"No, White Friend—You Weren’t 'Embarrassed' by Barack Obama"

http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/05/26/no-white-friend-you-werent-embarrassed-by-barack-obama/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=John+Pavlovitz

I remember the day after the Election, a friend of mine who happens to be white, remarked on social media that he “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”

I sprained my eyes rolling them and they have never fully recovered.

Since then I’ve heard this sentiment echoed by more white folks than I can count, especially in recent months; supposed relief at once again having a leader who instills pride.

Since I don’t have the time to ask each of the individually, I’ll ask here:

So, you were embarrassed for the past 8 years, huh?

Really?

What exactly were you embarrassed by?

Were you embarrassed by his lone and enduring twenty-five year marriage to a strong woman he’s never ceased to publicly praise, respect, or cherish?

Were you embarrassed by the way he lovingly and sweetly parented and protected his daughters?

Were you embarrassed by his Columbia University degree in Political Science or his graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School?

Maybe you were embarrassed by his white American and Black Kenyan parents, or the diversity he was raised in as normal?

Were you embarrassed by his eloquence, his quick wit, his easy humor, his seeming comfort meeting with both world leaders and street cleaners; by his bright smile or his sense of empathy or his steadiness—perhaps by his lack of personal scandals or verbal gaffes or impulsive tirades?

No. Of course you weren’t.

Honestly, I don’t believe you were ever embarrassed. That word implies an association that brings ridicule, one that makes you ashamed by association, and if that’s something you claim to have experienced over the past eight years by having Barack Obama representing you in the world—I’m going to suggest you rethink your word choice.

You weren’t “embarrassed” by Barack Obama.

You were threatened by him.
You were offended by him.
You were challenged by him.
You were enraged by him.

But I don’t believe it had anything to do with his resume or his experience or his character or his conduct in office—because you seem fully proud right now to be associated with a three-time married, serial adulterer and confessed predator; a man whose election and business dealings and relationships are riddled with controversy and malfeasance. You’re perfectly fine being represented by a bullying, obnoxious, genitalia-grabbing, Tweet-ranting, Prime Minister-shoving charlatan who’s managed to offended all our allies in a few short months. And you’re okay with him putting on religious faith like a rented, dusty, ill-fitting tuxedo and immediately tossing it in the garbage when he’s finished with it.

None of that you’re embarrassed of? I wonder how that works.

Actually, I’m afraid I have an idea. I hope I’m wrong.

Listen, you’re perfectly within your rights to have disagreed with Barack Obama’s policies or to have taken issue with his tactics. No one’s claiming he was a flawless politician or a perfect human being. But somehow I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. I think the thing President Obama did that really upset you, white friend—was having a complexion that was far darker than you were ever comfortable with. I think the President we have now feels much better.

Because objectively speaking, if what’s happening in our country right now doesn’t cause you great shame and doesn’t induce the continual meeting of your palm to your face—I don’t believe embarrassment is ever something you struggle with.

No, if you claimed to be “embarrassed” by Barack Obama but you’re not embarrassed by Donald Trump—I’m going to strongly suggest it was largely a pigmentation issue.

And as an American and a Christian committed to diversity and equality and to the liberty at the heart of this nation—that, embarrasses me.

I find that whole speech embarrassing.

Barack Obama was clearly the best president the US has ever had, followed by Lincoln and perhaps, Jefferson.

As we have seen, the Russo-Republicans don't need facts or truth.  What they are really expressing, when they say they don't like Obama, is their own racism.  There really is no other explanation.  Why don't they like a brilliant Constitutional scholar, with a measured temper, and high intelligence, who got us out of a depression, reduced unemployment to an all-time low, who saved the American auto industry, and avoided war for 8-years despite a Russo-Republlican Congress--and who got bin Laden...why indeed, don't they like him but that he is black.

It's an embarrassment...that a black can be so brilliant, while whites live with the trash.  Here, with all this white supremacy going on, we find the truth, and it is that blacks are the saviors of America.

Original Quill wrote:Barack Obama was clearly the best president the US has ever had, followed by Lincoln and perhaps, Jefferson.

As we have seen, the Russo-Republicans don't need facts or truth.  What they are really expressing, when they say they don't like Obama, is their own racism.  There really is no other explanation.  Why don't they like a brilliant Constitutional scholar, with a measured temper, and high intelligence, who got us out of a depression, reduced unemployment to an all-time low, who saved the American auto industry, and avoided war for 8-years despite a Russo-Republlican Congress--and who got bin Laden...why indeed, don't they like him but that he is black.

It's an embarrassment...that a black can be so brilliant, while whites live with the trash.  Here, with all this white supremacy going on, we find the truth, and it is that blacks are the saviors of America.

How very racist indeed, typically found by those who are self loathing whites.

