It's heating up out there. So much for burying the race hatchet. Despite an attempt to put the race genie back in the bottle after a week-long tit for tat between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton over comments she made regarding the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Clinton supporter, and Harlem Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel , who happens to be the highest ranking African American in Congress, has stepped all in the spat, even though Obama and Clinton seemed to pull back from their squabble.
On NY-1's 'Inside City Hall,' Rangel called Sen. Barack Obama "absolutely stupid" for going after Clinton for her seemingly insensitive remarks about Dr. King and Pres. Lyndon Johnson and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Rangel told NY-1 reporter Dominic Carter:
"How race got into this thing is because Obama said 'race.' But there is nothing that Hillary Clinton has said that baffles me. I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act. But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It's absolutely dumb to infer that Dr. King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law."
For good measure, Rangel also mentioned Obama's youthful drug indiscretion.
I guess that is one way of doing damage control.
Comments: (96)
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By: terrance louis on 1/23/2008 10:55PM
It is a dynasty in America.The Bush family and the clinton Family won't go away. After Hillary. Jeb Bush should take a turn.
2008 is Hillary's time. She will win. Just look at Mr. Johnson the founder of BET siding with Hillary and slamming Obamah. Since Africa,Black People hated their brothers so much that they sold them as slaves to the white People. He forgot that:
50 years ago Hillary's Dad was whipping his dad!.
50 years ago Hillary's mother made his mother sit in the back of the bus!
50 years ago Hillary's uncle kicked his uncle's butt out of a restaurant!
I do not know if it's due to a lack of education or a lack of pride. Black Americans cannot understand that a vote for Obama is not a vote to elect him president
It is a vote to tell every black children that :
they are part of the American dream!
they too can grow up to be president some day!
Election 2008 it's bigger than Obama, bigger than you and me.It's about making history
foreign eyes
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By: Patricia on 1/24/2008 4:16PM
Black America it is time for us to wake up open your eyes and see open your ears and hear. Did you see LBJ ducking any water hoses, being beat down by racist cops, or fending off police dogs, yet Hillary wants to give the credit to him. Bill calls Obama's run a fairy tale, and then sits up in the pulpit and sleeps, and then there is that fool Johnson of (Bet)fame saying as a blackman he feels insulted by Obama he should just go on home and count his money, and Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist in Harlem singing
Hillary's praises, is he nuts? and Magic Johnson of (AIDS) fame calling Obama a "rookie" in a demeanig way. And then there is Charles Rangel, using a term more fit for himself (stupid) than Obama, because there is nothing stupid about Obama. There are many toms and sellouts in our race Maya (the poet) and Black women talking about they feel a sistehood with Hillary, I would like to know how? Has she ever walked in your shoes? I know you have never walked in hers. IT IS TIME TO COME ON IN OFF THE PLANTATION YALL,THE MASTA DONE SET US FREE
And Thanks Obama for all you endure, we'll get there someday.
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By: TRUTH on 2/04/2008 6:46PM
It amazes me how many people on here keep calling Obama "black". He is NOT black. His father is African and his mother is white. He has NO connection to the black experience in America. We learn our heritage from our "black" parents and from that comes our "black unity" for our culture. Obama does not have that. To James Hannah who posted, Obama IS a house Negro. Senator Kennedy would not be endorsing him if he didn't have his own agenda and guess who is will be the lap dog doing his bidding.
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By: TRUTH on 1/31/2008 2:53PM
It amazes me how many people on here keep calling Obama "black". He is NOT black. His father is African and his mother is white. He has NO connection to the black experience in America. We learn our heritage from our "black" parents and from that comes our "black unity" for our culture. Obama does not have that. To James Hannah who posted, Obama IS a house Negro. Senator Kennedy would not be endorsing him if he didn't have his own agenda and guess who is will be the lap dog doing his bidding.
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By: The Voice of Reason on 1/31/2008 2:52PM
I have heard many bashing are top black leaders for not supporting Obama, but did it ever occurr to anyone, they have their reasons. These are people who have spoken to Obama, worked with him, and around him. Obama is a member of the National Black Caucus, yet their head representatives are not even supporting him. Although Obama has the education, he has only had one major political job, and that is his currently senate seat, which he still has not completed. It is said that as a Senator, Obama does not want to learn the process of what it takes to get things done. I understand everyone hear is sooooooo read to see someone of color in office, but I would rather him be 200% more prepared so the he can completely shine. Bottom line, if he screws this up, you can kiss another person of color getting in office.
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By: Ruby on 1/15/2008 2:41PM
Rangel is old and a sell-out lately to black people. Everybody jumps in when there's a argument. Have you not heard from this man in a while? Now you have....And he's representing Harlem???????? If Hilary wins,these people want to suck-up, get it?
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By: GW on 1/15/2008 3:37PM
This is one issue that Charley Rangel, and all of the Black politicians who line up to support Hillary Clinton and are defiantly opposed to Barack Obama should leave alone. What is left out in the MLK/Johnson discussion is whether or not the dream has been reached or is still a work in progress. If the dream were realized already there would not be a "Black Caucus" waiting to pounce on every Black issue. If the dream were realized then we would judge these candidates on the "content of their character" and not their gender or race. If the dream were fulfilled then race would not have taken center stage in the political discussion.
