« Greatest PWNAGE of ALL TIME | Main | Obama falling » McWhorter v. Loury on Obama21 Aug 2008 10:00 am Nice exchange. (Fixt) At least on Obama, I'm with McWhorter. I don't think there's anything magical about it. So much of the stress of being black is cutting on CNN and hearing about fools making it rain. So even now, it's quite simple: For the first time in recent history the most famous black man in America isn't dribbling a ball or acting a fool. Watch the whole thing. I think Loury, who I've long admired, has a visceral dislike of Obama which I can't process. The is why the "One Who Speaks For Them All" thing is flawed. There so many ways of looking at black existence from the inside. Loury's experiences are so much different than mine--even if he is a black man on the left--and thus how we see Obama and what we expect are totally different. Comments (11)Comments on this entry have been closed. |
Today's Headlines From The Atlantic |
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Link?
Also, isn't Loury sort of a reformed conservative? I've used "Anatomy of Racial Inequality" in research, but my professor told me to be aware of citing him, because he is a controversial academic in left-leaning circles. I'm not totally up to speed on that, though.
If so, and if you know more about him than I do (assuredly), it'd be interesting in hearing more about how his background might affect his perspective on Obama. Of course this might all be in the interview, and I can't watch streaming video at work, so I wouldn't know that.
For the first time in recent history the most famous black man in America isn't dribbling a ball or acting a fool.
Complete hyperbole. "Most famous" is certainly subjective, so I won't bother arguing that a Denzel or a Tiger is neither a ball player nor a fool, and in the universal appeal of such men, sometimes it is easy to forget they are black men, but I can assure you on a daily basis, they have their own reminders.
Stop lumping the black fame experience into the "finally, someone we are not ashamed of" category. We've been past that longer than you think.
"a black man on the left"
On the left of what? Lowery is much the same as he was 30 years ago except that his day in the sun has longed passed. Perhaps, a good academic but political and social observer a bit too narrow and self serving for my taste.
That chat was interesting because it was McWhorter worried about what happens if Obama's campaign goes badly -- in their prior chats it was always Loury who hit that note. I remember because I would always think, "So yes, Glenn, this type of progress in the racial realm is not easy -- You wanted a guarantee that it would be painless? Of course a black presidential candidate will bring out some ugly stuff, but that's a feature, not a bug." I do like those chats very much. And Loury's point about Obama having to "earn" the office is surely right.
Slightly off-topic, but I wonder if T-N can process the Media Assassin's dislike of Obama too. To me, it's as visceral as Loury's, but for different reasons.
(Have you checked his blog? www.harryallen.info)
It's this narrative of Obama being unknown or too broad that continues to perplex me. On specifics he has detailed many of his polices so much, especially recently, that I am actually a little sick of hearing about them. With respect to simplicity; change, jobs, renewable energy, and a restoration of standing in the world have all been big themes that are constantly hammered in his ads and on the stump. Not to mention the whole American as apple pie campaign now under way. If it's a question of him doing a "four legs good, two legs bad" type of hyper-reduced sloganeering I can't think of anything that would make him look more phony under the circumstances. As I've said before there is something about the critique of Obama that makes nearly every choice he makes or doesn't make a losing proposition. Now I wonder what that is.......
"so I won't bother arguing that a Denzel or a Tiger is neither a ball player..."
Tiger is not a ball player? Hmmm...that seems like an issue of semantics to me.
Glenn has deep fear about Obama because he thinks that most white people are all pretty much racist. He just doesn't believe that it is possible for him to win, just like Hill Bill & all of that group.
He also distrusts Obama because he adopted Loury's home town / S. Side of Chicago and really isn't actually black (of slaves) in the way Glenn feels is authentic. He feels that Obama is going to sell out black people by moving to class-based affirmative action and that he will destroy a compact that elite America has made with black people post civil rights, namely because of hundreds of years of forced work for free--we owe you something, especially considering you still face some discrimination.
Glenn is also jealous of Obama just like Jesse IMHO. Loury was the first black tenured faculty member in Harvard's econ department at 35. Yet he was dogged by feelings of not belonging. He served in the Reagan admin. in Education for a minute, until his entire life imploded. Women, drugs, the whole nine. He resents Obama's complete ease with power, even if he doesn't acknowledge it. And yet, I think he's awesome.
What Jay said. It's pretty astonishing how (the otherwise awesome) Loury can criticize Obama for being arrogant and thinking he's above the fray of politics one minute, then turn around criticize Obama for breaking his promise to stay above the fray the next minute.
Loury was a big big big Clinton supporter during the primaries, and there's definitely some latent PUMA-ness happening here.
I suspect that much of what Jay says, above, about Loury re: Obama (about the Chicago rivalry, the generational thing, the relative ease/unease with power and privilege, etc.) is true, but I think he's a little hard on him.
I mean, if it is true, then more power to Loury. Everybody has their visceral, irrational dislikes, rooted in the deep, lizard brain substructures of our lives, and most of us could do worse than Loury is doing with his dislike of Obama. He's not succumbing to it, but rather refining the gut instinct -- the visceral dislike -- into a series of legitimate, issues-based critiques of Obama.
That's a form of intellectual honesty, or intellectual self-restraint, that allows him to engage in a meaningful discussion of Obama even if, as I believe is the case, he's motivated in part by an irrational dislike of the guy.
I watched the entire episode of this Bloggingheads. I don't think Glenn Loury hates Barack Obama. I just think some aspects of Obama's campaign can be slightly annoying to people who have studied politics. When was the last time we had a true "change agent"? And what does that necessarily mean? Couldn't we say George W. Bush was a change agent? Didn't he do things totally different?
We could say that RFK was the last positive change agent. We forget that Joseph McCarthy was the godfather of RFK's first child. We forget how RFK didn't enter the 1968 presidential race until after Eugene McCarthy showed LBJ's vulnerability.
Maybe Loury doesn't believe there are change agents as many of Obama's supporters think of change agents.