The Truth Hurts

"Typical white person." That's what's being twisted around here. "Typical white person."

Senator Barack Obama, speaking off the cuff during a radio interview on a sports show called his grandmother, his own grandmother a "typical white" person.

610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know - there's a reaction in her that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that's pretty powerful stuff."

Unfortunately, the typical white people in media, the blogs and elsewhere are running with this story like OJ in the white Bronco, and distorting it - playing the sound bite and cutting it off after "typical white person" thereby completely twisting its context.

Here is Obama's campaign trying to explain further what Obama was trying to say:

Barack Obama said specifically that he didn't believe his grandmother harbored any racial animosity, but that her fears were understandable and typical of those often shared by her generation..."

The sad part is, if anyone criticizing Obama over this were being as honest as he is about the racism that still exists in this country intead of denying the truth, distorting the words and decrying the man, they'd see that what he has said can't be denied. It's his own experience, his own grandmother he's talking about, and his own reality.

There is no white person on earth that can claim to know what it's like to be a black person in America. You can try to understand it, you can fight the instictiveness of racism, but it is there and no white pundit sitting in a television studio or white blogger on either political side should even dare to touch the race issue as if they know both viewpoints. People like Gretchen Carlson of Fox & Friends would get eaten up for breakfast if someone actually took her up on "honestly discussing the race issue."

As Bob Cesca wrote today:

...Whether it's the Clinton campaign who likely pushed the Wright videos to the press, or the far-right fuckwits who are pretending to suddenly be racially sensitive -- and who, by the way, mistakenly believe you can be racist against the majority race. You can't be racist against white people. Sorry. I'm also looking at you, Geraldine Ferraro.

...to the far-right bloggers, FOX News and Ferraro... The minority population CAN'T be racist against the majority population any more than the poor can subjugate a king or, for that matter, workers can subjugate a CEO. For a white Hannity or a white Ferraro to somehow play the role of a racial victim is hilarious...ly stupid.

Worst of all, the integrity that Obama has shown by tackling an issue such as race during his campaign for the nomination has been cast aside as nothing more than politicking by the more cynical MSM. Putting everything on the line, Obama chose to speak the truth, and strength of his words in a speech that will be remembered by many as one of the great speeches in our modern US political historical landscape was nothing more than fodder for those who heard the words, but didn't listen.

Looking for phrases, words they could latch onto, wondering if he would "disown" his controversial Pastor whom he considers family - all of that was at the forefront for the talking heads, but the punditocracy lost the meaning of his words while looking for a cheap, tawdry sound bite.

The plain fact of the matter was and is that Obama is speaking the truth. And for those that choose to attack, it the truth that hurts.