Obama was a great President but it had nothing to do with being black, but human. You see its generally racists that play off skin colour, which has no bearing on what people are. Not even sure what America needs to be saved from? The fact that you simple dismiss the greater part of Americans, not only whites but Asians as well, and even worse racially based. Is born straight out of any supremacy group. Such views fail to unite people but seek to segregate and divide people. Just about the most dumbest thing you have said to date

Thorin wrote:Obama was a great President but it had nothing to do with being black, but human.

Typically, you have misplaced the point.  No one needs to justify why Obama was great.  What needs to be justified is why someone “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”  [Read the piece mate, read, read, read...]  

There were no grounds for criticism of Obama--he was a near perfect morall leader, after all--but someone needed justification for his own embarrassment.

That, as I pointed out, was due to his own low station in life.

Original Quill wrote:

Thorin wrote:Obama was a great President but it had nothing to do with being black, but human.

Typically, you have misplaced the point.  No one needs to justify why Obama was great.  What needs to be justified is why someone “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”  There were no grounds for criticism of Obama--he was a near perfect morall leader, after all--but someone needed justification for his own embarrassment.

That, as I pointed out, was due to his own low station in life.  

So you have dropped the racist claptrap I see, well done. Nothing worse when someone bashes himself for being white.

You tried to justify why he was great,, not based off his character and deeds, but his skin colour. Talk about offering ammunition to racists, who do the exact same thing when they make racist claims against blacks with crime for example.They do not do this off character or acts, but off skin colour.#

There is plenty to be critical of Obama, his foreign policies were an utter joke

Read the piece mate, read, read, read...  Read for thoughts, not mere words...a coincidence in terms leads to a confusion in ideas.  Read for logic, not pastry...keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.  

Otherwise, you are the same trash of which we are speaking.  If you can't think, you can't communicate.

Original Quill wrote:Read the piece mate, read, read, read...  Read for thoughts, not mere words...a coincidence in terms leads to a confusion in ideas.  Read for logic, not pastry...keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.  

Otherwise, you are the same trash of which we are speaking.  If you can't think, you can't communicate.

And there you have it, spoken like a true regressive. Either i share your poor views, or i am trash to you.

This is the world regressive's want, one that divides people and not unites them.

Is there any difference between your hate and white supremacy hate?

On levels of hate, clearly not much

Thorin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Read the piece mate, read, read, read...  Read for thoughts, not mere words...a coincidence in terms leads to a confusion in ideas.  Read for logic, not pastry...keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.  

Otherwise, you are the same trash of which we are speaking.  If you can't think, you can't communicate.

And there you have it, spoken like a true regressive. Either i share your poor views, or i am trash to you.

It's not that you don't share the view, mate. It's that you can't communicate the ideas...even your own.

Original Quill wrote:

Thorin wrote:


And there you have it, spoken like a true regressive. Either i share your poor views, or i am trash to you.

It's not that you don't share the view, mate.  It's that you can't communicate the ideas...even your own.

Really is that why you dropped the racial claptrap after i exposed it?

I have plenty of ideas, ones not born from hate as yours seems to be.

You are certainly not the standard or icon you believe people think you are.

Thorin wrote:I have plenty of ideas, ones not born from hate as yours seems to be.

But you don't understand ideas. You deal in a mind filled with easy language associations...and, well, logic simply eludes you. Moreover, your ideas cannot travel, hence you lose yourself in these shitfests with everyone.

May I suggest that these shitfests are your escape from the arduous task of exercising your mind?

I this "friend" is fictitious actually. I can't imagine anyone actually saying that .

Original Quill wrote:

Thorin wrote:I have plenty of ideas, ones not born from hate as yours seems to be.

But you don't understand ideas.  You deal in a mind filled with easy language associations...and, well, logic simply eludes you.  Moreover, your ideas cannot travel, hence you lose yourself in these shitfests with everyone.

May I suggest that these shitfests are your escape from the arduous task of exercising your mind?

Really, because you say so?

The reality is ever since i pulled you up here on your quite poor and racist views, you have since deflected to talk about me.

What you cannot take Quill, is any criticism or being wrong, hence why you act with the worst immaturity and cheap shots made all the time.

Quite frankly, I am not concerned what you think about me. That is always going to be irrelevant.

Thorin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

But you don't understand ideas.  You deal in a mind filled with easy language associations...and, well, logic simply eludes you.  Moreover, your ideas cannot travel, hence you lose yourself in these shitfests with everyone.

May I suggest that these shitfests are your escape from the arduous task of exercising your mind?

Really, because you say so?

The reality is ever since i pulled you up here on your quite poor and racist views, you have since deflected to talk about me.

What you cannot take Quill, is any criticism or being wrong, hence why you act with the worst immaturity and cheap shots made all the time.

