“And you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that,” he said. “Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”...It looked like this:
The “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,” Obama said. “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting. And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”
This gets my "Obama and manliness" tag.Former President Barack Obama has a “tough talk” at the Black voters for Harris event in East Liberty. He addressed that Black men have not been as enthused about Harris as during his first run, and he sought to encourage them to join Harris’ movement pic.twitter.com/gDFZhsdLxC
— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) October 10, 2024
And it made me think of the old "talking down to black people" controversy of 2008 when Jesse Jackson was caught on a open microphone expressing hostility toward Obama, because he had said, in a Father’s Day speech, addressing black men: "Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father."
But there, Obama was, I believe, attempting to appeal to white voters by displaying a bit of social conservatism. These new remarks of Obama's are, it seems, very directly aimed getting out the black male vote. It's very close to the election, and he's coming forward, at risk of overshadowing Harris, to deliver a strong push to the black men who might tip the balance in the 3 must-win states. Is his rhetoric effective? It's not for me to say. We'll find out.
ADDED: Harris is black because her father is black, but her non-black mother kept the father from participating in the upbringing of his daughters, and Harris continued the estrangement after her mother died and continues it to this day. We never get to hear from this man, Donald Harris, who is still alive. Do the black men who hearing Obama's instruction to vote for Kamala Harris think about her relationship to her father? And does Obama think about his own father, who's gone now, but who barely took the trouble to know him?
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109 comments:
He could be Al Sharpton and Jerimiah Wrights illegitimate son. There isn't much of a difference.
I'm sure it will sway some votes, but probably not many.
At some point, Obama will have used up all his savior points and even the black community will recognize him as the mediocre grifter that he is.
“part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”...
Seems to me they’re not comfortable having an incompetent person as president, given the state of things, and Obama’s coming up with another reason for their discomfort.
Vote for the vagina. It's important
Nothing about policy, accomplishments, etc. Just women have always had our back, and we should vote based on her being a woman and "black", UGH. Fuck you Obummer.
Obama has a problem with Black men noticing that the Dems have totally failed America? Lawrence Jones on Fox said this AM that a Black construction worker told him that wages were higher under Trump because the border was closed.
Michelle made him say this?
The spam thingy is annoying.
" you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president" should be "you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a moron as president"
It's about Trump, not Harris.
In all fairness to Obama, it's not easy explaining to Black males why affirmative action should prioritize a privileged, light-skinned Indian/Jamaican woman.
Still smug and pompous.
Well well well, if it ain' massa's house negro comin' fo to talk to da field negroes!
Yes marse Barack! Weesa gon' vote real good for Mizz Harris weesa promise!
“Black voters for Harris/Walz” appears racists to me. To be clear, so does “White Dudes” that is also sexist. The left seems very divisive and stereotyping.
So he’s going with shaming? That’s his best play?
As other folks have noted, the enthusiasm for Harris was always largely relief that Biden was gone. Now that it's looking more and more like an even-up trade, the anxiety is back.
You know what else "da brothas" don't like: gay dudes. Their gaydar is even better than rich white womens', just sayin'.
Nobody is against voting for a woman. This is disingenuous. Hillary and Kamala. One is horribly evil, and the other and empty controlled avatar. Is Kamala the best the feminists have to offer. Was this their vision of the first female President? Someone that has to be spoon-fed every answer?
But here, Obama admits NONE of the bullshit Democrat policies matter. Climate change. Infanticide. Importing voters through the Southern boarder. Letting fentanyl role in to keep these black communities poor and impoverished.
Hey Obama, do you think these young black men want to fight in Ukraine as you assholes ramp up conflict with Russia? Fuck that.
Ignore all that. You brothers are misogynists'!!
Yeah. There's not a lot of brothers who frequent the gay bath houses in Chicago.
Ann,
You say Harris is black because her father is black. Do you have any evidence of that? It seems to be one of those things "everybody knows" but nobody had ever checked.
Donald Harris is down in Jamaica riding around in his Corvette (good on him!). He should not be hard to find. Has any reporter in the past 5 years since Kamala became a candidate gone to Jamaica and interviewed him?
Has any reporter taken the time to look into who Donald Harris' parents and grandparents were? Were they of African descent? Or, as some rumors have it, Indian-Irish?
If she is half-black, she is still not "African-American" in any meaningful sense. Not ADOS (American descendant of slavery) as most Americans identifying as black are. Not culturally black as in raised in black culture. Not even raised in America, spending many of her formative years in Montreal.
