In a June 2008 interview with the Rocky Mountain News Ralph Nader complained that Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has not urged "a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson?" According to Nader, Obama "wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician. He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."
Rather than express his disagreement on the merits or demerits of Obama's positions and emphasis or lack thereof on particular issues, Nader racializes Obama and accuses the Senator of not being black enough (whatever that means) as defined by Nader. Obama does not care about the plight of and issues facing African Americans? Ridiculous. That Nader assumes the hierarchical position and power to lecture Obama (and, by extension, other African Americans) for not doing what Nader thinks they should be doing is itself an arrogant act of racial condescension.
No comments:
Post a Comment