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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29669 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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I wouldn't be surprised by this; Obama is not the traditionally black African-American (like his wife's family) and if he's ambitious to be in politics, he's smart enough to know he needs a good Origin Story that will get people to like him and vote for him. "I was born into privilege and never really suffered any setbacks" isn't a good story there. Michelle's family, being Chicago political royalty, got him into the nuts and bolts of the political process and taught him how to be 'one of us'.

Everybody in politics does this to an extent, because you're selling a product and the product is you. Obama is genuinely smart, so he clearly realised that the kind of narrative to get him places in the Democratic Party was a particular one, and he crafted that narrative. The way we've been told by PC or Social Justice or what you will that it is insulting or degrading to say that a minority is "articulate" and the likes, but that was a large part of his appeal to the white liberals: an articulate, presentable black man with an uplifting story of how he made it and at the same time a reassuring background of 'people like us' and not the grubby inner-city.

Ironically Michelle’s book seems to be a lot more popular.

In the words of Joe Biden, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

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