And not even just an American, apparently still holding Jamaican citizenship. She got it at birth through her father under Jamaican law.
The lack of anyone looking at Donald Harris' antecedents makes me wonder what would be found if someone did. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps descended from black Africans brought to Jamaica as slaves. But perhaps not even African. Someone needs to ask.
John Henry
Obama said. “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,”
Actual experience of black men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8&t=186s
Good Lord! They must be in a real panic if they pulled Obama out and cleaned off the cosmoline!
Putting women down is not acceptable. You're not allowed to say "Doug Emhoff." Don't say Doug. Don't say Emhoff.
Big deal is Trump has encouraged black men to assert their being men and not under black women’s authority. That community has long been divided between dominant black women that were semi a part of the white masters household and black men whose place was subservient to both.
Freedom is a heady experience.
The guys listening to former President Obama lecturing them on voting for a woman who deliberately kept their fellow male African Americans locked up for non-violent offenses and used as cheap labor have got to be some of the politest people I have ever seen. My Arkansas family profanely shouted down former President Clinton when he suggested that they were sexist for not voting for Hillary
Why is it that every black democratic presidential candidate's ancestors came to America willingly in the 20th century.
Racial politics are racist. Come to Chicago and see what racial politics hath wrought. City and state politics are clown posses led by clowns.
Obama of course grew up in the Chicago machine. Mayor Brandon ("Payday Loan") Johnson is Obama with the mask off.
Embarrassing for Harris that he couldn't come up with anything positive to say about her. But this is the Obama that white men had always seen -- the scold who is disappointed in us. I can't imagine that he really thinks that Black men will respond to this sort of lecture. This feels more like going through the motions to keep the white donor community happy.
Remember when Obama said he would like a 3rd term where he can "call it in" from his basement. Remember 2020 campaign when all Dem candidate pulled out prior to the SCarolina primary except his VP. Always seemed to me, he got his wish. Now he is working on his 4th term!
"When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting..."
When exactly did this happen? I must have missed it
White privilege is not having Obama refer to you as a brother.
The Gaslighter returns: You think you like Trump, but you don't. You actually hate women.
And this is where femininism in particular and AA in general has brought us. Obama is not willing to let black men, or probably anyone else, not like Kamala on her merits. If they don't like her for president, the only possible reason is because she is a woman.
Black men are too stupid, in Obama's view, to judge her qualifications. They are too stupid, in Obama's view, to see here through anything other than the lens of sex.
Obama is not alone in this view that anyone opposed to Kamala does so because of her vagina. After all, what more is there to a woman? They can't be competent at anything. If they succeed, it is because of affirmative action. Joe Biden said it specifically of Kamala even before he picked her. "I am going to choose a woman of color as my running mate." (quote from memory) Not, I am going to pick the best running mate I can find.
This attitude and history of AA is so incredibly corrosive to all women, and other minorities.
Did you get hired at UW Law because you looked like you would be a good professor, Ann? As any white male would. Or did you get hired because they wanted another vagina on the roster?
Has my daughter been so successful because she is really good at what she does? Or because the company needs more vaginas?
I would say that both of you are good at what you do and would probably have been hired/promoted on merit. But you will never have any way of knowing for certain. Ever. That seems like an incredible burden one has to drag along through life.
I am certainly glad that I do not have this burden. Perhaps this is the ultimate white male privilege
John Henry
Everything I said about Kamala's blackness or lack thereof, applies to Obama.
Except that we know his father was African and had even less influence on Obama's life than Donald Harris had on Kamala's
John Henry
Hypocrite. Multi-millionaire shill master. Wish he would move away, to France, or to England, to sanctimoniously pontificate to those white Europeans instead.
Surprised none of those black men stated the obvious: Kamala isn't their "sister", not by race, not by social-class, not by demographic issues. Most black men don't think Iran is USA's worst enemy, don't think Ukraine and Israel is our war to fight, don't think Biden's open border policy is best thing that ever happened to black people here in America.
Kamala and Obamas are tone-deaf political hacks, grifters, ignoring issues of importance to Black Americans.
Former President Obama sounded very old to me. The Lightbringer is now the old uncle at the family dinner, complaining about the dry turkey.
