Originally posted by kj6754
Originally posted by jamie83
Racist? Yes.
"... .. The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction that's been been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it..." - Senator Barack Obama
Not only does he call his grandmother a typical white person, he claims her reaction has been "bred" into her.
Not sure if that's racist? Try switching "black person" for "white person" and talk about what black people have had "bred" into them and see how fast you'd be labeled a racist.
I fail to see how this is racist. Her reaction that was bred into her is the result of living in a diverse society that recognizes the 'racial differences'( as most people see them as).
Can you go into detail on how this could be considered racist?
Ok, this is pretty simple.
Whatever Obama thinks about his white grandmother, he expands those specific beliefs about one person into beliefs about an entire race of people who he refers to with the phrase "typical white person."
It is quite arrogant, elitist, and presumptuous for Obama to claim that based on his limited life experiences he can paint the hundreds of millions of white people on this planet as being typical, as represented by his grandmother. And the fact that the common thread that defines this group of people as "typical" is their skin tone makes the statement racist as well.
It's this same line of thinking which allows for the grouping of one race of people as "typical" that provides the foundation for things like apartheid, segregation, genocide, discrimination, and overall divisiveness.
