The MSM, as usual, misses the main story. It is not about a black guy in the WH

[MindMatter]

Other than perfunctory pomp (and enough of that to make anybody sick), the main story covered ad nauseum by the MSM is that there is a black guy running around in the White House.

OK, that is "A" story, but it most certainly is not "THE" story. And the real story has gone completely unreported in the MSM.

I don't diminish the significance of the black man in the WH narrative. I am truly happy for my black friends, and I hope they are all busting with joy today. I'm down with that.

But that isn't the main story. It is only a side effect. The main story is that Bush has America so fouled up that a country that has millions of hard core racists -- and for the rest of us there is a never-ending background of racial tension -- would choose a black man to lead us forward.

And why did America do that? I'd like to think that millions of white folks joined in this campaign with our friends of color because we did as Dr. King said, judge the man by the content of his character. That is big, and it is worth some of the bandwidth that the MSM has given it. But we all know that there are millions who voted for Obama because the status quo is so screwed up, it becomes rational for even a racist to vote for the one guy who is not connected to the status quo.

That is the story that is not being told. I mean seriously, how messed up has Bush made this country where America would have made this choice?

[AspenRose]

1. Yep

I'm kind of getting tired of seeing the MSM covering majority black folks in the crowds....YES it's a proud moment for us, no doubt about it....but Obama is president of the ENTIRE United States, not just president of black folks. Whites and Hispanics voted for him too. :eyes:

[bain_sidhe]

5. Oh, thank you!

I'm glad I'm not the only one getting tired of the focus on The Black Angle. Yes, it's historic and it says a lot about how far my country has come. But, I'm white, and I'm proud and happy too! I've gotten to where I want to shout, "Hey! He's my President too, you know!"

Maybe that's petty of me. I don't want to deny anybody the celebration that they want and deserve... but, I try to imagine if it has been a woman, would I *want* all the coverage to be about the gender angle? I don't think so... of course, I can't really know, but I really don't think I'd want that.

[HughMoran]

7. .

never mind

[bain_sidhe]

10. Explain, please

Am I not allowed to be happy... no, ecstatic, too? Just because I'm not black?

[HughMoran]

12. Never mind

I misread your post.

[bain_sidhe]

15. Ok...

but now I'm afraid to edit out the typo, lest people think I changed it after you replied!

So, the line should read, "if it HAD been a woman..." not "if it HAS been a woman..."

Just so you know, I did notice it!

[demnan]

2. That's so true

I have a different take.

I started school about the first year they integrated schools. In my first grade I had a friend who was a little black boy who knocked on the door and wanted to play with me. This was 1964 in Alexandria Va. My family were so shocked that I had a black friend because they had been so separate from blacks in their lifetimes except for people who they hired as help. I wasn't. Born in 1957, I have gone to school, work, church, play, politics and every other imaginable function with blacks. I had black friends in elementary school, middle and high school because they integrated the schools when I was young. And I've had black bosses and supervisors as well.

I credit the far reaching members of the Supreme Court who inegrated the schools and allowed young people to grow up with a different orientation than their families to accept black people as people and live, play and work as one.

[Bucky]

3. I'm not sure I buy the "millions of hard core racists" bit.

Many overcame their prejudices in this last election--and perhaps some of them will backslide once the economy brightens up. I'm going to guess that most who switched to voting Democratic this cycle will not go back to voting for Republicans and, more importantly, damn few of those switchers are hard core racists. But all racial prejudices are not the same as racism. There's more of a continuum having to do with people's comfort level.

Most true racists are hard core losers who live by resentment and could never vote for a Democrat or liberal, much less a black man. We didn't get their votes. Those who've simply been sold a bill of goods by decades of conservative fear mongering but were able to see the man beyond the superficial label of race were never racists, just dupes to the hatemongers.

[Uzybone]

4. Well said, we didn't get the racist vote

in any numbers to make a difference. The OP thinks we are still in the 70s and 80s. America has changed a lot. There aren't as many racists out there.

[Usrename]

9. That's a really creepy picture.

Democrats lost the racist voting block back when Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

They won't be missed. I don't have so much animosity toward racists, having grown up in the South with many sheet-wearing relatives. If they are up front about it then at least you know what you are dealing with.