RFK Jr. is doing way more to help Trump than Obama is doing to help Harris. I don't see how Obama is helping at all. This is finger-pointing and blaming for a loss that hasn't happened yet.
Were you this upset when Trump said only disloyal Jews vote Democrat?
Harris is to Obama as Biden is to JFK......I don't think JFK was in any way a typical Irish American, but for an Irish American it was pleasant to think so. Biden not so much. Biden was probably more typically Irish American than JFK but I don't think he ever connected in the primal way that JFK or his brother Bobby did. I don't know if many Irish voted for Biden because he was Irish.....Obama is elegant and poised.. Like JFK some of his image is fabricated, but a lot of it is real. He's graceful and deft in his movements and he articulates mush and not word salad and does it in iambic pentameter. He plays the part well.
some
extent a fabricated product, but there's no denying that he has effortless poise.
When Obama was running, the Dem narrative was, 'There's no legitimate reason not to vote for Obama and the only possible explanation for not supporting him is racism.' That worked on a lot of white people.
Obama's trying a similar tactic here. He's essentially saying, 'There's no legit reason not to vote for Kamala and the only possible explanation is sexism.' Will that have the same effect on Black men? Do Black men have Black male guilt the way white people have white guilt? Are they looking to be absolved and to redeem themselves and their entire sex and to somehow begin to make up for the entire history of their identity group?
I don't know. But I have my doubts. I don't think accusations of sexism have the same power as accusations of racism.
Even more importantly, Kamala Harris is no Barack Obama.
Further thoughts: Look where Obama's tactic on racism led. Did it help race relations in America? I would argue it set race relations back 60 years or more. It led to one half of the country condemning the other half as deplorable and irredeemable. It has been used to rationalize and justify the the abuse and degradation of many of America's most fundamental institutions.
America as we know it may not survive the fallout from the Dem's use of that tactic, which was completely unnecessary self-gratification. Obama would have easily gotten elected without it.
When you can't persuade them Obama goes to his empty toolbox.
"I'm popular and Kamala isn't and this is your fault, you sexist black men."
The Dem appeals to blacks dont actually have to work.
They are just putting all these appeals on record to justify the mass printing of inner-city ballots.
If anyone asks why there was 110% turnout in urban precincts, the Dems can just point to outreach efforts like this and say “musta worked!”
JSM
And that Obama lived more years and was more deeply embedded in a more disparate culture, Indonesia, than Harris.
John Henry
First time I think I had ever heard this:
Obama's mother met a transgender person named Evie (who was known as Trudi at the time), at a cocktail party in 1969. Dunham was so impressed by Evie's beef steak and fried rice that she offered her a job in the family home. It did not take long before Evie was also caretaker for then eight-year-old "Barry", as Obama was often referred to as then, and his baby sister Maya. As a caretaker, she also spent time playing with Obama and bringing him to and from school, which she continued to do for about two years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama#Indonesia
This would have been in Indonesia.
John Henry
I think Obama’s point is not that black men shouldn’t vote for Trump if they truly prefer his policies. The issue is that they would vote for Trump simply because voting for a woman would seem wrong for them.
But even less clear to me is how so many women vote for Trump.
A lot of comments here should consider Obama's speech in context of the black electorate. He is addressing those who supported him but now will not vote for Harris simply because she is female. That is what he finds unacceptable and out of line. Why not ask these people to reconsider. After all he believes he has some leverage on that particular class of voter.
Strategists in election campaigns are segmenting the population in many ways, race being one of them, all the time. Done by all camps. Trump has said: "any Jew voting Democratic is uninformed or disloyal"..
Shorter Obama: "If you're thinking about voting for Trump, you ain't black."
He's only 63! Trump is 15 years older and has way more vitality.
Maybe he should just be blunt. “Listen, I know she’s stupid and incompetent, but that just means she’ll need my advice, my help - just as Joe did. Get it? So, get with the program.”
Except that black men aren't fooled by the trick. She's not black. She's Indian. First Indian-American United States Senator.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article124327739.html
I asked Bing AI who was the first Indian-American (not black American or African American) US Senator:
Kamala Harris
She has always been Indian-American until they needed a black candidate. The entire election is fake, including their candidate.
Harris is to Obama as Biden is to JFK. I think in some ways Biden is more typically Irish American than JFK, but I don't think he has ever connected with us in the primal way that JFK and his brother Bobby did. JFK had some princely qualities. He was what we wanted to be. Biden not so much....Like JFK, part of Obama's image is fabricated, but much of it is real. He's elegant and poised. He speaks mush instead of word salad, but he delivers the lines in iambic pentameter so it's all good. He plays the part well, and he can credibly pretend to be the ruler anointed by God. Harris not so much.