Quite frankly, I am not concerned what you think about me. That is always going to be irrelevant.

See, you're not even communicating.

Original Quill wrote:Barack Obama was clearly the best president the US has ever had, followed by Lincoln and perhaps, Jefferson.

As we have seen, the Russo-Republicans don't need facts or truth.  What they are really expressing, when they say they don't like Obama, is their own racism.  There really is no other explanation.  Why don't they like a brilliant Constitutional scholar, with a measured temper, and high intelligence, who got us out of a depression, reduced unemployment to an all-time low, who saved the American auto industry, and avoided war for 8-years despite a Russo-Republlican Congress--and who got bin Laden...why indeed, don't they like him but that he is black.

It's an embarrassment...that a black can be so brilliant, while whites live with the trash.  Here, with all this white supremacy going on, we find the truth, and it is that blacks are the saviors of America.

That last paragraph was very strange Quill. Are you suggesting that one black man (or half black) represents all black people, and that all white people live with "trash"?

Original Quill wrote:

Thorin wrote:

Really, because you say so?

The reality is ever since i pulled you up here on your quite poor and racist views, you have since deflected to talk about me.

What you cannot take Quill, is any criticism or being wrong, hence why you act with the worst immaturity and cheap shots made all the time.

Quite frankly, I am not concerned what you think about me. That is always going to be irrelevant.

See, you're not even communicating.

Again because you claim i am not?

May I suggest a trip to the Opticians, if you think writing cannot be communicating, as you clearly seem to be going blind.

Raggamuffin wrote:I this "friend" is fictitious actually. I can't imagine anyone actually saying that .

It may be, you're right.  But it is an attitude that lies behind a lot of RW thinking.  In fact, in many ways the only thing wrong with Trump is that he says things that everyone on the right is thinking, but would look foolish if said out loud.  Trump says it out loud.

It's an orientation...one that is born of a non-thinking thinker.  And you know how I love to identify them on the right.  But let's not get into that.

Original Quill wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I this "friend" is fictitious actually. I can't imagine anyone actually saying that .

It may be, you're right.  But it is an attitude that lies behind a lot of RW thinking.  In fact, in many ways the only thing wrong with Trump is that he says things that everyone on the right is thinking, but would look foolish if said out loud.  Trump says it out loud.

It's an orientation...one that is born of a non-thinking thinker.  And you know how I love to identify them on the right.  But let's not get into that.

As hard as it is to imagine i have seen several facebook posts alone a similar vein So i do believe it is real or at least the conglomeration of several misguided RW Americans


There have been the ones that cheered the Downfall of Obama care and gloated that they didn't have Obama care but had ACA a.k.a obama cares real name

So many thing during his recent trip would have shamed the mother of a 10 year old that acted such =, let alone a nation that elected this Cheeto in a wig leader

Original Quill wrote:Barack Obama was clearly the best president the US has ever had, followed by Lincoln and perhaps, Jefferson.

As we have seen, the Russo-Republicans don't need facts or truth.  What they are really expressing, when they say they don't like Obama, is their own racism.  There really is no other explanation.  Why don't they like a brilliant Constitutional scholar, with a measured temper, and high intelligence, who got us out of a depression, reduced unemployment to an all-time low, who saved the American auto industry, and avoided war for 8-years despite a Russo-Republlican Congress--and who got bin Laden...why indeed, don't they like him but that he is black.

It's an embarrassment...that a black can be so brilliant, while whites live with the trash.  Here, with all this white supremacy going on, we find the truth, and it is that blacks are the saviors of America.

Obama left the world in flames. HE oversaw the rise of daesh and millions killed and on the move in syria and iraq. He oversaw the rise of the taliban again in afghanistan.
Obama did not get Bin laden, navy seals got him with years of intelligence work by the CIA and other security services leading up to the event. Obama just happened to be in the white house when they finally caught up with him.

He has left america more racially divided since any time since rosa parkes.
He encouraged people to murder police officers and burn down neighbourhoods.

His single "success" appears to be a healthcare system that will eventually cripple all americans financially with rates rising by 40% in some states.

Being half black appears to be his greatest achievement.

+1

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Barack Obama was clearly the best president the US has ever had, followed by Lincoln and perhaps, Jefferson.

As we have seen, the Russo-Republicans don't need facts or truth.  What they are really expressing, when they say they don't like Obama, is their own racism.  There really is no other explanation.  Why don't they like a brilliant Constitutional scholar, with a measured temper, and high intelligence, who got us out of a depression, reduced unemployment to an all-time low, who saved the American auto industry, and avoided war for 8-years despite a Russo-Republlican Congress--and who got bin Laden...why indeed, don't they like him but that he is black.

It's an embarrassment...that a black can be so brilliant, while whites live with the trash.  Here, with all this white supremacy going on, we find the truth, and it is that blacks are the saviors of America.