I think there may have been a reverse Bradley effect though. A lot of people around here had reservations about admitting that they voted for Obama. If this social stigma that is felt about voting for a Black president subsides in the next few years, then Obama and the Democrats might actually improve their voting block substantially in the future. Especially if Bush and company are brought to justice.

[MindMatter]

11. I guess it is a question of definitions

By "hard core racists", I'm not talking about the KKK, or even Archie Bunker. I'm talking about people who might be in the "Reagan Republican" group. Many of them voted with us. And anybody who thinks that group is over their racial demons is flat out nuts. Put a better demagogue in front of them and they would be all over affirmative action, immigration and all the other wink-wink-nudge-nudge euphemisms that belie hard core racism.

But on this one occasion, they made the opposite decision. How come? That's the big story. It was only possible because of just how much of a mess Bush has made.

[marshall]

30. Even some Democrats changed their minds about race

A year ago even Biden and Bill Clinto were making racially tinged semi-obnoxious comments about Obama. Now they are looking at him to guide us into the next generation.

[Drunken Irishman]

28. Hardcore racists? Probably not, but people like my father voted Obama.

My father is fairly bigoted. He's not afraid to throw around racial words, but in the end, I don't think he feels he's better than blacks or that he has any real hatred of them. He's just not very smart and doesn't understand he does say racist things.

But he proudly put an Obama bumper sticker on his truck and voted for him.

So I don't think the hardcore racists voted Obama, but many with bigoted feelings did. People who probably four or eight or sixteen years ago could have never seen themselves voting for a black man.

[CitizenPatriot]

6. I couldn't agree more about msm missing the main story

The story, to me, is that we finally have a competent, smart, thoughtful, wise person as POTUS. I'm appreciative of the history being made because of the color of his skin-- and it makes me cry with joy -- but it isn't the only story about this man.

In fact, it's kind of the obvious story, but not the real story.

Leave it to the msm to focus on the obvious.

The majority of Americans voted based on the person running, not the color of his skin. character won out -- and it's been a LONG time since that has happened. The best person for the job won, the American people voted character into office in a mandate FOR integrity and AGAINST incompetency, cronyism, greed, lies, and an illegal war.

CHARACTER. That's what we wanted and that's what we got.

[MindMatter]

13. In fact, it is kind of insulting

Acting as if the story is that a black man got over, they are not giving him any credit for being visionary, intelligent, a brilliant strategist, tough as nails, charismatic and articulate.

It is almost as if the unspoken subtext is that, well America wanted change so they went with a black guy.

[CitizenPatriot]

21. exactly

I mean, the fact that this has happened is indeed a fantastic thing of joy....but all of the focus on race -- as if that were the issue-- seems at times like an attempt to dismiss the mandate for thoughtful, smart, compassionate leadership.

The most interesting and compelling thing is that race WAS not the issue, that in fact a majority of people didn't consider it in their decision. They voted for the best person. In many areas where the pundits and others thought it would never happen.

change has come to America.

We got our guy -- they can kiss our as$es!

[MindMatter]

25. You nailed it. The story is that race is NOT the story

Well put. That is the ultimate in racial progress is that race really had nothing to do with this, and that's exactly as it should be.

[Arkana]

8. Oh no guys it's only a matter of time before Obama gets one of those huge clocks

to wear around his neck like Flava Flav, buys spinning rims for the Presidential limo, gets his teeth gold-capped, and starts speaking in ebonics.

Yeah I'm kinda seeing that narrative in the media too, actually.

[stillcool]

14. They can't bring themselves to say...

that the American people gave a big fuck you to the government that feeds them.

[badgerpup]

16. Dayum...and here was me thinking...

...that we elected the black guy because with the white guy there were not only serious questions about his age and health, but about his policies, competence, record, and veracity.
The white guy then went and compounded many of these concerns by choosing as a running mate somebody who, while hot, cute, and MILF-y, was completely unfit for, and incapable of performing a job that she had a 50+% chance of stepping into within the next couple of years or so.

