Obama Credited for Opening Door to Acceptance of Interracial Marriage

This one is a bit personal for me, so bear with me.

A Politico article by Ben Smith has somehow managed to credit political acceptance of interracial marriage to Obama.

From the article: "There’s nothing more traditional in American politics than the wholesome family portrait: a beaming candidate, beaming spouse, reluctantly beaming teenagers.

"But when Bill de Blasio, a candidate for public office in New York City this fall, put his family in his campaign mailings and TV ads, there was nothing routine about it. De Blasio’s wife of 15 years, Chirlane McCray, is black, his children are of mixed race and, even in one of America’s most liberal cities, no one could remember anything like it."

[...]

"With Barack Obama having rewritten the history of race relations in this country, de Blasio may be demolishing one of its last taboos, 'For so long in American history, interracial couples went out of their way to keep their relationships out of the public eye that it’s remarkable to see them used in a campaign like this,' said Peggy Pascoe, a historian of interracial marriage at the University of Oregon, who referred to the campaign as 'a post-Obama phenomenon.'

"That’s a perception McCray said she shared. Obama, she said, 'opened a door' and 'made it easier for us to go there.'

"While de Blasio’s success in New York reflects the increased acceptance of mixed marriages, recent history suggests that the new tolerance may still be dependent on geography and race. A sharp counterpoint was the 2006 Tennessee Senate race which then-Rep. Harold Ford, an African-American, lost narrowly to Republican Bob Corker after the final days of the campaign were consumed by a Republican National Committee ad linking Ford to a scantily clad young blond woman. Ford’s allies charged it was a thinly veiled attempt to tap into old Southern fears about black men and white women.

"And it seems to be a current that still remains just below the surface in Tennessee politics: Ford’s subsequent marriage to a white woman was widely viewed as a major barrier to another run."

Hmm. Let's see a mention of Harold Ford losing to Corker in Tennessee, a race that nothing to do with mixed marriages, but did have to do with "a scantily clad young blond woman." Any details to this? Nope. It's enough to simply say "Ford's allies charged it was a thinly veiled attempt to tap into old Southern fears about black men and white women." No response from anyone not allied with Ford.

A recap of the ad controversy is here. While the whole incident was distasteful, it's more than a stretch to tie it to the issue of political mixed marriages. Yet, it is prominently mentioned in the beginning of the article. Interesting.

However, there are some incidents a little more directly related to mixed political marriages that weren't mentioned. Michelle Malkin has a post here about this same article. She has compiled a list of intolerances left unaddressed by Smith's Politico article. So let's give it a look.

There's this gem from leftist Miroslava Flores at La Voz de Aztlan from a post dated Aug. 28, 2003. "Both [Michelle Malkin and Linda Chavez-Gersten] are married to Jews, both are Republicans and both are being utilized to attack Mexicans and Mexican-Americans."

[...]

"We ask, why doesn't Malkin lay off our backs and perhaps focus on the growing problem of illegal immigration from the Philippines. On August 20 of this year, 60 more Filipinos arrived in Manila after being deported from the US because of supposed terrorist ties. Maita Santiago, the Filipino Migrante International Secretary-General, said, 'Like the hundreds of other Filipinos deported since 9/11, we expect this group will also be handcuffed and treated like terrorists or hardened criminals.' There have been at least 465 Filipinos deported from the US since September 2001. Most of the Filipinos who are deported are victims of the Absconder Apprehension Initiative Program. This program targets about 12,000 Filipino immigrants for arrest, detention and deportation (most with expired visas), according to the Filipino Community Support Group (FOCUS) in San Jose, California. One of these deported Filipinos, Jerome Aricheta, 28 years old, became severely depressed and hung himself in his Makati City home.

"Doesn't Michelle Malkin care about her own people? Has she forgotten who she is after marrying Jesse D. Malkin, a Rand Corporation analyst? Perhaps, now that she lives among the 'white' affluent people in Maryland, she like Linda Chavez-Gersten, has turned her back on her ethnic group in return for the little economic comforts she is now receiving. She is a classical 'malinchista' in my book."

So Malkin and Linda Chavez-Gersten are racial sellout/traitors some of which comes from (or is reflected by) marrying white Jews. Okay. That doesn't sound so open to interracial marriage to me...

Here's another nice little quote from state Sen. Diane Watson of Los Angeles regarding Ward Connerly as reported by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. '''He's married to a white woman,' hissed state Sen. Diane Watson of Los Angeles. 'He wants to be white.'''