Hillary did not come across as expressing a deep revelation about the historical events, but she obviously was making it a political attack against Barack comparing himself to two legendary men with the gift to inspire people through their oratory. She was trying to bring him down. What does that say about her character?
The bottom line in the whole political debate is whether White people are still afraid of Blacks, and vice versa, and whether America can get beyond the artificial divisions. Barack Obama has clearly outdistanced the old guard civil rights leaders, who's reason for existence is girded by old fears. Their support for Hillary, while mainly politically based, is also based on fear - the fear that they will be accused of being racists by white people if they back a Black candidate.
When you look at it in one short year Barack Obama's name is second only to Martin L. king, among African American social and political figures. He stands a chance of being the only member of an ethnic minority to head a major country in the World, and the head of the most powerful nation in the World. Given their race, the racial experiences of Black people in America, and the reality that an Obama presidency could finally symbolically and substantively signal the end of the race nightmare in America, Rangel, John Lewis, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Kendrick Meeks and all of the other Black legislators should be embracing that possibility.
I heard Sheila Jackson-Lee talking about supporting Hillary because she is a woman. White women and Black women do not share a parallel political and social history. The movies imitation of life were more than an art imitating life. That was the depiction of how black and white women related to each other. The black woman was virtually the servant of the white woman though they were "best of friends." During the House committee investigating Jena, this woman read the Black US attorney up one side and down the other for not taking action against the white kids, when he was obviously powerless to do so under the law.
I think all of these Black leaders may be in for a rude awakening by their constituents in the next election. They may not make it back to the House. At the very least they should remove the word Black from their vocabularies.
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By: djw on 1/15/2008 4:06PM
Charles Rangel lost the dream he needs to go.
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By: Affonso Azulejos on 1/15/2008 9:11PM
Charley Rangel only has a voice because the people of new York gives himone as a Congressional Represtative. If he were not in Congree NO ONE would care what he says. He is just another Jessie Jackson / Al Sharpton who makes noise but cannot and do not really speak for the Black Community. He is a sell out, like most of the so-called Black Leadership. It isn't about what is best for the Black (Afro-American) Community but what gets them attention and a grand or two in their personal pockets. Also the Black (Afro-American) Community has caused this because we are SLAVES to the Leadership of the Democratic Party (Right or Wrong)... We are (the Black Community in the United States), for the most, their HOUSE NIGGAS who can serve and eat in the Kitchen but never really hold real Political Positions. As long as mothers get welfare check, sons get jailed for being simply Black, etc we are happy and over joyed. I am still trying to figure out our Black Brothers and Sisters who hold political, corporate, television and radio positions (great and small) who still say the Bill Clinton was the first BLACK AMERICAN PRESIDENT... what a freaken slap in the face to all of us as a People... bowing down to our GREAT WHITE MASTER and now to his wife! Obama (right for the country or risky) is a much better choice than any Clinton, Kennedy, Johnson and obviously Bush! I back Obama to the end as suitable for the most honored position in the Free World... PRESIDENT OF THESE UNITED STATES! As for Jessie, Al, Charley, Bill Clinton & wife... GO TO HELL all of you... You do not speak for us nor respresent us as a people you White Master Loving Sons of Bitches!
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By: Victoria on 1/15/2008 4:41PM
CAST stones, old men, at Barack Obama because in one of his two NY Times best-selling books he told us where he once was as a kid--before his degree in international relationships from Columbia University, before his J.D. from Harvard, before his presidency of Harvard Law Review, before his landside victory into the senatorship from Illinois, before Iowa. . . .
Are Harlem voters (Rep. C. Rangel) AND South Carolina (the BET Johnson) voters so stupid as to accept the contrast Bilery draws between Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ face value? The King being dreamer, LBJ the doer and Obama "unready" (but the competitor who has taken the sure nomination out of the Bilery pockets).
Hilery, Bilery, in naming the names of MLK Jr. and LBJ, dreams and legislation, did mix metaphors, symbols, and players in the 1960s civil rights struggle in an attempt to magnify her own White House wife and senator experience and diminish Obama. It sounded like racial commentary to some apparently.
But Hilery, do not forget, stands on the shoulders of husband Bill who disgraced himself in the White House not as a kid, but a middle-aged man. Without Bill there is no senator from New York. Without Bill there is no first-woman run for the White House.
On the other hand, no nepotism, Barack Obama stands on the shoulders of MLK Jr.! Obama began and will continue his run for the nomination based upon the content of his character and the capacity of his intellect.
The sure thing nomination slipped out of the pockets of Bill and Hilery Clinton, when voters started rising up to vote the "content of the character" and the capacity of the intellect of the young competitor with the audacity of his hope and capacity of his intellect named Barack Obama. Go away distorters of the young life of Obama!
Support Bill and Hilery, if you like, but shame on you for becoming their attack Obama player in the eleventh hour, Rep. Rangel!
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