Shows ya how much I know...:shrug:...

[MindMatter]

17. Exactly. And when did you hear any of the MSM say that today?

[trekbiker]

18. I didnt vote for a black guy. I voted for a smart guy.

A man like Barack comes along maybe once in a generation or maybe once every other generation. I look at him and I see Bobby Kennedy or FDR. I think the one (and only one) good thing to come out of 8 miserable years of bush was to make this election possible. The worst president in our history is followed by the best (potentially).

[cyndensco]

19. I guess it is just a matter of one's perspective.

As a black woman, I thoroughly enjoyed today's coverage and did not sense a misplaced emphasis on race. I cannot remember a time that my community has had so much to celebrate and today, for the first time in a long time, our voices were important. It has been my experience that we are usually outside looking in. Today was different and it felt amazing....It is just a matter of one's perspective.

[MindMatter]

20. And I get all that

Honestly, I am happy for you. I really am. I can only imagine the full range of emotions you must be feeling, and I wouldn't deny that or minimize it in any way. You deserve to be prideful, and it is a significant moment in history.

But how could this happen? I don't believe for a minute that our heritage of racism just vanished. I hope we are a few steps closer to a colorblind society, and I think we are. But electing Obama was only possible because of the complete wreck that the neocons made, and I'm angry that the MSM obsession about the racial aspects of this moment has entirely prevented the mention of this obvious fact.

[noiretextatique]

22. so the big story is that white people voted for a black man

not because of his race, but because of his character...perhaps. i agree with you: perhaps the bigger story is bush fouled things up so much that the situation he created made it possible for character to be the selling point in this election, even though said character was embodied by a biracial man. actually, that isn't exactly the most interesting story because it's a no brainer. perhaps an even more interesting story: where would we be as a nation if it hadn't taken us this long to value character over skin color?

[MindMatter]

24. Or where would we be

if we hadn't allowed the neocons to run roughshod for 8 years -- actually 28 years? All of these questions are a lot more interesting and relevant than the endless discussion of how well the couple dances.

I have officially turned off all the media, including NPR, for a week until they get this crap out of their system. I don't need to hear another 50 interviews with the black-person-on-the-street saying exactly the same thing. Yeah, we get that. It is racial progress. It is long overdue. But a hell of a lot of white people voted for the man too. In the entire frenzy of reporting, I have heard only one white-person-on-the-street interviewed.

Just as a point of comparison, in my Obama campaign office, there were 10 white people hitting the streets for each black person. That may be due to demographics, and I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that Obama's election was not about putting a black man in the white house. It was about wrestling the country back from the disastrous course the Raygun/noecons put us on. It just happened that the best person for that job is a black man. That's the story nobody wants to cover.

[paulk]

26. well said -

"I'm just saying that Obama's election was not about putting a black man in the white house. It was about wrestling the country back from the disastrous course the Raygun/noecons put us on. It just happened that the best person for that job is a black man. That's the story nobody wants to cover."

I had to turn NPR off yesterday.

[noiretextatique]

29. his election obviously means different things to different people

i haven't been watching TV at all, so i don't know what the spin is. but, this is a significant first for african-americans. i'm black and i never thought i'd see this in my lifetime. it would be nice to enjoy that aspect of his presidency without complaints.

[DainBramaged]

23. Isn't the story that there is a non-rich YOUNG Black AND White guy in the White House, balance

which has never been achieved in our history, not a fat cat but a cool cat in the People's House instead of a Fat White Old Christian guy with a subservient wife? Or little jug-eared fuck if you want to look at it another way?

The story won't be told by the MSM because people will realize that they were complicit in the damage the little jug-eared fuck and his cronies caused.

[nomaco-10]

27. I have a real vivid memory of Oprah...

interviewing Tiger Woods a few years ago when he had become a phenomenon in the world of golf. Oprah kept referring to him as african american every few seconds. He finally told her, yes I'm proud of my african american ancecestory, but I am also 1/2 korean and my father is part native american. To only embrace my african american roots would be turning my back on the rest of my heritage and I could never do that. I love my mother and grandparents very much.

I was blown away by his answer and oprah finally let it go.