It's not that they refuse to vote for a woman. Hillary got 91% of the black vote. Biden got 92%.
As with most things Obama, this is performative. He's not really trying to persuade black men to vote for KH. He's trying to appear to be trying, just to minimize the amount of blame that will come his way when she loses.
She will be taking a job that could have gone to a black man.
The good news for Democrats, I have been told, is that most black men are low-IQ and will fall for this so it's seen as a very effective strategy.
Try to imagine Sarah Palin hectoring white women for not being enthusiastic for Trump.
Men love being lectured at. This will totally work...
Does Obama remember how he used to be cool?
Democrats just cannot help themselves. Anyone who doesn’t vote like the plantation masters ask is automatically and egotistical, sexist bigot. So damn divisive, tiring and evil.
It is not about "A" woman, it is about "THIS" woman.
Try imagining a gay dude who fluffed his personal queer chef (before he mysteriously died) hectoring straight dudes that they're not "gay for Harris" enough.
Classic.
He was never cool. That was the media's doing.
Obama is telling the brothers they need to be more like the white male feminists the brothers have so much respect for.
Yes! By all means let’s go back to identity politics. Black men have been told that their identity as black is supposed to outweigh both their economic self-interest and their identity as male. It will work for some of them, of course. Will it work for enough of them?
I’m not just commenting here as a Republican when I say that the sooner we get away from identity politics as a country, the better off we’ll be. And a big part of that will also be getting rid of the notion that so many subconsciously embrace that the first female President must be a Democrat.
@Call of Duty, succinct.
Ann, you should retire the "Obama and masculinity" tag. We've seen him throw a baseball and ride a bicycle.
Who is playing the race card now?
Or maybe Obama is helping out because he still thinks Kamala is “hot”
Notice that Obama invokes (and evokes) "the women in our lives" - seeking to conjure up fond memories of moms, and aunts, and grandmothers {unspoken: "that raised us...").
Thing is, Harris is not that woman - she is not that beloved mom, aunt, or grandmother - as he seeks to have the noble attributes of those familial women to "rub off on" Harris. Won't work. Harris is not that woman. Bringing up that comparison - in a shaming move - will backfire. Bigly.
"What's the Matter With Black Men?" by Bich
"Except that black men aren't fooled by the trick. She's not black. She's Indian. First Indian-American United States Senator."
Well, unless you have proof Harris is a product of a Virgin Birth--i.e., the next Messiah--she is Indian and Black, on her father's side. Or are you as yet uninformed about the mechanics and biology behind human conception?
He has to be careful. It must have been a terrible temptation to pontificate, but if he shows that he know more about Kamala's policy objectives than she does, he risks prompting an awareness that he's still involved, maybe even more than just 'involved'. So far he's been able to keep Valerie Jarret and Samantha Powers and Victoria Nuland and the rest of the White House insiders from his administration on the low-down.
I'm avoiding Red Wave theories of any kind, but I do see this as a sign they're reaching deep into their bag.
"If she is half-black, she is still not 'African-American' in any meaningful sense."
Except in the biological sense, which has been enough for centuries in the US for those with even "one drop" of black blood to be considered black and to be reviled and subject to discrimination as any black that ever lived. (And, what qualification do you possess to blithely comment on who is or is "not African-American in any meaningful sense?")
The brothas ain' finna vote for no Ho. Dre and Doggy told me so.
The lack of enthusiasm for Que-Mala goes far beyond blacks. Earlier this month I spent several days in Connecticut (where I grew up), visiting several lifelong friends, touring the old hometown, and lots of other places.
Being a numbers guy, and immediately taken by the near-total absence of Harris signs, I began a tally sheet for candidate lawn signs, counting larger ones as 2. After three days, I was shocked that Trump signs accounted for about 60 percent. In Connecticut.
This is not to say that Trump will win Connecticut, but the last time I saw anything like this was 1984, when Reagan signs outnumbered Mondale by 2 to 1. Reagan took Connecticut that year.
As a general rule, when trying to get votes, you need to either show why your caniddates better, or show why the opponent is worse. Lecturing people and claiming that not supporting a candidate make you bad human being is not a winning strategy. Don't insult your voters.
