Truest statement of the week

He has garnered White support at the expense of Black folks. Now he has done this in so many ways I've had to pare it down. But here are two. He said in Selma that Blacks have already come 90% of the way to equality with the inference of course that if he gets to be president we will have come all the way. Of course that's a signal to White people that this is almost over -- all this talk about race, all these 'complaints' from the likes of and they always fill in the blanks -- Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. 'But I'm with you, it's almost over, the progress has been almost completed.' That is so blatantly an appeal to White folks who want to just not want to hear about race. If it had come out of White man's mouth, Barack Obama would have been excoriated by Black people. And now, most recently, in fact, effectively, he praised the Republicans for their ideas in the 90s and on Ronald Reagan. And he talks about all the excesses of the 60s and 70s. I have never heard a more blatant code phrase than that. Which, of course, again, if it had come out of a White Democrat's mouth, that candidate would be persona non grata in all progressive quarters of the Democratic Party. So Obama is in a very real sense -- and he's been doing this from the beginning -- running a campaign on race but one that's appealing to White people.



-- Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford discussing Barack Obama on this week's CounterSpin which began broadcasting Friday.