Barackface: Them Civil Rights Folks

Andrew Young says Obama too young for White House Baltimore Sun, United States Civil rights leader and former Carter Administration U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young says 46-year-old Barack Obama is too young to be president and lacks the network of political allies that can provide important support for a national leader. ..... “I want Barack Obama to be president,” Young said, pausing for effect, “in 2016.” ..... “It’s not a matter of being inexperienced. It’s a matter of being young,” said Young, who is 75. “There’s a certain level of maturity ... you’ve got to learn to take a certain amount of (expletive).” ...... Young added that Obama needs a political network to bolster him in office. He noted Hillary Clinton had a well-established network of allies, including her husband, to provide political protection. ...... “There are more black people that Bill and Hillary lean on,” Young said. “You cannot be president alone. ... To put a brother in there by himself is to set him up for crucifixion. His time will come and the world will be ready for a visionary leadership.” ..... Young also quipped that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack.” ....... “He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack,” Young said of former President Clinton, drawing laughs from a live television audience. Young quickly followed the comment with the disclaimer, “I’m clowning.”
Civil Rights Icon Calls Obama Too Young The Associated Press
Barack Obama is too young to be President, says Andrew Young New York Daily News
Civil Rights Icon Andrew Young Hints at Clinton Endorsement MyFox Atlanta, GA
Young Hits Obama Washington Continent Former Atlanta Mayor and Ambassador ..... You have to have a protective network around you... Leadership requires suffering. And I would like to see Barack's children get a little older, see, because they're going to pick on them." ..... He reflected on his days serving as one of many lieutenants to Martin Luther King Jr. ...... while Obama's rival Sen. Hillary Clinton is surrounded by quite a few black advisors Obama has very few. .... Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had endorsed Obama, has been critical of the presidential candidate in recent weeks. .... Rev. Al Sharpton has said that he has not decided if he will support Obama.

When you learn Newtonian physics too well, that actually makes you less capable of getting a hint of Einsteinian physics. These civil rights era lions are acting like electromagnetism folks who will perhaps never get quantum physics. They deserve respect for the work they did half a century ago, but they don't deserve attention today in 2008. Don't listen to them.

People like Andrew Young find the idea of an occasional phone call from Bill Clinton intoxicating. Oh, access. Oh, mother power. What they don't realize is it is a leap from getting a phone call from Bill Clinton, and being Bill Clinton. Barack is about to become Bill Clinton.

"People don't change their ideas. They die with them."
- Max Planck

Andrew Young is not worth courting for me. Did Andrew Young witness the I Have A Dream speech in person? I doubt it. How did he skip the central message of that grand day? When MLK said "some day," he was thinking of Barack Obama.

There are people who will tell you, Barack should wait. He should wait his turn. Maybe eight years, maybe more. He should wait. Forget eight years, if it were about Barack Obama, I would say, bud, skip this circus, just never run. It's not worth it. You will spend too much time away from your kids. They will make you eat hotel food. They will make you sleep in motels, inns, hotels, and other sanitary but impersonal sleeping facilities invented by capitalism. You won't get to read as much as you would like to. They will put you out in the cold in your jacket because your overcoat might not look cool for the TV cameras. And you will have to deliver your stump speech over and over again. You will have to walk to the same U2 song, did they tell you? You will have to deal with creatures called volunteers. You will have to work to get them excited, and most of them you will never even meet. Some of them probably live unhygienic lives. You are already in history, you are already on TV, you are already in the top 1% income bracket. Just kick back and relax and take it all in.

But, don't you get it? This is not about Barack Obama. Barack can wait. He can afford to not even run, not now, not later. But the world can't wait. America can't wait. This is about America. This is about the world.

But this is also about race. Oprah gets it. Her billion dollars did not save her from the indignity in Paris. She was just another suspicious black person. Andrew Young does not get it. He might have marched in the 1960s, but he is going to have to work harder to convince me he was not blanked out half the time he was marching.

Barack can not wait four or eight or 12 years. If he is thinking about America, if he is thinking about the world. The time is now. It is now or never. Iraq will not wait four or eight or 12 years. America needs universal health care now. Actually it needed it yesterday. There has been enough waiting. This country has waited too long. Global warming will not wait while Barack bides his time.

I am going to admit something. When I got excited about Barack back in November 2006 when he hinted he might run, no kidding, I was not thinking the politics of hope, new kind of politics, what have you. I was itching for fights. Things were looking so good, the country was so sour on Iraq, I felt like I was on a roll. And I am still 101. I am having to learn this thing called new kind of politics, and politics of hope, and bringing people together, and all that. I have been warming to the idea. Some day I might even get it. But then that's the point. Barack is unique in what he bring to the table. He is a leader who will fill up the chasms that divide. That will make it possible for him to do big, bold things.

The civil rights movement was a task incomplete. Barack is the dream that MLK talked about. Them civil rights era folks are going to have to wake up, or they are going to have to disown their involvement in the civil rights movement. It really does boil down to that.

Barack "lacks the network of political allies?" Are you kidding me? This is the largest grassroots movement in human history. What planet are you on? Noone built a more impressive network before.

It is almost like some of these older black folks need the chronic poverty in the inner cities to continue because if that disappears then so does their relevance. That is pathetic.

It is pathetic that the most well known blacks in America need whites to like Barack before they will decide they like Barack also. It is weird. How about maybe not supporting Barack regardless of how white America feels about him? Or supporting him? Or not let Bill Clinton tell you how to think? Have some dignity and make up your own mind? Judge Barack on the merits.

If he is the best qualified, support him. If not, go support someone else who you think is best qualified. This is not about race. This is a job application. Just don't act more racist than the racist white folks you complain about.

MLK dreamt the dream. Barack will realize the dream. And you just might get the historical significance of Barack in about four, or eight or 12 years. Barack and America do not have to wait, but you take your time, be my guest.

And then Young totally loses me on all merits when he goes on this racist tangent about Barack's mother having married a "Chinese" and Barack having gone to Islamic schools (not true), and I am like, they never found out who was behind the anti-Mormon push calls in Iowa recently, but we now have the guilty party for the racist mud on Obama. Shame on you, Andrew Young.

"I can talk to white folks because I grew up around them when I was two," he says. Apparently he does not know his math. Barack also was around white kids when he was two. Young is confused. He is past his prime. He should lolly up and get off TV. He is being a disservice to the cause that gave him his entire identity.

The lowest part of Young's diatribe is when he feigns concern for Barack's kids as the reason why Barack should not even have run. Remember JFK and his two young kids? Barack reminds people of JFK. Where have you been? Boating?

Barack: Black Enough For Me