We have come through what some are calling the post-civil rights era and have "made it."

Therefore, any complaints about job discrimination, glass ceilings, poor schools, redlining, racial profiling, individual racist attacks, daily slights are just figments of our imaginations.

"We don't oppress ourselves, or choose to be discriminated against."

The truth be told, the supposedly "intellectual" Wills sounds just like the sophomoric and smug whites we meet in the workplace and on the internet, who accuse blacks of complaining for no reason and point to middle and upper class black progress as evidence that blacks no longer have reason to gripe.

"Quit your whining," they say. "I mean, you guys have Condoleezza Rice, Tiger Woods and now Barack Obama. What else do you want. I don't see no racism," they declare with absolute confidence - while themselves committing daily acts of petty racism and exclusion.

George F. Will, diagnosing himself and his fellow dull-witted bigots, says America is suffering from "race fatigue" - the "I don't want to hear about it" disease.

So "sick and tired" are those whites afflicted with "race fatigue," I think if some of them would shoot Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton if they thought they could get away with it.

But Obama is different than the blacks who so callously burden whites with constant complaints, says Will. "Obama seems to understand America's race fatigue."

Obama understands "the unbearable boredom occasioned by today's stale politics generally and the perfunctory politics theatrics of race especially."

Obama is the rare black man who has won Will's heart - a guy who tiptoes through electoral politics so well that enemies like George F. believe he is harmless on the racial front.

Will knows nothing about blacks, but he is quite familiar with many of his own people's deluded complaints, which he eagerly shares with the world.

Ironically, his praise of Obama is at the same time a curse, better not said out loud, lest it make African Americans rethink the actual effects on whites of Obama's public performances.

tags: obama  sambo  white  black  racism  president  2008  

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