16 thoughts on “Throwdown on Devon St.”

  2. From the article:

    On ABC’s “This Week” program Keyes suggested Obama doesn’t “feel the pain” of most African-Americans because his ancestors didn’t suffer in slavery. “Barack Obama and I have the same race, that is physical characteristics. We are not from the same heritage. It’s about time people started to realize there is something racist about not looking at the heritage of an individual and only looking at skin color,” Keyes said during the ABC interview.

    Bahahahaha! Keyes is a cartoon in many respects, but that did make me chuckle. It happens to be true – Obama is the son of a Kenyan economist and a white girl from Kansas. He grew up outside the US (Indonesia) and moved to Hawaii when he was 10. But despite all that he’s supposed to be some kind of groundbreaking African American icon, when he’s about as culturally distant from the blacks from Chicago’s South Side as I am. Oh well – his speech at the DNC was good, and reminiscent of a kind of patriotic paleoliberal Democrat that hasn’t really been seen since JFK.

    This little todo is reminiscent of that recent Times piece that showed that the majority of black racial preference beneficiaries at Harvard are not the descendants of slaves, but actually recent African-ancestry immigrants. Few are in dire economic straits, either – and don’t get me started on why some classes of voluntary immigrants (Africans, Hispanics, Spanish Euros) should qualify for bonuses over other classes of immigrants (E/S Asians, Arabs, non-Spanis Euros) and native American citizens…

  3. You’re right that he has a different personal background from Keyes. However, it’s going to be hard to say that Obama, with one African parent and one American parent, is somehow not “African-American.” Because the naming emphasizes diasporic roots, and not slave heritage, it makes it harder to make the kinds of distinctions that Keyes wishes to make.

    OTOH, it’s hard to argue that he was privileged either. His father was a goatherd, and he was raised by a single mother. Nor is he disconnected from the black community, his wife is black, and he’s been connected to black america for his adult life.

    Lastly, for Keyes to be calling anybody else a carpetbagger is just too funny.

  4. i love how the article doesn’t even bother to mention that they were at the indian independence day parade.

  5. Keyes is an embarrasment to the Illinois GOP. Couldn’t they find a more qualified candidate?

    Side note, a very successful desi ran in the Republican primary and didn’t win. A Sikh I believe. Will find a link for you guys 🙂

  6. gc –

    how can you tell from the professions and race of his parents how culturally distant obama is from chicago’s south side? or even from the fact that he moved to the states when he was 10? while his pedigree may differ, it is a far jump to conclude that he does not represent his constituents.

    most african-americans do not concern themselves on a daily basis with the history of slavery, but many must deal with single-parent families, teenage pregnancy, drugs, and racism. obama has first hand experience with these issues. not to mention healthcare, education, labor relations, taxes, hiv, and gay rights — all of which obama takes a clear stand on.

    he teaches and lives in the area, and has done so for some time now. the people their know him as one of their own and the bulk of his support during the senate primary came from african-americans in chicago. he’s not knowledgeable about the culture, he is very much a part of the culture.

  7. Obligatory desi reference 😉 Mr. Keyes, I’m told, is married to an Indian woman (a Goan Xtn, I think. I believe they met while he was posted to India).

    Mr. Keyes is amusing to watch. America, I’ve also been told, is a ‘representative’ democracy. Regardless of Mr. Obama’s connections to those whose ancestors were slaves, it isn’t impossible for Mr. Obama to represent such people.

    Mr. Keyes grasping at such identity politics is of a piece with his carpetbagging. To state the obvious, Mr. Keyes is desperate to become a memeber of Congress. His inconsistencies are in the service of his ambitions, of course.

    Kumar

  8. Obama’s father may have herded goats, but from what I can tell, Obama’s father had no hand in raising him. So being raised by a single parent is something Obama has in common with the majority of black families. Plus, certain other traits appeal to blacks’ prejudices. One, he’s lighter than Obama – most of the prominent black leaders in the US (Except MLK) were light-skinned. Two, he married to a black woman, whereas Keyes married an Indian woman. That won’t go down well with the sisters. Third, he can actually point to his African roots, whereas most black people simply make stuff up, like Alex Haley in Roots.

