Obama '08?

I initially thought the same thing--but polling and conversation with the homies doesn't bear that out....although he's made recent gains.

This "shocking revelation" should be jarring not at all for Obama, or any black person who's spent more than 5 minutes thinking about who his forebears were a couple generations back. I have relatives who still live on the area in NC where the plantation was that housed my slave ancestors, and my last name can be found on the Declaration of Independence - it is a proud English slaveowner's name, with a coat-of-arms and everything. I remember reading about how the bloodline of slaves' descendants was forcibly altered by the regular rape and otherwise use for sexual convenience of female slaves by slaveowners, and realizing how much "white" was in all of us for that reason.

So the "revelation" that some of Obama's ancestors were slaveowners doesn't strike me as anything that should "shock" anyone who's thought about the whole phenomenon of slavery in the US at all. The subject will be co-opted by the same people who will try to make hay out of all the other meaningless things like his middle name and the elementary school he attended, and the drugs he admitted to doing when he was a lost youth. It is gutter stuff - unworthy of anyone who wants to keep the discussion on a level above the gutter.

This "shocking revelation" should be jarring not at all for Obama, or any black person who's spent more than 5 minutes thinking about who his forebears were a couple generations back. I have relatives who still live on the area in NC where the plantation was that housed my slave ancestors, and my last name can be found on the Declaration of Independence - it is a proud English slaveowner's name, with a coat-of-arms and everything. I remember reading about how the bloodline of slaves' descendants was forcibly altered by the regular rape and otherwise use for sexual convenience of female slaves by slaveowners, and realizing how much "white" was in all of us for that reason.

So the "revelation" that some of Obama's ancestors were slaveowners doesn't strike me as anything that should "shock" anyone who's thought about the whole phenomenon of slavery in the US at all. The subject will be co-opted by the same people who will try to make hay out of all the other meaningless things like his middle name and the elementary school he attended, and the drugs he admitted to doing when he was a lost youth. It is gutter stuff - unworthy of anyone who wants to keep the discussion on a level above the gutter.

Eh, I don't agree with that at all. ("Color will win out.")

I just don't think that this is likely to have a big impact, as it's not actually anything that much bigger/ different from what was already known about him. He's half-white. The fact that American white people are very likely to have a slaveowner at some point in the family tree is axiomatic in terms of the civil rights struggle/ Black Power movement, etc.

But I dunno. We'll see.

Finally someone says something intelligent on this vacuous talking point. Thanks snood.

This "shocking revelation" should be jarring not at all for Obama, or any black person who's spent more than 5 minutes thinking about who his forebears were a couple generations back. I have relatives who still live on the area in NC where the plantation was that housed my slave ancestors, and my last name can be found on the Declaration of Independence - it is a proud English slaveowner's name, with a coat-of-arms and everything. I remember reading about how the bloodline of slaves' descendants was forcibly altered by the regular rape and otherwise use for sexual convenience of female slaves by slaveowners, and realizing how much "white" was in all of us for that reason.

So the "revelation" that some of Obama's ancestors were slaveowners doesn't strike me as anything that should "shock" anyone who's thought about the whole phenomenon of slavery in the US at all. The subject will be co-opted by the same people who will try to make hay out of all the other meaningless things like his middle name and the elementary school he attended, and the drugs he admitted to doing when he was a lost youth. It is gutter stuff - unworthy of anyone who wants to keep the discussion on a level above the gutter.

Nobody said it was off limits, and nobody said it was not an issue. I said those who try to exploit it are bottom feeding trolls. You read things that aren't even there, and I ain't responsible for that.