Then there's this wonderful sentiment expressed by columnist Barbara Reynolds (author of Jesse Jackson, the Man, the Myth, and the Movement) regarding Justice Clarence Thomas' white wife Virginia (as reported by Laura Blumenfeld in the Washington Post): "'If he is influenced by his wife, a white conservative who lobbied against comparable pay for women, he will be anti-women's issues,' wrote USA Today columnist Barbara Reynolds in a July 5 piece. Reynolds, who is black, also is concerned by Thomas's choice of a white wife."

A little bit of Virginia Thomas being Lady MacBeth there huh? But not really much to do with mixed marriages. That comes in a statement Reynolds made later, which she prefaces by saying she may sound bigoted. "'It may sound bigoted; well, this is a bigoted world and why can't black people be allowed a little Archie Bunker mentality?' Reynolds said later. 'Here's a man who's going to decide crucial issues for the country and he has already said no to blacks; he has already said if he can't paint himself white he'll think white and marry a white woman.'"

Oh Ms. Reynolds, I don't think that just "sounds" bigoted. Yet again, more intolerance of mixed race marriages-- directly stated. Not suggested in some subtle and coded way that only journalists can "translate," but bald-faced opposition based only on race.

From the same article: "His[Clarence Thomas] marrying a white woman is a sign of his rejection of the black community,' said Russell Adams, chairman of Howard University's department of Afro-American studies. 'Great justices have had community roots that served as a basis for understanding the Constitution. Clarence's lack of a sense of community makes his nomination troubling.'"

Mr. Adams makes no bones and no apologies about expressing his own antipathy for interracial marriage. Oh sure, Adams crouches it in the usual, nonsensical argument about being inauthentic, but is that not what most bothers bigots (whites included) about mixed-race marriages-- a betrayal of some form of racial norm?

I usually don't go into any detail of my private life on this blog, but I will state that my wife of nine years is black (born in urban L.A.) and I am not. Since we've been married, the only brushes with intolerance we have experienced is on two separate occasions when a man has come up to me and accused me of "stealing their women." You may have guessed that both of these men were black. That's been it. No swastikas, no nooses hanging from our front porch, no epithets or insults. Nothing else.

When we married in 2000, my wife and I were hardly breaking any sort of social taboos or other such nonsense. Little did we know that Peggy Pascoe, expert in interracial marriages, would now tell us that we can go into the public eye with our relationship. What a relief! I can pull my wife out of the basement and we can go out to dinner in a restaurant! TOGETHER! Amazing! And it's all due to Obama for some reason...

Okay, my snarkiness aside, what has Obama done to bring about this "change?" Peggy Pascoe offers no explanation (or at least none recorded by Ben Smith). Chirlane McCray apparently claims "Obama, [...] 'opened a door' and 'made it easier for us to go there.'" As Malkin points out, whom Obama opened this proverbial door to is a bit of mystery. Based on the fact that McCray's husband is running for office in "one of America's most liberal cities," it would appear that Obama opened the door to liberal voters, although that is clearly not the point of the article since the example Smith foolishly brings up is the Corker/Ford Senate race and the RNC ad. I would also wonder, based on the virulent reaction to Connerly's and Thomas' marriage, if McCray meant opening the door to acceptance of their marriage and children by black voters-- but of course Smith lacks the courage to even hint at that.

Has Obama ever done or said anything to quell the bigoted statements from the likes of Russell Adams, state Sen. Watson, Barbara Reynolds, Miraslova Flores? No.

In fact, what has Obama actually done for general race relations in this country? Anything? After sitting through 20 yrs. worth of Rev. Wright's racially divisive victimology sermons, I suppose the best we can expect from Obama is to surround himself with American flags and declare old white women, including his grandmother, to be racist.

Without any words or deeds from Obama to credit, are we to believe that merely because Obama is a product of an interracial marriage (a failed one), that he has somehow "opened a door" for others? Has his mere presence created "a post-Obama phenomenon?"

The nonsense of Smith, McCray and Pascoe crediting Obama with inspiring tolerance for public interracial marriages is, like many "accomplishments" ascribed to Obama, borne of nothing more than wishful thinking, partisan politics, and a disconnect from reality. They presume the same mistaken belief that modern conservative beliefs espouse and/or embrace intolerance and the Left's political stances espouse racial equity and harmony. It is a presumption that is consistently contradicted by recent history (American and world), political platforms, published Leftist political theories, and the actions and words of current Left-thinking people in America.