April 29, 2011--Affirmative-Action President
These will be my final words about this. I promise.
Three days here on birther business is beyond endurance and what it is worth. But if there is anything worse, lower, than the national obsession with Barack Obama's place of birth, it is how the issue, the paranoia, has shifted from his origins, now that he has released his long-form birth certificate, to his academic credentials.
One's birth, including the location, is beyond one's ability to control or take responsibility for. But how one makes one's way in life, including admission to college and law school, currently under scrutiny in Obama's case, is another matter because with these there is volition and thus accountability.
Without missing a beat, the now shrillest voice of accusation in all personal matters Obama, the bloated Donald Trump, while grudgingly accepted the validity of Obama's Hawaiian birth--of course telling us repeatedly how "proud" he is of himself for forcing the issue and its resolution--morphed the slander from birth to higher education, accusing Obama of who-knows-what in order to get admitted to Columbia College and then Harvard Law School since he "is not very bright" and did not "do well" in his course work.
Trump has some solid credentials here--the tasteless and clueless Donald has made a career of not being very bright. He after all, with a wealthy real estate developer father, was born with two legs up in life, which qualifies him to speak about birth issues as well how to gain unfair advantages, at birth and after, over most of the rest of humanity.
But to accuse Barack Obama of having benefited from affirmative action strikes at the very heart of his achievements. That he is where he is because of unfair advantages bestowed upon him because he is, you know, . . . black.
If there was any question that birtherism was primarily about race should with this, now, be fully dispelled.
Three days here on birther business is beyond endurance and what it is worth. But if there is anything worse, lower, than the national obsession with Barack Obama's place of birth, it is how the issue, the paranoia, has shifted from his origins, now that he has released his long-form birth certificate, to his academic credentials.
One's birth, including the location, is beyond one's ability to control or take responsibility for. But how one makes one's way in life, including admission to college and law school, currently under scrutiny in Obama's case, is another matter because with these there is volition and thus accountability.
Without missing a beat, the now shrillest voice of accusation in all personal matters Obama, the bloated Donald Trump, while grudgingly accepted the validity of Obama's Hawaiian birth--of course telling us repeatedly how "proud" he is of himself for forcing the issue and its resolution--morphed the slander from birth to higher education, accusing Obama of who-knows-what in order to get admitted to Columbia College and then Harvard Law School since he "is not very bright" and did not "do well" in his course work.
Trump has some solid credentials here--the tasteless and clueless Donald has made a career of not being very bright. He after all, with a wealthy real estate developer father, was born with two legs up in life, which qualifies him to speak about birth issues as well how to gain unfair advantages, at birth and after, over most of the rest of humanity.
But to accuse Barack Obama of having benefited from affirmative action strikes at the very heart of his achievements. That he is where he is because of unfair advantages bestowed upon him because he is, you know, . . . black.
If there was any question that birtherism was primarily about race should with this, now, be fully dispelled.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:03 AM
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