Obama left the world in flames. HE oversaw the rise of daesh and millions killed and on the move in syria and iraq. He oversaw the rise of the taliban again in afghanistan.

Why is it always you, one of the cleverest, to whom I have to explain?  I think you hear these arguments over on Flap, and while you are smarter than that, they lend a sort of legitimacy to you.  Don't believe the cheerleaders!  Don't let people of lesser intelligence, dupe you.

Dino wrote:Obama did not get Bin laden, navy seals got him with years of intelligence work by the CIA and other security services leading up to the event. Obama just happened to be in the white house when they finally caught up with him.

Lot's of people got Usama Bin laden (UBL).  But Obama was the one flipping the switches at the time.  Obviously, he did something right: Neither GWB nor Dick Cheney could even find UBL.  The fact is, when you are the man at the top of the most powerful nation on earth, your smallest finger twitches create earthquakes around the world.  You are like a surgeon.  So measure Obama by that standard...deftly, quietly, but brilliantly, Obama got UBL.

Dino wrote:He has left america more racially divided since any time since rosa parkes.

Well good, you recognize racism too.  Yes, the world is more racially divided, but not for anything that Obama did...but because his presence fueled the racially motivated Republicans and conservatives around the world.  Call it the last of the malignancy...it's the storm before the calm...the death before the monster falls.  Racists--particularly Republicans--saw that it was the end of their day.  Sometimes evil goes out with a whimper; sometimes, it goes out with a bang.  This time it's the latter, but it's going out and that's a good thing.

Dina wrote:His single "success" appears to be a healthcare system that will eventually cripple all americans financially with rates rising by 40% in some states.

Not if the Congress sees the light and cuts the military budget, giving the people true protection from the other enemy.  Here we have the strongest, wealthiest nation on earth, and you are wringing your hands about finances.  What??  You don't see that pile of money over there at the Pentagon?

A government has only one paramount purpose...protect its people.  Protect them from the enemy outside the gates; and protect the people from the enemy inside the gates...disease and malady.  Here we are wasting all our resources going outside the gates, looking for spooks and boogie-men, when the enemy inside the gates is running amok.  On the one hand we are wasting money building toys for bored generals and admirals, and on the other we are pissing and moaning about the high cost of healthcare.  How come a smart guy like you doesn't see the obvious answer?

Dino wrote:Being half black appears to be his greatest achievement.

Only in the sense that it brought to light the stupidity associated with racism.  Obama is the greatest President the US has ever known, because he managed brilliantly and brought peace to the world...all against the odds of an opposition that, losing it's beloved racism, and in love with it's wars, was bound and determined to derail his efforts.  This is a man who brought us the lowest unemployment in recent history, brought us back and away from the second Great Depression, brought the markets up, ended two of the longest wars--purposeless wars--in US history, single-handedly rebuilt the American auto industry, started us on the road (not yet finished) to domestic healthcare and he got UBL.

And that's just the deft handling of the administrative state.  Against the obstinate opposition of racism and hate, Obama played chess with the Republican principals of the McConnell-Boehner doctrine.  He opposed military evil (ISIS) by sending a war bill to Congress, which he knew the Republicans would never pass.  Yet he got what he wanted, peace, by calculating that the Republicans would never pass his war bill.  He played them like the fools they are.

It's like three-dimensional chess.  And the Republicans still don't know how brilliantly he played them.  They whine and complain about a pickup truck army, ISIS, which is bigger in the press than it ever was, or ever will be on the ground.  The Republicans and conservatives don't see all the wealth and abundance around them, choosing to dwell upon small potatoes in Syria, and the fact that Obama aced them on healthcare.  Even now, when Republicans control the House, Senate and the Executive, they can't get their act together.  They have yet to pass a single piece of legislation, Obama having left such a popular, beneficial, and unassailable program behind him.

What Republicans and conservatives don't like is Obama is black, and he is beautiful.

Well I don't fancy him !

nicko wrote:Well I don't fancy him !

They didn't like Lincoln, either. In fact, they assassinated him.

Obama stood on principle. Sometimes, when you stand on principle, you become the target for personal hostility, as well as that principle. Obama cracked the granite...he was black, and brilliant, shattering preconceived notions that blacks are stupid and impulsive. But more than this, he was clever and played political chess better than the rest.

Two things about Obama: 1) he was better than his opposition; and 2) he soundly defeated the notion that blacks can't be as good, if not better than whites. The first merely defeated the white supremacists; the latter showed them to be lesser human beings. Of course they are angry.

Personally, I found Obama a little too "nice and cutesy" - I don't like wholesome, it bores me - but he was a good president (as far as appears) and he carried himself with dignity and respect.
Trump isn't in the same universe, let alone league.