    While I do not agree with Obama’s leftleaning policies, Keyes is a sad joke of a candidate. A guy who could not win in his own state (twice) is condiered the best hope for the IL Republican party? Plus, he has no experience in a legislative capacity. If Obama does get elected, his promotion of liberal causes will be counterbalanced by other viewpoints.

    Incidentally, the Chicago Tribune article did mention that this imprompty debate took place at the Indian Independence Day parade. While the crowd was mostly pro-Obama, it did not seem that they were rude to Keyes. Quite unlike the hostile reception he got at Saturday’s Bud Billiken Day parade, where the mostly black crowd engaged in ugly behavior towards Keyes.

  9. However, it’s going to be hard to say that Obama, with one African parent and one American parent, is somehow not “African-American.” Because the naming emphasizes diasporic roots, and not slave heritage

    Well, opinions will differ on this topic. A half-Kenyan son of an econ PhD who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii and went on to get degrees from Columbia and Harvard is not the typical “African American”. The modal African American is the descendant of a slave (modal in the statistical sense).

    As for the stuff about his dad being a goatherder…well, Kenyan goatherders generally don’t make it to the University of Hawaii. This seems more accurate:

    “Fiction: Obama stated in his Convention speech: ‘My father … grew up herding goats.’ The ‘goat herder’ claim has been repeated endlessly. It is a lie. Fact: Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama was a prominent and wealthy farmer. His son, Obama’s father, was a child of privilege, not privation. He was an outstanding student, not a herdsman.

    I don’t know about the rest of the allegations in that link, but it rings true to me that the “goatherder” wouldn’t have made it abroad without some nontrivial cash/status. And subsequent events support this:

    Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya. He met Obama’s mother, who was white, when both were students at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was 2 years old, his father left the family and returned to Kenya, where he eventually became a senior economist in the Ministry of Finance.

    But don’t get me wrong – I actually think Obama is a pretty good guy, and as good as it gets for a liberal Democrat (even if he did admit to being a coke user). Too bad Ditka didn’t run. Heck, Jack Ryan should have stuck around and weathered it out if I’d known the alternative would be carpetbagging Keyes.

    I just think this line by Keyes was amusing. It kinda reminded me of that time Sharpton drew blood against Dean, when he asked him how many blacks were in his cabinet. I guffawed 🙂

  10. In the end, it doesn’t matter how representative he is of the black population, it matters how representative he is of his constituency. Having lived in Illinois, he has more in common with his constituents than Keyes, no matter how much more melanin Keyes has …

  12. The Economist on Barack, the postracial candidate:

    The Republicans’ fatal mistake was to think that the best way to counter a black man was with another black man. The point about Mr Obama—as the Republicans might have realised if they had paid greater attention to his speech in Boston—is that he is a post-racial candidate. Mr Obama is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas who was brought up by his white mother and grandparents in Hawaii and South-East Asia. He appeals just as strongly to white suburban voters as he does to blacks.

  14. GC: Even rural elites in Africa still tended livestock; Mandela did so despite being from a royal family (he did so for his uncle who was “chief” of their clan). In this case, it doesn’t seem that the Obamas are elites, either, they’re just not dirt poor.

    His dad came to the US by winning a government fellowship, not on family money. If you read more about the family, you’ll see that they’re rural african middle class, petty bourgesoisie. Brick house, tin roof, but small scale corn farmers, not capitalists with large plantation estates of coffee. Certainly not the airconditioned elites of Nairobi.

  15. i’m way late, but it should be noted that slavery existed among ancient African tribes and clans as well. Obama could very well have been a descendent of slaves.

  16. That’s very true about Africans having slaves, but the difference is that in constrast to chattel slave labor in the New World, when african freed their slaves they stayed freed. There wasn’t any grandfather clauses or any Jim Crow-esque laws passed in these African nations, aimed at their ex-slaves to re-dehumanize them.