“You just aren’t feeling the idea.” How perfectly that represents our times. Feelings have replaced thoughts and reasoning. When reality strikes, go with your feelings. If Rodin were still sculpting, he could carve “The Feeler.”
"...you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president...."
Having a vagina is the transcendent qualification for President.
Vote for the crack, or you aint Black.
Obama's accusation completely ignores historical trends, including his own reelection. 95% of black men voted for him in 2008, but that dropped to 87% in 2012. Hillary only got 82%. That dropped slightly for Biden to 80% - can't blame that on "the brothers" being sexist. The latest poll I could quickly find (Pew from August) shows black male support for Harris at 73% - but more notably, black women, who have been in the high 90s for all the other elections mentioned, are only at 79% for Harris. Again, can't blame "the brothers" for that.
Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining, Barry. Blacks in general are moving away from your party, and have been for a while now.
It's called guilt-tripping and gaslighting. Don't bother to ask what individuals value or think about important issues in their life. TELL them what is really going on in their heads that they seem unaware of to get them to vote the way you want, even if it goes against what is best for them. As long as it goes FOR what is best for the leaders of the left.
Just the white guy talking but I don’t think Obama closed the deal with the brothers. Did LeBron decide not to try? Where’s his barber shop when you need it?
Just the white guy talking but I don’t think Obama closed the deal with the brothers. Did LeBron decide not to try? Where’s his barber shop when you need it?
Kamala is not appealing to black men, and it is the black men's fault, not Kamala's? This seems in line with Obama's whole career - every bad thing that happened was the result of the rest of America letting him down.
Yah it kind of is innit?
"candidate's" (This blog needs an edit function...)
don't grab it : let pussy engulf you
They can all blame Clooney later…
He's just doing what worked when he got elected.
Vote for the black, or you ain't jack!
"...you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president...."
A twofer - the race card AND the #unt card.
"Embarrassing for Harris that he couldn't come up with anything positive to say about."
Well said, Tom T.
Robert Cook,
Do you have proof that Kamala's father is black? As in African.
Or are you just making an assumption?
Who were his parents? What do you know about them?
John Henry
Obama intentionally used the word "denigrating" to describe Trump. He's very clever, Obama.
i.e. It's not her, it's you.
You rarely see Obama react publicly with frustration but this is one of those times and was an unforced error on his part. This diatribe against black male voters will lose net votes for Harris.
This isn't going to work for Obama. He can convincingly present as black, but he's never pretended to have the whole African-American family experience before. He didn't. It's not convincing. He's trying to do something like the Biden's family talking prices around the kitchen table or dad lying awake at night staring up at the ceiling routine. He hasn't done that before and it comes off as inauthentic -- false intimacy, stolen pathos, stolen victimhood.
Considering the photo and some of the comments, it looks like Jerry Seinfeld was right: if you're thin and neat, people jump to conclusions. Same thing if you're "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
I watched this earlier. It's obvious that Democrats have no ideawhat appeals to men anymore. It's not satire!
And there’s the closing argument.
"If Trump does not care if mob might attack his own VP, do you think he cares about you? Pennsylvania, we do not need four more years of that. We don't need four more years of arrogance and bumbling and bluster and division. America's ready to turn the page." ~ Obama
I'd forgotten how much I hate that smarmy maggot.
Cook, of course, is an expert on this topic, as with all others.
Once again, all black men are treated as one indivisible unit rather than individual thinkers. What an insult. And by Obama, no less.
What does Obama know about "the brothers". Biden had Obama pegged as clean and well spoken, not your ordinary "brother". Biden said it--I'm merely repeating the message or image that Biden passed along. As for me I see a political grifter great at speeches loaded with high minded phrases, and having the intellectual substance of a can of Diet Coke.,
That’s interesting but the real indicator is where the signs are, not how many there are. If numbers alone were the tell, Washington State would have had a succession of Republican governors.
I've said it thousands of times, the democratic party is the party of women, gays, other flavors of alphabet soup, and Doug Emhoff-style pro-feminist toxic males.
Then go and vote for Obama.
Dunno. He seemed pretty cogent when, in 2008, he described how his plans would make electricity costs "necessarily skyrocket".
"Or are you as yet uninformed about the mechanics and biology behind human conception?"
Hey, that's pretty good. Now, share you opinion on boys that want to compete against girls, in sports.
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