Conservative commentator urges racism against mulattoes like Obama
Yesterday, the American Spectator published a “Special Report,” on Barack Obama’s relationship to Reverend Wright, which included gross factual omissions and none-too-subtle racist remarks. There’s much to make fun of in this piece, but I’d like to focus on one argument in particular: Barack Obama isn’t black enough. It might seem incongruous for the white (and British) Tom Bethell to make this argument, so he does it through a surrogate. He recounts a conversation with a New Orleans clarinetist who is, “not just black but dark black. There was no white mother or grandmother in his background.” Not like Obama. And presumably there’s a point to this. According to the “dark black” clarinetist,
the worst discrimination comes from the light-skinned “Creoles,” or mulattoes, who considered themselves superior to their darker-skinned brethren.
Ah. So, people of mixed-race think they’re superior. They’re the racists. I can’t help wonder if it’s just a teensy bit racist to ascribe a negative personality trait to all people who share a particular racial make-up, but Tom Bethell wants to pretend it’s not his view. He’s just telling us about this clarinetist. Oh, and Justice Thomas, who gave a look of recognition when Bethell retold this story. (Incidentally, real persuasive stuff here. “A look of recognition.” Really? And did Bethell meet Justice Thomas when the American Spectator was calling Anita Hill, “a bit nutty and a bit slutty”?) Bethell does have some conclusions of his own:
One lesson we might like to draw is that people with mixed-race background probably do find it harder to “go beyond” issues of race than those who are either black or white.
If Barack Obama is having such a hard time getting beyond race, it really is a wonder that he delivered what’s being hailed as “the most significant public discussion of race in decades.” I mean, just imagine what he could do on an issue that his racial composition didn’t predispose him against.
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