Re: Obsessing over white people

Commenter Nate writes:

You know, for a blog that claims black people don't always sit around thinking about what white people think of them, there is an awful lot of complaining about about what white people think and say about black people. I mean, Barack Obama gives a speech about black fatherhood, and instead of a discussion of black fatherhood, we get a discussion of how stupid white people are to think Obama is saying something novel.

Yeah, and see that's the problem. Never confuse the ramblings of a pinko, commie who happens to be black, with all, or even most, of black America. As I've said before, the musings of those who think for a living are quite different from those who work for a living. I learned this many years ago when in my 10th grade Social Studies class, at my predominantly black high school, I made the mistake of defending welfare. I was immediately shouted down. The lesson of that early ideological smack-down? "Traditional values" run as strongly through my neck of the woods, as through the rest of the country.

There is no West Village for black people. If you're gonna live in the neighborhood, you're gonna be exposed to all ranges of opinion. In fact once we finally win and all this craziness is over, I'm sure I'm gonna miss the evangelical lady downstairs who keeps trying to convert me from my heathen ways.

Because I spend much of my time here talking about race, obsessing over white people is what this blog--at least partially--is all about. But confusing that talk with the views of "mainstream black folks" isn't any more intelligent than confusing the views of some white blogger with "mainstream white folks." Watch that Obama video again. Those are black people cheering for him.